Commonplace 98 George & The Foolish Virgin PART TWO.
In the previous post, we left Rosamund skivvying for the Hallidays. She has offered to work for room and board alone, but the paragon of virtue that is Mrs Halliday insists on paying her £10 per annum. That's about 3/9d a week. That's about 17p in decimal currency. A Snickers bar costs about 60p. I know: it's only a story...
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| Illustration for the Kelmscott Press edition of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales by Edward Burne-Jones. 1896 |
Initially, Rosamund, The Foolish Virgin, thrives with this new regime of hard work and accomplishable, clearly-directed goals. George, her creator, gives her job satisfaction in these menial and trivial tasks - he doesn't expect much of any woman, intellectually (remember that remark he made about women being about as clever as the average male idiot? I know a fair amount of male idiots, and, boy, are they dumb!), so lead blacking and sweeping are about the right level for George's female creations. She has some social intercourse with the Hallidays, but this is introduced to give credence to the conversations between Rosamund and her employer, and to contrast the two women's personalities. Let's see what George says about Mrs H: ... Mrs Halliday had the mind and the temper which enable woman to front life as a rational combatant, instead of vegetating as a more or less destructive parasite. her voice declared her; it fell easily upon a soft, clear note; the kind of voice that expresses good humour and reasonableness, and many other admirable qualities; womanly, but with no suggestion of the female gamut; a voice that was never likely to test its compass in extremes.
We know this was meant as a parody of the Romantic Ballade very popular in Chaucer's time because of the reference to the fish stew - a pike in galantine. A galantine is usually made of boned flesh, then served up cold in a highly decorated way, a bit like a fancy cake. For your recipe click this fascinating site, where there is more galantine-related Chaucer facts. And click to learn more about the poem.
Both 'rational' and 'reasonable' are words George urged on Edith. He found her to be neither - which is rich coming from the man who regularly failed to be either. Now, we know George didn't have much respect for women in general, but... is he talking to Edith again here? When he uses the word 'temper', does he really means 'temperament' - is it another of his Freudian slips? We know he had less than zero regard for Edith by this time. Vegetating. Destructive. Parasite. Really. Mr Gissing. Tut-tut.
He goes on:
A woman of the ignorant class may keep house, and bring up a family, with her own hands; she has to deal only with the simplest demands of her life; her home is a shelter, her food is primitive, her children live or die according to the law of natural selection. Infinitely more complex, more trying, is the task of the educated wife and mother; if to conscientiousness be added enduring poverty, it means not seldom an early death. Edith, if she read this... No wonder she despised him - probably more than he despised her, and with better reason. Does he really believe this? And, if he does, what hope is there for him??
After a particularly trying time of it, Rosamund feels entitled to praise for what she has done - that she has a right to feel myself superior to the ordinary run of girls. She prises some sort of words of appreciation out of the condescending Mrs Halliday, then: Mrs Halliday declared that life had never been so easy for her as now; she knew the delight of rest in which there was no self-reproach. But, for sufficient reasons, she did not venture to express to Rosamund all the gratitude that was due.
One can only suppose that Mrs Halliday, like her creator, had a lack of people skills exacerbated by deficits in the empathy department. Now, if there's one thing I know about women, it's that we usually feel guilty for not slaving away at something. We find it difficult to do anything even faintly recreational or relaxing all the while there is ironing to be done, or beds to be made. Or men to be served. We would fully embrace the delight of rest in which there is no self-reproach - chance would be a fine thing!
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| From William Caxton's 2nd ed. Canterbury Tales 1483 click |
Rosamund, wanting someone to make her feel worthwhile, having had no response from a letter she wrote to Mr Hunt, decides to write to that cad, Mr Cheeseman, who dumped her for a widow woman and made her a laughing stock back in her lodging house. She tells him he should have begged her forgiveness for promising himself to someone else when she was supposed to be his girlfriend. It is a farce worthy of the stage - for Mr Hunt replies soon after she posts the letter (he has been away on business) but there are no words of affection in it - she was slaving to prove her worthiness to Hunt, and she expected him to acknowledge that, and praise her for her determination and self-sacrifice, and maybe make her an offer. Disappointed, Rosamund thinks this is the way her life will go - she will continue as she is, still trying to prove she is worthy. However, Cheeseman gets in touch, worms his way back in with her with guile and emotional blackmail (George's skill-set!). Then, she hears the Hunt is to be married (to a Canadian!) and poor Rosamund is set up for her Second Ritual Humiliation of the piece: when her holiday comes along, she takes herself off to London and fits herself up with a fab new wardrobe of clothes, and then trolls off to Kensington Gardens to meet up with Mr Cheeseman. They both think the other has changed for the better - he sweet talks her into giving him a second chance. George writes this revealing snippet about Cheeseman's tactics in winning her back by: talking of his faults, his virtues, his calamities, and his hopes, like the impulsive, but nerveless fellow that he was (I think here, 'nerveless' means audacious) - which is pretty much the approach George used on Gabrielle Fleury and Miss Collet, is it not?? Anyhoo: At length was uttered the question for which Rosamund had long ago prepared her reply. The widow has renounced her claim to Cheeseman. Poor Rosamund is a sitting duck.
Like a damsel wooed by her knight in shining armour, Rosamund is all aflutter and writes to the smug Hallidays to tend her notice and to tell them she is to be married. It's a nice, open letter, full of honest, girlish enthusiasm. Inwardly, she accepts Cheeseman is not quite the Sir Galahad of her dreams, but he would do if Mr Hunt was unavailable. She did not dislike him - no, she did not dislike him. He would be a very tractable husband. Compared, of course, with --- Isn't 'tractable' what George thought Edith was going to be - about the same time he said she would be acceptable if she lost her hideous London accent?? Of course, maybe this is what Edith thought about George, when he proposed. She did not dislike him... not then. He would give her plenty to dislike him for in the years to come.
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| Sir Galahad by Edward Burne-Jones 1858 |
You can see it coming, can't you? Cheeseman has already proved himself a bad lot - to Rosamund and to the widow woman, no doubt, so he's likely to do it for a third time, isn't he? And, as 3 Is A Magic Number click... here is Rosamund's Third Ritual Humiliation. Cheeseman writes to call it off.
Rosamund is forced to go back to the Hallidays, cap in hand, to ask for her old job back and to own her Foolishness by telling the whole damned sorry tale to her employer. George is very good at humiliating his characters, but this is him at his worst:
Halliday heard it from his wife, and shook a dreamy, compassionate head.
'For goodness' sake, urged the practical woman, 'don't let her think she's a martyr.'
'No, no; but the poor girl should have her taste of happiness.'
'Of course, I'm sorry for her, but there are plenty of people more to be pitied. Works she must, and there's only one kind of work she's fit for. It's no small thing to find your vocation - is it? Thousands of such women - all meant by nature to scrub and cook - live and die miserably because they think themselves too good for it.'
Never for a moment think that George was anything other than a misogynist.
So, if he didn't get his inspiration from the Biblical parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, and Fair Rosamund of the Pre-Raphaelites was not his muse - and, not withstanding the depths of his twisted mind - what was the source of his tale? Geoffrey Chaucer. As well as the Canterbury malarkey, Chaucer wrote a vast amount of poems and stories. One, is the likely model for George's piece, because it is a poem that mocks the very fallacy of the 'Fair Rosamund' of chivalric legend. Here is the translation into modern English.
Madame, you are of
all beauty the shrine
Within the circle of
the mappamund;
For as the crystal
glorious you shine,
And like ruby are
your cheeks round.
And therewith you’re
so merry and jocund
That at a revel when
I see you dance,
It is a salve for my
every wound,
Though you with me
suffer no dalliance.
For though I fill a
cask with tears of mine,
Yet that woe may my
heart not confound;
Your demi-voice
that so small you twine
Makes my thought with
joy and bliss abound.
So courteously I go
with love bound,
That to myself I say,
in penance,
It suffices me to
love you, Rosamund,
Though you with me
suffer no dalliance.
Never did pike so
wallow in galantine
As I in love do
wallow, and am wound,
For which full oft I
of myself divine
That I am truly
Tristan the second.
My love will not grow
cold or be unsound;
I burn with amorous
pleasure, at every chance.
Do what you will, I
will your thrall be found,
Though you with me
suffer no dalliance.
What are we left with? Is George's Foolish Virgin, like the Chaucer, an 'ironic' piece - irony being the description he gave to Gabrielle Fleury to explain his misogyny. Or, is it the unconscious out-pouring of his frustration with the bitterly regretted second marriage that has tipped him into this sort of anti-woman stance? George was always disdainful of women - maybe his father had this sort of suppressed, repressed attitude to his wife, George's mother, and passed on the trait. Throughout his life, George seems to have been angry at women, both real ones and the fictional sort - as soon as he hoists them onto a pedestal, he knocks them off it. Anger at them for being women, and not men; anger for them not sacrificing enough to him; anger that he is not their number one Little Man; anger at their having needs he can't fulfil; anger at them wanting more than he can give; anger at them not appreciating his moods, his obsessions, his demands. Anger at them not falling for his desperate, needy charm.
Remember, George was writing for The Yellow Book, and a mostly male readership expecting something 'out there' and macho. George was not expecting to be read by feminists and emancipators, so perhaps he is over-egging the pudding to impress the boys in the locker room. But, it is a nasty, cruel story, spiteful and unpleasant, and if he thought his fellow-men would agree with the sentiments he put forth, then he really did have a low opinion of the whole human race - not just women.
Was Rosamund Jewell 'foolish'? Is any woman, who puts her faith in a man?
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