A proof of a suspicion, only. No one has named that suspicion, in court or in the newspaper. (Not the kind of thing anyone wants to spell out, even in these tell-all times.) A word to the wise. Those who don’t understand it won’t even notice what they’re missing; those who do, will comprehend the whole business in a moment. Sealed up. [loc. 4189]
When Emily Faithfull -- known as 'Fido' -- owner of a women's press and dedicated campaigner for women's rights, runs into her old friend Helen on Farringdon Street in the summer of 1864, it's the first time they've met for seven years. Helen and her husband Captain Codrington had invited Fido into their lives: Fido had attempted to mediate in their unhappy marriage. Then the Codringtons went to Malta, and Fido was abandoned.
But now, amid laments of letters lost in the post, Helen and Fido are reunited. Fido is ecstatic, though saddened to learn that Helen's marriage is no happier: indeed, Helen seems to be having an (entirely platonic, she claims, and emotionally necessary) affair with a young officer. Fido does her best to inject reason and propriety into Helen's life: Helen, however, is hedonistic and duplicitous (not to mention her disregard for the rules of hospitality: she draws Fido into her web of lies), and Fido's efforts are unsuccessful. When Helen's long-suffering husband Harry -- whom Fido has always liked and admired -- finally files for divorce, though, Fido is drawn into Helen's version of the story: into the possibility of perjuring herself for the sake of her friend's happiness.
I found Helen alarming and predatory, almost sociopathic: but I could also see why innocent, unworldly Fido was drawn to her. What a contrast to Fido's world of Employment for Women, her work with the Langham Place group, her friendships with fellow activists. (Though as the novel progresses, some of the shine of Fido's ardent endeavours is dulled: an employee turns out never to have quit prostitution, the sisterhood of the Reform Firm becomes rather less sisterly, the press is targetted by saboteurs.)
The Sealed Letter illustrates the damnable dual standards of the Victorian legal system: 'the possessions of the woman who commits murder, and those of the woman who commits matrimony, are both dealt with alike: by confiscation', remarks Fido. Worse: a woman's children are regarded as 'gifts' from her husband, which can be withdrawn: Helen is (or claims to be) devoted to her daughters. There's always the possibility, too, that Helen will be deemed mentally unfit by the court, in which case Harry can have her confined to an asylum for the rest of her days.
But at the heart of the novel is Fido's gradual discovery that her feelings -- loyalty, friendship, love -- for Helen are not reciprocated. It's an acutely intimate, and sometimes painful, portrait of a friendship, or perhaps a love affair, and its disintegration. I felt that the reader's perception of Helen was clearer than Fido's, but then we don't have the history that Fido and Helen -- and Fido and Harry, and Helen and Harry -- have lived.
The Sealed Letter is based on the Codrington divorce case of 1864: you can read Emma Donoghue's note here. 'I ... love finding gaps in the evidence which leave room for me to invent,' says Donoghue in her Afterword. In particular, her speculation on the contents of the titular letter -- laid before the court by Harry as evidence in the increasingly sensational divorce case -- is remarkably poignant, and casts a different light on some of the novel's events.
I was jolted by some apparently-anachronistic simile / metaphor -- would Fido really feel that her tank was empty? -- and some abrupt, temporary viewpoint switches: but 1860s London came to life.
I actually purchased this Kindle book seven years ago -- and finally read it to meet the 'Lambda Award winner rubric of the Reading Women Challenge 2019.
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