Chapter 27. Musings on Edward Beck (I know I'm getting ahead, but I'm gonna have a hellish week and I don't know if I'll be able to be around for discussion on Tuesday. Putting everything under the cut for this reason, bear with me).
The Edward Beck subplot does for me what the "She was no longer unimportant, little, old maid Valancy Stirling. She was a woman, full of love and therefore rich and significant—justified to herself." line does for others. Because there is what I take from the episode, but I'm entirely unsure whether that was what LMM intended with it.
So, Valancy has felt ugly and undesirable her whole life, specifically in a romantic sense. No man had wanted her. I have contended before in this reread that the Stirlings are disappointed at Valancy's spinsterhood, and yet they are the ones that have made her a spinster, not only by using her as a psychological punching bag all the time, but by secluding her, forcing her to dress and style herself unflatteringly, and by enforced childishness in their treatment of her in general.
Edward Beck has been going to the same church as the Stirlings, presumably, for many years, but has only noticed Valancy NOW. The moment Valancy is able to show herself as she is, she is immediately noticed. She's not inherently undesirable, on the contrary. And I think this is a good way to show that, instead of falling into the tired and kind of silly trope of "former wallflower suddenly has ALL MEN falling over each other to get her"!
But... I don't get the feeling that's what LMM is trying to do here?
It seems more like another element to put in higher contrast Valancy's felicity with the misery of her past life and its prospects. Marrying Barney has saved her from marrying Edward Beck (fun question: do you all think under other circumstances Valancy would have accepted his proposal?). And, fair, that is true, but it also feels particularly... mean? Like we should kind of hate him or censor him for it?
There are several factors at play. Sure, he's a much older man [insert all the commonplaces of age gap discourse] and Valancy is technically not yet 30, but I do think there's a reason why age 29 specifically was chosen. Makes me think of Little Women's "At twenty-five, girls begin to talk about being old maids, but secretly resolve that they never will be. At thirty they say nothing about it, but quietly accept the fact, and if sensible, console themselves by remembering that they have twenty more useful, happy years, in which they may be learning to grow old gracefully". While there's of course decades of distance between LW and TBC, I do think still nowadays we have a sense of 30 being a tipping point for many things in life, and not just for women and romance. But the association was much stronger then, I think. Point is, a widower picking for a second wife a +30 woman is not, in historical context, some kind of outrage or anything near so, even if she is still much younger than him. This does not really signal bad guy.
The many children of Edward Beck is another tell-tale sign. It reminded me strongly of how prominently in the misfortunes of the tale of Anne Shirley's early life the fact that she'd been taken in twice in families with several children featured. The narrator here also does seem to paint it as some sort of horror, even if, as cousin Georgiana points out, several of the children are grown up (but cousin Georgiana is a silly character --this time around I'm noticing a condescension and certain meanness about her character which I didn't remember before). I understand Anne's being a child and thinking the care of those children so burdensome, but it does feel a bit weird in this book when so far the "fat babies" desire has been strongly featured twice. Is the problem that they wouldn't be a woman's own biological children? I can't imagine that we are supposed to think the intention is to enter a mariage blanc, so there would be other children down the line probably?
So, LMM, what was that about? We even aren't told that he killed his spouse, which in the novel's context of three-spouse murderers --one of them a character we are supposed to really like and sympathize with-- is kind of an endorsement! :P
Besides, we are told Edward Beck is a rich man, and has a beautiful house; all those children aren't synonymous with poverty, and so there would also be help available in raising them if needed. Also, also, it is noteworthy that he doesn't talk about his interest in Valancy to Mrs. Frederick or uncle James; he picks whom we know to be the most sensible and kind member of the clan, and someone who can give her opinion without being able to (or even want to) put pressure on Valancy. That shows certain consideration and delicacy too, I think.
Perhaps I'm biased in the sense that I'm not a romantic in the classic sense. I love love, but outside of the theological realm and into the romantic realm, I don't think love and happiness are necessarily linked; and I myself would pick happiness over love if presented with the dichotomy. Like, Tolkien and Edith loved each other desperately, and I'm convinced they were also deeply unhappy as a couple (and I'm convinced this is the source of Tolkien's rather grim views on marriage and marital happiness), and that can happen much more often than people realize. I'm no Charlotte Lucas, but all the same, divine love may conquer all, but human love most certainly doesn't. I would much rather marry someone I could have a good life with, than someone I was in love with but with whom life would be particularly difficult, be it because of lack of common interests or life-views, be it because our personalities and quirknesses don't gel well, or because the give and take of the relationship would be permanently unbalanced against a partner.
The expert maudience may have more to say about LMMs experiences and whatever she might or might not have been working through re: her own feelings and marriage in this novel, but I get the gut feeling that there's "something" of that "something" in this tiny subplot. Like there is in Valancy's conviction that she'd rather be an old maid than be in a suboptimal marriage (something that doesn't really completely fit with her degree of desperation at the beginning of the novel, IMO). It feels like the kind of thing someone with more like the life experience of LMM (ironically, much much closer to cousin Olive's) would think in hindsight. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on how poor cousin Georgiana is treated from now on.
