Scenes of Clerical Life – George Eliot
The first of the three stories, ‘The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton,’ is the slightest and simplest. Mr. Barton, a curate, with an income of eighty pounds a-year, with an angelic but sickly wife and a host of hungry little children, allows himself to be duped by the title of a ‘Countess Czerlaski,’ the handsome English widow of a Polish dancing-master. The countess quarrels with her brother, Mr. Bridmain, and throws herself on the hospitality of the Bartons. Her visit lasts beyond all reasonable time, the unfortunate couple are eaten up by the expense of providing for her, Mr. Barton’s character is aspersed on account of his kindness to her, and Mrs. Barton dies of working for her. Mr. Barton loses his curacy, goes into another neighbourhood, and, after many years, revisits his wife’s grave in company with his children. The next story tells how the Rev. Maynard Gilfil loved Tina Sarti, an Italian orphan, who had been brought to England by Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel, and lived under their shadow in a dignified country house. Tina, however, had fixed her affections on Sir Christopher’s nephew, Captain Wybrow; and when the captain pays court to a beautiful, rich, and lofty heiress, the little Italian girl is so exasperated by his conduct, that she resolves to stab him at an appointed interview. She is happily spared this crime, as, on reaching the place of meeting, she finds the faithless captain dead from a sudden attack of heart-disease. After a decent interval she marries Mr. Gilfil, but dies in giving birth to her first child; and Mr. Gilfil is represented to us (as the writer professes to have known him) in age—a clergyman of the ‘old school, a good deal of a humourist, and to outward appearance as unromantic a person as need be, but keeping a chamber in his house sacred to the memory of his wife, and cherishing in his heart a lifelong sorrow for his early bereavement. The last “Scene of Clerical Life’ shows how Robert Dempster, a brutal and drunken attorney in a little country town, came by his vices to a bad end—how his wife Janet, who had taken to drinking in order to support his outrageous treatment of her, was reclaimed—and how Mr. Tryan, an “evangelical’ curate, who had contributed to her reformation, succeeded in establishing an evening lecture at the parish church in the face of strong opposition, and died in consequence of his zealous pastoral labours.
Scenes of Clerical Life
Scenes of Clerical Life.
ISBN: 9783849673833.
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Plot summary of Scenes of Clerical Life (from Wikipedia):
“The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton”
The titular character is the new curate of the parish church of Shepperton, a village near Milby. A pious man, but “sadly unsuited to the practice of his profession”, Barton attempts to ensure that his congregation remains firmly within the care of the Church of England. His stipend is inadequate, and he relies on the hard work of Milly, his wife, to help keep the family. Barton is new to the village and subscribes to unpopular religious ideas; not all of the congregation accept him, but he feels that it is especially important to imbue them with what he sees as orthodox Christian views.
Barton and Milly become acquainted with Countess Caroline Czerlaski. When the Countess’ brother, with whom she lives, gets engaged to be married to her maid, she leaves home in protest. Barton and his wife accept the Countess into their home, much to the disapproval of the congregation, who assume her to be his mistress. The Countess becomes a burden on the already stretched family, accepting their hospitality and contributing little herself. With Milly pregnant and ill, the children’s nurse convinces the Countess to leave.
Milly dies following the premature birth of her baby (who also dies) and Barton is plunged into sadness at the loss. Barton’s parishioners, who were so unsympathetic to him as their minister, support him and his family in their grief: “There were men and women standing in that churchyard who had bandied vulgar jests about their pastor, and who had lightly charged him with sin, but now, when they saw him following the coffin, pale and haggard, he was consecrated anew by his great sorrow, and they looked at him with respectful pity”. Just as Barton is beginning to come to terms with Milly’s death, he gets more bad news: the vicar, Mr. Carpe, will be taking over at Shepperton church. Barton is given six-months notice to leave. He has no choice but to comply, but is disheartened, having at last won the sympathies of the parishioners. Barton believes that the request was unfair, knowing that the vicar’s brother-in-law is in search of a new parish in which to work. However, he resigns himself to the move and at length obtains a living in a distant manufacturing town.
The story concludes twenty years later with Barton at his wife’s grave with one of his daughters: Patty. In the intervening years much has changed for Barton; his children have grown up and gone their separate ways. His son Richard is particularly mentioned as having shown talent as an engineer. Patty remains with her father.
“Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story”
The second work in Scenes of Clerical Life is entitled “Mr. Gilfil’s Love-Story” and concerns the life of a clergyman named Maynard Gilfil. We are introduced to Mr Gilfil in his capacity as the vicar of Shepperton, ‘thirty years ago’ (presumably the late 1820s) but the central part of the story begins in June 1788 and concerns his youth, his experiences as chaplain at Cheverel Manor and his love for Caterina Sarti. Caterina, known to the family as ‘Tina’, is an Italian orphan and the ward of Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel, who took her into their care following the death of her father. In 1788 she is companion to Lady Cheverel and a talented amateur singer.
Gilfil’s love for Tina is not reciprocated; she is infatuated with Captain Anthony Wybrow, nephew and heir of Sir Christopher Cheverel. Sir Christopher intends Wybrow to marry a Miss Beatrice Assher, the daughter of a former sweetheart of his, and that Tina will marry Gilfil. Wybrow, aware of and compliant to his uncle’s intentions, nonetheless continues to flirt with Tina, causing her to fall deeply in love with him. This continues until Wybrow goes to Bath to press his suit to Miss Assher. He is then invited to the Asshers’ home, and afterwards returns to Cheverel Manor, bringing with him Miss Assher and her mother. Wybrow dies unexpectedly. Gilfil, finding a knife on Tina, fears that she has killed him, but the cause of death is in fact a pre-existing heart complaint. Tina runs away, and Gilfil and Sir Christopher fear that she has committed suicide. However, a former employee of Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel returns to the manor to inform them that Tina has taken refuge with him and his wife. Gilfil seeks her out, helps her recover and marries her. It is hoped that marriage and motherhood, combined with Gilfil’s love for her, which she now reciprocates, will endue her with a new zest for life. However, she dies in childbirth soon afterwards, leaving the curate to live out the rest of his life alone and die a lonely man.
“Janet’s Repentance”
Janet’s Repentance is the only story in Scenes of Clerical Life set in the town of Milby itself. Following the appointment of Reverend Mr Tryan to the chapel of ease at Paddiford Common, Milby is deeply divided by religious strife. One party, headed by the lawyer Robert Dempster, vigorously supports the old curate, Mr Crewe; the other is equally biased in favour of the newcomer. Edgar Tryan is an evangelical, and his opponents consider him to be no better than a dissenter. Opposition is based variously in doctrinal disagreement and on a suspicion of cant and hypocrisy on the part of Mr Tryan; in Dempster’s wife, Janet, however, it stems from an affection for Mr Crewe and his wife, and the feeling that it is unkind to subject them to so much stress in their declining years. She supports her husband in a malicious campaign against Mr Tryan, despite the fact that Dempster is frequently drunkenly abusive to her, which drives her to drink in turn. One night her husband turns her out of the house; she takes refuge with a neighbour, and, remembering an encounter with Mr Tryan at the sickbed of one of his flock, where she was struck by an air of suffering and compassion about him, asks he might come to see her. He encourages her in her struggle against her dependence on alcohol and her religious conversion. Shortly afterwards Robert Dempster is thrown from his gig and seriously injured. Upon discovering what has happened, Janet, forgiving him, returns to her home and nurses him through the subsequent illness until he dies a few weeks later. Tryan continues to guide Janet toward redemption and self-sufficiency following the death of her husband. She, in turn, persuades him to move out of his inhospitable accommodation and into a house that she has inherited. It is hinted that a romantic relationship might subsequently develop between the two. His selfless devotion to his needy parishioners has taken his toll on his health, however, and he succumbs to consumptionand dies young.
(The text of the last section was taken from a Wikipedia entry and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.)
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