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A review by melindamoor
The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett
4.0
WARNING: This story was published in 1901 and the 2nd half (originally printed separately as [b:The Methods of Lady Walderhurst|2256122|The Methods Of Lady Walderhurst|Frances Hodgson Burnett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1421010014l/2256122._SX50_.jpg|15704424]) contains elements of casual and matter-of-fact racism that was a product of its time but offends the modern reader.
********************************
I have been contemplating for some time the rating for this book. I was wavering between 3 and 4 stars, but in the end I decided on 4 because my enjoyment of the book actually far outweighs my original bewilderment about the curious way [a:Frances Hodgson Burnett|2041|Frances Hodgson Burnett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1197934848p2/2041.jpg] mixed her genres.
The plot is a crossover between a comedy of manners along the lines of a rags-to-riches story with a clear criticism of Victorian society and a Gothic novel (though with certainly less melodrama). However while the plot appeared shaky sometimes, the characterisation is excellent and succinct and that carries the day for me in any book.
The main character of the novel is Emily Fox-Seton, an impoverished lady of impeccable character, birth, manners and a universal goodwill towards mankind. She is a 34-year-old spinster, has hardly anything to live on, dwells in a boarding house (though thankfully with an incredibly kind landlady and her daughter) and tries to make ends meet by acting as a kind of secretary-cum-lady-in-waiting for rich, aristocratic ladies. She is kind and humble and happy in her own way (apart from the existential anxiety) and translates the high ladies' condescension and patronage as kindness towards herself. She also lacks the finesse and ruthlessness that drive many/most of her contemporaries and her "survival" under such social and pecuniary circumstances seems doubtful, to say the least.
One of her patronesses, the Lady Maria Bayne is a selfish, but wickedly witty and entertaining old lady.
"Lady Maria Bayne was the cleverest, sharpest-tongued, smartest old woman in London. She knew everybody and had done everything in her youth, a good many things not considered highly proper. A certain royal duke had been much pleased with her and people had said some very nasty things about it. But this had not hurt Lady Maria. She knew how to say nasty things herself, and as she said them wittily they were usually listened to and repeated."
Lady M invites Emily to her estate for a week and charges her to help with the arrangements of parties, dinners and the village fete. Emily is happy to comply with her wishes, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she has to do everything.
The "pinnacle" of the present party is the presence of Lady Maria's nephew, the elderly, widowed & rich Marquis, Lord Walderhurst, who has matrimonial plans and may choose a bride among the lady guests.
"Walderhurst is coming to me. It always amuses me to have Walderhurst. The moment a man like that comes into a room the women begin to frisk about and swim and languish, except those who try to get up interesting conversations they think likely to attract his attention. They all think it is possible that he may marry them. If he were a Mormon he might have marchionesses of Walderhurst of all shapes and sizes.”
And the million-dollar question is of course: WHOM WILL HE CHOOSE AS HIS MARCHIONESS?
There are 3 likely candidates, summed up by Lady M with perfect insight and precision:
1) Mrs Ralph, a clever authoress:
“Mrs. Ralph is the kind of woman who means business. She’ll corner Walderhurst and talk literature and roll her eyes at him until he hates her. These writing women, who are intensely pleased with themselves, if they have some good looks into the bargain, believe themselves capable of marrying any one. Mrs. Ralph has fine eyes and rolls them. Walderhurst won’t be ogled."
2) Miss Cora Brooke, an American heiress
"The Brooke girl is sharper than Ralph. She was very sharp this afternoon. She began at once.” “I—I didn’t see her”—wondering. “Yes, you did; but you didn’t understand. The tennis, and the laughing with young Heriot on the terrace! She is going to be the piquant young woman who aggravates by indifference, and disdains rank and splendour; the kind of girl who has her innings in novelettes—but not out of them."
3) Lady Agatha Slade, a society beauty
"Now there is Agatha Slade, poor girl! She’s of a kind I know by heart. With birth and beauty, she is perfectly helpless. Her people are poor enough to be entitled to aid from the Charity Organisation, and they have had the indecency to present themselves with six daughters—six! All with delicate skins and delicate little noses and heavenly eyes. Most men can’t afford them, and they can’t afford most men."
Under the pretext of this seemingly lighthearted situation, we are dealt some harsh truths about the helplessness of women who are exposed either socially or financially or both.
It is disheartening to learn that Agatha is not only pressured by society, but by her mother and by her younger sisters as well to find a husband or leave the social scene so that she can make way for them.
Also Emily's bleak situation, despite her infinite goodness, is staring at us in the face rather nastily. The author disguises it under the veil of some flippant and funny remarks, but it is clear that she intended this veil to be very transparent.
The girl had received a long, anxious letter from her mother, in which much was said of the importance of an early preparation for the presentation of Alix, who had really been kept back a year, and was in fact nearer twenty than nineteen. “If we were not in Debrett and Burke, one might be reserved about such matters,” poor Lady Claraway wrote; “but what is one to do when all the world can buy one’s daughters’ ages at the booksellers’?”
"They had both had hard lives, and knew what lay before them. Agatha knew she must make a marriage or fade out of existence in prosaic and narrowed dulness. Emily knew that there was no prospect for her of desirable marriage at all. She was too poor, too entirely unsupported by social surroundings, and not sufficiently radiant to catch the roving eye."
*SPOILER WARNING* from here on, I will more explicitly discuss characters and for that the plot must be more or less revealed.
Of course, there are some implications that none of the 3 candidates will succeed in their attempts to catch His Lordship and F.H.B. rather nicely and credibly develops the relationship between Emily and James in the background. Neither of them are young, but the feelings they have for each other are solid, realistic & convincing and in a way they touched me deeper than any passion & romance could have done.
“I am not a marrying man,” said his lordship, “but I must marry, and I like you better than any woman I have ever known. I do not generally like women. I am a selfish man, and I want an unselfish woman. Most women are as selfish as I am myself. I used to like you when I heard Maria speak of you. I have watched you and thought of you ever since I came here. You are necessary to every one, and you are so modest that you know nothing about it."
“I want a companion.” “But I am so far from clever,” faltered Emily. The marquis turned in his driving-seat to look at her. It was really a very nice look he gave her. It made Emily’s cheeks grow pink and her simple heart beat. “You are the woman I want,” he said. “You make me feel quite sentimental.”
It started actually with Lord Walderhurst's ambiguous characterisation when I had the feeling that something was a bit off-kilter. I found the author's treatment of the marquis somewhat off-putting. It was like she could not make up her mind about him. (Considering that by the time she was writing this novel, her 2nd marriage was dissolving, perhaps this is no great wonder)
In one way he represents the ultimate upper-class Victorian MAN and while F.H.B. endowed him with some positive qualities, she kept wavering between respect and mild contempt where he was concerned.
She kept dropping positive statements about him in one moment just to counteract it in the next.
Lord Walderhurst reminded me quite a lot of Sir Thomas Bertram in [b:Mansfield Park|45032|Mansfield Park|Jane Austen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1397063295l/45032._SY75_.jpg|2722329] by [a:Jane Austen|1265|Jane Austen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1588941810p2/1265.jpg]. Stiff, patriarchal, dignified, self-absorbed, but intelligent with an inherent moral code and decency. I felt rather sorry for him for the way his author treated him & to me he appeared a positive character despite F.H.B.'s attempts to belittle him.
For example it is clear to him almost from the start that Lady Maria uses Emily for her own purposes unashamedly & tells her so.
“He is an interesting creature, to my mind,” she said. “I have always rather liked him. He has original ideas, though he is not in the least brilliant. I believe he talks more freely to me, on the whole, than to most people, though I can’t say he has a particularly good opinion of me. He stuck his glass in his eye and stared at me last night, in that weird way of his, and said to me, ‘Maria, in an ingenuous fashion of your own, you are the most abominably selfish woman I ever beheld.’
After the fete, it is him that makes Lady M's guests and the whole village to acknowledge Emily's work.
"Lord Walderhurst stood near Lady Maria and looked pleased also. Emily saw him speak to her ladyship and saw Lady Maria smile. Then he stepped forward, with his noncommittal air and his monocle glaring calmly in his eye. “Boys and girls,” he said in a clear, far-reaching voice, “I want you to give three of the biggest cheers you are capable of for the lady who has worked to make your treat the success it has been. Her ladyship tells me she has never had such a treat before. Three cheers for Miss Fox-Seton.”
However, despite the constantly implied criticism of Lord W, F.H.B. manages the development of their relationship and their marriage rather beautifully and elegantly and reaches a kind of balance in the very touching end which I hope made her as happy as her characters!
Concerning the Gothic element in the the 2nd part of the story, suffice to say that Catherine Moreland and Isabella Thorpe from [b:Northanger Abbey|15994531|Northanger Abbey|Jane Austen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546419887l/15994531._SY75_.jpg|4039699] would have enjoyed it, though probably would not have found it horrid enough.
********************************
I have been contemplating for some time the rating for this book. I was wavering between 3 and 4 stars, but in the end I decided on 4 because my enjoyment of the book actually far outweighs my original bewilderment about the curious way [a:Frances Hodgson Burnett|2041|Frances Hodgson Burnett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1197934848p2/2041.jpg] mixed her genres.
The plot is a crossover between a comedy of manners along the lines of a rags-to-riches story with a clear criticism of Victorian society and a Gothic novel (though with certainly less melodrama). However while the plot appeared shaky sometimes, the characterisation is excellent and succinct and that carries the day for me in any book.
The main character of the novel is Emily Fox-Seton, an impoverished lady of impeccable character, birth, manners and a universal goodwill towards mankind. She is a 34-year-old spinster, has hardly anything to live on, dwells in a boarding house (though thankfully with an incredibly kind landlady and her daughter) and tries to make ends meet by acting as a kind of secretary-cum-lady-in-waiting for rich, aristocratic ladies. She is kind and humble and happy in her own way (apart from the existential anxiety) and translates the high ladies' condescension and patronage as kindness towards herself. She also lacks the finesse and ruthlessness that drive many/most of her contemporaries and her "survival" under such social and pecuniary circumstances seems doubtful, to say the least.
One of her patronesses, the Lady Maria Bayne is a selfish, but wickedly witty and entertaining old lady.
"Lady Maria Bayne was the cleverest, sharpest-tongued, smartest old woman in London. She knew everybody and had done everything in her youth, a good many things not considered highly proper. A certain royal duke had been much pleased with her and people had said some very nasty things about it. But this had not hurt Lady Maria. She knew how to say nasty things herself, and as she said them wittily they were usually listened to and repeated."
Lady M invites Emily to her estate for a week and charges her to help with the arrangements of parties, dinners and the village fete. Emily is happy to comply with her wishes, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she has to do everything.
The "pinnacle" of the present party is the presence of Lady Maria's nephew, the elderly, widowed & rich Marquis, Lord Walderhurst, who has matrimonial plans and may choose a bride among the lady guests.
"Walderhurst is coming to me. It always amuses me to have Walderhurst. The moment a man like that comes into a room the women begin to frisk about and swim and languish, except those who try to get up interesting conversations they think likely to attract his attention. They all think it is possible that he may marry them. If he were a Mormon he might have marchionesses of Walderhurst of all shapes and sizes.”
And the million-dollar question is of course: WHOM WILL HE CHOOSE AS HIS MARCHIONESS?
There are 3 likely candidates, summed up by Lady M with perfect insight and precision:
1) Mrs Ralph, a clever authoress:
“Mrs. Ralph is the kind of woman who means business. She’ll corner Walderhurst and talk literature and roll her eyes at him until he hates her. These writing women, who are intensely pleased with themselves, if they have some good looks into the bargain, believe themselves capable of marrying any one. Mrs. Ralph has fine eyes and rolls them. Walderhurst won’t be ogled."
2) Miss Cora Brooke, an American heiress
"The Brooke girl is sharper than Ralph. She was very sharp this afternoon. She began at once.” “I—I didn’t see her”—wondering. “Yes, you did; but you didn’t understand. The tennis, and the laughing with young Heriot on the terrace! She is going to be the piquant young woman who aggravates by indifference, and disdains rank and splendour; the kind of girl who has her innings in novelettes—but not out of them."
3) Lady Agatha Slade, a society beauty
"Now there is Agatha Slade, poor girl! She’s of a kind I know by heart. With birth and beauty, she is perfectly helpless. Her people are poor enough to be entitled to aid from the Charity Organisation, and they have had the indecency to present themselves with six daughters—six! All with delicate skins and delicate little noses and heavenly eyes. Most men can’t afford them, and they can’t afford most men."
Under the pretext of this seemingly lighthearted situation, we are dealt some harsh truths about the helplessness of women who are exposed either socially or financially or both.
It is disheartening to learn that Agatha is not only pressured by society, but by her mother and by her younger sisters as well to find a husband or leave the social scene so that she can make way for them.
Also Emily's bleak situation, despite her infinite goodness, is staring at us in the face rather nastily. The author disguises it under the veil of some flippant and funny remarks, but it is clear that she intended this veil to be very transparent.
The girl had received a long, anxious letter from her mother, in which much was said of the importance of an early preparation for the presentation of Alix, who had really been kept back a year, and was in fact nearer twenty than nineteen. “If we were not in Debrett and Burke, one might be reserved about such matters,” poor Lady Claraway wrote; “but what is one to do when all the world can buy one’s daughters’ ages at the booksellers’?”
"They had both had hard lives, and knew what lay before them. Agatha knew she must make a marriage or fade out of existence in prosaic and narrowed dulness. Emily knew that there was no prospect for her of desirable marriage at all. She was too poor, too entirely unsupported by social surroundings, and not sufficiently radiant to catch the roving eye."
*SPOILER WARNING* from here on, I will more explicitly discuss characters and for that the plot must be more or less revealed.
Of course, there are some implications that none of the 3 candidates will succeed in their attempts to catch His Lordship and F.H.B. rather nicely and credibly develops the relationship between Emily and James in the background. Neither of them are young, but the feelings they have for each other are solid, realistic & convincing and in a way they touched me deeper than any passion & romance could have done.
“I am not a marrying man,” said his lordship, “but I must marry, and I like you better than any woman I have ever known. I do not generally like women. I am a selfish man, and I want an unselfish woman. Most women are as selfish as I am myself. I used to like you when I heard Maria speak of you. I have watched you and thought of you ever since I came here. You are necessary to every one, and you are so modest that you know nothing about it."
“I want a companion.” “But I am so far from clever,” faltered Emily. The marquis turned in his driving-seat to look at her. It was really a very nice look he gave her. It made Emily’s cheeks grow pink and her simple heart beat. “You are the woman I want,” he said. “You make me feel quite sentimental.”
It started actually with Lord Walderhurst's ambiguous characterisation when I had the feeling that something was a bit off-kilter. I found the author's treatment of the marquis somewhat off-putting. It was like she could not make up her mind about him. (Considering that by the time she was writing this novel, her 2nd marriage was dissolving, perhaps this is no great wonder)
In one way he represents the ultimate upper-class Victorian MAN and while F.H.B. endowed him with some positive qualities, she kept wavering between respect and mild contempt where he was concerned.
She kept dropping positive statements about him in one moment just to counteract it in the next.
Lord Walderhurst reminded me quite a lot of Sir Thomas Bertram in [b:Mansfield Park|45032|Mansfield Park|Jane Austen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1397063295l/45032._SY75_.jpg|2722329] by [a:Jane Austen|1265|Jane Austen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1588941810p2/1265.jpg]. Stiff, patriarchal, dignified, self-absorbed, but intelligent with an inherent moral code and decency. I felt rather sorry for him for the way his author treated him & to me he appeared a positive character despite F.H.B.'s attempts to belittle him.
For example it is clear to him almost from the start that Lady Maria uses Emily for her own purposes unashamedly & tells her so.
“He is an interesting creature, to my mind,” she said. “I have always rather liked him. He has original ideas, though he is not in the least brilliant. I believe he talks more freely to me, on the whole, than to most people, though I can’t say he has a particularly good opinion of me. He stuck his glass in his eye and stared at me last night, in that weird way of his, and said to me, ‘Maria, in an ingenuous fashion of your own, you are the most abominably selfish woman I ever beheld.’
After the fete, it is him that makes Lady M's guests and the whole village to acknowledge Emily's work.
"Lord Walderhurst stood near Lady Maria and looked pleased also. Emily saw him speak to her ladyship and saw Lady Maria smile. Then he stepped forward, with his noncommittal air and his monocle glaring calmly in his eye. “Boys and girls,” he said in a clear, far-reaching voice, “I want you to give three of the biggest cheers you are capable of for the lady who has worked to make your treat the success it has been. Her ladyship tells me she has never had such a treat before. Three cheers for Miss Fox-Seton.”
However, despite the constantly implied criticism of Lord W, F.H.B. manages the development of their relationship and their marriage rather beautifully and elegantly and reaches a kind of balance in the very touching end which I hope made her as happy as her characters!
Concerning the Gothic element in the the 2nd part of the story, suffice to say that Catherine Moreland and Isabella Thorpe from [b:Northanger Abbey|15994531|Northanger Abbey|Jane Austen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546419887l/15994531._SY75_.jpg|4039699] would have enjoyed it, though probably would not have found it horrid enough.