The Old Maid (The ‘Fifties) by Edith Wharton (June 23-25,
2004)
The Old Maid is the second book in Wharton's Old New York quartet. Set in the 1850s, the novella is a story of a Charlotte and Delia Lowell. As the story opens, Delia is content in a marriage to the suitable Jim Ralston, and has two small children. Meanwhile, her cousin Charlotte "Chatty" is engaged now to Joe Ralston. Charlotte shocks Delia by saying the engagement is off and revealing that she has an illegitimate child. She is caring for her own daughter Tina along with many other children at a children's home she is running. No one knows the origins of the child, and no one including Tina knows that Charlotte is Tina's mother.
The twist is that Delia's former suitor, Clement Spender, is Tina's father. Delia turned him down, and never knew he and Charlotte were involved after Delia's marriage. Clement returned to Europe, and does not know he has a child. Charlotte's lung problems left her with a good excuse to leave New York and have her baby in seclusion, leaving no one the wiser. The problem is that Joe has asked her to give up her orphans upon her marriage, and Charlotte cannot give up her own daughter. Delia helps Charlotte and manipulates and punishes her at the same time by intervening. Though Delia believes she could manage to get Charlotte both her husband and child, she does not believe Charlotte's breaking of societal norms entitles her to marriage. Delia manipulates Joe and Charlotte, breaking their engagement to hand out Charlotte's punishment for her behavior. She also takes care of Charlotte and the child, and they set up a home together.
When Delia's husband dies leaving her a young widow, Charlotte and Tina join Delia's household, where Tina calls Delia "Mama" and goes to her over Charlotte. Charlotte is relegated to an old maid without a role in her daughter's life. Charlotte realizes she cannot reveal her secret to her daughter and does not want to. When Tina enters society, Delia legally adopts her so that Tina will have an inheritance and be able to make a good match. Meanwhile Charlotte is excluded further. Finally, as Tina falls in love, it is Charlotte who takes note of it, and realizes that her daughter is in the same dangers with a young man that she once faced. She is more intuitive than Delia about her own daughter, but cannot speak with her daughter frankly, being considered an "old maid aunty."
Both Charlotte and Delia live aspects of their youth through Tina, hoping that she will make choices that they did not. Charlotte wants to protect her from being involved with a man before marriage to keep her from falling into a situation like her own. Delia, meanwhile sees herself in Tina, and relives her romance with Clement Spender, bringing out many unspoken feelings she had buried away. Delia's motivations for taking Tina from Charlotte are based in that she wants Spender's child. Charlotte realizes this, and by the end of the novel, the women's jealousy and hatred of one another leads to a confrontation on the eve of Tina's wedding.
What is best about this story is the true feeling of the motivations of the two main characters. They both feel real. Their understandings, manipulations and misinterpretations of one another drive the novel. The story is lush and well constructed. Wharton is full of the understanding of the way the games in society are played. What is acceptable? What is not? What can you get away with, and what should be punished? Of the novellas by Wharton that I've read, this is my favorite.
