The Lonely Wife
England, 1850. Rich thirty-something banker Charles Dawley will be vastly wealthier once he has fathered a son, thereby fulfilling the terms of his Uncle Nev’s will. Marriage is arranged with another banker’s daughter, bright but unworldly eighteen-year-old Beatrix. The newlyweds take a northbound train to set up home in the late Nev’s dilapidated mansion on its run-down Humberside estate. However, utterly heartless cad Charles has no interest whatsoever in his newly inherited land (earnings aside) nor his newly bedded wife (womb aside) having, as he often insists, urgent business back in London; cognisant of his lies, Beatrix suspects a mistress. Nevertheless, during his prolonged absences she returns the estate to competent order and unexpected profit, doing the accounts herself and hiring so many supportive, helpful staff and friendly farm workers that despite her loveless marriage it’s hard to imagine she could ever be lonely. Ah, if only there were a kind, romantic local chap who…
The plot unfolds in a gentle prose reflecting East Yorkshire’s peacefulness as she grows to love her new rustic life, the increasing contrast between innocent city-bred Beatrix and accomplished country estate manager Mrs Dawley being well chronicled by a writer with evident fondness for the area. Time is kindly concertinaed while Beatrix has three babies within twenty-five pages, prompting her to worry that the ever-absent Charles might return to steal them away with impunity, as indeed husbands then could. This introduces an interesting contemporaneous thread concerning Mrs Caroline Norton, who campaigned tirelessly yet successfully to change English laws that constrained women within marriage, oppressing them as men’s property. Beatrix’s story is a fine example of mid-19th-century women’s daily anxieties and the determination required to endure, with or without money and children. A most worthy read.
