Little and Large

 Let me introduce you to a pair of great characters of Victorian fiction. Our first, in Wilkie Collins' 1871 novella "Miss or Mrs.?" is Lady Winwood, the diminutive cousin of the central character:

'Lady Winwood's brisk blue eyes looked brightly up in despotic command from an elevation of four feet eleven (in her shoes).' If there's one thing Wilkie Collins was great at, it was summing up a character in a simple sentence. Another thing he was known for (way ahead of his time, in this and a lot of other things) was creating a lot of characters who don't fit the standard Victorian archetypes - unusually small and large women (for the latter, there's the wonderful Mrs Wragge who 'towered to a stature of two or three inches above six feet' in "No Name"), deaf and blind characters in central roles, diverse ethnicity, there's a bit of everything in Wilkie Collins.

Lady Winwood takes charge of the situation in this story - Natalie is being forced to marry, very much against her will, Richard Turlington ('Aged eight-and-thirty; standing stiffly and sturdily at a height of not more than five feet six' - we're certainly left in no doubt about people's relative sizes in this one!) although she loves Launcelot Linzie, twenty-three and a lot less unpleasant all round. Natalie herself is fifteen and the wedding is to take place immediately after her sixteenth birthday. It's up to Lady Winwood to get them to work finding a way around it!

This is another thing that fills Wilkie Collins' fiction - a fascination with the intricacies of Victorian marriage laws. For a man who himself never married and scandalised nineteenth-century society by his relationships with women, he was amazingly well-informed about what you could and couldn't do if you wanted to tie the knot! Luckily, it turns out while that Launce and Natalie can't get a marriage licence without falsely declaring they have her father's consent and risking prosecution, they can secretly marry by banns on condition Natalie stays with her father after the wedding until she's old enough that Launce can't be charged with abduction. It's all very technical, but great fun to read, I promise!

Our second great character is 'a lady of a great deal more importance--in size, at any rate.' Barbara Fauntleroy features in "Mildred Arkell", the 1865 novel by Mrs Henry Wood.

Barbara is not just large ('looking as big as a house' is among the complimentary descriptions of her scattered throughout the book), she's loud, cheerful and shows little regard for the conventions of Victorian decency. She and her sister Lizzie are very independent as they make their way through life. 'Strapping, vulgar, good-humoured damsels, these two, as you have before heard; with as little refinement in looks, words, and manner as their father had possessed before them.' Barbara wears bright clothes and 'no end of gold trinkets', having ditched the black crape exactly twelve months after their father died - 'It was not fashionable to wear mourning long now, said the Miss Fauntleroys.'

I like Bab and Lizzie, but Travice Arkell, one of the heroes of the novel, doesn't feel the same way. There are a lot of people called Arkell in this book - it spans nearly thirty years and three generations - and Travice is in love with and wishes he could marry his second cousin Lucy Arkell. But Lucy is poor, Travice's father is on the verge of bankruptcy, and Barbara Fauntleroy is very wealthy. Travice's scheming mother gets to work convincing Lucy to reject Travice because marriage would ruin them both and anyway Travice likes Barbara Fauntleroy, and convincing Travice to marry Barbara because Lucy doesn't like him anyway and is going to marry someone else.

Mrs Henry Wood was of course married, to the extent of choosing to be published under her husband's name, but wasn't quite as fascinated with the intricate details of marriage law as Wilkie Collins. She was more interested in the moral side of things.

Travice, heartbroken, feels he might as well help his father's business by sacrificing himself to marriage with Barbara, even though he finds her horrifying and repulsive. Then, after proposing and being accepted but delaying setting the date because of his horror of a miserable life doing his marital duty to Barbara, he finds that he's waited too long to save the business, that Lucy has loved him all along and had no intention of marrying Tom Palmer, that Travice's aunt Mrs Dundyke is wealthy enough to restore Arkell & Son anyway, that Lucy's aunt Mildred is also wealthy and will leave Lucy plenty of money, and that everything would be happy if only he hadn't already agreed to marry Miss Fauntleroy.

'Of a sensitive, nervous, excitable temperament, the explanation of that evening, taken in conjunction with the dreadful tension to which his mind had been latterly subjected, far greater than any one had suspected, was too much for Travice Arkell. Conscious that Lucy Arkell passionately loved him; knowing now that she had the money, without which he could not marry, and that part of that money was actually advanced to save his father's credit; knowing also, that he must never more think of her, but must tie himself to one whom he abhorred; that he and Lucy must never again see each other in life, but as friends, and not too much of that, he became ill.'

Travice - who, it has to be said, does not really impress a modern reader with his mental stability - falls into a brain-fever that seems likely to kill him. The legal requirement to marry Barbara after having proposed doesn't come into it; Travice is morally obliged to go through with it and spend his life shackled to the terrifying woman! He's just lucky that Barbara is a bit more sensible than the other characters in the book.

Since Travice's delirious ravings seem to have circulated all around the town, Barbara can't help noticing that he's not too keen on marrying her after all. She comes to him and cheerfully tells him to stop being silly, and go and marry Lucy. Cutting short his wailing that he's got no choice but to marry Barbara and will do his best to be a dutiful husband even though he hates her, Barbara (probably thinking she's dodged a bullet) puts her foot down and insists on breaking off the engagement.

It's a very modern way to resolve a very old-fashioned Victorian plotline, and the final scene of the book reads like a final scene of a modern-day TV series, all thanks to Barbara Fauntleroy and her good-humoured common-sense!