Perhaps you are familiar with George Moore’s Esther Waters, a curiously modern Victorian novel that tells the story of a servant girl who, seduced and deserted by a fellow employee, struggles to survive as a single mother.
The influence of Zola’s naturalism permeates his books, which sets them apart from most Victorian novels. I recently devoured A Mummer’s Wife, Moore’s complex novel about the theater life and alcoholism. This virtually forgotten novel is stunning, just short of being a masterpiece.
Moore is a bold storyteller, unafraid of tackling dark subjects. Indeed, A Mummer’s Wife shares common elements with Zola’s L’Assommoir, a novel about alcoholism and its destruction of a family. Moore’s tragic novel charts an ordinary woman’s descent into alcoholism. What begins as the story of a naive, weary seamstress at the beck and call of her asthmatic husband turns into a romantic elopement with an actor and her brief rise to stardom and rapid downfall.
Moore’s understanding of the destructive power of alcohol drives the characters and plays havoc with lives. At the beginning there is is no alcohol at all in the home where lovely Kate Ede, a talented dressmaker, lives with her husband and mother-in-law. She often feels like a drudge and a slave, as she stays up all night to nurse her asthmatic husband, Ralph. It is as though she has two jobs, nursing and running a full-time business as a seamstress. His asthma attacks frighten both of them, but he is bad-tempered with Kate, blaming her for opening windows and doors, though he may himself have requested that she do so.
To make extra money for the household, the Edes have decided to rent out rooms to theater people. Mrs. Ede, Kate’s mother-in-law, fears their tenants will be immoral, but Ralph snaps at her, saying they need the money and that is that. All are surprised by the charm and considerateness of their tenant, Dick Lennox, the director of the theater company. He is the most charming person they have ever met. And soon Kate is desperately in love.
But the sleepless Kate must also worry about business: she agonizes over the knowledge that she can’t make the deadline for an important customer’s dress. Fortunately, her laid-back, chatty assistant, Miss Hender, distracts her from her problems. Miss Hender is full of salacious gossip about the traveling theater company. Her boyfriend is an actor.
Kate likes Miss Hender, but is disturbed by her “coarseness.” Kate would love to go to the theater herself, but can’t see how she can leave Ralph alone with his mother. Miss Hender, who is comically direct, like a bawdy character in a Restoration comedy, speaks to Kate as if not fully realizing the bond of marriage.
“But what’s the use of his coming if you can’t get out? A man always expects a girl to be able to go out with him. The ‘hag’ is sure to be about, and even if you did manage to give her the slip, there’s your husband. Lord! I hadn’t thought of that before. What frightful luck! Don’t you wish he’d get ill again? Another fit of asthma would suit us down to the ground.”
Kate is shocked, and I, too, am scandalized by Miss Hender’s babbling.
Kate thought it very provoking that Miss Hender could never speak except in that coarse way. She was a very nice girl in her way; very good-hearted, and it would be nice, convenient indeed, to be friendly with her but if she could not keep from making nasty remarks, there was no help for it but to treat her just as a workwoman at so much a day.
Ironically, Kate’s morals are soon more compromised than Miss Hender’s. She runs away with Dick, though she is reluctant to leave her mother-in-law, Mrs. Ede, her best friend, and she feels guilty about leaving Ralph, who has recovered from his asthma and is his old affectionate self.
But she adores Dick, and finds the theater life so exciting that she forgets her former life. She takes piano and singing lessons and begins to act on the stage. She likes being a star, but during hard times the company disbands. And while Dick struggles to establish a new theater company in London, Kate stays alone in drab rooms in a grimy suburb and takes to drink
One forgets that women can be just as violent as men when they drink. Soon she is making drunken scenes in public – even at Dick’s theater – accusing him of having affairs with women. She is also violent, and attacks him even in the theater..
This is a bold, very modern novel about the disintegration of a woman’s personality in the hell of drink. And Kate becomes a harridan. The sweet Kate Ede has disappeared, killed by alcohol All that is left is a hard carapace.
And one cannot help but think that the theater is part of the cause. She can’t cope with anonymity after the excitement of stardom. And certainly no one can cope with days and nights all alone, with no work, with no acquaintances, with no hope of change.
So who is the monster? Well, Kate… but it is the drink.
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