Miss Evelina May, Week 4

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Welcome back to Miss Evelina May, the month where we all ready Frances Burney’s Evelina together. If you missed out on the previous entries, feel free to catch up here.

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May 4

The live discussion of Miss Evelina May will occur officially on the night of June 9th at 9pm ET, which will give stragglers time to finish the book and West Coasters an opportunity not to miss work. A link will go out to paid subscribers via the chat. Keep your eyes peeled!

Frances Burney invented the concept of using “stroll” as a noun — her mind!

Let’s just get a working list of every character who has expressed interest in Evelina at this point:

• Mr. Lovel

• Sir Clement

• Lord Orville

• Mr. Smith

• Mr. Branghton the son

• M. Dubois

• Lord Merton

To say nothing of the randy sailors and all the horrible people she runs into at various public settings!

Evelina’s frustration with everyone’s affection for her is the type of thing to make me feel sympathetic for what it’s like to be a celebrity. That’s kind of what she is — a foreign visitor with whom everyone almost immediately becomes obsessed. By the time we come to learn about Mr. Branghton the younger’s hopes to marry his cousin Evelina and M. Dubois’s affection, I really had to laugh. Or, as Burney puts it when Sir Clement comes to pay a call on the Branghtons: “The ha, ha, ha’s, and he, he, he’s grew more and more uncontrollable.” No one suffers like our poor Evelina.

During our last chunk of reading, we got to see Evelina be vaguely heroic, snatching pistols out of the grasp of Mr. Macartney, the Branghton’s boarder AKA “the Scotch mope,” before he tried to kill himself. But why is Mr. Macartney so depressed? It can’t just be because he’s a poet, right?

The two finally get an opportunity to have a conversation, though not without some degree of difficulty when it comes to direct communication:

As I went, I heard him move from his chair, and walk slowly after me. Believing that he wished to speak to me, and earnestly desiring myself to know if, by your means, I could possibly be of any service to him, I first slackened my pace, and then turned back. But, though I thus met him half-way, he seemed to want courage or resolution to address me; for, when he saw me returning, with a look extremely disordered, he retreated hastily from me.

Not knowing what I ought to do, I went to the street-door, where I stood some time, hoping he would be able to recover himself: but, on the contrary, his agitation increased every moment; he walked up and down the room, in a quick, but unsteady pace, seeming equally distressed and irresolute: and, at length, with a deep sigh, he flung himself into a chair.

When we finally get Mr. Macartney’s — “whose misery has so largely excited your compassion,” as Rev. Villars writes — tragic story, it’s kind of like, yeah, okay, I probably also would want to be dead via two pistols. Mr. Macartney is a bastard, raised by his mother in Scotland, but he’s lucky enough to have one (1) friend from liberal arts college with whom he goes on a trip to Paris. While there, he falls in love with an Englishwoman raised in a convent who doesn’t speak any English. He goes to her house to hang out, when who should interrupt but her father. Macartney draws his sword; the father draws his own. Though Macartney means to retreat at the panic of his newly beloved, the father won’t stop and the two fight, with Macartney supposedly gravely injuring this woman’s father. That would be bad enough on its own, but then he goes to complain to his mother who informs him that wasn’t just some random woman and her dad: that’s his dad and his sister. OY VEY! And then his mom dies! He moves back to England with hope of reconciling with both, to some degree or another, but is unable and slowly runs out of money. Macartney winds up buying the pistols in order to become a robber whose only intention is “to frighten the passengers” in order to make money back to give the Branghtons for all the room and board.

Evelina very charitably decides to take money that Rev. Villars gave to her to give to Macartney so he can get away from the Branghtons. Someone needs to be able to escape these people, and his story is much sadder than hers.

Lord Orville dominates this section of the novel. He reappears at the pleasure gardens where once again a situation has befallen our Miss Evelina. During the fireworks, there’s a big explosion — someone call Dr. Robby! — and people scatter in every direction. First Evelina gets pushed around by some nasty sailors and then she gets picked up by “two ladies” — we all know what’s going on here — who speak to her in an “ironical” tone and otherwise make her look bad in high society. Of course, when I’m seeing these two ladies grab Evelina away from the nasty soldier, I’m saying, “okay, these are girlies,” but Evelina doesn’t agree, and neither does Lord Orville who walks by and doesn’t bother to make eye contact.

The two wind up back in touch before the end of the night, and Orville does something I thought he’d never do, which is actually call on Evelina. She winds up apologizing to him for being seen with those ladies and for all this mishegoss — a word I am using in every single post during Miss Evelina May, because theres a lot of it — with her horrible cousins who behave insane to him. Orville forgives her and the two seem to finally have a nice thing going on.

But then… he does something extremely weird. He writes her a letter that’s nice. Suspiciously nice.

With transport, most charming of thy sex, did I read the letter with which you yesterday morning favored me. I am sorry the affair of the carriage should have given you any concern, but I am highly flattered by the anxiety you express so kindly. Believe me, my lovely girl, I am truly sensible of the honor of your good opinion, and feel myself deeply penetrated with love and gratitude. The correspondence you have so sweetly commenced I shall be proud of continuing, and I hope the strong sense I have of the favor you do me, will prevent your withdrawing it. Assure yourself that I desire nothing more ardently, that to pour forth my thanks at your feet, and to offer accomplishments. In your next, I entreat you to acquaint me how long you shall remain in town. The servant whom I shall commission to call for an answer, has orders to ride post with it to me. My impatience for his arrival will be very great, though inferior to that with which I burn, to tell you, in person, how much I am, my sweet girl, your grateful admirer, Orville.

On first read, I was like, ok yay. On second read, I was like, hmm, uh oh. Evelina goes through a similar circus of emotions. This does seem, on its face, like a nice thing to write someone, up until you take into account that it would have been seen as inappropriate to be penpals with your crush at the time and — let’s be honest — does this actually sound like Orville? Not really at all. The stress of this whole affair sends Evelina into a fit of illness during which she has to go to the spa in Bath and hang out with a lesbian1 named Mrs. Selwyn.

Eventually Orville and Evelina link up again and she comes to believe that perhaps he wrote the letter under some kind of influence. Does Orville seem like the kind of guy who would get drunk and be like, “let’s be friends”? Not really… I think we all know who this letter actually sounds like, but I’ll let you work it out in the comments.

Later: Evelina endures the greater insult of being called a toad-eater.

Mr. Lovel — your rude ass strikes again! Calling Evelina a suckup is the last straw. I’ve had it with you.

Though Orville and Evelina make romantic(ish) amends, that doesn’t come until after he has a brief freakout regarding her friendship with Mr. Macartney. All of this led me to wonder: is this worth it for Evelina? Define worth. Define it. I know I’m being pedantic, but I wonder, even in a marriage plot (!??) novel like this, whether all of Evelina’s panic and distress is worth any of these guys’s time. The thing that feels most decidedly like a learning experience is less the matter of etiquette and more her charity: how she treats Mr. Macartney is far more compelling than her ongoing will they/won’t they with Orville, who is far too sensitive and frankly unfunny to be a point of this much dismay. What is Evelina really learning from this time? I think she’s kind of coming away with a more close-minded view of “society”: her retreats back into the country/suburbs have her feeling far better than her time in the big, bad city. Perhaps what her “entrance into the world” is teaching her is, well, I’ll let Meg Stalter end this one.

What do YOU think Evelina is learning during this time? What other misadventures may follow in the novel’s remaining volume? Did you find yourself missing the Captain? (No.) Who wrote the letter from Lord Orville?!

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