Husbands, wives, and lawyers: Gender roles and professional representation in Trollope and the Adelaide Bartlett case

College Literature, Winter 1998 by Reiter, Paula Jean

Allowing Furnival's voice to drown out or replace her own voice in this legal setting implies her approval of the transference of a whole range of legal powers that men claim in women's names-most pointedly in her case the right to own and bequeath property. Lady Mason knows that in addition to demonstrating her relinquishment of her legal voice, she must also give a performance of her dignity, innocence, and femininity. She plans her dress, carriage, and facial expressions accordingly. Even a matter as small as timing the lifting of her veil is not left to chance.

Lady Mason's twenty exemplary years of patience, modesty, refinement, and self sacrifice, and her fulfillment of all that is expected of a woman of her standing, prepare the way for Mr. Furnival's defense and the public's acceptance of her claim to innocence. Sir Peregrine Orme, for example, cannot at first believe that she is guilty. Those twenty years speak more clearly to him than her own confession:

Could this be possible? Could it be that she forged that will....And then he thought of her pure life, of her womanly dignified repose, of her devotion to her son. . . of her sweet, pale face and soft voice! He thought of all this, and of his own love and friendship for her,-of Edith's love for her! He thought of it all, and he could not believe she was guilty. (II. 44)

Orme concludes that her confession is incompatible with her known conduct, and, more importantly, incompatible with his own and Edith's love for her. Believing that feminine traits are natural rather than prescribed and that a woman's conduct expresses innate femininity rather than complying with socially constructed norms, Orme cannot comprehend how Lady Mason could win his love and be guilty. In his understanding she is innocent, not merely acting in an innocent manner.

Furnival's defense rests on reinforcing in the jury's mind what Orme assumes, that gender is inescapable, natural, undefiable. Twenty years of exemplary performance of her womanly duties strongly support Furnival's contention that Lady Mason is an innocent woman and as such incapable of forgery. There can be no momentary slips out of character if you contend that her character is a natural expression of her being. The fiery speech in which he spells this out is worth quoting at length.

During the incidents of this trial the nature of the life she had led during these twenty years . . . has been proved before you. I may fearlessly ask you whether so fair a life is compatible with the idea of guilt so foul?. . . Look at her, as she sits there! That she, at the age of twenty, or not much more,-she who had so well performed the duties of her young life, that she should have forged a will,-have traced one signature after another in such a manner as to have deceived all those lawyers who were on her track immediately after her husband's death! For, mark you, if this be true, with her own hand she must have done it!. . . Look at her! Was she a forger? Was she a forger? Was she a woman to deceive the sharp blood-hounds of the law? (II. 329)