I’m not sure why Bonnets at Dawn decided to do a readalong of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall before reading Agnes Grey, even though Agnes Grey was published first, but either way, I’m glad I have now had a chance to read both of them.
Anne Brontë was the youngest of the Brontë siblings, but she still managed to write and publish two novels before dying at the age of 29, and no, that does not make me feel at all inadequate. Why do you ask?
Like her sisters, Anne spent some time working as a governess before trying to open a school with her sisters, which failed, leaving them with no option other than to become literary geniuses.
This book draws on much of Anne’s personal experiences. Agnes is raised in a loving family that is comfortable, but not wealthy. Her father invests the family’s entire fortune into a scheme that fails, sending him plummeting into a deep depression and leaving Agnes, her sister, and their mother to figure out how to make ends meet.
Like Anne, Agnes is the baby of the family (although she only has one older sister compared to Anne’s two sisters and one brother), and as soon as she’s old enough, she decides it’s time for her to look for a way to contribute to the family’s finances. For some reason, her family objects to this plan, but Agnes is determined. She takes the first job that comes along and it is a disaster.
She is hired (for a low wage) as a governess to a young girl and boy, with the youngest girl just starting to transfer from the nursery to the schoolroom. They’re all downright terrors and I’m pretty sure the boy is a diagnosable sociopath since there are passages talking about the delight he takes in torturing animals. Agnes is expected to control them and shape their manners, but she has absolutely no power over them. She’s not allowed to administer corporal punishment and she has no reward system. The best she can do is make the children sit in a corner until their lessons are done, and even that usually gets undermined when they throw such a temper tantrum that the parents are alerted and let the children leave the schoolroom without having completed their lessons.
Agnes has absolutely no backup. All she can hope is that persistence and the example she sets for them will be enough to sway them. She talks about making a little progress with them this way, which is completely undermined as soon as their alcoholic uncle shows up, encouraging the worst of the boy’s tendencies and giving him alcohol (a bit of a precursor to Anne’s next novel).
Agnes doesn’t last long at that job, and when she goes searching for another one, her mother takes over, insisting she demand more money and time off. She points out that Agnes is better educated than most governesses, and so she has a lot more to offer, and should be compensated accordingly. Given how hard it is for women in 2020 to stand up for themselves and demand what they’re worth, I deeply appreciated getting an example of a Victorian woman teaching her daughter not to accept less than she’s worth.
Agnes does get another job under the terms she sets for herself, but she doesn’t do much better. The two boys have already been sent off to school and her charges are two teenage girls who are pretty set in their ways. Agnes tries to set a good example for them, but mostly that just makes it easy for them to mess with her (which they do).
The oldest is very pretty and knows it and takes advantage of it because she has been taught that being pretty and marrying well are all she’s good for. She flirts with men she has no intention of marrying, and she marries a man she can’t stand merely because he’s rich.
The second daughter only cares about her horses and hunting dogs and spends as much time as she can in the stables and out riding.
Things don’t get interesting until the new pastor shows up, Mr. Weston. Even then the action is a slow burn, although Agnes’s romantic feelings are ignited almost right away. He shares her religious views (very important to the Brontës) and he’s nice to her when everyone else acts as though she’s invisible and or a deaf/mute. She is a servant and therefore part of the scenery, so when someone shows up who actually treats her like a human being, she is intensely grateful.
It’s worth noting that governesses were stuck in the worst position. They were elevated to a status above servants, but they weren’t members of the family either. They were in a class of their own, and in Agnes’s case, out in the country with no chance to connect with other governesses and people of their station. It was an incredibly lonely position.
Agnes does make friends with some of the local poor people (after making a point of mentioning how abominably they’re treated by Agnes’s two charges), and that’s another thing she and Mr. Weston have in common. He shows up regularly to visit them and the first time we see him, he’s just rescued and returned the cat of one of the local cottagers, so we know he’s a good guy.
You can guess where the book goes from there. It’s OK, but it’s not my favorite. Anne definitely has a sharper wit than either of her sisters and a snarkiness to her, which I appreciate, but she also has a sense of moral superiority that can be very off-putting. If you’re constantly talking about how you’re better than everyone around you, does that really make you better than anyone?