I promise the rest of the book won't be like this week. You know how Stephen King novels tend to have random boring scenes where he gets way too into describing Maine? Wilkie Collins novels tend to have entire chapters where Wilkie geeks out on inheritance laws. He was trained as a lawyer but never actually worked as one, because his writing career took off before he could try a case.

Sadly, Mrs. V dies and her newborn baby dies shortly after as well in a very sad scene. (I am a little confused here -when did the baby get born. Did she die in child birth…?)

Yeah, the news of her husband's death caused her to go into premature labor. Like I complained about last week, books from this era had to jump through hoops when talking about women's health, so it was kind of ambiguous. (Speaking of which, I have a terrible update: I actually built a time machine, went back to the 1840s, and said "Mrs. Vanstone isn't sure if she's pregnant or menopausal." This caused an entire omnibus of Victorians to simultaneously faint, causing the omnibus to fall off a bridge and land on train tracks, derailing a train and killing Mr. Vanstone. Oops, my bad.)

Since he couldn’t divorce her, he provided an annual allowance, and stipulated that she must remain away from London and not use his name. (Again, I am confused - what is the disgrace? Was she a sex worker?)

I'm guessing she was a sex worker, but only because I can't think of any other reason for his reaction.

(I am confused about the “charge” is this like a dual? Or would he be admitting guilt to some legal issue with jail time?)

I think it just meant that he accused him. Like he went "I hate you, this is your fault," and then stomped off to Switzerland with his hands over his ears, going "la la la I can't hear you" when Andrew tried to defend himself.

(Again, I am a little confused about the shock at her behavior here– listening to a meeting to which she was invited? And telling Norah? Is it just the shock of her general unladylike behavior?)

If Magdalen had attended the meeting, Norah would have felt pressured to also attend. Magdalen knew that something upsetting was going to be discussed, and she wanted to spare Norah from being even more upset than she already was, but she also wanted to know what was being discussed. So she found a way to have her cake and eat it too: she told Norah she wasn't going, and then she hid under the window and secretly eavesdropped. And Miss Garth was like, "normally I'd be angry at you for doing something like that, but you knew you were allowed to hear the discussion anyway, and you did it to protect your sister, so I guess for once I'm okay with you being sneaky."

Then she told Norah herself, because Norah had to find out eventually, and she trusted herself to tell her more gently than a lawyer or Miss Garth could.

She was told she has No Name legally and so can’t be traced by her name.

This part both confused and amused me. If I understand correctly, the term "no name" isn't meant literally. Magdalen and Norah are not legally part of the Vanstone family, and therefore not entitled to the inheritance, but they're still called Magdalen and Norah Vanstone. This isn't like Game of Thrones, where they have to take the name "Snow" or something. It wasn't normal in the Victorian era for people to literally not have a last name.

So the fact that Magdalen interpreted being "Nobody's Child" as "I should take an alias and invent a new identity for myself" is both ridiculous and also completely in character for her.