Transome, Mrs. Arabella
Title
Transome, Mrs. Arabella
Description
Harold Transome's mother; a handsome, imperious, disappointed woman whose age is embittered by the unhappy consequences of a sin [sic., Mudge & Sears, 1924] of her young married days.
"Her figure was slim and finely formed, though she was between fifty and sixty. She was a tall, proud-looking woman, with abundant grey hair, dark eyes and eyebrows, and a somewhat eaglelike, yet not unfeminine, face. Her tight-fitting black dress was much worn; the fine lace of her cuffs and collar, and of the small veil which fell backwards over her high comb, was visibly mended; but rare jewels flashed on her hands, which lay on her folded black-clad arms, like finely cut onyx cameos ... " "Crosses, mortifications, money cares, conscious blameworthiness, had changed the aspect of the world for her; there was anxiety in the morning sunlight ; there was unkind triumph or disapproving pity in the glances of greeting neighbours . . . Mrs. Transome, whose imperious will had availed little to ward off the great evils of her life, found the opiate for her discontent in the exertion of her will about smaller things. She was not cruel, and could not enjoy thoroughly what she called the old woman's pleasure of tormenting; but she liked every little sign of power her lot had left her. She liked that a tenant should stand bareheaded below her as she sat on horseback. She liked to insist that work done without her orders should be undone from beginning to end ... a woman's keen sensibility and dread ... lay screened behind all her petty habits and narrow notions." As a proud young beauty of good family but little money, she had made a loveless marriage with the feeble Mr. Transome. Feeling no fondness for either her husband or her half-idiot eldest son [sic., Mudge & Sears, 1924], she had responded to the attentions of the handsome young lawyer, Jermyn, and later had centred all her love and pride in her second son, Harold, a healthy handsome boy. Her dominating nature makes her enjoy managing the estate in place of her feeble husband, but lawsuits and the charges which the unscrupulous Jermyn has fastened on the estate have greatly reduced the income.
On the death of her disreputable eldest son she eagerly anticipates Harold's return from the East, where he has gone to make his fortune, and expects to find in his devotion a solace for all her dissatisfactions. She is bitterly disappointed when, instead of this devotion, he gives her merely a good-humoured, condescending affection; feels the loss of authority when he does not defer to her about the management of the estate; and watches with helpless dread the growing antagonism between him and Jermyn. Finally, when Jermyn, in a public quarrel, tells Harold that he is his father, her unhappy secret is revealed to her son. After his first reaction to this shock, Harold treats her with gentleness, and takes her abroad, away from the associations of Transome Court.
"Her figure was slim and finely formed, though she was between fifty and sixty. She was a tall, proud-looking woman, with abundant grey hair, dark eyes and eyebrows, and a somewhat eaglelike, yet not unfeminine, face. Her tight-fitting black dress was much worn; the fine lace of her cuffs and collar, and of the small veil which fell backwards over her high comb, was visibly mended; but rare jewels flashed on her hands, which lay on her folded black-clad arms, like finely cut onyx cameos ... " "Crosses, mortifications, money cares, conscious blameworthiness, had changed the aspect of the world for her; there was anxiety in the morning sunlight ; there was unkind triumph or disapproving pity in the glances of greeting neighbours . . . Mrs. Transome, whose imperious will had availed little to ward off the great evils of her life, found the opiate for her discontent in the exertion of her will about smaller things. She was not cruel, and could not enjoy thoroughly what she called the old woman's pleasure of tormenting; but she liked every little sign of power her lot had left her. She liked that a tenant should stand bareheaded below her as she sat on horseback. She liked to insist that work done without her orders should be undone from beginning to end ... a woman's keen sensibility and dread ... lay screened behind all her petty habits and narrow notions." As a proud young beauty of good family but little money, she had made a loveless marriage with the feeble Mr. Transome. Feeling no fondness for either her husband or her half-idiot eldest son [sic., Mudge & Sears, 1924], she had responded to the attentions of the handsome young lawyer, Jermyn, and later had centred all her love and pride in her second son, Harold, a healthy handsome boy. Her dominating nature makes her enjoy managing the estate in place of her feeble husband, but lawsuits and the charges which the unscrupulous Jermyn has fastened on the estate have greatly reduced the income.
On the death of her disreputable eldest son she eagerly anticipates Harold's return from the East, where he has gone to make his fortune, and expects to find in his devotion a solace for all her dissatisfactions. She is bitterly disappointed when, instead of this devotion, he gives her merely a good-humoured, condescending affection; feels the loss of authority when he does not defer to her about the management of the estate; and watches with helpless dread the growing antagonism between him and Jermyn. Finally, when Jermyn, in a public quarrel, tells Harold that he is his father, her unhappy secret is revealed to her son. After his first reaction to this shock, Harold treats her with gentleness, and takes her abroad, away from the associations of Transome Court.
Source
<em>Felix Holt, the Radical</em>
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