"The Romance of Certain Old Clothes" Quiz

Answer: Cousin

Moments after fleeing the manor, Dani and Flora were surprised by the late-night walk of the lady from the lake who, trudging back into the house, grabbed Dani by the neck on her route, much like she did to Peter on the night he died.

Toward the middle of the 17th century, a widowed gentleman lived in Hampshire-- the storyteller referred to him as Mr. Willoughby, though that was not necessarily his name. He devoted himself to his two daughters, Viola and Perdita, and after he died the daughters sought husbands. At this time, the Willoughby daughters hosted parties in an effort to find suitors, but the efforts led to Viola's deep concern. They needed to keep Bly in the family line or else risk falling into obscurity. Thus they reached out to a rich, distant cousin, Arthur Lloyd.

Answer: Sleepless nights

Perdita fell for cousin Arthur quite quickly once she discovered that he was both worldly and refined though Viola was purposefully distant. As soon as it seemed Perdita was to feel the stirrings of love, for Arthur, Viola started her plans to rule over the manor no matter the outcome. Arthur ended up marrying Viola-- it was a business arrangement, after all-- and there was a small ceremony in the chapel on the grounds.

The transition completed, Viola seemed to succeed in saving the manor for the Willoughby name.

This said, she was restless and unable to sleep most nights, instead spending her nights walking the manor in the dark.

Answer: Lungs

Despite a lack of affection between Viola and Arthur in the earlier days of their marriage, they eventually found love and it led to their child, a young girl named Isabel, who was born in the master bedroom of Bly Manor. These times after the birth were good, but they marked a noted change in the atmosphere at Bly.

While Viola tended to the child, the attraction between Perdita and Arthur became slightly more apparent. Before long, however, Viola started to fall ill, taking on a harsh lung disease that worsened with each passing day.

It became impossible to ignore after a short time and a plague doctor was called upon. It was recommended that Viola be kept separate from everyone. The doctor was kept on and Viola was moved to a new room despite her protests.

She was said to only have a few months but that treatments would continue while they could still have effect. The vicar who wed Arthur and Viola returned to Bly Manor not long after, but this time he did so for last rites. As he stated them he expected Viola's recitation of the rites, but she refused outright, vowing to remain, staunchly, at Bly Manor.

Answer: Five years

Five years passed at Bly Manor as its residents continued on. Young Isabel grew up to the age of five while Perdita stayed on to help Arthur raise the girl. One night, while dancing in the sitting room, Viola rose from her bed to find her family in festivity.

It was the wrong time to do so. Viola, somehow managing to outlive what her doctors claimed she would, had turned bitter and angry in her years of ailment. Still highly-infectious, the encounter proved to be horrible for all parties. Strained by leaving her bed, Viola was immediately violently ill and, in her anger, she lashed out at her sister in front of her child. Viola apologized soon after, when Perdita tucked her back into bed, but insisted that she could dance with her own husband. Perdita, she said, didn't need to take any responsibility for the manor she could still reign over. It came to a point where the townspeople of Bly believed that death was arriving at the doors to the manor on a regular basis, but was turned away so often that it just stopped coming. Viola continued to hang on, and nothing would stop her from ruling the manor.

Answer: Bequeath them to her daughter

One night soon after her outburst, Viola rose from her bed again and performed her walk through the halls of Bly Manor, taking herself to the master bedroom to watch over her husband and daughter. During a sponge bath, Viola expressed her interest, to Perdita, to spend the night with her daughter, though she was quickly told there would be no such concession as she looked worse with each passing day. Perdita tried to reason with her sister but this only resulted in further conflict. Viola had her clothes and jewelry summoned to her room after this, and all of it was covered in fragrant flowers and packed away into trunks.

They would be inherited by her daughter. She forced Arthur to promise her that the clothing would belong to no one else; he would hold the key.

Answer: Smothering

With money on the wane, Arthur was soon called away from Bly Manor, near the sixth year of Viola's disease, to engage in business to keep the family afloat. It was during this time that Perdita, tending to her sister, let the idea take root in her mind that she needed to bring an end to all of their suffering.

It was on one night that the word spread, creeping through her. She believed it to be 'mercy', but in truth it was a different word-- it was 'enough'. That night, she smothered her sister and ended her life. Arthur followed through on his promise, taking Viola's chests and stowing them away in the attic to be inherited by their daughter.

He sealed the keys away in an envelope and placed them in his desk. For six months after, Arthur, a widower then, held parties to search for a new, prospective wife.

But it was apparent that his feelings for Perdita were always there, and they married quietly thereafter.

Answer: Perdita

During the first three years of their marriage, Perdita failed to become a mother. Isabel, at the same time, refused to see her as an adopted mother, complicating the dynamic in Bly Manor as she grew older. Arthur suffered significant loss of money in those years, delving deeper into debt while struggling to keep afloat.

It took another three years before, becoming fed up with the chest in the attic containing a bounty of expensive items that could be sold to mitigate the losses, Perdita brought the solution to Arthur.

He refused outright, believing Viola to have never intended the clothing to go elsewhere. He gave an oath. Perdita took the keys from Arthur's desk and brought them to the attic herself, alone, whereupon she opened the chest and unsealed her fate. Placing the correct key in the lock she opened the chest to the garments and revealed the spirit of her sister, trapped inside.

She was strangled by the spectre and found the next morning.

Answer: Her room

On the night Viola was killed, she seemingly awakened in her bed covered in white fabrics and rose petals. Rising, without sign of the disease, in her bed, she rushed to the doors and windows to find them locked and boarded. In her wardrobe, she found her clothing and at the vanity she found her jewelry.

She would sleep and wake, over and over, restlessly trying to escape the prison she found herself in, before all meaning and all understanding vanished. As time passed, her reflection worsened in the vanity mirror, an indication of time decaying her true self.

She grew listless and then she grew mad. She admitted she was dead; her husband moved on; her daughter grew without her. But she knew she was locked away, and one day her daughter would open the chest and they would both be rewarded. When the day finally came and the key was inserted into the lock, it wasn't Isabel who opened it.

It was Perdita, and it was the final straw. After strangling her sister, she beheld her husband and his sadness and she slept and waited.

Answer: False

With Perdita's death, the manor was, for all intents and purposes, lost to the Willoughby and Lloyd family; Arthur no longer had the drive or means to continue to hold it in the family line. As such, he and Isabel prepared to pack their things after Perdita's burial, and they dealt with the contents of the house as they saw fit. Viola, still in the chest, knew in her mind that they would bring her with them solely on virtue of the fact that the chest would still be inherited when Isabel came of age.

But as they left Bly, Arthur grew superstitious. He felt confident in his decision to carry the chest out to the lake and toss it into its depths, abandoning Viola in the darkness and shattering her heart. Once again, she slept.

Answer: Plague hospital

Though Viola slept, she would wake on some nights, much as she did in Bly Manor, and she would walk. She walked back into Bly Manor, believing it to the be a dream. She tracked her footprints through the mud and into the master bedroom and she stood and stared, remembering, in pain, what she could of her lost family. And then she would return to the water from whence she came and, there, she would sleep again...and forget...and awake.
Many never saw her as she walked, when Bly Manor became a quarantine site for victims of the plague. As some did see her, on rare occasions, she would lash out at them and seek answers. And the same gravity that kept her there would keep others there as well, trapping them at Bly Manor. As time passed and memories faded, so too did her face. Time took all things, including her spirit.
On night she saw a child in her own bed. She couldn't remember her own child...or even her own self...so she took the child, believing it to be her aim, and she took it with her to the lake.
As she faded away, so too did the other spirits in the manor, their souls held in place, trapped there. No one who fell victim to Bly, at Viola's direct hand or not, could escape the gravity well that had been created there.

And on the night Dani tried to escape Bly with Flora, she walked right into Viola's habitual path and into her own fate.