The Way We Live Now

Amongst the aristocratic investors on the railway scheme's board is Sir Felix Carbury, a young and dissolute baronet who is quickly running through his widowed mother's savings. In an attempt to restore their fortunes, as they are being beset by their creditors, his mother, Lady Matilda Carbury—who makes ends meet by writing historical potboilers with titles like Criminal Queens: Powerful Women as the Playthings of Love—endeavors to have him become engaged to Marie Melmotte, the Melmottes' only child and a considerable heiress in her own right. Sir Felix manages to win Marie's heart, but his schemes are blocked by Melmotte, who has no intention of allowing his daughter to marry a penniless aristocrat. Felix's situation is also complicated by his relationship with Ruby Ruggles, a buxom young farm girl living with her grandfather on the estate of Roger Carbury, his well-off cousin.