In the article about two temptation scenes in Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood & Co. books, people are advised to beware of anyone who tries to influence them by telling them that they are cut out for better things and enlist them by tempting them with the offer of a powerful position.
The tempters offer whatever they think will work: instead of or in addition to power they might offer money or secret knowledge for example, or they may tell their victims that they will get a chance to help others or have better opportunities to show what they can do.
In these situations it is essential to think about what might be in it for the tempters and what their underlying motives are. It is also important to prepare for the worst after rejecting the tempters' offers: saying 'no' is asking for trouble. All hell may even break loose!
The behaviour of Penelope Fittes, glamorous head of the great Fittes Agency and a major character in the books, towards Lucy Carlyle and her fellow members of the Lockwood & Co. Agency provides a good illustration of these points.
Penelope Fittes get to work
After her agent fails to tempt Lucy into working for her, Penelope Fittes gets on the case herself.
At the start of The Creeping Shadow, Lucy has left Lockwood & Co. to work as a freelance psychical investigation agent. She has not seen her old colleagues for several months, but that soon changes.
Penelope Fittes, who has been monitoring the activities of Lockwood & Co., offers a big, difficult and dangerous ghost-hunting assignment to Anthony Lockwood, who persuades Lucy to work with him on the case.
Lucy is rather suspicious of Penelope Fittes' motives: after all, she has a huge number of her own Fittes agents at her disposal so why would she want to involve Lockwood & Co? Lucy is quite right to distrust Penelope, but she realises that this assignment would be good publicity for her and she wants to help her old colleagues out so she puts her doubts aside and decides to take on the job.
She goes with the others to Fittes House for a briefing. Penelope Fittes tells Anthony Lockwood that they can do great things together in the future. She also flatters Lucy, revealing that she asked for her specifically: she had told Anthony Lockwood that he would get the commission only if he could persuade Lucy to come back and work for him.
However, this success is a two-edged sword: more than ever, Penelope Fittes sees Lockwood & Co. as both a useful tool for carrying out her plans and a possible threat to them. She operates on a step-by-step basis when it comes to getting them all under her control, and she soon tempts them with another offer.
While she presents this offer as a great and unusual honour, she has ulterior motives: she wants to keep a close eye on Anthony and his colleagues in case they should discover what she is up to; she also hopes to exploit their talents and exceptional resourcefulness in her evil work.
This completely unexpected proposition so stupefies the young agents that they are unable to speak.
Penelope Fittes knows exactly which buttons to press. She knows just what to tempt them with and goes in for the kill: she praises Anthony Lockwood's psychic gifts and leadership; she offers Lucy help with developing her formidable gifts even further; she very cleverly offers researcher George Cubbins unrestricted access to the Fittes Black Library, in which he has always wanted to browse.
She says something about immortality that makes more sense later on:
“There it is: my offer. I don’t make such proposals readily. But you have charmed me. Lockwood and Company is unique; with my help it could become immortal.”
Anthony Lockwood manages to speak at last. He and the others may not have seen all this coming, but they find the strength to resist the temptation. Anthony declines the offer on behalf of himself and the others, telling Penelope that they prefer to keep their independence. They like having a little agency of their own.
Penelope Fittes becomes motionless. She continues to smile however, and she pulls out all the stops and goes out of her way to hook him. Speaking in a velvety voice, she assures him that he would continue to operate independently but would have all her agency's resources at his disposal. He could even continue working from his home.
Once again Anthony Lockwood rejects her offers, and Penelope's smile disappears.
Lucy Carlyle later sums up the temptation scene very well:
“"It was a strange offer," I said. "Ms Fittes was very complimentary about us, but it was like she just assumed we’d cave in and do her bidding. I don’t think she was very happy that we’d refused her, either."”
It is indeed extremely likely that Penelope Fittes was not very happy when her offer of a merger was declined. She didn't speak and behave in the way that some of the tempters mentioned in the previous article did when their manipulation didn't work, but deep down inside she was surely confounded by the unexpected rejection: she is accustomed to having everything her own way, as if by divine right.
It is possible that she decides to hold back - for a while - in the hope that she will still be able to recruit Lockwood & Co. She doesn't give up easily, she has more weapons at her disposal and for now Anthony, Lucy and George may be more use to her alive than dead!
Then something happens that takes everything to a new level.
The subsequent developments and another example of a book with similar temptation scenes will be the subject of a future article.
Anthony Lockwood and Lucy Carlyle, ready to take on some malevolent ghosts:
