Source of book: I own this
I actually finished reading this book a few months ago, but put off writing about it. This is the latest in a series of books I have read with a couple of long-distance friends. One was in their last semester of a degree, and got buried, so the book had to wait. It was their first experience of Trollope, which is always fun.
Rachel Ray should not be confused with Rachael Ray, the celebrity chef (whose simple but tasty recipes have been part of our family’s diet since we had lots of small kids and too little sleep.)
No, Rachel Ray in this case is the protagonist of this relatively short domestic drama by the master of Victorian gentle satire, Anthony Trollope. As regular readers know, he is one of my favorite authors. See the bottom of this post for the full list of posts about his books.
Rachel is the younger daughter of a now-deceased lawyer and a widow mother. The older daughter, Dorothea Prime, is also a widow - and rather happy to be, even if she won’t admit it. She still wears her weeds years later, and devotes herself to meddling in the affairs of others as a good, officious Evangelical should. (Trollope was high church, and skeptical of low church sorts.)
The three of them live together in a modest cottage, with a modest income. All of this is disturbed, however, when there is a visitor to the quiet village.
The old brewery - which is renowned for making really terrible beer that none of the locals drink - has been run by old Mr. Tappitt, after the death of his partner. However, the heir of that other half interest has come of age, and is eager to assert his rights as an equal partner in the business, and raise its standards to that of good beer.
That Luke Rowan is also handsome and charming wins some of the villagers over, and alienates others.
The Tappitts…well, mostly Mrs. Tappitt…has dreams of one of the young Tappitt daughters marrying Luke, thus keeping the business in the family, so to speak.
But Luke sets his sight on Rachel Ray.
The central drama of the book is whether Rachel and Luke will end up together. This being Trollope, the happy ending is not a foregone conclusion. Will the misunderstandings between the couple, and the prejudices of the families prevent the match? Or will love prevail?
There is also a fascinating sub-plot. Mrs. Prime is courted by Rev. Prong, an Evangelical minister very much of her religious beliefs. But there is a problem: Mrs. Prong has her own fortune, inherited from her late husband, and she has no intention of letting go of it. So she refuses to marry without a contract preserving her wealth. And Rev. Prong, who is probably sincere in saying he doesn’t want her money, finds the principle of this refusal to be a problem. Will she trust him with everything, or not? Is he the ruler of his wife, or not?
I won’t reveal the ending other than to say that both plots could easily have gone the other way, and the story still would have felt concluded in accordance with the personalities and circumstances.
For Trollope, the plots are important, but not the most important thing. In many of the books, the ending is telegraphed from nearly the beginning. What matters is the way each of the characters respond to circumstances and to each other.
In this book, what goes on in Rachel’s head is the most important. But Trollope also examines the thoughts and feelings of Mrs. Ray, Mrs. Prime, Luke, and various members of the Tappitt family.
As might be expected from Trollope, it is all complicated and messy. Because humans are. This is why I love reading Trollope so much. Even the purest of heroines have internal struggles and mixed motives and often ambivalence. Even the worst of villains have interior lives that belie their horrid actions.
In the case of Rachel, she is torn between loyalties. She wishes to make her mother happy, and not disturb the family dynamics. But she also is developing loyalty to Luke. She wants to be as good as she can be, but also resents that her motives are impugned by those who have no idea either who she is as a person, or what Luke’s intentions are toward her.
And so it goes for all the characters. Nobody has perfect knowledge, and armed only with the imperfect and partial comprehension of the facts, everyone makes errors in judgment and takes actions that make things worse. And the social conventions of Victorian small-town England do not help clarify communication. At all.
Looking back, I wrote down a lot of quotes. I’ll do my best to feature the finest, but there will of necessity be spoilers. So if you really want to read it first, come on back later.
I’ll start with the opening, which is some of Trollope’s finest writing.
There are women who cannot grow alone as standard trees; - for whom the support and warmth of some wall, some paling, some post, is absolutely necessary; - who, in their growth, will blend and incline themselves towards some such prop for their life, creeping with their tendrils along the ground till they reach it when the circumstances of life have brought no such prop within their natural and immediate reach. Of most women it may be said that it would be well for them that they should marry, - as indeed of most men also, seeing that man and wife will led the other strength, and yet in lending lose none; but to the women of whom I now speak some kind of marriage is always indispensable, and by them some kind of marriage is always made, though the union is often unnatural. A woman in want of a wall against which to nail herself will swear conjugal obedience sometimes to her cook, sometimes to her grandchild, sometimes to her lawyer. Any standing corner, post, or stump strong enough to bear her weight will suffice; but to some standing corner, post, or stump, she will find her way and attach herself, and there she will be married.
This is the description of Mrs. Ray, and she is very much of this sort. After her husband’s death, she gloms on to her eldest daughter, in a rather unhealthy way. (And hey! There is a similar dynamic in my birth family…)
The description of Luke is also interesting.
He was a young man, by no means of a bad sort, meaning to do well, with high hopes in life, one who had never wronged a woman, or been untrue to a friend, full of energy and hope and pride. But he was conceited, prone to sarcasm, sometimes cynical, and perhaps sometimes affected. It may be that he was not altogether devoid of that Byronic weakness which was so much more prevalent among young men twenty years since than it is now. His two trades had been those of an attorney and a brewer, and yet he dabbled in romance, and probably wrote poetry in his bedroom. Nevertheless, there were worse young men about Baslehurst than Luke Rowan.
The Byronic sort who writes poetry in secret. That’s classic.
One of the idiosyncrasies of Mrs. Ray is her distrust of all young men. Which is kind of odd, considering she married, and her elder daughter married. But particularly when it comes to Rachel, all young men are suspect.
[S]he was filled full of indefinite horror with regard to young men in general. They were all regarded by her as wolves, - as wolves, either with or without sheep’s clothing. I doubt whether she ever brought it home to herself that those whom she now recognized as the established and well-credited lords of the creation had ever been young men themselves. When she heard of a wedding, - when she learned that some struggling son of Adam had taken to himself a wife, and had settled himself down to the sober work of the world, she rejoiced greatly, thinking that the son of Adam had done well to get himself married. But whenever it was whispered into her ear that any young man was looking after a young woman, - a wife for himself, - she was instantly shocked at the wickedness of the world, and prayed inwardly that the girl at least might be saved like a brand from the burning.
So when Rachel and Luke linger on the path to talk, well, Mrs. Ray and Mrs. Prime are all condemnation. Even worse, Rachel, as she grows up, has started to decline to attend the Dorcas meetings her sister runs.
How was her sister to enforce her attendance? Obedience in this world depends as frequently on the weakness of him who is governed as on the strength of him who governs.
A truth to keep in mind in our own era. Rachel simply refuses to be bullied. Central to the conflict in the Ray family is Rachel’s determination that she will not be ruled by her sister. As one who has been expected to obey my younger sister - even more that my wife should obey my younger sister - I very much feel Rachel’s frustration throughout the book.
“It is this, mamma. Dolly and I do not agree about these things, and I don’t intend to let her manage me just in the way she thinks right.”
Rev. Comfort, who is Evangelical, but not that Evangelical (if that make sense) has been Mrs. Ray’s clergyman for some time. Throughout the book, he is mostly the voice of reason, although he also is a bit clueless about what is going on outside of his immediate view, which causes its own problems.
There is a fun line where his personal feelings are a bit complex. He probably doesn’t even realize that he resents Mrs. Prime switching churches, but he does think she has become too judgmental.
But Mr. Comfort, in what he had said on this part of the subject, had shown no consideration whatever for Mrs. Prime. “Then she’ll behave very wickedly,” he had said. “But I’m afraid Mrs. Prime has learned to think too much of her own opinion lately. If that’s what she has got by going to Mr. Prong she had better have remained in her own parish.”
Mrs. Ray is left reeling after Mr. Comfort says outright that perhaps Rachel should be allowed to see Luke. It goes against all her prejudices against young men.
Mrs. Prime, for her matter, has become one of that certain sort of religious fanatics who obtain great pleasure from self-denial.
Nice things aggravated her spirits and made her fretful. She liked the tea to be stringy and bitter, and she liked the bread to be stale; - as she preferred also that her weeds should be battered and old. She was approaching that stage of discipline at which ashes become pleasant eating, and sackcloth is grateful to the skin. The self-indulgences of the saints in this respect often exceed anything that is done by the sinners.
Mrs. Cornbury (who is Rev. Comfort’s daughter), takes Rachel under her wing, and takes her to the ball at the Tappitt residence, where she spends time with Luke. Mrs. Cornbury is one of the finest characters in the book - and definitely the smartest. She of all the characters most understands what happens, and indeed does her utmost to see that Rachel is successful. Including fending off unsuitable young men who wished to monopolize Rachel’s attention.
“Of course I spoke to him. I was there to fight your battles for you. That’s why married ladies go to balls.”
At his best, Trollope can be wicked funny. This scene between Mrs. Prime and Mr. Prong is a great example. He has just proposed to her - in fairly business-like terms, not unlike Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice, and she is unsure what she wants to do.
“I can never make my work equal to that of a minister of the Gospel,” said she.
“But you can share the work of such a minister. You understand me now. And let me assure you of this; that in making this proposition to you, I am not self-seeking. It is not my own worldly comfort and happiness to which I am chiefly looking.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Prime, “I suppose not.” Perhaps there was in her voice the slightest touch of soreness.
“No; - not chiefly to that. I want assistance, confidential intercourse, sympathy, a congenial mind, support when I am like to faint, counsel when I am pressing on, aid when the toil is too heavy for me, a kind word when the day’s work is over. And you, - do you not desire the same? Are we not alike in that, and would it not be well that we should come together?”
What woman could possibly resist such a proposal? And it continues, not getting any better.
Mr. Prong in all that he was saying intended to be honest, and in asserting that money was dross, he believed that he spoke his true mind. He thought also that he was passing a just eulogium on Mrs. Prime, in declaring that she was of the same opinion. But he was not quite correct in this, either as regarded himself, or as regarded her. He did not covet money, but he valued it very highly; and as for Mrs. Prime, she had an almost unbounded satisfaction in her own independence. She had, after all, but two hundred a year, out of which she gave very much in charity. But this giving in charity was her luxury. Fine raiment and dainty food tempted her not at all; but nevertheless she was not free from temptations, and did not perhaps always resist them. To be mistress of her money, and to superintend the gifts, not only of her self but of others; to be great among the poor, and esteemed as a personage in her district, - that was her ambition. When Mr. Prong told her that money in her sight was dross, she merely shook her head.
Trollope notes Mrs. Prime’s hypocrisy in meeting with Mr. Prong while condemning Rachel for meeting Luke.
How fearfully wicked would Rachel have been in her eyes, had Rachel made an appointment with a young man at some hour and some place in which she might be found alone! But then it is so easy to trust oneself, and so easy also to distrust others.
Also in for satire is Mr. Tappitt, who rather prefers to do things the way he has always done them. He has zero interest in modernizing the brewery the way Luke proposes.
“I’ll tell you what it is, Rowan. I don’t like these new-fangled ways. They’re very well for you, I dare say. You are young, and perhaps you may see your way. I’m old, and I don’t see mine among all these changes. It’s clear to me that you and I could not go on together as partners in the same concern. I should expect to have my own way, - first because I’ve a good deal of experience, and next because my share in the concern would be so much the greatest.”
Tappitt is dead wrong, of course. They are equal shares, and Mr. Tappitt’s protest that his age and marital status should make him greater are not backed up by the law. But this is also the way of so many older people, who assume that the world should be rearranged for their comfort rather than having to adapt to changes. No matter how the rest of the story ends, it will not end pleasantly for the Tappitts of the world.
There is another hilarious conversation involving a visit by Luke to the cottage. Mrs. Ray asks about Mr. Tappitt, who Luke explains is a bit indisposed after the ball.
“Is he ill?” asked Mrs. Ray.
Well, no; not ill, I think, but I fancy that the party put him out a little. Middle-aged gentlemen don’t like to have all their things poked away anywhere. Ladies don’t mind it, I fancy.”
“Ladies know where to find them, as it is they who do the poking away,” said Rachel.
Yeah, that’s a pretty good jab at the guys by Rachel, who is by this point in the story, starting to assert herself regularly.
The course of love never ran smooth, however, and misunderstandings arise. One of the problems is the question of acceptance by their respective families. Technically, Rachel is a peer with Luke, but financially they are worlds apart. Luke is prepared to ignore any hostility, but Rachel knows it isn’t that easy for a woman.
This was all very grand and masterful on Rowan’s part, and might in theory be true; but there was that in it which made Rachel uneasy, and gave to her love its first shade of trouble. She could not be quite happy as Luke’s promised bride, if she knew that she would not be welcomed to that place by Luke’s mother.
I know from bitter experience just how horrid a mother can be to one’s chosen bride, and Rachel is wise to worry. In my case, it did eventually come down to choosing my wife over my mother. Ignoring things was never going to be an option.
The visit of Luke’s mother to the cottage doesn’t go particularly well, and Luke’s letter to Rachel doesn’t assuage his fears. (In no small part because Luke decides that he needs to settle some things about the brewery before returning to town - Mr. Tappitt is furious at him for refusing to go away, so he has to resolve that issue before he feels he can wholeheartedly pursue Rachel. Also, he isn’t a good mushy letter writer, alas.)
You must tell me exactly what my mother has been doing and saying at the cottage. I cannot quite make it out from what she says, but I fear that she has been interfering where she had no business, and making a goose of herself. She has got an idea into her head that I ought to make a good bargain in matrimony, and sell myself at the highest price going in the market; - that I ought to get money, or if not money, family connection. I’m very fond of money, - as is everybody, only people are such liars, but then I like it to be my own; and as to what people call connection, I have no words to tell you how I despise it. If I know myself I should never have chosen a woman as my companion for life who was not a lady; but I have not the remotest wish to become second cousin by marriage to a baronet’s grandmother.
I mean, that’s pretty funny, but not the way to woo an insecure young woman.
The fallout around town is significant too. Mrs. Tappitt in particular takes things ill.
It must not be supposed that Mrs. Tappitt’s single grievance was her disappointment as regarded Augusta. Had there been no Augusta on whose behalf a hope had been possible, the predilection of the young moneyed stranger for such a girl as Rachel Ray would have been a grievance to such a woman as Mrs. Tappitt. Had she not been looking down on Rachel Ray and despising her for the last ten years? Had she not been wondering among her friends, with charitable volubility, as to what that poor woman at Bragg’s End was to do with her daughter? Had she not been regretting that the young girl should be growing up so big, and promising to look so coarse? Was it not natural that she should be miserable when she saw her taken in hand by Mrs. Butler Cornbury, and made the heroine at her own party, to the detriment of her own daughters, by the fashionable lady in catching whom she had displayed so much unfortunate ingenuity? Under such circumstances how could she do other than hate Luke Rowan, - than believe him to be the very Mischief, - than prophesying all manner of bad things for Rachel, - and assist her husband tooth and nail in his animosity against the sinner?
But it is the fallout in the Ray household that is the most harrowing for Rachel. Mrs. Prime moves out in protest at Rachel’s supposed low morals in seeing her beau. And Mrs. Ray seems to expect Rachel to give him up.
She had her rights; and though she did not presume that she could insist on them in opposition to her mother or her mother’s advisers, she knew that she would be wronged if those rights were withheld from her. The chief of those rights was the possession of her lover.
This too rings all to true for me. I am embarrassed to say that at one point I offered to give up my now-wife if my parents demanded it. If I could have a mulligan, it would have been to turn that particular incident from the moment of weakness into a warning shot. At least, after we married, and the underlying issues came up again, I unequivocally took my wife’s side, something neither my mother nor my sister has ever forgiven me for.
I also have to mention the lawyer stuff. Trollope’s father was a lousy lawyer, who struggled to make enough money to live on - his wife literally supported the family with her writing. Trollope is no real fan of lawyers, therefore, but also had the knowledge necessary to get the legal details right in his books.
One of the fascinating passages is all about the legal battle between Rowan and Tappitt. Luke essentially gives Tappitt a choice. He can (1) agree to be equal partners with Luke, which will include letting Luke improve the brewery (2) agree to be cashed out through lifetime payments of a thousand pounds a year (a heck-ton of money!) or (3) cash Luke out, with Luke setting up his own brewery in competition.
Tappitt is an idiot, though, and instead of taking his lawyer’s advice, gets all huffy at the lawyer for not being “aggressive” enough. The part that Trollope gets oh so right is this:
Had Honeyman clapped him on the shoulder and bade him put ready money in his purse, telling him that all would come out right eventually, and that Rowan would be crushed, he would have gone about Baslehurst boasting loudly, and would have been happy. Then Mrs. T. and the girls would have had a merry time of it; and the Tappitts would have come out of the contest with four or five hundred a year for life instead of the thousand now offered to them, and nobody would have blamed anybody for such a result.
I have seen this so often in family law cases. A wise attorney - and a wise client - seek the best deal with the least drama. Those who wave their swords around foolishly tend to come out worse in the end. But few clients are wise.
The town talks, though, and it comes back to Mr. Tappitt.
“If a man will go on with a lawsuit when his own lawyer says he oughtn’t, what else can come to him but ruin?”
Seems there is something in the Bible to that effect too…
Eventually, as the facts reveal themselves, the characters find themselves and their relationships to each other changing. One of the most fascinating is the eventual break between Mrs. Ray and her older daughter. And it comes, of course, over the question of Rachel and Luke.
Mrs. Ray protested that Rachel had been right throughout, and that she herself had been wrong only when she had opposed Rachel’s wishes. Such a view of the matter was altogether at variance with that entertained by Mrs. Prime, who was still of opinion that young people shouldn’t be allowed to please themselves, and who feared the approach of any lover who came with lute in hand, and with light, soft, loving, worldly words. Men and women, according to her theory, were right to marry and have children; but she thought that such marriages should be contracted not only in a solemn spirit, but with a certain dinginess of solemnity, with a painstaking absence of mirth, that would divest love of its worldly alloy.
As Mrs. Ray comes around, she still takes time to understand her role in this. Rachel points this out.
“You’ve no right even to be angry with him, because it was we who told him that there was to be no engagement, - after I had promised him.”
A third plot thread in the book is the local election, which involves (gasp!) a Jewish candidate. While Trollope himself seems fairly sympathetic in theory toward Jewish people, when writing about small-town England, he is frank about the prejudices and outright hatred directed at Jews. This, notwithstanding Benjamin Disraeli’s ascent to the highest office in the land. I wanted to mention this in connection with a fascinating line, which again shows Trollope’s perception of human social behavior.
For a true spirit of persecution one should always go to a woman; and the milder, the sweeter, the more loving, the more womanly the woman, the stronger will be that spirit within her. Strong love for the thing loved necessitates strong hatred for the thing hated, and thus comes the spirit of persecution. They in England who are now keenest against the Jews, who would again take from them rights that they have lately won, are certainly those who think most of the faith of a Christian.
Substitute groups here and you have modern American society.
Mrs. Tappitt again makes an odious appearance near the end, after the sale of the brewery to Luke has been concluded.
When Mrs. Tappitt had settled within her own mind that the brewery should be abandoned to Rowan, she was by no means, therefore, ready to assent that Rachel Ray should become the mistress of the brewery house. “Never,” she had exclaimed when Cherry had suggested such a result; “never!” And Augusta had echoed the protestation, “Never, never!” I will not say that she would have allowed her husband to remain in his business in order that she might thus exclude Rachel from such promotion, but she could not bring herself to believe that Luke Rowan would be so fatuous, so ignorant of his own interests, so deluded, as to marry that girl from Bragg’s End! It is thus that the Mrs. Tappitts of the world regard other women’s daughters when they have undergone any disappointment as to their own.
I do feel a bit bad for Mr. Tappitt, though, even though he brings about his own pain. Retirement is a sad, hard thing for many of us - which is why many lawyers do the “old generals” thing and fade away rather than retire.
In the mean time Tappitt sat sullen and wretched in the counting-house. Such moments occur in the lives of most of us, - moments in which the real work of life is brought to an end, - and they cannot but be sad. It is very well to talk of ease and dignity; but ease of spirit comes from action only, and the world’s dignity is given to those who do the world’s work.
That’s really profound. And, as Trollope further perceives, retirement changes the dynamics of a marriage. (Something I have seen in my own parents, for sure.)
We may as well declare at once that the days of Tappitt’s domestic dominion were over, as is generally the case with a man who retires from work and allows himself to be placed, as a piece of venerable furniture, in the chimney corner.
But yet there is more to be wrapped up. Will Rachel and Luke reconcile? Can they get beyond the distrust that Luke had honest intentions?
In that had been the offense. They had doubted his stability, and, beyond that, had almost doubted his honesty. He would punish them by taking them at their word till both should be put beyond all question. He knew well that the punishment would fall on Rachel, whereas none of the sin would have been Rachel’s sin; but he would not allow himself to be deterred by that consideration.
But, Luke is determined to see her again, and see if she really is as distrusting as those who she was not yet strong enough to defy. He is, as at the beginning, seen by the poisonous spinster, Miss Pucker, who tries to tell herself that Luke is again toying with Rachel.
Though she declared, with well-pronounced mental words, that Luke Rowan was going on that path for no good purpose, she felt a wretched conviction at her heart’s core that Rachel Ray would be made to triumph over her and her early suspicions by a happy marriage.
Also triumphed over is Mrs. Prime, whose supposed moral code falls before true love. At the end, she is the odd woman out as Rachel and her mother discuss the future.
But by degrees the delay became so long that she was tantalized into surmises as to the subject of their conversation. If it were not wicked, why should she not have been allowed to share it? She did not imagine it to be wicked according to the world’s ordinary wickedness; - but she feared that it was wicked according to that tone of morals to which she was desirous of tying her mother down as a bond slave. The were away talking about love and pleasure, and those heart-throbbings in which her sister had so unfortunately been allowed to indulge.
…
She would have been quite willing to see her sister married, but the lover should have been dingy, black-coated, lugubrious, having about him some true essence of the tears of the valley of tribulation. Alas, her sister’s taste was quite of another kind!
In both of the above, I see some of my own life. For whatever reasons (I can speculate), my mother too had very detailed and specific plans for how my marriage would go down. And it certainly did NOT involve my finding someone like the person I did marry. She was altogether unsuitable - not the dingy, black coated sort at all.
It is immensely satisfying at the end of the book to see Rachel truly come into her adulthood and stand up to her mother and sister. Here is another great exchange, when they talk about Dorothea, who has, as shown above, responded extremely ill.
“When she first heard of him she was taught to believe that he was giddy, and that he didn’t mean anything.”
“Why should she think evil of people? Who taught her?”
“Miss Pucker, and Mr. Prong, and that set.”
“Yes; and they are the people who talk most of Christian charity!”
And later:
“What makes me so angry is that she should think everybody is a fool except herself.”
I’ll end with yet another satirical scene, involving the mothers of Luke and Rachel. As well as Dorothea and Rachel herself.
“My own dear child!” said Mrs. Rowan again; “for you know that you are to be my child now as well as your own mamma’s”
“It is very kind of you to say so,” said Mrs. Ray.
“Very kind indeed,” said Mrs. Prime; “and I’m sure that you will find Rachel dutiful as a daughter.” Rachel herself did not feel disposed to give any positive assurance on that point. She intended to be dutiful to her husband, and was inclined to think that obedience in that direction was quite enough for a married woman.
You think?
Rachel Ray is a pretty decent introduction to Trollope, in my opinion. It isn’t the commitment of one of his really lengthy books, and it isn’t part of one of his epic series. But you should read the longer ones too, of course.
***
The Trollope list. I have read more than these, of course, but these are the ones I have written about.
And also, the excellent series based on The Warden and Barchester Towers:
No comments:
Post a Comment