Maria Edgeworth: Helen

If you have little patience with Goody Two-Shoes heroines, you’ll probably have some difficulties getting on with that of Maria Edgeworth’s last novel Helen (1834). Helen Stanley is a young, well-born orphan whose guardian has recently died heavily in debt, leaving her practically penniless, as she insists on paying his debts from the money set aside as her inheritance. (Yes, that’s how much of a Goody Two-Shoes we’re dealing with.) She is asked to stay with her childhood friend Cecilia, whose mother Lady Davenant has always been like a second mother to her. Cecilia has recently married General Clarendon, a good sort of man, but very strict indeed and particularly unforgiving of feminine foibles. Enter young Granville Beauclerc, a potential love interest, and the principal cast is assembled at Clarendon Park. Cecilia is charming, good-natured, and well-meaning, but prone to fibbing – so much so that she often stretches the truth on utter trifles. This is what Lady Davenant calls the ‘black spot’ in her daughter’s character and worries that it might spread; proud and upright herself, she cannot tolerate untruth in others (’there are persons with intrinsic differences of character,’ she says, ‘who, explain as you will, can never understand one another beyond a certain point’). Then we find out there is some mystery about Helen and Cecilia’s acquaintance with a certain Colonel D’Aubigny, who has also recently died…

Helen is so pliable, nice, and sweet, that in the early stages of the novel it’s almost unbelievable; but herein lies the catch, for she soon gets into trouble for being so pliable, nice, and sweet. Lady Davenant affectionately scolds her for her ‘cowardice’, ‘feeble character’, and ‘romantic love of sacrifice’, and it turns out she’s more right than she could have guessed. But Helen improves on acquaintance, and it doesn’t really matter that she isn’t a ‘proper heroine’, because this isn’t a conventional romance or domestic novel by any means. Helen and Beauclerc’s romantic developments are rather summarily treated by the plot, and Helen is as much – or arguably even more – the story of Cecilia and Lady Davenant, the former of whom drives the plot, the latter providing its moral core. Lady Davenant is perhaps the most fascinating character of all. She is intelligent, wise, and witty, but she has her own set of flaws – most notably, she acknowledges her failure as a mother: she is far more interested in politics than in children. Lord Davenant is the politician, but his wife the true political dynamo; and yet, as Edgeworth herself deferred to her father’s judgment and downplayed her own achievements, Lady Davenant is quick to disclaim real political power: ‘Female influence must, will, and ought to exist on political subjects as on all others; but this influence should always be domestic, not public – the customs of society have so ruled it.’ The customs of society, yes: but the novel leaves little doubt that in a different sort of society Lady Davenant would have been a great politician in her own right.

But whether the focus is on Cecilia, Lady Davenant, or Helen herself, the women – even the interesting female minor characters, who are a legion – eclipse the men. This is a novel about women: women’s issues, women’s strength of character, women’s own judgment, women’s own faith, women’s own reputation, women’s own honour – as opposed to those of their husbands and fathers. It is also very much about women’s relationships with each other. For me, perhaps the most moving aspect of the novel was the flawed relationship between Cecilia and Lady Davenant, and the possibility that they might learn to understand each other beyond that ‘certain point’.

 Here is another Pandora Press title, then, that should at least be in print. The fact that Elizabeth Gaskell admired the novel, and seems partly to have modelled the relationship between Molly and Cynthia in her wonderful Wives and Daughters after that of Helen and Cecilia, lends it special interest. Some critics even seem to think of Helen as Edgeworth’s masterpiece. I wouldn’t go that far – it is too uneven to do justice to her powers as a story-teller. The first two thirds of the novel might in all justice be called a little aimless - you could even say that instead of story we get Dialogue with a capital D. The characters discuss fashion, the virtues of punctuality, the value of ceremonial traditions, marriages of convenience, gossip, the art of conversation, good manners, bad manners, class differences, taste in literature, the nature of celebrity, decay of old stately homes… among many other diverse subjects. (It’s almost as if Edgeworth had looked into her little notebook of story ideas and thought, ‘Oh dear – I’m already sixty-three and there are so many themes I’ve been meaning to touch upon. Better get a move on and cram them all in…’) The positive is that the characters speak well: their observations are both witty and deep, and even when Edgeworth is clearly trying to Teach Us Something through Lady Davenant’s sober judgment, her lightness of touch keeps things entertaining and the dialogue natural. There are so many quotable passages – many of them relevant in this day and age - that my reading journal is filled with highlighted page numbers. The negative is that Edgeworth is also a little coy about plotting, leading us in many directions that seem to have little bearing on the final structure of the novel. There are numerous little mini-crises, or frustrating half-plotlings, that go nowhere and are quickly resolved.

The final third, however, is excellent – and very anxiety-inducing, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. Suddenly we have Plot with a capital P, and it may be that sustained throughout the 400+ pages this would have been too much to bear. At any rate the last third makes even the dull moments in the earlier part significant in retrospect. The various conversations, not to mention the layers of truth-telling and lies, foreshadow this plot proper in clever ways. ’Women cannot, like men, make their characters known by public actions,’ says Lady Davenant, so the novel is out of necessity about the importance of words, and about judging people by what they say: after all, ‘there are few actions and many words in life’.

Final Verdict: In the novel, Beauclerc says of something he has been reading, ‘Judge of a book, somebody says, by the impression it leaves on your mind when you lay it down; this book stands that test, at least with me’ – and I’d say Helen stands the same test with me.

Pandora Press  1987  444 pp.  paperback  ISBN: 0863581048