The Story of Valentine and His Brother is an 1875 novel by Margaret Oliphant, writing as Mrs Oliphant.
Years ago, Scottish aristocrat Richard Ross's vagabond wife, Myra, ran away with their twin sons, Valentine and Dick. She eventually returns, abandons Valentine at his grandparents' doorstep, and disappears again with Dick, leaving Valentine to be raised by his father's family.
The book is in the public domain and can be read at Project Gutenberg
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The Story of Valentine and His Brother contains examples of:
- Allergic to Routine: Myra can't stand to stay in one place for long. She tried hard to live as Richard's wife, but after a while she just couldn't take it.
- Brain Fever: When Val thinks his relationship with Violet Pringle is over, he becomes so upset that he's delirious with fever for about a week.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Val has been friends with Violet since she was six and he was eight. In their early twenties, they realize they're in love.
- Creature of Habit: Dick is one by nature, despite his upbringing. His greatest wish is to have his own cottage.
- Daddy's Girl: Violet has seven brothers and no sisters, so her father dotes on her.
- Death Faked for You: Dick has grown up believing that Val is dead.
- Disappeared Dad: Richard works in Florence and only meets Val a handful of times.
- Double Consciousness: Val feels a conflict between his current life as a pampered aristocrat at Rosscraig House and his fading childhood memories of homelessness with his mother and brother.
- The Dying Walk: Knowing the end is near, Myra leaves Rosscraig House so she can die surrounded by nature. Val and Dick find her on a primrose-covered knoll in the forest, too weak to move. When Dick tells her to come home, she says, "That - I will!" and then dies.
- Face Framed in Shadow: Referenced when Richard is arguing with Val in a lamplit room: "A dim room is an admirable field for deliberation, with one face in the shade and the other in the light. Should he settle the subject with a high hand, and put the young man summarily down? Should he yield?"
- Forgets to Eat: To cope with the changes in his life brought on by the reappearance of all his long-lost family members, Dick gets so involved with his work at the docks that he forgets dinner.
- Fortune Teller: Myra can correctly predict people's fortunes using cards. She doesn't like doing it because she worries that the power comes from the Devil, and because sometimes she predicts horrible tragedies.
- Hair-Contrast Duo: Val is dark, while Dick is blond.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: When the middle-aged Richard proposes to Mary Percival, and she rejects him, she escapes the awkwardness by lying that Lady Eskside has called her.
- I Never Got Any Letters: Violet's mother intercepts Val's letters in a misguided attempt to spare her heartbreak, leading her to think that he doesn't care for her anymore.
- In the Blood: Lord Eskside is a believer in this trope. He worries that Val's "wild blood" will cause him to ruin his life and disgrace the family; when Val copes with scandal by temporarily going off the grid, Lord Eskside is convinced his mother's influence is at fault, when he was really following his father's example.
- Just Friends: Val and Violet insist that there is no romantic feeling between them and that they love each other Like Brother and Sister, up until they kiss.
- Only Mostly Dead: Val's boat is knocked over while he's rowing. He's normally an excellent swimmer, but because of his Brain Fever he passes out in the water. When he's rescued, his mother spends some time thinking he's dead until a doctor revives him.
- Open Secret: The fact that Dick is slightly older than Val becomes one, as both men are happier if they pretend the opposite is true.
- Parental Abandonment: Val's mother leaves him at Rosscraig House, telling him she'll be back soon with Dick. She never returns.
- Parental Favoritism: Richard can't bring himself to love Val because he takes after his mother, who abandoned Richard. He wishes she had left Dick instead, because Dick looks like Richard.
- Pining After Protagonist's Parent: Mary Percival always thought that she was going to marry Richard. It was a nasty surprise when he married a tramp instead.
- Pygmalion Plot: Richard attempted this with Myra, but she couldn't be moulded.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Val is willful by nature and struggles to keep his temper under control, while Dick is much more placid.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: When Myra does her hair and puts on a nice dress, her natural beauty shines through, and she starts looking like an exiled princess instead of a tramp.
- Simple-Minded Wisdom: Myra is almost completely uneducated in every subject, including religion, but she has a much greater sense of the presence of God than most people.
- Skipping School: At age twelve, Val runs away from his tutor and spends the day picnicking with Violet.
- Taking the Kids: What Myra did when Val and Dick were babies.
- This Is Reality:
- On Richard's post-marriage life: "According to all precedent of fiction, some other woman ought to have stepped across his path and learned his secret, as Thackeray's Laura does by George Warrington. But Richard Ross had indulged in no Laura."
- Later on, Violet's mother tells her, "Men don't get ill and take fevers from excitement except in novels."
- T-Word Euphemism: "Damned" is spelled "d——d."
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Lord Eskside considers Richard to be a disappointment, as their tastes, interests, and worldviews are very different, even aside from Richard's scandalous marriage. Lord Eskside's main comfort is Val, who turned out to be exactly the kind of son he wanted to have.
- Working Out Their Emotions: The day before he leaves for Eton, Val runs for two miles to say goodbye to Hunter the gamekeeper, which makes him feel better about his Double Consciousness. Later on, Dick copes with stress by throwing himself into his work at the docks.
- Younger Than They Look: Myra's hard life causes her to look older than she is.
