Servants and Paternalism in the Works of Maria Edgeworth and Elizabeth Gaskell by Julie Nash

Author:Julie Nash
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

She goes on to tell Ruth that Mrs Benson had once told her "your station is a servant, and it is as honourable as a king's, if you look at it right; you are to help and serve others in one way, just as a king is to help others in another" (174-5). Like many of Gaskell's servants, such as North and South's Dixon, Sally is an unwilling agent of change. She wishes no more than Mr Bradshaw himself to overturn the hierarchical structure social arrangements under which they both live or to alter the traditions and beliefs that have defined her.

However, though she accepts her position on the social ladder, Sally is no meek dependent. Even before the Bensons return to their home with the pregnant Ruth, their thoughts are focused on how they will manage Sally who would certainly "go distraught" (125) at the thought of an unmarried mother and her baby in the house. It is clear from the early chapters of the novel that Sally will be a character to be reckoned with. Though the Bensons tell Sally that Ruth is a widow, the servant quickly sees through the lie and tests Ruth by cutting her long hair. Symbolically pruning away at Ruth's sexuality. Sally roughly chops off the curls of the "broken-spirited" girl, but finds herself surprised at Ruth's submissiveness: "I thought we should ha' had some crying—I did. They're pretty curls enough; you've not been so bad to let them be cut off neither. You see, Master Thurston is no wiser than a babby in some things; and Miss Faith just lets him have his own way; so it's all left to me to keep him out of scrapes" (145-6). Her rigid morality resembles that of Mr Bradshaw: both characters have a strong sense of moral "duty" to protect those in their charge, and both characters will resort to intimidation and cruelty to maintain the status quo. Yet until the novel's final chapters. Mr Bradshaw remains incapable of change while Sally's character gradually comes to accept Thurston Benson's view that "[it is] time to change some of our ways of thinking and acting" (351).

Sally's distrust toward Ruth begins to change when Ruth becomes a mother, and Sally witnesses Ruth's repentance for her sexual transgression. Ironically, only Sally, Ruth's harshest critic, can bring Ruth out of her self-pity and depression following the birth of her son:

Sally took [the baby] briskly from his mother's arms; Ruth looked up m grave surprise, for in truth she had forgotten Sally's presence, and the suddenness of the motion startled her.

"My bonny boy! are they letting the salt tears drop on thy sweet face before thou it weaned! Little somebody knows how to be a mother—I could make a better myself. ... Thou'rt not fit to have a babby, and so I've said many a time. I've a great mind to buy thee a doll, and take thy babby myself."

(174)

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