Chap­ter 4 marks a piv­otal moment in the trans­for­ma­tion of the Dutch House, illus­trat­ing how a sin­gle event—the wed­ding of Andrea and their father—signals the ero­sion of the family’s once-sta­ble foun­da­tion. Six weeks after Maeve began her stud­ies at Barnard, she returned home to wit­ness the cer­e­mo­ny, which took place under the watch­ful eyes of the Van­Hoe­beeks’ por­traits, a silent reminder of the house’s long his­to­ry. The grandeur of the occa­sion, accen­tu­at­ed by Andrea’s friends and fam­i­ly admir­ing the estate, con­trast­ed stark­ly with the sib­lings’ grow­ing aware­ness that they were becom­ing out­siders in their own home. The set­ting, metic­u­lous­ly arranged with bright autum­nal light, fresh flo­ral arrange­ments, and the reflec­tive shim­mer of water lilies in the pool, felt more like a dis­play of wealth than a cel­e­bra­tion of love. Though the cou­ple mar­ried in a civ­il cer­e­mo­ny at home—lacking the reli­gious sanc­ti­ty of a church wedding—Maeve and the nar­ra­tor could not shake their skep­ti­cism about its legit­i­ma­cy, both in law and in spir­it.

The sub­tle yet unde­ni­able shift in pow­er with­in the house­hold became appar­ent, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the way Andrea assert­ed her dom­i­nance over their liv­ing space. The tran­si­tion of author­i­ty was most clear­ly felt by the long­time staff, Sandy and Joce­lyn, who found them­selves side­lined by Andrea’s increas­ing con­trol over the home’s man­age­ment. Andrea’s reshap­ing of the Dutch House was not lim­it­ed to fur­nish­ings and decor; it extend­ed into rela­tion­ships and per­son­al bound­aries, exem­pli­fied by her deci­sion to move her daugh­ter, Nor­ma, into Maeve’s room. This bla­tant act of dis­place­ment, car­ried out with­out con­sid­er­a­tion for Maeve’s con­nec­tion to the space, sig­ni­fied a deep and delib­er­ate attempt to erase the past and estab­lish her own lega­cy with­in the house. Maeve’s return for Thanks­giv­ing only rein­forced her real­iza­tion that she no longer had a place in her child­hood home, her once-famil­iar sur­round­ings altered beyond recog­ni­tion.

Faced with no oth­er option, Maeve was rel­e­gat­ed to the attic, a stark con­trast to the room she had once called her own. Ever sharp-wit­ted, she com­pared her sit­u­a­tion to A Lit­tle Princess, liken­ing her­self to the story’s hero­ine, who found her­self stripped of priv­i­lege and con­fined to a less desir­able exis­tence. Though her words car­ried humor, they also masked the deep­er pain of watch­ing Andrea dis­man­tle what was left of their family’s his­to­ry in the Dutch House. This shift in dynam­ics was not mere­ly about space but about eras­ing the warmth, famil­iar­i­ty, and sta­bil­i­ty the home once pro­vid­ed. The house, which had long served as a sym­bol of secu­ri­ty and tra­di­tion, now became an are­na of qui­et bat­tles, where Maeve and her broth­er silent­ly resist­ed Andrea’s grow­ing influ­ence.

Amidst this upheaval, Maeve’s aca­d­e­m­ic poten­tial remained untapped, her tal­ent as a book­keep­er becom­ing a stark con­trast to the ambi­tious future she had once envi­sioned. Despite her intel­li­gence, she hes­i­tat­ed to pur­sue fur­ther edu­ca­tion, dis­miss­ing her brother’s encour­age­ment to do so. Instead, she remained deeply teth­ered to the past, unable to move beyond the injus­tices they had endured since their father’s pass­ing. The nar­ra­tor, though equal­ly impact­ed, had begun to con­sid­er what lay ahead, while Maeve’s focus remained fixed on what had been lost. Her reluc­tance to let go was under­stand­able; after all, the Dutch House was more than a place—it was a tan­gi­ble reminder of a child­hood and fam­i­ly that had been abrupt­ly stolen from them.

The ten­sion between past and present, loss and resilience, forms the heart of this chap­ter, paint­ing a vivid pic­ture of how pow­er dynam­ics shift with­in fam­i­lies after loss. Maeve and her broth­er, though still con­nect­ed by their shared expe­ri­ences, begin to take dif­fer­ent approach­es to their reality—one cling­ing to mem­o­ry, the oth­er search­ing for a way for­ward. The Dutch House, once a place of com­fort, trans­forms into a bat­tle­ground where Andrea’s dom­i­nance is felt in every deci­sion, from room assign­ments to the treat­ment of long-serv­ing staff. The sib­lings’ strug­gle is no longer just about phys­i­cal dis­place­ment but about pre­serv­ing a sense of iden­ti­ty and belong­ing in a home that no longer wel­comes them.

Through this chap­ter, the nar­ra­tive pow­er­ful­ly con­veys the emo­tion­al weight of change, the fragili­ty of famil­ial ties, and the qui­et but pro­found ways peo­ple cope with loss. Maeve’s humor­ous deflec­tions, the narrator’s attempts to encour­age her, and the silent ten­sion with­in the house­hold all con­tribute to the under­ly­ing theme of resilience amidst adver­si­ty. Though Andrea has suc­ceed­ed in alter­ing the phys­i­cal space of the Dutch House, the sib­lings’ mem­o­ries of it remain intact, a reminder that while they may have lost their home, they still car­ry its essence with­in them.