Agnes (All Souls')

Agnes is Sara Clayburn’s personal Scottish maid. The narrator describes Agnes as “dour” and “old”[1] and also notes that Sara Clayburn “inherited” Agnes and the other servants from her mother-in-law.

Agnes appears very competent and experienced in her duties as Sara’s maid. After Sara breaks her ankle “[…] Agnes […] knew exactly what to do”[2] and quickly puts Sara on a lounge and calls for Dr. Selgrove. Furthermore, Agnes seems attentive towards Sara’s needs. Accordingly, Agnes makes Sara feel comfortable when she has to recover in bed and provides lemonade, sandwiches and tea for her. Although Sara commands Agnes to take the sandwiches away, “[…] her mistress heard her [Agnes] set the tray down softly on a table behind the screen which shut off the door.”[3] This action emphasizes Agnes’s stubborn character. Moreover, Agnes is described as “[…] punctual as destiny.”[4] Agnes sleeps in the nearest wing to Sara’s bedroom. When Sara Clayburn finds herself mysteriously alone she enters Agnes’s room and searches through her belongings, in order to find out what is going on. There, Sara noticed that one of Agnes’s hats and a winter coat are missing, suggesting that Agnes and the other servants left the house intentionally. Sara notices this because all of Agnes’s things are “[…] rearrangements of her mistress’s old ones.”[5] This is highlighting how poor and economically dependent on her mistress Agnes is.

After the mysterious thirty-six hours Sara Clayburn awakes on Monday morning, was examined by a new doctor and found Agnes back at her place. Agnes acts as if nothing strange had happened and as if she had been at Whitegates the whole time. After the new doctor observes that Sara is able to walk once more, Agnes even suggests that Sara “[…] must have got up and walked about in the night instead of ringing for me, as she’d ought to,”[6] When Sara claims that the electricity was cut off “Agnes’s surprise was masterly.”[7] Agnes denies it and demonstrates that it is working again by pressing the bell next to Sara’s bed, which works. During the following discussion, in which Sara claims that she was alone, Agnes’s “[…] firm features did not alter.”[8] She appears completely nonplussed by the claims and persists with her claims that she was at Whitegates for the whole time. After the new doctor leaves, Sara decides not to question Agnes and the other servants anymore and Agnes “[…] waited on her attentively as usual […].”[9]. Assuming that everything has happened as Sara told her cousin, Agnes’ behavior after the mysterious thirty-six hours indicates that she is a skilled liar and actress. However, it must also be considered that she may genuinely have no idea what is going on.

After Sara Clayburn escapes from Whitegates to her cousin’s flat in New York, she explains to her cousin that Agnes behaved strangely when she told her that she would leave for New York. Given that it is very uncommon for Sara Clayburn to spontaneously leave for New York in the evening, Sara is suspicious that Agnes did not protest and looked even a little relieved about Sara’s departure. According to Sara, Agnes actually “[…] forgot to look surprised; she even forgot to make an objection – and you know what an objector Agnes is.”[10] On the one hand, Agnes’s reaction shows that she is perhaps aware of the strange woman and that something, probably even something occult or supernatural, will happen at All Souls’ Eve again, and that she is going to participate in it. On the other hand, the “[…] little spark of relief in her eyes […]”[11] may express that she nonetheless cares for Sara and possibly also worried about what could have happened to her if she had stayed.

In the concluding pages of “All Souls’” the narrator explains that Agnes originally comes from the Isle of Skye, the largest of the islands in the Scottish Hebrides. Furthermore, the narrator explains that Sara Clayburn regards Agnes as the “perhaps unconscious, at any rate irresponsible – channel through which communication from the other side of the veil reached the submissive household at Whitegates.”[12] Although Agnes has been with Sara Clayburn for a long time “[…] without any peculiar incident […]”[13] of supernatural phenomena, Sara is sure that, because of her origin, the ability to communicate with unknown forces lay dormant in Agnes and only needed to be activated, by, for example, the strange woman. This suggests that Agnes possibly played a leading role at the mysterious events on All Souls’ Eve and could also be naturally attuned to the supernatural.

To summarize, Agnes is a dutiful, attentive, old maid, economically dependent on her mistress. After the mysterious incident Agnes denies all accusations, which perhaps shows her to be duplicitous and underhand. When Sara decides to flee from Whitegates, Agnes fails to hide her relief, intimating that she is aware of upcoming mysterious happenings. Therefore, Agnes may well have shown concern for her mistress. Because of her Scottish background and her roots in the Hebrides, the narrator suggests that she could be a medium, conscious or otherwise, for communication with the other side.

[1] Edith Wharton, “All Souls’,” in: The Demanding Dead – More Stories of Terror and the Supernatural, ed. Peter Haining (London: Peter Owen Publishers, 2007), 187.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 188.

[4] Ibid., 188.

[5] Ibid., 193.

[6] Ibid., 199.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid., 200.

[10] Ibid., 205.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., 206.

[13] Ibid.