Maidens of Virtue: Chapter 15

Following the importance of raising good little homemakers, "Lady of Leisure" in Stacy McDonald's "Maidens of Virtue" is a realistic fiction morality tale.  I think the intended moral is that lazy, self-centered young women are not attractive to men - but the moral I got was that a stay-at-home daughter with absentee parents can get away with doing nothing of value for months at a time.

The writing in this section is solid since the genre is playing to Mrs. McDonald's strengths.  The main issue for me is that Mrs. McDonald's vignettes of farm life range stretch believability. 

The main thing I enjoyed about this section is that the female lead character is a full-blown narcissist.  She's a complete mental case - and I doubt Mrs. McDonald meant for her to be written like that.   This chick is totally unconcerned with anything that does not directly and immediately affect her and has an overblown sense of her own importance.   Mrs. McDonald implies that these characteristics are due to Ashley's habit of reading novels, but personality disorders do not spring from a healthy mind even a healthy mind with a habit for romance novels.

This is a bit of a first, but I don't have any direct quotes from the chapter.

The story starts with Ashley (who is 22) resting in a hammock while reading a book on a nice, if somewhat hot, day.   Her mom and sisters start planting a garden behind the barn.  Ashley decides that the female members of the family decided to start planting right then specifically to guilt-trip Ashley into helping them out.   Don't worry; ol' Ashley's smarter than that!  She decides to go into the house to finish her book.

Personally, I'm think Ashley's probably right about her family's motives.  Unless her mother and younger sisters (Emmaline, age 19 and Rachel, age 12) adore working in direct sunlight and heat, I have no idea why they would start planting a garden in the middle of the day.   I arrange my outdoor chores so that hot, sunny chores are done first thing in the morning or in the evening; in the middle of the day, I do chores in shade or in farm buildings.

Ashley enjoys a lemonade indoors and brings some out to her sisters and mother who are still working in the garden.   In a completely unconvincing moment, Ashley feels a twinge of guilt at not working with her family and far more convincingly collects the glasses and dashes to her room to read in peace so she doesn't get trapped into making dinner. 

Ashley's got avoiding work down to an art.  What I don't understand is why her mother (or mostly absentee father) doesn't nip this insane level of laziness in the bud.  Ashley's a fully emancipated adult; her parents have no legal obligation to provide anything for her.   In CP/QF land, her parents have a moral obligation to provide for her and keep her "safe" under their roof until she marries - and Miss Ashley's milking that obligation for all it is worth!

The door rings and eventually Ashley decides to answer the door.  A young man is waiting there who Ashley doesn't seem to know.  Louis is the orphaned adult son of a man who has a large family and a mother who is an invalid e.g., the standard stock family of handsome, virtuous young men in Victorian novellas.   (rolls eyes)  Louis is going to be working on Ashley's dad's farm for the summer in exchange for learning how to run "heavy equipment"(pg. 137) that Ashley's father owns. 

My take-away from this section is that Ashley's dad is taking advantage of a local dead farmer's son.  Look, Ashley's and Louis' families are part of the same community and the only rule in farming communities - the only rule -  is that you help out other families when tragedies strikes because your family could be next.   If Louis needs to learn how to run farm equipment to keep the farm going after his dad died, another farmer would teach him - for free - and would be horrified at the idea of accepting money (or work) for that right away.   The payback would be when Louis helped someone else out who was in need. 

In reality, the immoral actions of Ashley's dad happened because Mrs. McDonald knows nothing about farming.  Running equipment takes some practice for sure, but it's not the most important part of running a farm.  The make-or-break part is knowing what to plant, when to plant, when to harvest, and how to control risk.  Now, we never hear how old Louis is, but my father-in-law and grandfather-in-law were making decisions about planting and ration choices for dairy cows at age 14.  Clearly, that's not ideal for a lot of reasons, but in emergency situations teenagers can keep small farms running fairly well.   Since Louis is of marriageable age and inherited a large farm, he would not be taking a summer job at Ashley's dad's farm; he'd be learning on his own farm.   Now, make Louis a teenager who is the younger son on a small farm with an older brother who took over the farm and this makes more sense. 

One more issue and I'll get back to the plot line.  Who is going to inherit Ashley's family farm?  The time period on which this story is set is kept vague.  There is never a mention of any sons in the family so presumably one of the girls is the next presumed heir of the farm. 

Back to the story.  The next scene shows that Ashley is so self-centered that she cannot follow a conversation during a family-style meal where everyone is talking about their day.  She jarringly interrupts everyone to discuss how she made the salad that they ate at lunch once everyone else was talking about using ornaments to keep birds from eating tomatoes (a problem I've never had...) and about an escaped cow coming on their property.  The cow had another neighbor's apron snagged on her head.   (That story was pretty funny - although nothing like really trying to catch and escaped cow with something trapped on their head.  Ask me how I know :-) ) 

Apparently, making a fool of herself in front of guests finally makes Ashley's mom realize that Ashley needs to be assigned chores daily.  Of course, there are no consequences attached to not doing any chores so Ashley proceeds to ignore the assigned list.    Truthfully, Ashley's behavior makes more sense to me than the behavior of the rest of the family.

Time passes.  Ashley decides Louis really came to the farm to be with her rather than train.  This would be an unbelievable plot twist for most characters, but since Ashley's a raging narcissist I'm more surprised that this outcome has taken this long to develop.  Of course Louis would be pining for Ashley!  Ashley's the center of the universe and everyone shines in her brilliant light!

One morning, Emmaline and Rachel are sitting nervously in the kitchen.  The two other sisters function entirely as foils to Ashley.  They are hardworking, reliable, skilled, pleasant, and completely undifferentiated characters.  The girls are nervous because their parents and Louis are talking alone in the parlor!  The younger girls are worried that something happened to Louis' invalid mother - the one who has been left alone at home during this whole story - while Ashley's calmly confident that Louis is finally asking her parents for permission to marry her.

Needless to say, the invalid mother is fine...somehow.   Louis has asked permission to marry the angelic shadow being known as Emmaline which Ashley learns by eavesdropping on Emmaline and their mother.  Apparently, Louis was impressed because she was Godly, pretty in a standard feminine way, didn't rock the boat and knew how to work hard.   (Seriously.  That's the answer to "Why do you want to marry my daughter?" apparently.)  No idea how Emmaline feels about this because the story pans back to Ashley sitting alone eavesdropping on the conversation.

In a believable moment, Ashley is enraged!  Not so believably, Ashley is enraged at herself for having foolish fantasies.  Sorry, Mrs. McDonald, but that's not how narcissists work.  In real life, enraged Ashley would go tearing into the library or parlor or wherever the people were and rip Emmaline to shreds, imply that Louis was a mistaken idiot for getting the two of them confused, and launch into planning for the wedding of Louis and Ashley.   Ashley is the CENTER of the universe - and woe betide anyone who forgets that! 

The chapter ends with Ashley having a heart-changing come-to-Jesus moment where she realizes her own weaknesses and decides to change.   It rings completely untrue.   Best case scenario would be that Ashley devalues Louis to a peon-yokel and simply makes everyone miserable as a bridesmaidzilla.  Worst case scenario - well, don't let Ashley near Emmaline's food or drink, ok? 

I wonder how often something like this happens in CP/QF families.  The toxic theology of forgiving means forgetting is bad enough with healthy people involved.  The absolute lack of boundaries combined with no consequences can lead to an unbalanced person holding the entire family hostage.