The Groom

The groom appears only once and almost at the beginning of the story when he picks up Hartley with a dogcart from the train station to drive her to the Brympton Place.¹

Although some private residences do have their own grooms, in the story, it is not implied that the groom is working as or is part of the servants of the Brympton house. He is only mentioned once. Even when Mr. Brympton takes his leave after the funeral, he jumps “into the carriage nearest the gate”,² so it is just any carriage, and not their personal one.

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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., 474.