Deerbrook: A Novel (1892)

With Deerbrook we have the intellectual satisfaction of reading a pivotal nineteenth-century novel admired by Charlotte Bronte and George Elliot - and a page-turner full of romance, lofty sentiments and emotional roller coaster rides. The story begins with two elegant town-bred sisters, one breathtakingly beautiful and the other lovely in a more sensible fashion, taking up residence with relatives in the picturesque village of Deerbook. Village gossips are busy at once imagining who might marry these superior creatures. Gossip, in fact, is a major theme of the novel, in particular the meddlesome menacing sort found in small English villages. The book is rich in favorite themes of the eighteenth and nineteenth century: two sisters coping with love and adversity (a bit of Jane Austen here); the idealistic country doctor struggling against provincialism and superstition; and the longsuffering governess. But Martineau creates a highly original story with these familiar character types, and vividly renders their weaknesses and strengths. The wonder is that Martineau was famous not for fiction, but for her writings on political economy and social issues. Deerbrook was a mere respite from her more serious work. Also surprising is that a happily single woman like Martineau could write so engagingly about love and marriage. This is altogether a fascinating book. And the introduction is both scholarly and fun to read.

This precursor of elegant Victoriana of the Bronte Sisters and Jane Austen, is an accurate portrayal of 19th century manners and the damage inflicted by carefully injected gossip. In the village of Deerbrook, two families are in constant rivalry, the Grey's and the Rowland's, each vying for the highest social standing, the best regard of their neighbors. But when the Misses Ibbotson come to the Grey's after the death of their father, the delicate status quo is disturbed. By far the most eligible bachelor, Mr. Edward Hope, the local physician, is drawn to both the sisters, but marries Hester, who remains innocent of his affections for Margaret. For her part, Margaret cares only for her sister's happiness and has set her affections on another gentleman, Philip Enderby, brother of the formidable Priscilla Rowland. When Enderby announces his engagement to Margaret Ibbotson, his sister's wrath is incurred, as Mrs. Rowland considers her family superior to the Grey's, and by relation, the newly married Hester and Edward Hope. Using her considerable resources, an active imagination, warped sense of injustice and acid tongue, Mrs. Rowland contrives to interfere with Dr. Hope's good name, as well as Margaret's impending marriage. Wrapped in the convoluted morals of their restricted society, Margaret, Hester and Edward Hope struggle to maintain their position, while undermined daily by cruel and insidious gossip. Priscilla Rowland is merciless in her endeavors, too often successful in her malicious interference, setting the stage for good to triumph over evil, as it must in any Victorian drama. Only after considerable heartbreak and noble stoicism do the wronged characters find a measure of peace, although, as morally superior individuals, they turn their sacrifices into successes. The sisters and Edward Hope join forces in facing down their altered circumstances, Mr. Enderby caught in the middle by his love for Margaret and his trust in his sister's motives. With matchmaking and courtship as the central theme, Martineau indulges in the philosophical and social discourse common to the era, a middle-class existence in contrast to Dickens' later attention to the disenfranchised. The women in the novel are restricted by their own futures; only marriage can save one from spinsterhood or the quiet life of a governess. Yet the men are just as constrained in Deerbrook, the women controlling their serenity n the home front. This is a society of esoteric discourses, lengthy conversations on the meaning of life and ritualistic behavior concealing subtle relationships and formal, tentative understandings, a mannered mating dance. Mrs. Rowland's gossip sweeps the story along, the scold's denouement all the more satisfying when it finally occurs. Amid the chaos, backbiting, broken commitments and the Hope's loss of fortune, the plague, the great leveler, descends upon Deerbrook to teach the harshest lesson of all, death striking randomly in the village with no conce

The subtitle of my review, "A Blend of (George) Eliot and (Charles) Dickens" may seem impossible to those familiar with both authors' work. Martineau, however, combines the serious tone of Eliot with social satire that evokes some of the humor of Dickens. There is some village politics, some discussion of religion, but never with the kind of boring dullness I occassionally experienced when reading Eliot's Middlemarch or Daniel Deronda. Like with a Dicken's novel, you get sucked into a particular world and enjoy a vast range of characters from poor to titled. There is also the sort of melodramic action and exposure of the social horrors of the poor that remind me of Dickens. This is a novel about five young people (a female governess, a doctor, a law student, and two young middle class ladies) and their tangled love affairs. The persecution of four of the five by the novel's villain has dramatic and extreme consequences. Three of the five characters are suicidally depressed for a rather long stretch of the book. But always in every chapter there is some social satire or some comic turn that balances out the character's melancholy. The children in the novel are particularly realistic and add lots of humor to the book. The true hardship caused by the villain's persecution (as well as by genuine social ills) forces the characters to overcome their depressions and become better human beings. Their choice to embrace love and integrity is celebrated and ultimately rewarded in this tale of village life. Martineau periodically inserts little mini-essays of a paragraph or two on various issues ranging from what activities drive away depression to the impact of near-death experiences that are wonderful little pieces. But my strongest memories of the novel are of the dramatic village events: the day the village scold goes crazy; the two big near-death accidents; the riot; the robbery; and of course, the deathbeds.