Mrs. Brympton

Mrs. Brympton is the mistress Alice Hartley works for. She lives “all the year round at her country place on the Hudson”¹ due to her illness and “not being able to stand the fatigue of town life”.² Mrs. Railton describes her as a “youngish lady, but something of an invalid”,³ who is a “nervous [and] vaporish”⁴ person, but still “an angel”⁵ and a “kind mistress to all”.⁶ All of this is proven true when Hartley later hears the other servants talk about Mrs. Brymptom that she is “the kindest of all ladies”.⁷ Even her deceased former maid, Emma Saxon, “worshiped the ground she walked on”.⁸ When Hartley meets Mrs. Brympton for the first time, her impression of the mistress is a good one. She describes her as a “delicate-looking lady”⁹ who she would do anything for. Mrs. Brympton speaks “very pleasantly [and] in a low voice”,¹⁰ and is a “wonderfully forbearing”¹¹ person. Mrs. Brympton shows considerate behavior towards Hartley as she continuously asks her how she is feeling. At their first meeting, too, the mistress asks about her name and age, and whether she has everything she wanted. Mrs. Brympton actually shows interest in her. She also tells Hartley that she hopes Hartley will not feel lonely at her place. Moreover, Mrs. Brympton gives her light duties only as she is aware of Hartley's illness. As Mrs. Brympton shows much consideration towards her new lady's maid, she acts different towards her husband, though, and seems “a little offish”¹² towards him.

The marriage between Mrs. Brympton and Mr. Brympton was “an unhappy match from the beginning”,¹³ and the two of them appear to be opposed characters. While she is “quiet, retiring, and perhaps a trifle cold”,¹⁴ but still “wonderfully forbearing”,¹⁵ he is the type to be “coarse, loud and pleasure-loving”.¹⁶ Throughout the story, it is not obviously shown that both of them currently have any mutual feelings for each other. They also usually dine alone.¹⁷ Instead, it is implied that Mrs. Brympton and Mr. Ranford might be more than just acquaintances. First of all, Mr. Ranford is “almost the only company”¹⁸ Mrs. Brympton keeps, particularly in winter, a season when people sometimes get very lonely. When he comes over, he sometimes “would read aloud to Mrs. Brympton by the hour, in the big dark library where she sat in the winter afternoons”¹⁹ and they “were forever borrowing books of one another”.²⁰ It was previously mentioned in the story that Mrs. Brympton “likes to be read to”.²¹ She feels especially lonely because her husband is almost never at home to keep her company and when he is present, the household changes and the mood and atmosphere are tainted by his presence. Right before Hartley meets Mr. Brympton for the first time, she notices a shift in the household and realizes that “nobody love[s] him below stairs”²² Hartley waits for Mr. Brympton to leave his wife's room so that she can get her mistress get changed for dinner. She notices that Mr. Brympton has left her mistress looking all white and being “chill to the touch”.²³ Another time Hartley finds her mistress “lying very weak and still”²⁴ after Mr. Brympton has left her bedroom. The reader could come to the conclusion that Mr. Brympton is someone who abuses his wife mentally or maybe even physically, and she definitely does not feel comfortable around him. Mrs. Brympton's fear of her husband is obvious the moment she faints when Hartley relates the information that Mr. Brympton has suddenly returned in the middle of the night. In contrast to Mr. Brympton, Mr. Ranford appears to be a gentle person who has a warm smile, and it seems that he likes to spend time with Mrs. Brympton when it comes to borrowing books and reading aloud for her. All servants like him because he always has “a friendly word for everyone of [them]”²⁵ and they are glad that Mrs. Brympton has such “a pleasant companionable gentleman”²⁶ by her side to keep her company. Furthermore, Mrs. Brympton's mood changes depending on who she is spending her time with. While she fears her husband and acts rather stiff and reserved towards him, she smiles and talks comfortably when she is with Mr. Ranford.²⁷ The reader gets the impression that Mrs. Brympton and Mr. Ranford might have been more than just neighbors and acquaintances. The most evident “action” Mrs. Brympton has done that shows that she sees Mr. Ranford as a love interest is when she, hesitantly and with a blushing face, asks Hartley to give him a note and to come back before Mr. Brympton wakes up.²⁸ Moreover, it is interesting how Hartley has “often heard [Mr. Ranford's] name mentioned in the hall”²⁹ before, but when it comes to Mr. Brympton, “[t]he servants said very little about their master”.³⁰

The difference between Mr. Brympton's and Mr. Ranford's presence and its effects on everyone around them becomes abundantly clear as the story unfolds.

The story reaches its peak when Hartley is yet again woken up by the sound of the bell ringing. She senses that whatever is coming, “[i]t is going to happen now”,³¹ though she herself does not exactly know what it is. As she is on her way to Mrs. Brympton's room, she sees Emma at the head of the stairs for a moment before she disappears, and in that moment, Hartley hears sounds from the house door. She rushes to her mistress' room and when Mrs. Brympton opens the door, Hartley is surprised to see that she still has “not undressed for the night”.³² The mistress asks her why she came at this hour, and when Hartley tells her that she came because her bell rang, Mrs. Brympton turns pale and denies ever having rung the bell and tells Hartley to leave. At that, Hartley hears another sound and warns her mistress that it might be Mr. Brympton who has returned. Shocked by the news, Mrs. Brympton suddenly faints without a word and drops to the ground. Hartley knees down and tries to lift her up again when she notices that the way Mrs. Brympton is breathing sounds very concerning. She realizes something must be wrong with her. Hartley hears quick footsteps approaching and when the door is flung open, Mr. Brympton stands before them. Not paying much attention to his wife lying on the ground in front of him, he passes them and goes for the dressing room to go “meet a friend”.³³ As soon as he opens the door to the dressing room, Emma Saxon appears before them. The next moment, she is gone again and Mr. Brympton stays there, paralyzed. Meanwhile, Mrs. Brympton has regained consciousness again, but as soon as her eyes fall on her husband, she falls back and dies.

Going on the assumption that Mrs. Brympton must have died from shock, the reader might question what exactly her fear must have been. Why was she shocked to see Mr. Brympton? Was it really just the fear of him? Or did Mr. Brympton find out something that he was not supposed to know? Getting caught cheating on him presents itself as a possibility. It was previously mentioned that Mrs. Brympton and Mr. Ranford might have shared a more intimate relationship than just friendship. In addition to that, Mr. Brympton has been showing his jealous side before when they were talking about Mr. Ranford, where he yelled “You belong to me!”³⁴ at his wife. To strengthen this speculation, it is necessary to look at Mrs. Brympton's last moments more closely.

The moment Hartley knocks on the mistress' door, she hears someone moving in the room. It is not explicitly stated who it is, so there might be a possibility that it is someone else than the mistress – Mr. Ranford, for example. He may have gone to hide somewhere, which is why Mr. Brympton, upon his arrival, ignores his dying wife and goes straight for the dressing room to take a look and go “meet a friend”.³⁵ Furthermore, Mrs. Brympton is not in in her nightgown but still dressed when Hartley meets her. She has either been outside until now or has a visitor in her room, but why would she lock the door from the inside then if she had a visitor and had nothing to hide? There might be a chance that Mrs. Brympton and Mr. Ranford have spent time together in her room.

Under these circumstances, Mrs. Brympton dying from shock because she thought she got caught cheating on her husband with Mr. Ranford is a great possibility.

Even until the very end, when Mrs. Brympton is buried, Mr. Brympton does not shed one single tear at his wife's funeral but is rather busy keeping his eyes on Mr. Ranford.

Even though it is obvious that Mr. Brympton neglects his wife in many ways, Mrs. Brympton does not ever think of getting a divorce. It might be due to the American high society's conservative thinking and tradition that divorce was seen as a contemptuous act in the 19^th century. It was an absolute taboo for a woman to divorce her husband, even though she did have justified reasons to do so.³⁶

The reader is neither informed of Mrs. Brympton's given name nor her maiden name. She is only referred to as Mrs. Brympton, strongly focusing on her husband's last name. Denied a first name and thus denied a more-fleshed out identity, she appears to be Mr. Brympton's property more than her own person.

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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.), 457.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid., 459.

8 Ibid., 457.

9 Ibid., 459.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid., 463.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., 462.

14 Ibid. f.

15 Ibid., 463.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid., 465.

18 Ibid., 460.

19 Ibid., 462.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., 458.

22 Ibid., 461.

23 Ibid., 462.

24 Ibid., 466.

25 Ibid., 462.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid., 466.

29 Ibid., 462.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid., 472.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid., 473.

34 Ibid., 465.

35 Ibid., 473.

36 Kornetta, Reiner. Das Korsett im Kopf. Ehe und Ökonomie in den Kurzgeschichten Edith Whartons.(Frankfurt am Main, New York: P. Lang, 1996. Print), 85.