George Meredith’s fourth novel, Rhoda Fleming, dealt with a familiar theme: the pressure society places on both genders—but especially women—to conform to unrealistic expectations. That his culture governed love relationships with laws, such as those relating to marriage and divorce, greatly concerned Meredith. His own experiences supported his concerns, and autobiographical aspects may be found in many of his novels. Written over a three-year period while Meredith also worked on Sandra Belloni (originally Emilia in England) (1864) and its sequel, Vittoria, the novel was meant to be a one-volume straightforward moral tale. However, it stretched to two volumes in order for Meredith to fulfill publisher expectations of stringing readers along as long as possible. Such expectations during that time period account for an abundance of melodramatic detail and slow plot twists that bore contemporary readers, greatly reducing the popularity of once-successful novels.

The title character is one of two daughters, who lives with her widowed Kent farmer father, William. Her sister Dahlia serves as company for their London uncle, Anthony Hackbut, who works at Boyne’s Bank. Both girls find city life intriguing, and Rhoda visits London, where she discovers that Edward Blancove has seduced her sister. Blancove, son of the bank’s head, Sir William Blancove, and his brother Algernon, the squire of Wrexby, a village in the Fleming farm area, will play a major part in the emotional and physical maturity of the sisters. Algernon forms one part of a love triangle with Rhoda and Robert Eccles, an ex-soldier and farm assistant to Fleming. Rhoda cannot focus on her own romantic fulfillment due to her concerns about Dahlia, whose name serves as a symbol of her innocence as well as her fate. She joins Meredith’s other heroines in her blond, beautiful naiveté, designed to provoke erotic reactions from unprincipled males.

When Dahlia travels through Italy for several months with Edward, she ruins the reputation that society holds sacrosanct. Although she tells Rhoda and her father that Edward has married her, they doubt the truth of her statement. They look for her at a London address that she gave them and find that she has moved, leaving no clue as to where to find her. Predictably, Edward has tired of his dalliance and plans on leaving Dahlia alone while he participates in a Christmas house party at Fairly Hall, Hampshire. Before he departs, he escorts Dahlia and Algernon to the theater, where Rhoda and her father see her. They mistakenly believe that Algernon has seduced Dahlia when they glimpse the two together.

At the house party, Edward and Algernon are both drawn to the charming widow, Mrs. Margaret Lovell, who is revealed through Robert’s connections to have had an affair with Major Waring while in India. Waring, Robert’s friend, still loves her. Seeking to punish Algernon for his perceived seduction of Dahlia, Robert pulls him from horseback and attacks him. Edward plans revenge by hiring a local thug named Nicodemus Sedgett to beat Robert, while Margaret discovers Dahlia’s address and passes it on to Robert. When Robert finds the address, Dahlia has again disappeared.

In the meantime, Margaret has developed a plan to dissolve Edward’s entanglement with Dahlia. She convinces Edward to bribe the dastardly Sedgett with £1,000 to marry Dahlia. Edward visits Algernon in Paris, giving him the note to hand over to Sedgett after he has completed the plan. Because Dahlia is in poor health after having lived on the streets, when her uncle discovers her, she agrees to the marriage plan. Although humiliated and repulsed by Sedgett, she does not share her fears with Rhoda, who knows nothing of the bribe and believes the marriage proposal to be legitimate. In her opinion, it offers the perfect escape from the problems Dahlia faces as a ruined woman, cast off by “legitimate” society.

Unfortunately, Algernon has spent the bribe money to pay his debts. Circumstances seem to change for the better when Edward realizes that he really loves Dahlia. He returns to England to discuss the situation with his wealthy father, however, who explains that his marriage to this ruined woman would destroy his own reputation. Readers cannot miss the irony in such a statement. Sir William urges Edward to emigrate, but his love for Dahlia proves strong, and he rushes to her lodgings, only to be intercepted by Rhoda, who mistakenly believes that her sister will do well by marrying Sedgett. She turns Edward away and only learns of the marriage scheme later from Robert, after Sedgett abandons his wife, Dahlia, when he does not receive the bribe money.

In a subplot centering on their uncle, Anthony Hackbut, Rhoda finds him roaming London with a bag of gold he was to deliver; he has become mentally unstable and pours the contents of the bag into Rhoda’s lap. His act would interest psychoanalytic critics, who might apply a Freudian interpretation of the act as symbolically sexual, emphasizing women as commodities to be bought and sold.

Rhoda, Dahlia, and Robert take Anthony with them to the Fleming farm, where Sedgett appears, demanding money and that Dahlia accompany him. Her father, another conformist traditional figure, orders her to leave with her husband, although Rhoda explains the disaster awaiting her sister should she comply. Suddenly Major Waring resurfaces. He has investigated Sedgett and determined he was already married to a woman he sent to America, but who Waring encountered when she came onshore at Warbeach. Sedgett escapes, and the action continues as Edward arrives to declare his love for Dahlia, who has attempted suicide by drinking poison. Although she does not physically die, she suffers an emotional death that prevents her from reuniting with Edward.

Algernon takes the position as squire, following his father’s death, and Fleming urges Rhoda to marry him and make an admirable financial match. While Rhoda finds the strength to revolt against her father’s expectations and marries Robert for love, Major Waring is disappointed when Margaret makes a money match with Sir William Blancove. Edward also pays for his early sins, never finding a wife and living a lonely existence. Dahlia finds temporary ease living with Rhoda, Robert, and their children, but survives only seven years.

Although a dark tale with a sober message, Rhoda Fleming offers comic relief through Meredith’s trademark humor, found in characterizations such as Master Gammon, Mrs. Sumfit, and Mrs. Boulby. Not caricatures like comic figures created by Charles Dickens, they also offer balance to the grasping, greedy antagonists through their honesty and loyalty.

Bibliography
Jones, Mervyn. The Amazing Victorian: A Life of George Meredith. London: Constable, 1999.

Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis

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