Yorkshire moors

The Yorkshire moors are more than scenery in these scenes at Fairley: they stand apart from the weather and the household’s conflicts, yet shape how Adele experiences her isolation and where a wounded animal may be laid to rest. The landscape shifts between a forbidding boundary in Adele’s view and a practical refuge at the edge of the household’s authority.

Landscape and Atmosphere

During a gale, Adele looks out at the moors as torrents of rain lash the windows and trees thrash in the wind. Against that movement, the moors remain implacable and sombre, like a line of black monoliths set against the pale sky. The contrast gives the landscape a force distinct from the storm: the weather batters the house, but the moors seem unmoved.

That apparent permanence does not comfort Adele. Accustomed to the gentler green scenery of her native Sussex, she regards the surrounding moors as a wall enclosing the house and village and shutting her away from the wider world. The landscape becomes an expression of her alienation in an unfamiliar place, though that sense of confinement belongs to Adele’s perception rather than to any stated physical barrier.

The Moors and Household Conflict

The moors also enter the household’s response to violence and suffering. After Gerald’s cruelty toward Edwin in the courtyard, Adele confronts the yardman over a dog caught in a trap. She orders him to determine whether it is alive, care for it if it has a chance of recovery, and, if it is beyond hope, shoot it and bury it out on the moors. If it is already dead, it is to be buried there as well.

In this instruction, the moors are not simply a distant view: they become the proposed destination for the animal’s burial, beyond the immediate household. Adele insists that the dog’s condition must be established and that its suffering matters, taking responsibility herself when the yardman invokes the master’s authority. The landscape thus marks the practical limit of the scene’s action, while Adele’s intervention challenges the household’s casual disregard for harm.

Narrative Significance

Across these moments, the moors hold two meanings in tension. To Adele, they intensify her sense of being enclosed and estranged; in the dog episode, they offer a place for the consequences of violence to be carried beyond the courtyard. Their indifference to the gale contrasts with the heightened human feeling inside Fairley, but their narrative role is not reducible to mood alone: they shape Adele’s perception of home and figure in her decision about how suffering should be handled.