Realistic romance on an English country farm
At the age of seventeen, Paul Manning moves out of his parents’ house to make his own way in the world. His father soon arranges a position for him as clerk for a railroad engineer named Mr. Holdsworth. The job requires quite a bit of travel as the two men oversee the construction of branch lines in the English countryside. When Paul’s mother hears that he is going to spend some time working near Heathbridge, she asks him to look in on her cousins, the Holmans, who live on a farm in the area. Paul undertakes the task reluctantly, as a family obligation, but upon meeting the Holmans he strikes up a friendship with them and comes to see their farm as a second home. In particular, Paul is fascinated by his third cousin Phillis Holman, a beautiful and intelligent young woman a year younger than himself.
The atmosphere of Hope Farm, as the Holmans’ country farm is called, is irresistible not only to Paul but also to the reader, who will enjoy spending time with these characters in this idyllic rural retreat. The Reverend Holman, Phillis’s father, is a strong, wise, and amiable man who becomes a sort of father figure to Paul and a good friend to Holdsworth. In this setting, not surprisingly, a romance develops, and it follows a course not unexpected. The only really original aspect of the story is the moral dilemma faced by a third party who becomes unwisely involved in the relationship.
Cousin Phillis is very well-written, but it suffers from the folly of its times. The code of etiquette and mores of Victorian England was so loaded with absurdities it seems intended to deliver the maximum amount of misery and guilt to Her Majesty’s subjects. Men couldn’t show any attention to a woman without being obligated to marry her. You’re only allowed to fall in love once in your life, after which you’re expected to become some sort of celibate pariah. Women were required to remain little girls until their clueless fathers allow them into womanhood. No wonder that, if the literature of the Victorian Era is to be believed, nervous breakdowns, referred to as “brain fever,” were common and fatal. Despite all this histrionic baggage, and the fact that the plot is utterly predictable, Gaskell does manage to make the reader care deeply about these characters. Much like when reading a fantasy novel, however, the reader of today must suspend disbelief in order to get into the mindset of this strange world and its irrational customs.
The ending of Cousin Phillis is less than satisfying and feels unfinished. Even so, I did enjoy spending time on the farm with this family and getting involved in their simple, wholesome lives. Gaskell displays a sensitive attention to psychological details. This novella really is an exceptional work for its time and genre, and for that reason deserves the high regard in which it is held. Gaskell is not as well known as her contemporaries the Brontë sisters, but if Cousin Phillis is indicative of the quality of her fiction, her body of work is worth further investigation.
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