Gender and Space in Rural Britain, 1840-1920

64 Gender and Space in Rural Britain, 1840–1920

unfolds Alex fi nds herself admiring Van’s beauty, and he hers. She is content
to regard him aesthetically, like a carved object or ‘modern bust’, but when she
becomes conscious that she is being regarded by him, she becomes uncomfort-
able in her objecthood.^32 ‘I’ve sense enough to see that it only adds a great deal of
trouble to a woman’s life when she’s a beauty’, she refl ects, and fi nds herself iden-
tifying with a ‘dismal, moulting summer robin’ hopping beneath the tree, which
Van is at that moment pelting with berries. Although Van takes her words as
excessive modesty intended to push him away from her and reject his advances,
she is in earnest when she says,

I respect the shamefaced feeling that makes it lurk in the undergrowth when it is all

shabby like that. I’ve oft en felt just the same on the days when I look particularly ugly.

I’d like to hop about under a hedge, and never issue into light or company at all.^33

Th e kind of invisibility Alex is describing is not simply an urge towards self-
eff acement, but an acknowledgement that the confi nes of gendered behaviour
and the inevitability of being regarded, and judged, as a woman in a public set-
tings forbid women from achieving moments of what the text constructs as
‘authentic’ self-expression and liberated subjecthood.

Invisibility and the Urban

Transcendent invisibility, by which women escape social signifi cation in ways
essential for the achievement of that modern promise – privacy – is more fea-
sible in rural locations than urban, as Alex’s forays into Edinburgh, with its
additional complications and constraints on female behaviour, show. Th e men,
Van and Richard, enjoy an unselfconscious mobility, moving between rural and
urban locations and contexts with ease and self-confi dence, at points of direct
contrast with Alex. When, for example, she encounters Van in Edinburgh it is
at the moment that her uncharacteristically fashionable clothing – a long skirt
and preposterous, precarious hat – are once again making movement impossible.
Th e scene occurs on North Bridge, an elevated spot which is most exposed to
the strong and damp winds from the east coast. It is, however, Alex’s clothes and
her sense of her own visibility in them, which specifi cally curtail her movement:

She stood for a moment on the wet pavement, whilst the wind drove her petticoats in

fl apping wreaths about her ankles; it beat her umbrella until she had to put it down,

and as she came to the bridge she stopped for a little to readjust her hat and breathe,

before beginning to struggle across the unprotected bit of roadway.^34

Not usually one for complex and ornamental dress, Alex has worn a hat and
long skirt to complement her appearance as a public reader. Although she has
just achieved a new form of fi nancial and professional freedom, urban etiquette