Doctor Wortle is a clergyman and headmaster of a small, private, rural boarding school. His staff includes Mr Peacocke, a teacher and an occasional preacher in the church. His wife, Mrs Peacock, is American and while they are nice people, there is a reticience to engage in the social life of the village, or that of the wider (and wealthier) parents of the students they look after. Early on in the book Trollope tells the reader that he will explain the reason and the reader can continue if they like.
It turns out that the Peacockes were married, but that Mrs Peacocke was already married in the United States, to an uncouth, abusive and alcoholic Colonel Lefroy. Mr Peacock feel in love with her while Lefroy and his brother, also a Colonel, are in the Confederate army. Nothing improper occurs, though it is clear the two fall for each other. On hearing that a Colonel Lefroy has been killed during the Civil War, Mr Peacocke travels to the South to learn which brother has died. On hearing from her brother that it is Mrs Lefory's husband he returns and marries her, making her Mrs Peacocke.
On discovering that her former husband was not actually killed, and finding themselves not actually married, the pair flee to England and Dr Wortle's school where they live as husband and wife. Guilt eats at the two of them. Living in sin like this is considered a major social, moral and personal failing, particularly for those who would teach children and preach in Church. But it is clear they love each other very much, and Mr Peacocke decides to tell Dr Wortle. Before this can happen, Lefroy arrives and breaks the news, scandalising the local population, shocking the gossips and leading to many students to be withdrawn from school.
The plot then follows Mr Peacocke as he returns to the US to find the truth.
The novel is of greatest interest because of the moral questions. Dr Wortle is the lynch pin of the story, and the reader now (and then) explores the ambiguity of the Peacocke's position through him. Wortle understands that the Peacockes love each other greatly, and feels that they are effectively married. He looks after them, offering Mrs Peacocke somewhere to live while her husband goes to the US. This scandalises people still further but Wortle, a brave, principled, if inflexible, soul stands firm.
Readers today will find it singularly unshocking. Had Mrs Peacocke had the right to divorce, nothing would have mattered. I suspect that the scandal that is depicted is true to life. Trollope offers his readership a slice of gossip, a slice of amusement and a slice of morals. What is love? What is marriage? What should these things matter?
But matter they did. Trollope has to offer his married, but not married, characters a way out - and of course the first husband is found to be dead so the Peacockes can marry again. There's not defying of Victorian morals, but there is a challenge to those who would dismiss people so easily. Trollope knows his readers and he knows he has to give the steam an escape valve.
As such this is a novel very much of its time. Nonetheless, Wortle does speak to a more modern audience. Do you stand by your friends and colleagues when the world is flinging mud? Do you make snap judgements? Do you care for society's morals?
The book is shorter than the more well known Trollope novels. On the other hand, it does feel padded out in places. There is a somewhat unnecessary subplot involving the Wortle's daughter and her betrothed. Perhaps Trollope was being paid by the page.
Nonetheless there is a lot here, dated though the moral questions are, its an insight to how a certain class of people in the 1880s thought about each other.
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