The House of the Seven Gables: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

One day, 37 years after Colonel Pyncheon’s death, Gervayse Pyncheon’s black slave, Scipio, brings a message to the carpenter, Matthew Maule, grandson of the executed Maule. Gervayse Pyncheon has summoned Maule to the House of the Seven Gables. Scipio mentions that Colonel Pyncheon haunts the house and frightens him. Maule mutters that, no matter what the Colonel’s ghost does, his grandfather “will be pretty sure to stick it to the Pyncheons” as long as the House remains. He agrees to come to the House and passes along his greetings to young Alice Pyncheon, recently returned from Italy.

Matthew Maule the carpenter is not well liked. His grandfather is believed to haunt the House of the Seven Gables, insisting he’s the property’s rightful tenant, and that he will torment the Pyncheons indefinitely unless the situation is rectified. Now, his grandson, too, is surrounded by rumors. He allegedly has the ability to haunt people’s dreams and read minds, and he’s said to have the Evil Eye. He’s also generally unpleasant, and he isn’t a church member.

Gervayse Pyncheon is the grandson of Colonel Pyncheon—he’s the little boy who’d discovered the man’s dead body. Though Gervayse has never loved the House since that time and even spent some years in Europe, the House is now bustling with his large family. When Matthew Maule the carpenter arrives there, he pridefully and bitterly approaches the front door instead of the back or side entrance.

When the carpenter is admitted, he hears a sad melody: Alice Pyncheon is playing the harpsichord. Scipio ushers Maule into Gervayse Pyncheon’s parlor. The room is richly furnished in European fashions. Two things stand out: the map of the old Pyncheon territory in Maine and Colonel Pyncheon’s portrait. Mr. Pyncheon drinks coffee in front of the fire and only vaguely acknowledges Maule’s entrance.

Matthew Maule the carpenter, however, boldly steps to the fire and looks Gervayse Pyncheon in the face, demanding to know Pyncheon’s business with him. He identifies himself as Matthew Maule’s grandson. Pyncheon sets this “grudge” aside. However, he has a question for Maule about the Pyncheons’ territorial claim. He believes that Colonel Pyncheon possessed a deed to this land which has since disappeared.

There have long been rumors that the disappeared deed has some connection to the Maule family. A superstitious legend even led to the searching of Matthew Maule’s grave—where, mysteriously, the skeleton’s right hand was found to be missing. Gervayse himself remembers being a small boy and seeing papers spread out on Colonel Pyncheon’s table the day before he died. That same day, the present carpenter’s father, Thomas, had been performing some task in the room. He offers to pay Matthew if the latter has any information on the deed’s whereabouts. Maule refuses him at first, but then he asks whether his grandfather’s land, and indeed the House of the Seven Gables, might be made over to him if he can provide the evidence being sought.

Legend relates that, at this point, Colonel Pyncheon’s portrait began to behave strangely. During this conversation between the carpenter and Gervayse Pyncheon, the figure in the portrait has been frowning and shaking its fist, while the two men remain oblivious. When Maule suggested the transfer of the property, the portrait figure looked as if it was about to climb out of its frame.

Gervayse Pyncheon is surprisingly open to the carpenter’s terms. He’s not attached to the House and would prefer to return to Europe—something the recovered Eastern territory would make easier. So he tells Maule that if Maule can produce the requisite document, then the House of the Seven Gables will be his. Legend has it that the men then drew up an agreement and drank wine together. Thinking he notices a frown on the portrait’s face, Gervayse concludes that the wine is too potent for him.

Maule the carpenter then explains that if Gervayse wishes to recover the lost document, he must allow Maule to talk with Alice. Gervayse is appalled and baffled at Maule’s motives, but somehow, Maule persuades him to summon his daughter. Alice Pyncheon is stately and reserved, yet possesses a certain innocent tenderness. When she enters the parlor, she looks approvingly at Maule’s strong figure, but Maule interprets this as a prideful glance and never forgives her.

With confusion, Gervayse Pyncheon explains that Maule the carpenter has some business with Alice,  because Alice’s help is supposedly required in recovering the important document. He promises he will stay nearby and that Alice can call off Maule’s inquiries at any time. Maule has Alice sit in a chair and instructs her to look in his eyes. She complies. When Pyncheon next looks at them, he sees Maule making a slow, downward gesture toward Alice. He commands Maule to stop, but Alice wants to continue. Pyncheon turns away again, reasoning that it’s partly for Alice’s sake that he’s letting this go forward—with a rich dowry, after all, she can marry well. And besides, Alice’s purity will safeguard her against any questionable doings on Maule’s part.

Moments later, Gervayse hears an indistinct murmur from his daughter, but he doesn’t turn. Finally, the carpenter says, “Behold your daughter!” Pyncheon sees Maule pointing triumphantly at Alice, who sits as if asleep. When Pyncheon calls her name in terror, even kisses and roughly shakes her, he only perceives a vast distance between himself and his unconscious daughter. He shakes his fist at Maule. Maule says that it’s Pyncheon’s fault for selling his daughter for the sake of a piece of parchment.

Maule the carpenter then beckons to Alice, and she rises and moves toward him. Maule triumphantly declares that she is now his. Legend has it that Maule then used Alice as a kind of medium to speak to her Pyncheon ancestors. Alice is said to have described seeing Colonel Pyncheon, Matthew Maule, and Maule’s son Thomas, all of whom had knowledge of the missing deed. The ghostly Pyncheon looked as if he meant to reveal the location of the deed, and then he was forcibly restrained by the ghostly Maules. After learning this, the present-day Maule turns to Gervayse and says that the secret of the deed “makes part of your grandfather’s retribution” which the family cannot get rid of.

At this, Gervayse Pyncheon gurgles with rage, and Maule the carpenter jeers about the old curse. He leaves, but he promises that Alice, upon waking, will have reason to remember him. Indeed, it turns out that Alice has been “martyred” by her father’s “inordinate desire for measuring his land by miles instead of acres.” She is Maule’s slave from this time forward. From afar, Maule can make her laugh, cry, or dance a jig, no matter whether she is in church, entertaining guests, or at a funeral.

Some time later, Alice goes to a bridal party—the daughter of a laborer, whom Maule the carpenter is about to marry. Humbly, Alice waits upon and kisses Maule’s bride. After she walks home in a mix of snow and rain, she soon falls deathly ill. But before she dies, she plays joyful music on the harpsichord, knowing she’s about to be set free from her humiliation. Matthew Maule attends her funeral in anguish—he’d only meant to toy with Alice, not to kill her.