Mrs. Clemm

Mrs. Clemm is the housemaid of Bells. She is described as a rosy cheeked old person. She has a small round face. She has a niece Georgiana and a great-nephew which is not mentioned further. Besides she is the great niece of Mr. Jones, as Mr. Jones is the brother of her grandmother.

In the beginning of the short story she is very self-confident and restricts Jane in different aspects, even though she is only a housemaid „Her voice said: “Who are you, to set me right as to the chronicles of Bells?” (p. 601). On almost every page of the story Jane refers to something Mrs. Clemm has told her as “Mrs. Clemm told me”.

In the end: when she understands that some things are inevitable, her self-confidence begins to crumble “Her hand, as she held it out, trembled like Georgiana’s.” (p. 609). Meanwhile Jane gets stronger “The two women stood for an instant measuring each other with level eyes; then the housekeepers were slowly lowered [...]” (p. 611). During the final confrontation with Jane, her confidence breaks down completely and reveals her own fear of Mr. Jones “Mrs. Clemm’s arms rose again, stretched before her face as if to fend off a blaze of intolerable light, or some forbidden sight she had long since disciplined herself not to see. Thus screening her eyes she hurried across the hall [...]” (p. 611). Her death at the end of the story reflects her inner fear “[...] the unspeakable horror in her wide-open eyes were only the reflection of that change, or of the agent by whom it had come.” (p. 615). If the conclusion of Stramer in the story is correct, she was strangled by somebody.

[1] Lewis, Richard Warrington Baldwin (1968): The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton – Volume 2. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.