How delightful it would be to be a governess! To go out into the world; to enter upon a new life; to act for myself; to exercise my unused faculties; to try my unknown powers; to earn my own maintenance, and something to comfort and help my father, mother, and sister, besides exonerating them from the provision of my food and clothing; to show papa what his little Agnes could do; to convince mamma and Mary that I was not quite the helpless, thoughtless being they supposed. And then, how charming to be entrusted with the care and education of children! Whatever others said, I felt I was fully competent to the task: the clear remembrance of my own thoughts in early childhood would be a surer guide than the instructions of the most mature adviser. I had but to turn from my little pupils to myself at their age, and I should know, at once, how to win their confidence and affections: how to waken the contrition of the erring; how to embolden the timid and console the afflicted; how to make Virtue practicable, Instruction desirable, and Religion lovely and comprehensible.
I picked the long-overlooked Agnes Grey from my bookshelf as an impulsive, short Valentine’s Day read; and while I can see that the pious writings of Anne Brontë — the youngest and least celebrated of the Brontë sisters — might be regarded as old-fashioned and moralising to a twenty-first century audience, I also believe that this is an important early work of feminism, classism, and animal rights. Based on her own experiences as an ill-used governess, Anne exposed in Agnes Grey how shabbily those with money (whether nouveau-riche or titled gentry) treated those educated young women whose circumstances and narrow options drove them to seek such “situations”; and her barbs must have hit their mark in the day if this was both a popular work and dismissed by the upper class as “coarse” and “vulgar”. Like Anne, the character of Agnes Grey is presented as the daughter of a poor clergyman (which explains her frequent sermonising), but unlike Anne — who would die, unmarried, at the age of twenty-nine — Agnes’ selfless work and devout religiosity leads to love and rescue; Agnes at long last gets the happily ever after that Anne could only dream of; Valentine’s Day read redeemed. I would give this a 3.5 and am rounding down against Anne’s only other novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
When Agnes’ father makes some poor investments and then suffers ill health to the further impoverishment of his family, the eighteen year old excitedly, and naïvely, offers to hire herself out as a governess. The first family Agnes is engaged by, the Bloomfields, want her to instruct their three eldest children: seven year old Tom, six year old Mary Ann, and four year old Fanny. These children are hellions: sadistic and wild, kicking, spitting, screeching brats, and Agnes is expected to teach them Latin, art, and music while never raising voice or hand to them; never rebuking, restraining, or daring to break their fine spirits. Tom is particularly brutish and Agnes has no power to correct his more amoral actions when they are approved of by his parents:
“Papa knows how I treat them, and he never blames me for it: he says it is just what he used to do when he was a boy. Last summer, he gave me a nest full of young sparrows, and he saw me pulling off their legs and wings, and heads, and never said anything; except that they were nasty things, and I must not let them soil my trousers: and Uncle Robson was there too, and he laughed, and said I was a fine boy.”
After failing to impart much of her own education to these imps, Agnes is let go after a year but implores her mother to find her another such post. Next, Agnes is hired as governess by the Squire Murray; and while at first she is tasked with educating their four teenaged children, the two sons are eventually sent off to boarding school and Agnes is left in charge of the budding coquette Rosalie and the cussing tomboy Matilda; neither of whom being the least interested in Agnes’ lessons. This position is further from Agnes’ family, and while she is able to go home for the summer and Christmas breaks, she is so very lonely: disregarded by everyone at the Murray estate and the nearby town; being more than an “upper servant”, yet less than a peer, the only connection she has with people of her own station is when she receives a letter from home.
Though I had many spare minutes during the day, I seldom could look upon an hour as entirely my own; since, when everything was left to the caprices of Miss Matilda and her sister, there could be no order or regularity. Whatever occupation I chose, when not actually busied about them or their concerns, I had, as it were, to keep my loins girded, my shoes on my feet, and my staff in my hand; for not to be immediately forthcoming when called for, was regarded as a grave and inexcusable offence: not only by my pupils and their mother, but by the very servant, who came in breathless haste to call me, exclaiming “You're to go to the school-room directly, mum — the young ladies is WAITING!!” Climax of horror! actually waiting for their governess!!!
I like that sass. Agnes eventually makes her first friend with the new curate at the village church — the kind if plain-looking Edward Weston being her social, spiritual, and educational equal — and although it seems obvious that Agnes and Edward would make a perfect romantic/practical match, between Agnes being unable to declare her interest and availability, the curate’s responsibilities which keep him mostly occupied, and the mischievous Misses Murrays who conspire to make sport of him, it is not obvious if Agnes’ blossoming affections will be returned.
Here I pause. My Diary, from which I have compiled these pages, goes but little further. I could go on for years, but I will content myself with adding, that I shall never forget that glorious summer evening, and always remember with delight that steep hill, and the edge of the precipice where we stood together, watching the splendid sunset mirrored in the restless world of waters at our feet — with hearts filled with gratitude to heaven, and happiness, and love — almost too full for speech.
I liked what the gentle Anne had to say about the treatment of animals: whether referencing birds, cats, dogs, or horses, you could always judge a character by the way they treated living things, and I appreciated that Agnes was never quiet when she witnessed abuse. I liked what Agnes’ story reveals about the shoddy treatment of governesses in the nineteenth century, as well as the circumstances that might force a young woman to have considered such an unappreciated career. (Further to that, Anne exposes the treatment of women in the upper classes and their choices and circumstances were likewise constrained by the men around them.) This wasn’t a complicated or twisty plot, but as an effort at social realism, I imagine it must have landed like a bombshell in its day. And in the end, I was delighted that Agnes got her happily ever after, even if that wasn’t to be the fate of her creator.
