|
This novel, originally published in 1791, falls into two parts, the first revolving around Miss Milner and the second revolving around her daughter, Lady Matilda. As the novel opens, Miss Milner's father dies at about the time her education ends, so she goes to live with the guardian chosen by her father on his deathbed, Dorriforth, a Catholic who has taken religious vows. They clash on appropriate female behavior. Her heart may be good, but she is too witty, mirthful, imperious, willful, and careless with money for his approval. Her education thus makes her a typically intractible 'accomplished' woman, so it undermines the tractability and modesty on which she would like to act.
Miss Milner crosses Dorriforth's wishes on her behavior on a number of occasions: She goes to a masked ball after he has told her she may not, and she dresses as Diana, in an outfit that reveals her legs. She also argues with Dorriforth's mentor, the stern priest Sandford. Furthermore, she brings home a nephew Dorriforth has ignored out of anger at its parents. In addition, she refuses to give up the attentions of Lord Frederick, whom she does not desire or intend to marry (but whom she cannot say she does not love because she would then have to admit that she loves Dorriforth). When she realizes she loves her guardian, she adapts her behavior to his views. Because he is an ordained Catholic priest, however, her female friend/confidante/surrogate mother-figure in his household, Miss Woodley, insists that Miss Milner leave until she conquers her love. Circumstances make him sole (male) heir to his family's property and title; he gets a dispensation from his vows so that he can become Lord Elmwood, heir to the property; he realizes he loves his ward, who has been allowed by Miss Woodley to return; and he marries her.
She lapses: when Dorriforth is away for three years on business, she bears his daughter, Lady Matilda, then has an affair with Lord Frederick. Lord Elmwood disowns wife and daughter and they go live in poverty with Miss Woodley, being joined also in sympathy by Sandford, a Catholic priest who earlier has been Miss Milner's enemy but here inexplicably understands that she is merely capable of lapsing from strict morality rather than purely evil. Lady Elmwood dies, leaving a will requesting that Lord Elmwood take care of their child, who is innocent, after all, of the mother's crime. He agrees, as long as he never sees or hears his daughter's voice or even name. When both at the same estate, she must keep out of his view. Lady Matilda, deprived of a fashionable education, grows up to be as obedient and tractable in female modesty as her father could wish. She accepts completely his strictures on her behavior.
Lord Elmwood has made his nephew heir to his estate - this is the same nephew Miss Milner had earlier brought home, incurring Elmwood/Dorriforth's wrath. The virtuous, modest, and therefore deserving Lady Matilda must win back her father's regard and her rightful place as heiress to his property. The nephew sees Lady Matilda, falls in love, and wants to marry her. When he brings first the suggestion and then the young woman herself to Lord Elmwood's attention, he ultimately succeeds: Lord Elmwood allows his nephew to marry his daughter, meaning he approves and accepts her as family, and by marrying his heir, she becomes, by extension, heiress herself, although never formerly reinstated as such in her own right. In fact Lord Elmwood is only brought back to proper paternal love for his daughter after she has been kidnapped, this paternal love leading him to rescue her. The fidelity in marriage incapable of being maintained by the first pair - Lord Elmwood and Miss Milner - is better preserved, the reader is left to believe, by the second.
© 1998 J A Shaffer / Sheffield Hallam University
|
