While Arthur is in Oxford, Evelyn and Miriam descend into
penury as dress-makers; their rich customers stretch their credit and refuse to
pay their bills. Arthur rescues them by lodging them with a kindly Mrs Bertram,
a family friend. After Arthur is ordained, Miriam listens to his sermons,
teaches at Sunday school and helps him to do good works among the poor (Miriam May, Chapter 15). Despite this,
Arthur does not think of Miriam as a potential spouse: "it was never to me
that love which sees in such a loveliness a wife." (Ibid.)
It is only when Miriam pleads with him after Arthur threatens to move away,
that he decides to marry her instead of taking her along as a servant. As
Arthur puts it: "And why not?" (Miriam
May, Chapter 17). It is
fortunate, that in every way Miriam demonstrates that she will make a worthy
wife:
"Miriam, now that she had entered on what was to her so
new a life, soon showed that she could well fulfil the position to which she
would be called. Miriam was in the full bloom of her rich womanly beauty, nor
did her little white hand show dairy work or needlework. Had Miriam been called
at any time to swell the loveliness of any court, that call would not have been
to her too much." (Miriam May,
Chapter 18).
Arthur and Miriam are married by Arthur's older brother (who
is also a priest and remains nameless throughout the novel). "It is a
humble, small wedding" (Miriam May,
Chapter 18), with only the Bertrams, Evelyn May and Dr Montaigne present. Out
of the blue a stranger appears and steps up to give Miriam away. "Evelyn,
my wife, my own!" He exclaims. This is Geoffrey May, Evelyn's husband, returned
at this critical moment after an absence of twenty-four years. "Evelyn, is
this our child?" He asks about Miriam. "Geoffrey, you have come;
Miriam it is your father; ... Geoffrey, this is our child." After this
reunion, the wedding ceremony continues, only: "it was seen by all, Evelyn
May now wore a ring." (Ibid.).
At the end of the scene the narrator comments:
"Geoffrey May had a good deal to explain, and I cannot know but that he
should have at last a chapter to himself." (Ibid.) I should think so!
At the theatre, seeing Evelyn for the first time, Geoffrey
"laid at her feet the promise of his rich inheritance of much gold."
(Miriam May, Chapter 19). "She
did not hate, nor did she love the man" (Ibid.). After a short courtship via letter-writing, they were
"married privately in Italy." But, Sir Melville May wanted his son to
marry "a blonde woman of no mean means." Sir Melville threatens to
cut Geoffrey out of his will. In Geoffrey's own words: "So he will cut me
off, so he will rob me, if he but hears that I have married this girl; be it so
- to get his gold, I must cast her off - ... A beggar he'd make me. He would
like to see me come to want, to rot, to starve. I am a devil, I know that - but
so is he." (Ibid.) Geoffrey
takes the wedding ring from sleeping Evelyn's finger, leaves behind a letter to
explain it all (and proving that Evelyn is his lawful wife) and walks out.
Again, conveniently, the very day after Sir Melville dies and Geoffrey has
safely inherited his fortune of £2,000, he receives a letter from Mrs Bertram,
who just happens to be a family friend to the Mays as well, telling him about
Evelyn and Miriam May.
Evelyn is now Lady May, she takes her place in Glastonbury
society, and Sir Geoffrey arranges for both Evelyn and Miriam, the girl born on
the workhouse steps, to be presented at court (Miriam May, Chapter 20). There is a happy end, because, although
Geoffrey may have been a 'devil' who abandoned his wife for fortune and stayed
away for twenty-four years leaving her and their daughter to live in poverty
and depend on others' charity, there was no birth out of wedlock.
Why is Miriam May
such a badly-written novel? I have
already suggested several reasons, but let's finish by summing up.
First, there are issues with the plot. There are wonderfully
melodramatic events, but they contribute little to the overall plot and seem to
have no consequences. For example, the three incidents where Miriam 'saves'
Arthur (the eye of the tutor, the burning of the will and the burning house)
have much potential for providing sensational moments and plot twists, and demonstrating
depth in the characters. But they do not lead anywhere. There are events that
have absolutely no bearing on the plot or the development of the characters,
for example the fight over Mrs Trevor's plate after her death (Miriam May, Chapter 11). On the other
hand, there are sensational, dramatic events with a significant bearing on the
plot which are narrated only in the form of a belated explanation. Geoffrey
May's twenty-four-year absence due to his problematic relationship with his
"Godless" father is both implausible and potential source of
sensational tension. This plot line is more or less wasted in the end of the
narrative (Miriam May, Chapter 19).
There are also issues with the characters. They are flat and
one-dimensional in the tradition of melodrama. Miriam is a stereotypical,
thoroughly good heroine, despite eaves-dropping on her benefactors and burning
a will. Evelyn, the fiery young woman who runs off to the stage at the
beginning of the novel, loses much of her character in later chapters and fades
into the background. Mr Slie, the opportunistic evangelical could be a much
stronger villain. Arthur Trevor does not have much internal life, and there is
no sense of his character developing, even if the novel describes his life from
childhood to marriage. Melodramatic stereotypes are fine, but they should
appear in a tightly woven melodramatic plot, where the plot provides sufficient
interest for us, so that we do not seek to engage with the characters to any
great extent. This is not the case in Miriam
May.
Finally, there are issues with the style of writing. There
is nothing wrong with the religious theme of the book, but it is not really
embedded in the narrative. It appears as a floating commentary rather then
being visible in the thoughts and actions of the characters. There is a strange
mix in the tone and style in the novel. Extremely violent scenes are mixed with
almost macabre comedy (the eye of the tutor and the death of the member of
parliament are examples). Robins was clearly having fun writing Miriam May, you can almost hear him
chuckle on some pages. The novel displays a specific kind of sense of humour,
specific preoccupations. One might argue that the author has his hobby-horse(s)
too much on display. If you cannot trust your readers to share your
preoccupations, if you cannot be sure that you are preaching to the converted, you
should be very careful about trotting out your hobby-horses when writing fiction.
I think the critical problem is that Robins (and here, I
mean Robins the author reflected in Miriam
May, not the chaplain I know very little about) is too self-conscious in
his writing; instead of telling a story from the inside, imagining his
characters and events as a logical universe; he is inventing a chain of incidents
from a distant and slightly ironic stand-point. He does not believe in the
reality of his story and characters; he is telling an amusing anecdote. This is
further evident in the lack of descriptions in the novel. We do not even know
what Arthur Trevor looks like. There is very little dialogue, too. The
narrative is made up of Arthur Trevor's monologue, which often (and
appropriately, as he is a clergyman) sounds very much like a sermon. It is
therefore very difficult for the reader to engage with the characters in Miriam May, be convinced by the world
they inhabit and be carried away by the events in the narrative.
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