Victorians! discussion

Shall I tell you what a lady is? A lady is a woman who wears a silk gown, and has a sense of her own importance.

Magdalen prepares to play yet another part.

Now she's lowering herself to play a servant! Holy Hannah, the plot thickens, and the coincidences continue.

All I can say is that Magdalen is some planner. She is so smart in what she has decided to do. I can't imagine the way her mind works, oftentimes devious but brillant.

She certainly is an competent adversary to Mrs. L. I can only wonder if Mrs. L. thinks she has washed her hands of Magdalen. I would not want with either of these women as an enemy.

So frustrating. I worry for Magdalen. And I do hope this book ends happily. It's just one wrong turn after another, it seems.

I think that is what makes this book such a page turner. We never really get comfortable do we?

Yeah, I think the downward spiral here is supposed to be pretty transparent. In the forward, the author warns us that Magdalen is a tragic character—and since she is named after the Bible's original fallen woman, I think we know she is on the descent. Magdalen starts out as a lady, moves down to a woman with a disreputable profession, then down to a swindler on the same level with Cpt. Wragge (who I can't help but love), and then into a swindler impersonating the lower class. Couple that with the fact the Magdalen is pretty much wasting away with worry and deceit, and she is literally erasing her former (honorable) self from the story.

She's got that kind of all-consuming monomania that sent Captain Ahab to his death in Moby Dick (not Victorian and not British...sorry). So, I worry for Miss Magdalen. Still, her Biblical namesake was saved and restored to a respectful position, so I say there is some hope for Miss Magdalen—after all, the Victorians love their deterministic character names.

Yes, you are right. And I needed that reminder about Magdalene's name. I'm very certain there was nothing coincidental or accidental about it. Very interesting.

And I love Captain Wragge, too. I love his wife as well and hope to see her again.

I did not connect with the name either, but absolutely that makes wonderful sense, Julia.

V.r. wrote: "Yes, you are right. And I needed that reminder about Magdalene's name. I'm very certain there was nothing coincidental or accidental about it. Very interesting.

And I love Captain Wragge, too. I l..."

When the characters are first introduced it is pointed out the Magdalen has a strange name, as well as unusual looks, which I think are meant as a bit of foreshadow to her nature, and meant to point out that indeed her name is going to bare significance upon her character.

And after the death of her parents there are references of her being "frightening" she makes Mr. Pendril uneasy, and Mrs. Garth even fears there may be something abnormal about her, the fact that she has something "evil" about her I think is suggested and foreshadowed at a few points in the story.

I cannot say that I truly worry about Magdalen because I find her far too fascinating, and I usually prefer the bad girls, though I do not necessarily want to see her come to a tragic end, I am not big on perfect, idealistic happy endings either.

One of the things which I did find interesting is the way in which the servants appear to be loyal to her, though it is mentioned that Noel was the one whom hired them, it seems Magdalen had won them over. As they all dislike Mrs. Lacount when she first appeared at the house, and than there is Louisa, who remains a friend and alley to her, and even helps her with her scheme.

I wonder if the opinion of the servants of her are not meant to indicate something about Magdalen's character and perhaps indicate the possibility of goodness which is still within her.

For some reason, I had interpreted the foreshadowing differently. I picked up on the name, but I thought her unusual looks were meant to imply one of her parents wasn't really her parent. So when I realised that wasn't the case, I sort of just laid my suspicions aside, and by that time Magdalen wasn't Mary Magdalene's namesake, she was just Magdalen. There were Magdalene societies at the time that dedicated themselves to the reformation of young women who had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. So I was applying a specific meaning to the name that proved not to exist. At least not for Magdalen herself. I suspect he might have been purposefully leading us astray, but who really knows? There is a special place in my heart for those Magdalen's and for Magdalene herself, so I'm reluctant to think it was evil and not immorality he meant us to associate with her name.

I think you are right about the servants. They all seem to have sided with her and I do indeed think that is a sign of her goodness, or what they perceives as that which is still there. I can't imagine she was happy being Noel's wife, but there is no indication she did anything to make him unhappy.

I do like happy endings. They do not need to be tidy. Like in Hardy, often the ending of the main plot isn't happy, but he at least (usually) gives you something to hope for. With certain authors you never know, and I hadn't read enough of Collins to know if he'd work it out in the end or not. But then there are books that seem to end well and are completely unsatisfying, like Vanity Fair. Or Great Expectations, which doesn't truly end at all.

V.r., I'd actually initially come to the same conclusion about Magdalen's looks when I first started reading it. I figured that maybe her parentage wasn't what we were told it was, but when it became clear that that wasn't a part of the plot, I promptly forgot about it until you mentioned it.

I don't have the text in front of me, so this is just guessing, but I assume that her outer appearance is supposed to hint at her inner constitution. She does have the sort of looks that set her apart—a little unfamiliar, a little otherworldly, robust, and certainly bold. She's different in body and mind; she's outside the norm in both her appearance and her actions.

At the least she makes a striking contrast to Noel Vanstone, who is stunted body and soul. Still, I'm not entirely sure why the book stresses that she doesn't look like her parents in the opening chapters. I'll have to look at the passage again.

V.r. wrote: "I can't imagine she was happy being Noel's wife, but there is no indication she did anything to make him unhappy.."

Perhaps we do not outwardly see her doing anything to make him unhappy, but in the opening of the first chapter of Scene Five, the picture created of him arriving at the breakfast table to find she had already eaten and left gives the appearance of him being rather unhappy.

He walked away to the window. The momentary irritation passed away from his face; but it left an expression there which remained—an expression of pining discontent. Personally, his marriage had altered him for the worse. His wizen little cheeks were beginning to shrink into hollows, his frail little figure had already contracted a slight stoop. The former delicacy of his complexion had gone—the sickly paleness of it was all that remained. His thin flaxen mustaches were no longer pragmatically waxed and twisted into a curl: their weak feathery ends hung meekly pendent over the querulous corners of his mouth. If the ten or twelve weeks since his marriage had been counted by his locks, they might have reckoned as ten or twelve years. He stood at the window mechanically picking leaves from a pot of heath placed in front of it, and drearily humming the forlorn fragment of a tune.

This does not seem to suggest she is doing much in the way of making him happy.

"Make the tea," he said. "I know nothing about it. I'm left here neglected. Nobody helps me."

The discreet Louisa silently and submissively obeyed.

"Did your mistress leave any message for me," he asked, "before she went away?"

"No message in particular, sir. My mistress only said she should be too late if she waited breakfast any longer."

"Did she say nothing else?"

"She told me at the carriage door, sir, that she would most likely be back in a week."

"Was she in good spirits at the carriage door?"

"No, sir. I thought my mistress seemed very anxious and uneasy. Is there anything more I can do, sir?"

"I don't know. Wait a minute."

He proceeded discontentedly with his breakfast. Louisa waited resignedly at the door.

"I think your mistress has been in bad spirits lately," he resumed, with a sudden outbreak of petulance.

"My mistress has not been very cheerful, sir."

"What do you mean by not very cheerful? Do you mean to prevaricate? Am I nobody in the house? Am I to be kept in the dark about everything? Is your mistress to go away on her own affairs, and leave me at home like a child—and am I not even to ask a question about her? Am I to be prevaricated with by a servant? I won't be prevaricated with! Not very cheerful? What do you mean by not very cheerful?"

"I only meant that my mistress was not in good spirits, sir."

"Why couldn't you say it, then? Don't you know the value of words? The most dreadful consequences sometimes happen from not knowing the value of words. Did your mistress tell you she was going to London?"

"Yes, sir."

"What did you think when your mistress told you she was going to London? Did you think it odd she was going without me?"

"I did not presume to think it odd, sir.—Is there anything more I can do for you, if you please, sir?"

At the very least, he feels as if he is left neglected by his wife, and certainly Magdalene choosing to just take off to London on her own accord, and clearly not communicating much about it with her husband or consulting with him about it, is not the action that a loving wife would take, and it seems to indicate he is not completely unaware that her treatment towards him shows some lack of affection upon her side.

I agree. Magdalen's object had been to marry Noel and, I assume, wait for him to die. I don't think she even bothered to playact the part of a loving wife. She was repulsed by Noel. I do find it interesting that the book skirts over the issue of whether or not the marriage was ever consummated. It's a very un-Victorian subject matter, I know, but there is not the slightest hint of intimacy between the husband and wife. And, Collins practically skims over the wedding itself, jumps over the first days of the marriage, and fast forwards until the two are pretty well established as husband and wife. I think it's a fascinating omission.