of a deaf lady and her ear trumpet when Miss Todd, an outspoken woman
who travels in society, takes her young charge Adela Gauntlet on a
social call to one of the grand dames of Littlebath (obviously a
pseudonym for Bath). Miss Todd proposes that they take turns of five
minutes each in talking to her and then leave after three turns.
Miss Todd is a slightly older Miss Dunstable from _Dr. Thorne_.
Having enough money to speak her mind, she does so with relish, as in
her defense of playing cards in a conversation with a clergyman of
Littlebath:
"What are old women like us to do? We haven't eyes to read at
night, even if we had minds fit for it. We can't always be saying
our prayers. We have nothing to talk about except scandal. It's
better than drinking; and we should come to that if we hadn't
cards."
A carriage ride is one of Trollope's favorite settings for intimate
conversation, with the horse sometimes getting the worst of it, as in
Chapter XXI of _Framley Parsonage_, "Why Puck, the Pony, Was Beaten."
In this story, it is Dumpling who catches a few impatient words as
Arthur Wilkinson, the timid and browbeaten parson, speaks his mind
(partially) to Adela Gauntlet, almost but not quite proposing. She
patiently waits for him to grow up a bit. Dumpling bears the brunt of
Wilkinson's timidity.
George's father, Sir Lionel Bertram, squanders his paternal capital
by sponging on his son for money. He fails to insert himself into
his brother's will, and he fails in two successive attempts to marry
money: "That utterance of the verbiage of love is a disagreeable task
for a gentleman of his years. He had tried it, and found it very
disagreeable. He would save himself a repetition of the nuisance and
write to her."
But back to the central story of Caroline Waddington: Chapter XXXVI,
"A Matrimonial Dialogue," closes the marriage between her and Lord
Harcourt. It is a classic Trollopian serious interview, in which Lady
Harcourt routs her proud husband. She tells him that she did not
invite Mr. Herbert to their house because she loved him so much that
she was afraid to meet him. "As she said this she still looked into
his face fearlessly--we may almost say boldly; so much so that Sir
Henry's eyes almost quailed before hers. On this she had at any rate
resolved, that she would never quail before him."
When Bertram writes an angry letter to Caroline, Trollope inserts
instruction about writing such letters which could be included among
the little lessons of life to be gleaned from reading his novels:
"Sit down and write your letter; write it with all the venom in your
power . . . and, as a matter of course, burn it before breakfast the
next morning." He goes on to extol pleasant letters, concluding his
advice for letter writing: "But, above all things, see that it be
good-humored."
A modern novel would omit Trollope's last chapter, and he himself
issues an apology for it: "Methinks it is almost unnecessary to write
this last chapter. The story, as I have had to tell it, is all told.
The object has been made plain--or, if not, can certainly not be made
plainer in these last six or seven pages. . . . But, nevertheless,
custom, and the desire of making an end of the undertaken work, and
in some sort completing it, compel me to this concluding chapter."
Things work themselves out within the conventions of the day. A
guiltless ending such as might be implied today could not be allowed,
and the lovers whose course we have followed with a bit of impatience
must accept the scraps of happiness that their world could accept.
I love Trollope's good-humored novels; the grim ones, like _He Knew
He was Right_ and parts of this one, are a bit like unpleasant
letters. _The Bertrams_ has enough good humor to carry us through.
The proud young lovers, however, are hard to love.
COPING WITH STARVATION
CASTLE RICHMOND
People of Irish descent, I recently learned, comprise thirteen
percent of the population of the county where I live, matched only
by those of German descent, also thirteen percent. (Other leading
ancestry groups are English, ten percent; black, six percent; and
Mexican, five percent.) Irish are also the most numerous ancestry
group in the counties where my Arkansas children live; and in the
county where I grew up, they are the most numerous white ancestry
group. (Irish are six percent, blacks forty-six percent.)
That I was surprised to learn this probably indicates that I haven't
been paying attention. My wife's grandfather came directly from
County Cavan, in Ireland; and the family of one of my sons-in-law
came from Ireland. Perhaps Irish names aren't as obvious as some
of the German names. And of course the English got a head start in
Virginia and New England. The big reason for the Irish numbers is the
Irish potato famine, which began in 1845, when an estimated one and a
half million people died and one million emigrated.
Anthony Trollope said that before he decided on "Castle Richmond" as
the title for the book, he considered a title which would mention
the famine. Such a title would have been more descriptive, though
it might perhaps have discouraged a number of readers, including
me. This would have been unfortunate, because in stumbling into the
unknown territory of one of his lesser known novels, I found myself
immersed in the most powerful chapter I have found in Trollope. One
would have to survey Holocaust and other war stories for chapters
of similar impact. Young Herbert Fitzgerald sets out to ride across
the countryside to Desmond Court, the home of his fiancée, to
determine whether their marriage is to take place, and in so doing
he encounters a rainstorm, forcing him to seek shelter. He enters a
cabin without knocking; he even rides his horse inside, which, the
author assures us, was customary there. The interior is so dark he
at first cannot tell whether anyone is at home. The floor is sod,
the walls are bare, and there is only a very little furniture, very
plain. As his eyes become accustomed to the dark, he sees a woman
sitting cross-legged on the floor with a baby in her arms. He later
discovers the body of a four-year-old daughter in the corner.
In those days there was a form of face which came upon the
sufferers when their state of misery was far advanced, and which
was a sure sign that their last stage of misery was nearly run.
The mouth would fall and seem to hang, the lips at the two ends of
the mouth would be dragged down, and the lower parts of the cheeks
would fall as though they had been dragged and pulled. There were
no signs of acute agony when this phasis of countenance was to be
seen, none of the horrid symptoms of gnawing hunger by which one
generally supposes that famine is accompanied. The look is one of
apathy, desolation, and death. When custom had made these signs
easily legible, the poor doomed wretch was known with certainty.
Sir William Osler could hardly have written a more informative
description of the clinical signs of starvation in _The Principles
and Practice of Medicine_. Trollope knew the signs; he had gone to
Ireland in 1841 as a clerk to a postal surveyor, traveling about the
country under orders from the surveyors. He was promoted to surveyor
fifteen years later, and he did not return to England until 1859, the
year he began _Castle Richmond_.
Mike, the starving woman's husband, had become a cripple through
rheumatism and could not do the public work on the roads. This would
have qualified him and his family for the poorhouse, but he may not
have known this. He had found someone who would hire him to do a
little work in return for a little food, and he had stolen from his
employer a small amount of "Indian corn-flour"--the yellow meal made
from corn sent from America--but it had failed to sustain her and the
children.
Although Herbert tried to send help, no one was in a hurry to answer
the call. "But had they flown to the spot on the wings of love, it
would not have sufficed to prolong her life one day. Her doom had
been spoken before Herbert had entered the cabin."
Trollope indulges in a little Victorian eloquence to conclude his
story, which otherwise could be a case history. What would Dickens
have done with such a story? The poor woman would have been borne to
Heaven in the arms of angels. And if this had been a chapter in a
book by Dickens, we might all know this story from the Irish Potato
Famine.
The book isn't really about the potato famine. It just took place
at the time of the famine. The story is one of those stories of a
question of birth, which are so common in the novels from the period.
In this case, we find Sir Thomas Fitzgerald of Castle Richmond being
blackmailed by Mr. Matthew Mollett, who tells him that he was Lady
Fitzgerald's first husband, and that he was not dead, as he had been
assumed to be, when she married Sir Thomas. This would mean that
her marriage to Sir Thomas is null and void, and that Sir Thomas's
children are illegitimate–-and that his son Herbert will not inherit
the estate, which would then fall to a cousin, Owen Fitzgerald. All
this leaves Sir Thomas in a state of nervous collapse, from which he
does not recover.
We also have the story of a young woman, Lady Clara Desmond, who
proceeds, in the fullness of time, from one engagement to another. As
a young girl she pledged herself to Owen Fitzgerald, but her mother,
the Countess of Desmond, reminded her that she must marry money, and
she later accepted the proposal of Herbert Fitzgerald. And then, when
the news of Lady Fitzgerald's first husband becomes known, young Lady
Clara is seen by her mother to be left holding the bag with a second
affianced lover, now become poor. Owen is presented as the mercurial
Irishman whom women love: romantic and generous, fun-loving and
extravagant--qualities we also see in Trollope's most well-known
Irish figure, Phineas Finn. Herbert, on the other hand, is slow and
methodical, serious and conscientious, reminiscent of Plantagenet
Palliser. Owen makes the extravagant and rather naive offer to
let Herbert have Castle Richmond and all its property if he will
surrender the love of Clara. Herbert, of course, cannot understand
this and refuses.
So how will all this be resolved? Very conveniently, as it turns out.
A family secret is discovered. What about this and so many other
stories of birth secrets, with the resolution of the plot in the
revelation of some unknown bit of family history--as when Buttercup
announces in the final act of _HMS Pinafore_ that, as a nursemaid,
she switched babies years ago? Was this just a convenient plot
device, or was it a reflection of reality?
Trollope used variations of this theme in several of his novels.
George Roden, in _Marion Fay_, is found to be the eldest son of an
Italian duke. _Is He Popenjoy?_ is all about whether an unprincipled
English Marquis, living in Italy, was legitimately married to an
Italian duchessa and whether their son was Lord Popenjoy.
Esther Summerson, in Charles Dickens's _Bleak House_, does not know
who her real mother is until late in the story. Oscar Wilde's _The
Importance of Being Earnest_ revolves about two babies in large
handbags who were unwittingly swapped at a railway station. When this
is announced in the last act, Jack throws himself on Miss Prism with
a cry of "Mother!"
One actual case involved the "Tichbourne claimant," who in 1875
returned from Australia and claimed to be the rightful heir to a
family fortune; the courts ruled against him. Surely this story
itself could provide material for a doctoral dissertation; lacking
such research, however, one would suppose that such events occurred
infrequently and stirred imaginations each time, prompting fictional
and comic variations on the theme.
Among the insights into Irish life are the sketches of Protestant and
Catholics, preachers and priests. We find Father Bernard being petted
by his sister-in-law and niece at Mick O'Dwyer's public house, where
the women offer him another cup of tea, a hot muffin, or "a morsel of
buttered toast" if he will only say the word.
Protestants and Catholics are obliged to work together in public
assistance efforts to aid famine victims, but when it is suggested to
the Protestant parson that Father Barney may be right in a certain
matter, he categorically denies it. "He's altogether wrong. I never
knew one of them right in my life yet in anything. How can they be
right?"
On the other hand, the Catholic bias appears when Father Columb is
told that men will work anywhere to keep from starving. He only
replies, "Some men will," implying that Protestants would work
anywhere because of their devotion to the flesh, but that Roman
Catholics are under the dominion of the Spirit and would perish
first.
The story moves toward its conclusion in London, where Herbert has
gone to study law after leaving Castle Richmond. Here we see two
lawyers at work. The first is Mr. Prendergast, the family attorney,
who receives a letter revealing the family secret. Mr. Prendergast
anticipates Sherlock Holmes in his powers of observation as he
enters the house and searches for his quarry: "But the armchair was
placed idly away from any accommodation for work, and had, as Mr.
Prendergast thought, been recently filled by some idle person."
We also encounter the barrister, Mr. Die, still working hard at age
seventy. Men who retire at age sixty, the author tells us, are those
who have always been idle. "It is my opinion that nothing seasons
the mind for endurance like hard work. Port wine should perhaps be
added."
But back to the Irish famine: When one learns that during its four
worst years, the English landlords in Ireland exported more food, in
the form of beef, wheat, and other grains, than the country imported,
one begins to understand the reasons for deep and strong feelings
about the English in Ireland. From his travels in southwest Ireland
from 1841 to 1859, Trollope surely knew and understood the Irish
from the ground up. His fictional account bears as much authority
as a journalistic one would have, and it is reinforced in the Folio
Society edition with a pen-and-ink drawing opposite page 185 showing
a woman dressed in rags, on her knees, surrounded by four small
children, pulling at someone's cloak as she begs. She is more
attractive in the drawing than in the description--"squat, uncouth,
and in no way attractive to the eye."
This begging scene is rural, not on a city street. The woman who
is begging is not a nameless beggar; she knows Mister Herbert and
Clara by face and name. Other accounts in the book--dealing with
the deliberations of the ad hoc council to establish policies about
distribution of such food as is available to those without food,
managing a gang of men given make-work duties leveling a hill for
a roadway, and the details of a recipe for making bread from bad
flour--all bear witness to a human tragedy that brought thousands of
its victims to America.
_Castle Richmond_ is a good story; it starts slowly, but it moves
along, and it proceeds with dispatch in the final chapters. Trollope
has given us some sobering glimpses of people, ancestors to many
Americans, starving in time of famine; otherwise we are diverted by
entertaining views and stories. It's unfortunate that a book so well
written is doomed to the oblivion of being just one of forty-seven
novels by the same author.
THE LADY FACES THEM DOWN
ORLEY FARM
I can see Barbara Stanwyck playing Lady Mason in a film noir version
of _Orley Farm_. Oh, there was no murder--only a bit of forgery. But
remember, forgery could be punished with hanging in England only
a few years before _Orley Farm_ was written. The story is a bit
complicated: Lady Mason forged a codicil to her late husband's will,
leaving a small portion of his land holdings to their only child,
taking this small home place away from his older son by a previous
marriage.
Now we know that in England at that time all inheritance was to go
to the eldest son as a matter of course, unless other provision
was made. And we in this age are accustomed to the "pre-nup,"
the prenuptial agreement designed to deal with the anxieties of
prospective heirs when an aged parent takes a wife--especially if the
wife be of childbearing age.
In our world, therefore, few would have much difficulty in accepting
the propriety of a small portion of a large estate being left to a
younger son, when the elder son is well provided for. Nor, we learn,
did a jury of her peers find any problem with this arrangement. Lady
Mason, who had been a loyal, faithful, and attractive wife to old Sir
Joseph, was acquitted of the crime of forgery, and she continued to
live in the home place and raise their son to the age of majority
when he might assume control of it.
We only learn the truth about the forgery about halfway through the
book, some twenty years after the crime and acquittal. And then we
find ourselves sympathizing with the guilty woman as she fights
through a second trial.
The older son, who was now the young Sir Joseph, lived on the
extensive Yorkshire holdings, under the rule of a wife too stingy to
put adequate food on the table, either for her lord or for their
guests when they should have any. And he nursed his grudge against
the widow, whom he considered to have cheated him of his rightful
inheritance.
Some of Trollope's most effective humor is sometimes inserted into
an unlikely place. The first chapters, the ones that set the scene,
are often so long, detailed, and tedious that they have almost
disappeared in today's writing. One has to read opening chapters
carefully, however, and sometimes reread them, in order to understand
the setting. This is made easier in the case of the Masons of Groby
Park, the large holding in Yorkshire, as Trollope continues with his
introduction of the characters:
He was severe to his children, and was not loved by them; but
nevertheless they were dear to him, and he endeavored to do his
duty by them. The wife of his bosom was not a pleasant woman, but
nevertheless he did his duty by her; that is, he neither deserted
her, nor beat her, nor locked her up. I am not sure that he would
not have been justified in doing one of these three things,
or even all the three; for Mrs. Mason of Groby Park was not a
pleasant woman.
The old quarrel resurfaces when an old tenant is dispossessed by Lady
Mason's son, now old enough to begin managing the home place and
aspiring to farm it in a scientific, though expensive, fashion.
With energy and perseverance the tenant discovers another paper
signed by old Sir Joseph on the same day as the codicil was dated,
and he finds a witness to the signature, Bridget Bolster, who will
testify that she only witnessed the signing of one document.
How can Lady Mason defend herself against this attack? We see that
her primary motive is to shield her proud young son from disgrace,
and in this effort she deploys all the resources available to her. A
small but not unattractive woman (think of Barbara Stanwyck in this
role), she consults the barrister, Mr. Furnival, who defended her in
the first trial, and she wraps him around her finger so effectively
that Mrs. Furnival is driven by jealousy to leave home in one of the
great comic episodes of the book.
Mr. Furnival sees that unusual skill will be required to defend
Lady Mason successfully, and she consents to his employment of
that famous defense attorney, Mr. Chaffanbrass, and another clever
defense attorney, Mr. Solomon Aram. Lucius, convinced of his mother's
innocence, is offended by the retaining of these sharp attorneys, and
he objects that a simple portrayal of the truth of the matter will
be more than sufficient. But his mother, whom we often see sitting
alone in her room brooding over these matters (we can only conclude
from this and other novels of the period that people spent more
time sitting and brooding than is done now) quietly declines her
son's advice and, much to his frustration, excludes him from the
decision-making process. Here the reader begins to suspect that since
she knows what she really did, she realizes she had better have some
sharp legal assistance.
She also cultivates the friendship of a noble neighbor, Sir Peregrine
Orme, father of her son Lucius's friend young Peregrine Orme. Sir
Peregrine is an old man, but he responds to her presence in his
house by falling in love with her. He rashly makes her an offer
of marriage, which is opposed by his son, her son, and a brother
nobleman, all of whom attempt to dissuade him.
Lady Mason had hoped to obtain maximum support from Mr. Furnival
and Sir Peregrine without being forced to choose between these two
champions. She accepts Sir Peregrine's proposal, but it becomes
apparent that she is sacrificing the sympathy of Mr. Furnival and
everyone else. So here we have the crisis of the whole story, just
at the start of Book Two, in which she confesses her guilt to Sir
Peregrine and subsequently to his daughter-in-law, who has also
become her great friend. So the reader learns that she did indeed
forge the signature to the will twenty years earlier. Sir Peregrine
cancels the engagement, but both he and his daughter-in-law maintain
their friendship, support, and the secret.
John Everett Millais drew the forty illustrations for the book, and
the cover of the Dover Publications edition shows Lady Mason in
court. Her companion Mrs. Orme sits with head down and veil in place.
But Lady Mason has lifted her veil and raised her eyes. She will face
them down. "She was perfect mistress of herself, and as she looked
round the court, not with defiant gaze, but with eyes half raised,
and a look of modest but yet conscious intelligence, those around her
hardly dared to think that she could be guilty."
Trollope shows us the infatuation of two older men with Lady
Mason in great detail. Mr. Furnival, who has a wife (dowdy) and a
daughter (clever, like he is) and a position in the London legal
establishment, cannot consider a compromising liaison, but he enjoys
the company of Lady Mason and schemes to meet her. He begins to
perceive rather early the strong probability that she is actually
guilty, but he has a strong desire to defend her successfully. Sir
Peregrine Orme is an older man and a widower, and as she remains in
his house as a guest, he begins to ask, "Why should I not?"
We are not denied the drama of the courtroom, and here we see the
renowned Mr. Chaffanbrass taking a witness apart. Mr. Chaffanbrass
is a recurrent player in several Trollope novels--most notably in
_Phineas Redux_, when he undertakes the defense of Phineas Finn,
who is accused of murder. Again we see this wily attorney as a role
player in the adversarial system of justice: "To him it was a matter
of course that Lady Mason should be guilty. Had she not been guilty,
he, Mr. Chaffanbrass would not have been required. Mr. Chaffanbrass
well understood that the defense of injured innocence was no part of
his mission."
The subplots and ancillary characters fill out the space requirements
of a proper Victorian novel and are generally done well. Sophia
Furnival is a more interesting character than her friend Madeline
Stavely, who is practically perfect in every way. In Mr. Furnival's
closing speech to the court we finally see the brilliance of his
work, and we see that Sophia comes by her wit naturally, since it's
apparent that she doesn't inherit it from her mother. Sophia doesn't
do much better than Lady Mason does in attempting to handle two
admirers.
Felix Graham, a young lawyer who falls in love with Madeline Stavely,
finally begins to come through as understandable, but only partially.
The story of his earlier attachment to Mary Snow as a protégé whom he
had intended to train to become his bride seems a bit far-fetched;
perhaps it was not so far-fetched at the time. In any event, this
little story is never wrapped up. We see Felix being pressed for more
money by Mary's drunken father, by her keeper Mrs. Thomas, and by the
apothecary who increases the price of a partnership for Mary's new
lover, Albert Fitzallen. Felix has attempted to transfer Mary to Mr.
Fitzallen, which appears to be agreeable to all parties, but the
negotiations are left in limbo.