Blog: 2005-06-17 - My Cousin Rachel
Summary
Another memorable novel with an important character named Philip (others being Of Human Bondage, Great Expectations, Mill on the Floss).
Philip gets to know that his cousin (much elder in age, so more like his uncle) Ambrose is dead. He was raised by Ambrose from a young age and feels bad. Ambrose was not well and hence had gone to Italy. He died shortly after he married a woman named Rachel. Philip initially gets letters from Ambrose that praise Rachel but the final letters are rambling and paranoid, suggesting Rachel is watching him and that he is being poisoned. So Philip is suspicious after Ambrose dies. He blames Rachel for Ambrose’s death, though he comes to know that Ambrose had brain tumor.
Rachel arrives at the Cornish estate that Philip lives in (Ambrose’s home) and though Philip doesn’t like her initially, he begins to get fond of her.
On his 25th birthday, Philip inherits the entire estate. In a fit of blind love/obsession, he signs over the entire fortune and the estate to Rachel because he wants to marry her. Rachel refuses to marry him though.
Philip falls ill with a fever. He becomes convinced Rachel is poisoning his tea with herbal seeds from the garden.
Rachel wants to go walking and Philip intentionally misleads her and lets her walk on a broken bridge knowing that she will fall. While she is out he reads some letters and gets to know that she is innocent. But it is too late. Rachel falls and dies.