Mrs. Blinder

Mrs. Blinder is the cook of the Brympton house and Hartley describes her as a “pleasant-faced”¹ and a “friendly-disposed”² woman, who has been “longer in the house than the other servants”.³ She is the person that gives Hartley the most information about Emma Saxon throughout the story, however, she is also the one who tries to dodge and ignores Hartley's attempts to find out more about Emma, and does not react very responsive to her questions. Moreover, it appears that she was quite fond of Emma and tells Hartley that “no better walked the earth”.⁴ When Mrs. Blinder and Hartley talk about the sewing room, the latter finds out that the room she is currently sleeping in used to be the sewing room, and at that Hartley asks Mrs. Blinder where the former lady's maid, Emma, used to sleep. The cook grows “confused”⁵ at the question, and quickly says that “the servants' rooms [have] all been changed about last year, and that she didn't rightly remember”.⁶ Hartley acts like she does not notice and tells Mrs. Blinder that she is wondering whether she could ask Mrs. Brympton for permission to use the vacant room opposite of hers as the sewing room. Mrs. Blinder's face grows white at that and she gives Hartley's hand “a kind of squeeze”⁷ and confesses that it used to be Emma Saxon's room. She even gets a little angry when Hartley suddenly asks her about Emma's appearance and just walks “off into the kitchen and shut[s] the door after her”.⁸ It appears that Mrs. Blinder generally tries to avoid any talk about Emma or at least tries to change the topic. For example, when Hartley shows her a photograph of a woman and asks her about the person, it turns out to be Emma Saxon. When Hartley replies with “I've seen that face before”,⁹ Mrs. Blinder ignores her comment and takes her with her to the kitchen to prepare dinner. If something related to Emma emerges, it appears that she is ignoring all of it and acting like she does not see anything, just like her name suggests.

Nonetheless, among all the servants in the house, it appears that Hartley is closest to Mrs. Blinder. When Hartley starts her first days at the Brympton house, Mrs. Blinder makes sure to ask Hartley whether she is “quite comfortable and ha[s] everything [she] needed”.¹⁰ Hartley also talks to her a lot in general, like when there is something that makes Hartley wonder or is bothering her. For example, when Hartley wants to know something about a sewing room in the house, or when she asks questions about Emma Saxon, though to Mrs. Blinder's offense.

Later, when the household's atmosphere changes and everyone gets nervous because of Mr. Brympton's presence, Hartley thinks about asking Mrs. Blinder “to sit up awhile over a game of cards”.¹¹ They generally have a good relationship and take care of each other.

It appears that Mrs. Blinder goes into Emma's room from time to time or at least opens the door to the room for some reason because when Agnes shows Hartley around the house, one of the first thing Agnes says is that Mrs. Blinder has “left [Emma's] door open again”.¹² At this point it seems rather odd because this would indicate that Mrs. Blinder does go into the Emma's room, even though their mistress wants to keep it locked. It leaves the reader wondering why Mrs. Blinder, the cook, would go into the former housemaid's room.

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1 Lewis, R. W. B. The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton. (Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968. 457-474, Print.), 458.

2 Ibid., 460.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid., 461.

5 Ibid., 460.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid., 461.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid., 468.

10 Ibid., 460.

11 Ibid., 465.

12 Ibid., 459.