The Cloven Foot
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This gripping Victorian sensation novel combines a murder mystery, a forbidden marriage, and a love story, offering a vivid exploration of class, deceit, and redemption.
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Book Summary
John Treverton inherits a Devonshire estate on the condition he marries Laura Malcolm, but his secret past as a Parisian bohemian and a hidden first marriage to a dancer named La Chicot threatens their happiness. When La Chicot is murdered, John becomes the prime suspect, forcing Laura to uncover the truth and clear his name.
John Treverton, a gentleman fallen into bohemian life, returns to England to inherit his kinsman Jasper Treverton’s estate, only to learn he must marry Laura Malcolm within a year. Reluctantly engaged, John hides his secret marriage to the volatile dancer La Chicot (Zaïre). La Chicot dies in a suspicious fall, and John is arrested for her murder. Laura, aided by lawyers and witnesses, discovers that La Chicot’s husband, Desrolles, is the real murderer and that Laura’s own father may have been killed by him. After a dramatic trial, John is exonerated, and the couple returns to Hazlehurst Manor. The scandal fades, Edward Clare leaves for the Cape, and the story ends with John and Laura’s son, and the engagement of Celia Clare to George Gerard.
Reading guide
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Character guides, themes, chapter companions — plus Character Web, narrative arc, and theme heatmap teasers that unlock fully beside the text in BetterReads.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book.
Laura Malcolm
Taken in as an orphan by Jasper Treverton, Laura is admired for her grace and reserve — and suspected by village tongues of a past she never explains.
George Gerard
A young doctor who fought his way up from a cheap Scotch university and a mother's early death, George Gerard has ambition instead of family and a hunger for the success that will prove him.
John Treverton
The new master of Hazlehurst Manor, John Treverton inherits a fortune, a devoted young wife, and a secret heavy enough to break him on his wedding day.
Celia Clare
The vicar's lively daughter and Laura's closest friend, Celia fusses over cuffs and collars, teases about husbands, and watches everyone's affairs with sharp, affectionate eyes.
Edward Clare
The vicar's son, a would-be poet with a den, a cigar, and a magnum opus always just out of reach, Edward once loved Laura and now studies John Treverton with quiet curiosity.
Mr. Desrolles
A brutal Frenchman drinking absinthe through the Paris of the Second Empire, Desrolles lives on a pension whose source he guards as jealously as his own neck.
Social Class and Wealth
The narrative explores the tension between inherited wealth and personal worth, as seen through John Treverton's fall from gentleman to Bohemian, and the moral compromises made to secure a fortune.
Secrets and Deception
The plot hinges on hidden identities and fraudulent marriages, including John's secret first marriage to a French dancer and the false claim of Laura's paternity, leading to legal and moral crises.
Love and Marriage
Marriage is portrayed as both a romantic ideal and a transactional arrangement, with characters like Laura and John marrying under false pretenses to fulfill a will's conditions, while genuine love struggles against societal and legal constraints.
Crime and Justice
The book examines wrongful accusation, murder, and the legal system's fallibility, as John Treverton faces a murder charge and must prove his innocence against circumstantial evidence.
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