by George Moore
‘Look at me here, look at me there,’
alternately with the Wesleyan hymns. Sometimes in her delirium she even fitted the words of one on to the tune of the other.
Still, Laura took no notice, and her pen continued to scratch, scratch, till it occurred to her that although Dick’s marriage had not been a psychological one, it might be as well that he should see his wife before she died; and having come to this conclusion suddenly, she put on her bonnet and left the house.
The landlady brought in the lamp, placing it on the table, out of sight of the dying woman’s eyes.
A dreadful paleness had changed even the yellow of her face to an ashen tint; her lips had disappeared, her eyes were dilated, and she tried to raise herself up in bed. Her withered arms were waved to and, fro, and in the red gloom shed from the ill-smelling paraffin lamp the large, dimly seen folds of the bedclothes were tossed to and fro by the convulsions that agitated the whole body. Another hour passed away, marked by the cavernous breathing of the woman as she crept to the edge of death. At last there came a sigh, deeper and more prolonged; and with it she died.
Soon after, before the corpse had grown cold, heavy steps were heard on the staircase, and Dick and Laura entered, one with a quantity of cockatoo-like flutterings, the other steadily, like a big and ponderous animal. At a glance they saw that all was over, and in silence they sat down, their hands resting on the table. The man spoke hesitatingly in awkward phrases of a happy release; the woman listened with a calm serenity that caused Dick to wonder. She would have liked to have said something concerning psychological marriages, but the appearance of the huge body beneath the bed-clothes restrained her: he wished to say something nice and kind, but Laura’s presence put everything out of his head, and so his ideas became more than ever broken and disjointed, his thoughts wandered, until at last, lifting his eyes from the manuscript on the table, he said:
‘Have you finished the second act, dear?’
THE END
A Drama in Muslin
Published as a single volume in 1886 by Vizetelly, Moore’s third novel addresses the decline of feudalism in Ireland and the rise of the modern, in both the peasant and tenant classes and the upper echelons of society. He focuses on the position of the “muslin martyrs”, the young women of quality in their delicate gowns, who attend the Castle Ball in Dublin each year, hoping in vain that one of the dwindling selection of eligible young men will court them. Moore came from a landed family in Ireland, so he had an insider’s view of their lifestyle, weaknesses and responsibilities. It has been suggested that Moore very loosely based the character of Harding, a free thinking novelist, on himself.
When a collected edition of his works was being prepared thirty years after this novel was written, Moore was reluctant to include this book. He did so only after revising it and reducing the title to Muslin, adding a self-indulgent, rambling and virtually incomprehensible preface in which he explains his reasons for doing so. However, Moore also comments that the original format of Drama in Muslin does not fit easily into the rest of his output and he has a point – this is more an archetypal Victorian novel than a heroic attempt to replicate the naturalism of the likes of Zola. Despite his reservations, he had originally marketed the first version with self funded newspaper advertisements stating that the novel “will depict with photographic realism THE TRUE CONDITION of IRELAND as IT IS NOW.” It would seem that the disputes with tenants in Ireland at this time are an aspect of the story that Moore personally experienced, as in 1880 he had had to leave Paris and return home, as the tenants on his family estate were refusing to pay their rents. A Drama in Muslin has been described as an Irish version of George Eliot’s Prufrock.
Alice Barton is a young woman born into the landed class in the West of Ireland. At the beginning of the story, she and four friends (Violet Scully, May Gould, Cecilia Cullen and Alice’s sister, Olive) return to their respective homes in Ireland from their convent based School of the Holy Child in England, to prepare for their “coming out” into polite society – an opportunity for young women to show themselves off to potential suitors at a series of social events at the Castle Season in Dublin. Alice is “a plain girl”, who to the despair of her seamstress, does not wear the current fashions well, but whose “clear grey eyes” and engaging personality go some way to make up for her other drawbacks. Violet is beautiful in an angelic, ethereal way and Olive too is beautiful. May is sensual and rather more earthy in her attractiveness. Cecilia is “the little cripple”, a young woman with a disability, whose marriage prospects are limited despite her title.
Unlike her pretty sister, Alice is apprehensive about her return home, wondering how on earth her less than beautiful appearance will attract a husband and also aware that her curious mind and keen intellect will not make up for her physical shortcomings when it comes to the marriage “market”. Whereas Olive sleeps well and without a care, Alice lies awake, worrying about her future. Naturally, their mother, the striking and socially adept Mrs Barton, is determined to find good matches for her daughters, asserting “a woman’s whole position depends upon it”; like it or not, their future is laid out before them (although Mrs Barton puts more effort into placing the lovely Olive with a man than she does the plain Alice). Finding a husband is not enough; it must be done quickly, whilst the girls are young and “new to the market” – any hint of impending spinsterhood is the death blow to their chances. and not even Alice wants to “dribble away” her life in “maiden idleness” as the Brennan sisters have been reduced to. Alice cannot bear the thought of being trapped in a vapid and to her, worthless existence and aspires to use her intellect in a meaningful way, perhaps in a career; she is not averse to marriage and indeed aspires to it, but is determined to hold out for a man she truly loves and who will be her soul mate.
Soon after their return, Alice, Olive and their mother must attend a social function and it is at this point that another major theme of the novel is introduced. Seated in their carriage and chatting about how much champagne it is ladylike to drink, the trio drive past several abjectly poor peasants, including a “bare-legged mother” and her “half-clad” children and the stark contrast between poverty and wealth in the Irish countryside is clear. Eligible upper class and titled men are at a premium due to the rise of the tenant landowner; the Conradh na Talún or Irish National Land League was campaigning to undermine the powers of the landlord and had links to the Home Rule movement; both are campaigns that had little to offer the upper classes in Ireland. As the story progresses, the various tensions and contrasts around Alice prompt her to reassess her attitudes towards her class and her position as a woman in society. What will become of her and how will her sisters and her friends fare in the marriage market?
This is a complex novel and difficult to summarise in a few paragraphs. The various themes – the upper class marriage market; the “excess” of spinsters that market left behind; the changes in land occupation in Ireland; the rise of resentment in the poor and the growth of the tenant class, are all represented here. One can also add the aspirations of women that want more than marriage and the contrast between the opportunities in different groups in society. Others have made much of the use of the passage of time in the narrative. The colour white is almost important enough in the narrative to be a character in its own right – it is used to represent chilly danger, the colourless nature of the life of a well born young woman and even the empty personality of Alice’s sister, Olive. Alice’s room is decorated throughout in white, to suggest not just the virginal, but blandness too. The girls attend a convent school, at which their education is designed to imbue them with a flawless, white character; this does not always work, as Alice is a proponent of Darwin’s “blasphemous” theories of evolution. Even the first scene in the book depicts the girls in their white graduation dresses, “like the snowy plumage of a hundred doves.”
It has been suggested by commentators that this novel depicts lesbian relationships amongs
t the young, single women of the landed families in the story. Certainly, Alice has a deep friendship with Lady Cecilia Cullen, a disabled girl whose devotion to her gives Alice genuine pleasure. However, Cecilia, the “little cripple”, fits a Victorian stereotype of the unmarriageable female who, in this case due to the “ugliness” created by her disability, will never find a husband and through disappointment, cynicism and bitterness, seeks passion and solace in a same sex relationship. It might be more accurate to see the loving bonds between the women in the novel as the “passionate friendships” suggested by twentieth-century academic Lilian Faderman, as a useful description of emotionally intimate (and to a point, socially acceptable) relationships between the women — a bond that satisfied a need for comfort and closeness, but did not impede marriage prospects and could even continue after marriage. However we might see the relationship today, the bond between Cecilia and Alice is one of the reasons the novel was damned as immoral on publication.
This is a story that begs a second reading at least, as the superficial plot of marrying off young women is but a veneer beneath which lie many more challenging ideas.
The first edition’s title page
CONTENTS
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
Moore, 1888
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
THE GREY STONE cross of the convent-church was scarcely seen in the dimness of the sun-smitten sky. The convent occupied an entire hilltop, and it overlooked the sea.
All around was a beautiful garden, and the white dresses of the girls fluttered through the verdurous vistas like the snowy plumage of a hundred doves. Obeying a sudden impulse, a flock of little ones would race through a deluge of leaf-entangled rays towards a pet companion. You see her at the end of a gravel-walk, examining the flower she has just picked: the sunlight glancing along little white legs, proudly and charmingly advanced. The elder girls in their longer skirts were more dignified, but when sight was caught of a favourite sister, they too ran forward, and then retreated timidly, as if afraid of committing an indiscretion.
It was prize-day in the Convent of the Holy Child, and since early morning all had been busy preparing for the arrival of the Bishop. His throne had been set at one end of the school-hall, and at the other the carpenters had erected a stage for the performance of “King Cophetua,” a musical sketch written by Miss Alice Barton for the occasion. But now a pause had come in the labour of the day; the luncheon, that all had been too excited to partake of, was over; and for the next half-hour, straying over the green swards, or clustered round a garden-bench, the girls talked of the many expectations that the coming hours of the afternoon would set at rest. Their faces were animated with discussion. They spoke of the parts they would play; of the dresses they would wear; of the probable winners of the prizes; of the joys and ambitions that even now absorbed their lives. A charming and infantile peace slept on land and sea. In the distance the grey girdle of water glittered as with the leaping silver of a myriad fishes; between the chimneys, under the hill, a fleet of fishing-boats basked in the sun like sparrows. It was almost blinding to lift the eyes, so intense was the radiation of the light; and the downy whiteness of the sky was unrelieved by any splash of blue. Suddenly, a rearrangement of figures on the terrace made one group of girls the centre of the vast panorama. They seemed like a piece of finished sculpture ready to be taken from the peace and meditation of the studio and placed in the noise and staring of the galleries.
Then a nun called from the sward where the children were playing, and two girls rose from the bench. Their places were quickly appropriated, and the five remaining girls drew together, forming a new and more harmonious group.
Alice Barton was what is commonly known as a plain girl. At home, during the holidays, she often heard that the dressmaker could not fit her, that her eyes were not so large nor so sweet as her sister’s. But the clear, sweet mind was so often revealed in those grey eyes, that the want of beauty was forgotten in love of her personality. Although her shoulders were narrow and prim, her arms long and almost awkward, there was a character about the figure that commanded attention. Alice was now turned twenty, she was the eldest, the best-beloved, and the cleverest girl in the school. It was not, therefore, on account of any backwardness in her education that she had been kept so long out of society; but because Mrs. Barton thought that, as her two girls were so different in appearance, it would be well for them to come out together. Against this decision Alice said nothing, and, like a tall arum lily, she had grown in the convent from girl to womanhood. To her the little children ran to be comforted; and to walk with her in the garden was considered an honour and a pleasure that even the reverend mother was glad to participate in.
Lady Cecilia Cullen sat next to Alice. At a glance you saw she was a hunchback; but in a standing position her deformity would have appeared less marked than it did at present. It lay principally in her right shoulder, which was higher than her left — now she was seen at her worst. Cecilia was the wonder and enigma of the convent. Of a nature more than delicate and sensitive, she shrank from the normal pleasures and loves of life as from the sight of a too coarse display of food; often an ordinary look, or word, or gesture shocked her, and so deeply that she would remain for hours sitting apart, refusing all consolation. A spot on the tablecloth, or the presence of one repellent to her, was sufficient to extinguish a delight or an appetite. Her fancies were so abrupt and obscure that none could ever be certain what would please or offend her. In one thing only was she constant — she loved Alice. There was love in those wilful brown eyes — love that was wild and visionary, and perhaps scarcely sane. And the intensity of this affection had given rise to conjecturing. When other girls spoke of men and admirers, her lip curled: had it not been for her deformity she would have expressed her abhorrence. At home she was considered wayward, if not a little queer, and her wish, therefore, to remain at school met with no opposition.
Violet Scully occupied the other end of the garden-bench. She was very thin, but withal elegantly made. Her face was neat and delicate, and it was set with light blue eyes that sparkled as did the misted glitter of the sea. When she was not restlessly changing her place, or looking round as if she fancied someone was approaching, when she was still (which was seldom), a rigidity of feature, and an almost complete want of bosom, gave her the appearance of a convalescent boy. The small aristocratic head was beautifully poised on the swaying neck; faint, wavy, brown tresses cast light shadows over the small but finely-shaped temples, behind which it was easy to see that a sharp but narrow intelligence was at work — an intelligence that would always dominate weak natures, and triumph in a battle of mean interests.
May Gould, who stood at the back, her hand leaning affectionately on Alice’s shoulder, was a very different type of girl. Had she been three inches taller she would have been a magnificent woman — but for her height, which was five feet four, her features were too massive. Although only seventeen, all the characteristics of her sex were in her distinctly marked, and her sensuous nature was reflected in the violet fluidity of her eyes. Her hair was not of an inherited tint. It was of that shade of red that is only seen in the children of dark-haired parents. In great coils it rolled over the dimpled cream of her neck, sweeping with copper threads the vermilion-hued curves of her ear. With the exception of Alice, May
was the cleverest girl in the school. For public inspection she made large water-coloured drawings of Swiss scenery; for private view, pen-and-ink sketches of officers sitting in conservatories with young ladies. The former were admired by the nuns, the latter occasioned a vast deal of excitement amid a select few.
Olive Barton lay on the grass, her arms thrown over her sister’s knees. The pose recalled that of Venus in Titian’s picture of “Venus and Adonis”; but of the material beauty of the pagan world there was nothing in Olive’s face. It was the mild and timid loveliness that is the fruit of eighteen hundred years of Christianity. Even now the uplifted throat recalled that of an adoring angel. Olive’s hair was the colour of primroses. Her face, with its pronounced nose, was full of all the pseudo-classicality of a cameo. Now the action of listening had distended the limbs, and the skirt was cast into folds that made clear the movement of the body; the arms and bosom were moulded into amorous plenitudes, and the extremities flowed into chaste slendernesses, that the white stocking and loose convent-shoe could not distort. In the beautiful framework nothing was wanting but a mind. She was, in a word, a human flower — a rose — a carnation that a wicked magician had endowed with the power of speech.
