Orley Farm

Hefty but not heavy: love, loss, iron furniture, legal shenanigans, humour, guilt, revenge, redemption, rat-catching, misunderstanding, a “moulded wife”… and more.

This is a standalone Trollope novel, originally published in instalments of two or three short chapters: the 800+ pages race by. Further page-turnability comes from numerous characters and sub-plots, coupled with quite a gossipy tone, and occasional catty asides. It was his most celebrated novel in his lifetime, but sadly, it is less well-known now.

Plot

The basic plot is explained at the outset, and I expect most readers guess the gist of the outcome quite early on. Lady Mason was the young second wife of on old land-owning widower; they lived at Orley Farm, while the show more adult son (Joseph Mason) lived in the main family estate, Groby. Shortly after their son Lucius was born, the old man died, and contrary to what he’d told his elder son, a codicil to his will left Orley Farm to his infant son. The will was challenged, but the codicil upheld. Twenty years later, when this book is set, it is challenged again: Lady Mason may be charged with forgery or perjury.

It’s not quite “fiction” as Oscar Wilde’s Miss Prism defined the word, but nearly so.

Justice and The Law

The law is at the heart of the book (Trollope’s father was a lawyer), along with the idea that it does not necessarily equate with justice. The process is explained clearly enough, and the courtroom scenes have the dramatic tension of the best TV dramas.

“We have retained a system which contains many of the barbarities of the feudal times… we teach him [the defendant] to lie in his own defence.”

Trollope’s concerns are moral, channelled mainly through Lucius Mason (“lawyers are all liars”) and young lawyer Felix Graham. In particular, is it ethical to defend someone if you think (or even know) they are guilty, and to what extent does payment cloud that, especially when it means the rich can buy justice that the poor can’t (as they can also buy warmer winter coats)?

The older Furnival’s conscience is more easily accommodated than that of the idealistic Graham:
“He had learned – as lawyers do learn – to believe his own case.”

Powerful barrister Chaffenbrass thinks it’s fine to acquit the guilty if they can support themselves, because it saves the crown money (I assume he wouldn’t extend that to rape or murder):
“He was always true to the man whose money he had taken.”

Image: Scales of justice, and shadow. Source.

“No amount of eloquence will make an English lawyer think that loyalty to the truth should come before loyalty to his client.”
But is that good or bad? The guilty still need someone to plead for them. You could insert a religious analogy here, but in this novel, the message of Christian repentance and forgiveness comes instead from Lady Mason’s friend, Mrs Orme. In fact, in some ways, this book has a stronger Christian message than the Barchester novels with their overtly church-related themes.

Putting aside the rules of law, moral justice is harder to define: doing the wrong thing, to selflessly right a wrong may still be wrong, but how much leniency, if any, should there be? How does the passage of time affect guilt, punishment and restitution? What does the innocent beneficiary of a crime owe the victim? If the victim is unpleasant and vindictive, how does one cast that bias aside?

Trivia: Even those who support the death penalty for crimes such as murder might be shocked to learn that forgery was a capital offence until 1830, only a few years before this was written and set!

Comical Commerce

Despite some dubious ethics, most of the lawyers are likeable, and for contrast, there are some commercial travellers. They provide plenty of humour (especially when explaining the etiquette of the “Commercial (Dining) Room” in an inn), as well as examples of ethical quandaries of a less intellectual kind.

Characters and their Names

Trollope is good at drawing characters of all sorts: rich, poor, aspirant, falling, male, female, young and old. He sometimes comes close to caricature, but knows where to draw the line. There are some good names, and unlike some of his Barsetshire novels, they’re not quite ludicrous.

It’s no surprise that Samuel Dockwrath is angry about his loss; that Round and Crook are lawyers, as are Slow and Bideawhile; Kantwise is quick-witted salesman; an apothecary is called Balsam; Mary Snow is on a pedestal; Bridget Bolster is made of stern stuff, and Chaffenbrass is good in court interrogation.

Women

For a Victorian man, Trollope can be surprisingly insightful about women – though he’s not afraid to portray nasty ones either. Those of most interest here include:

• Lady Mason is the central character, and unlike Lily Dale (The Small House at Allington), she is plausibly complex, as is her situation. The reader’s feelings towards her vary, which is a compliment to the writing.

• Mrs Orme is, like Lady Mason, a woman in her early forties, widowed for around twenty years. Her situation is rather different (she lives with her father-in-law, Sir Peregrine Orme, and son Perry) but her love and loyalty – practical and emotional – are beautiful.

• Sophia Furnival is a fascinating young woman: fiercely intelligent, but born a few generations too soon to follow her father into the law – something she would undoubtedly be good at.

• Mrs Furnival loves her husband, and is proud of his success but she struggles with the price of that success. Her husband is often away, so she suspects infidelity. She doesn’t find solace in her new social position either: she can’t butter toast on her lap, and tea is made in the kitchen, poured by servants.

• Mary Snow was the motherless daughter of a feckless father, adopted as a ward by a benefactor, who then trained her up to be a “moulded wife”! It’s described as if this was a known idea at the time. The complications of this arrangement are explored.

Lucius Mason is forward thinking; he declares that women “have minds equal to those of men”, though in an earlier chapter, Trollope suggests that Joseph Mason would be justified in deserting, beating or locking up his awful wife!

It may be relevant that although Trollope’s father was not very successful, his mother was a celebrated novelist who was able to support the family.

Parenting

Law may be the overt theme, but relationships between parents and young adult children are really the core of most of the plots and sub-plots, and as a parent of a young adult, they were what chimed most with me:

• Old Joseph Mason’s provision for his two sons caused problems. Death and money are often troublesome companions; we should strive to bequeath peace and harmony in how we leave our affairs.

• Lady Mason’s court cases affect her relationship with her son and his position in society. Everything she does, she does for him, and he loves her unquestioningly. But.

• Mary Snow’s father virtually sells her, but is her benefactor-cum-suitor any better? Distasteful as this is in modern times, I think his motives were honourable, albeit very misplaced.

• Judge Stavely and his wife are very liberal in how much freedom they give their daughters in choosing who to marry. They believe a child “should be allowed, as far as was practical, to do what they liked” because the child “if properly trained, would like those things which were good for them.” I broadly agree, but there’s no guarantee.

• The Stavelys’ freedom even allows a game of Blind Man’s Buff where “you can feel, you know”.

Marriage

You could write a lengthy essay comparing the huge variety of marriages – and potential ones – portrayed here.

We see a wealthy man, living in virtual poverty because of his stingy wife (who makes sure she does not go without herself), the corrosive effect of suspicion, a dubious form of well-intentioned grooming, sacrificial love, the pressure of having 14 children, and a commercial traveller who likes to keep his wife on her toes by not telling her when he’ll be home:
“He might keep her always on alert an ready for marital inspection.”

There is a gentleness in the way even the unhappy ones are rendered that avoids conjuring prurience, and a light joy in the happy couples. Social boundaries are challenged: some characters bow to them, and some do not.

It illustrates that there is no single template for marriage that works for all, and that what works for one couple at one stage in their lives, may need changing later on. I was reminded of a recent radio interviewee who was asked about how he and his wife had been happily married for over 30 years. He said he’d actually been married three times (the interviewer sounded flustered) and then explained that he’d only ever been married to the same woman, but that their relationship had evolved, so it was almost like three different marriages.

The permutations of courting couples, and the way some of them play one off another lend a Shakespearean air at times: different combinations of who might end up with who, and various impediments (some of which vanish without further explanation).

Tome, Language, and Grammar

Trollope quite often addresses the reader directly, giving his reasons for why he’s telling the story in the way he is. For example, “The heroine… must by a certain fixed law be young and marriageable” and promises that at least one such will be forthcoming. He also contradicts himself, to mildly comic effect. For instance, saying “It would be needless to tell…” and immediately telling it.

The occasionally gossipy tone is sometimes used, conspiratorially, to the reader, but is also demonstrated by Martha Biggs in particular. She takes a salacious interest in the troubles of her friend’s marriage, and wants to know more: her “soul sighed for a tale more piquant than one of mere general neglect… It could not be expected that she would sympathise with generalities for ever.” When she can’t hear the argument she expects, she “let the battle rage in her imagination.” She has some succour, and later, “her mind deliciously filled with the anticipation of coming catastrophes”. Some friend!

It’s instructive to read period literature and be reminded how language has changed. Constructions and spellings that some abhor as shocking modern errors or Americanisms are common in respected British books of the past:

• “all of them do not have...”

• “gotten” (only really in American English nowadays)

• “stept across” (yet Brits do still use burnt, spilt, spelt etc)

• “insure” and “intrust”, where Brits would now use “ensure” and “entrust”

• Hyphenation changes: now-a-days, some one, to-night, to-morrow

• “Stupid is as stupid does” may have been famously said by Forrest Gump’s mother, but it’s said by a sharp-tongued salesman here (Kantwise)!

• “not so cute in the ways of having much to say”

Other Quotes

• “He looked as though a skin rather too small for the purpose had been drawn over his head and face… His nose… seemed to have been compressed almost into nothing by that skin-squeezing operation… it had all the properties of a line… length without breadth.”

• Mrs Mason is comically mean, even to guests. A servant serves lunch: “the covers were removed… with a magnificent action of his arm which I am inclined to think was not innocent of irony… a large dish… selected by the cook with some similar attempt at sarcasm” and bearing “three scraps, as to the nature of which Mr Dockwrath, though he looked hard at them, was unable to enlighten himself.”

• A frustrated husband, “Instead of counting up her virtues, he counted up his own.” Trollope observes that failing to love and cherish a spouse is as much a breaking of marriage vows as the betrayal he is suspected of.

• “an intermeddling little busybody.”

• “Since the domestic rose would no longer yield him honey, he would seek his sweets from the stray honeysuckle on which there grew no thorns.”

• “Legal gentlemen are… quite as often bought off as bought up.”

• “Mrs Mason would not on any account have missed church… It was a cheap duty and therefore rigidly performed.”

• “He must now either assure her by a lie or break down all her hopes by the truth”.

• “Novels are the only chance a man has when he’s laid up like that.”

• “a solitary candle, which only seemed to make the gloom of the large room visible.”

• “She did wander about the house, as though there were something always to be done in some place apart from that in which she then was.”

• “Having dressed his face with that romantic sobriety he had been practising.”

• “He was a man who looked his best when under a cloud, and shone the brightest when everything about him was dark.” (Lucius Mason) show less

This is perhaps the most unusual of all Trollope's books. The ending is quite extraordinary, morally outrageous even today or perhaps especially in this day and age, just absolutely disgusting.

Trollope writes these long sagas that contain multiple small plots, usually romantic, and writes the characters so well that you get quite involved and this book does not disappoint in this.

The plot seems to have been written about in just about every review so there is no point in the artificial drama of putting a 'spoiler' here, although personally I really am not keen on reviews that are more synopses of the book. I like to read what people thought of a book more than what the book was about.

A young man comes of age and takes control of the show more property he inherited away from his mother who has been in control until then. He isn't a bad lad but he thinks he knows more about business than he does and his first action is to evict the tenant farmer so that he might put the land to more profitable use himself.

The impestuous young lad's father who had owned the land had dispossessed his eldest son and left it to his son by his second wife by means of a codicil to his Will, signed by a couple of servants. This Will had been tested in court by the eldest son, the rightful heir, but he had lost.

The farmer had known that the codicil was not genuine but since he was benefiting from the land, had said nothing for all these years. Now, though, enraged by his summary eviction, he goes after revenge.

Lady Mason, the beautiful, relatively young widow, marshalls all possible support, legal and otherwise for the defence of the Will and her good name, but eventually confesses to a friend that she did indeed forge both the codicil and the signatures which were on a completely different legal document.

The case comes to court, the lawyer makes a total fool of one of the witnesses to the codicil, as lawyers do, and the Lady Mason wins the case. The eldest son naturally would have had to pay costs and his name would be quite damaged bringing two cases calling an aristocratic lady, his stepmother, a forger and a perjurer.

However, since quite a few people now know that she is indeed a criminal she cedes the land to the rightful inheritor, her stepson, and then, with her son, goes abroad to live a life of ease and luxury, keeping both her money and her good name.

Outrageous!

But an excellent book, perhaps the best of Trollope's marvellous stories. I so enjoyed reading it and was so furious at the end my son said, 'What are you shouting at?'

Recommended for classics fans and those who think they are deadly dull, all Dickens paid-for-by-the-word boring or sly romances like Austen. This is something else, a brilliant read. show less

We usually think of the great change in morality between the 19th and 20th centuries as affecting largely our sexual practices and attitudes. However, in this novel Trollope creates a protagonist who is roundly contemned by the author and by all the other characters in the story. She is the second wife of a propertied man who is resolved on leaving all of his property to the son of his first marriage. She forges a codicil to his will reserving one piece of property, the Orley Farm of the title, for her son. The forgery is not discovered for twenty years, she is acquitted by the jury but has confessed to her friends and son and he returns the property to his greedy and completely unsympathetic half brother. Would Trollope have show more anticipated a future reader who would regard his protagonist as a heroine for trying to secure a future for her son against the totally unChristian behavior of his father and half-brother? He does seem critical of the adversarial nature of the British legal system, although he does not suggest any reforms. Indeed, his one character who is interested in reform is tamed by marriage to a judge's daughter. show less

I liked this standalone novel by one of my favorite authors. The plot of Orley Farm centers around a 20 year old disputed will. At issue is whether a codicil that granted Orley Farm, one small portion of the estate, to the only infant son of a second marriage was forged by this baby's mother, Lady Mason. When Lucius Mason grows up and tries to kick a tenant off his land, this tenant discovers old documents that throw doubt on the codicil being authentic. A new trial ensues.

The crux of this book is the ethics of defense lawyers defending clients that they know or assume to be guilty. Also, of course, forgiveness, redemption, and fairness even when the fair outcome doesn't benefit the parties we might wish based on personality.

I really show more liked this one and I think the strong focus of the plot might make it a more memorable one of Trollope's novels for me. I believe this is the 18th novel I've read by [[Trollope]]. show less

When her son Lucius was an infant, Lady Mason defended the codicil to her much older husband’s will which left his Orley Farm property to Lady Mason’s son, Lucius. Sir Joseph’s heir, Joseph Mason of Groby Park, nursed a grudge against his stepmother and half-brother for two decades. Upon taking possession of the property at age 21, Lucius Mason decides to turn out tenant Samuel Dockwrath from two fields that he has farmed for years. Dockwrath, who is also a lawyer, sets out in revenge to wrest the property from Lucius Mason and put it in the hands of Joseph Mason of Groby Park.

In the face of a new trial, Lady Mason turns to her closest neighbors for support – Sir Peregrine Orme and his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Orme. Lady Mason was show more defended by barrister Furnival in her previous trial, and she once again seeks his services. Mr. Furnival has an eye for a pretty lady, and he unhesitatingly accepts Lady Mason’s appeal for his services, to his wife’s great dismay.

Lucius Mason is one of a group of young people whose affairs of the heart become entangled. Lucius is in love with Mr. Furnival’s daughter, Sophia, whose hand is also sought by Judge Stavely’s son, Augustus. Sir Peregrine Orme’s grandson, another Peregrine, is hopelessly in love with Madeline Stavely. His rival for Madeline’s affection is Felix Graham, a young attorney who is too honest to succeed in his chosen profession.

Trollope had a point to hammer in this novel regarding the English justice system and the disconnect between legal guilt and innocence and moral guilt and innocence. For all intents and purposes, Lady Mason is the protagonist, with Madeline Stavely and her suitors and Sophia Furnival and her suitors as subplots. Yet Trollope writes as if (or perhaps as if his readers will expect that) the young people are the central characters. I think this is why the pacing felt uneven to me. Lucius’ character also seems underdeveloped given his importance to both his mother’s central dilemma and the romance sub-plot. Lucius was more absent than present so that I feel like I saw his persona and not the inner man. show less

I have quite a crush on this author. I discovered the pleasure of reading his books this year and this is the 7th book I have read by him. He knows people and their motivations so well. Orley Farm contains love interests between young people, and secrets that torment people (I am being vague to avoid giving anything away), and describes living in country homes and in city houses, the rules of society then, and some humor sprinkled in. The event that pulls this book along relentlessly is the trial to see who has the right to own Orley Farm, either Lady Mason and her son Lucius Mason, who have lived there for more than twenty years, or the half brother of Lucius, Mr. Mason of Groby Park. Mr. Mason is full of rage against Lady Mason and show more pushes with all his might to get Orley Farm. More than that he wants Lady Mason sentenced to prison. Trollope uses some fun surnames for characters and he injects himself with humorous asides along the lines of "if I were a better author I could readily explain ...". If you are like me you will long remember some of these characters like Lady Mason, Sir Peregrine Orme, Sophie Furnival, Felix Graham and many more. Trollope's books make me happy! show less

I loved this story of a young widow, persecuted by her deceased husband's oldest son for trying to do right by her baby. Trollope creates some characters so endearing and realistic, that you the reader feel what was his love for his creation. The ups and downs of a handful of lives of a little country community in England made me become so entwined in the story, that I had more than once to remind myself that they were fictional. And yet, sadly, in the end, trollope did me dirty when he spoke of a rejected young man who took himself off to Central Africa to forget his sorrows by taking the lives of more beautiful creatures than he surely ever was:
"Peregrine did as he said, and went abroad, extending his travels to many wild countries, show more in which, as he used to say, anyone else would have been in danger. No danger ever came to him - so at least he frequently wrote word to his mother. Gorillas he slew by scores, lions by hundreds, and elephants sufficient for an ivory palace. The skins, and bones, and other trophies, he sent home in various ships; and when he appeared in London as a lion, no man doubted his word. but then he did not write a book, nor even give lectures; nor did he presume to know much about the huge brutes he had slain, except that they were pervious powder and ball."
P.735

I could have said"farewell" to this work of love easily without knowing about the beautiful animals that a disappointed spoiled little rich boy murdered, Trollope. show less