Finding time for reading isn't as hard as I have made it out to be for the past two years. I have now managed to finish both "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" and "Agnes Grey" in the space of a fortnight !!
Despite the occasional descents into lurid romanticism, I am nonetheless transfixed by Agnes's magnificent composure in the fact of the severest provocation. To wit:
"Be calm, be calm, whatever happens, I said within myself; and truly I kept this resolution so well, and was so fully occupied in steadying my heart and stifling the rebellious flutter of my heart, that when I was admitted into the hall and ushered into the presence of Mrs Bloomfield, I almost forgot to answer her polite salutation.."
Her chilly reception is just the start of the ordeal, for the 19 year old Agnes has been employed as governess to a family of the most ghastly ill-behaved children I can ever recall reading about (excepting perhaps for those in "Nurse Matilda").
Hang on a mo!
They remind me of some of my colleagues...
Agnes is constrained in typical Stepford Employee fashion (being the impoverished daughter of a clergyman) to feign compliance, willingness and obedience; despite being subjected to daily asides from the parents about her apparent incompentence.
"I knew all this was pointed at me; and these and all similar innuendoes, affected me far more deeply than any open accusations would have done; for against the latter I should have been roused to speak in my own defence: now I judged it my wisest plan to subdue every resentful impulse, suppress every sensitive shrinking, and go on perseveringly doing my best; for, irksome as my situation was, I earnestly wished to retain it...."
Oh Agnes ! I'm right with you, hon.
And though it might not be quite the done thing to celebrate the fact that following Agnes's subsequent incarcerations with other dysfunctional families, her escape is eventually effected by a nice man proposing marriage; frankly by the end of the novel I am ready to weep with relief...
O tempora! O mores!
Thank God today's Stepford Employee gets the chance to acquire a CV, a passport and a savings account.
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