Shortly into the The Injur’d Husband, a minor character named Sanfsoy — chatty as can be — lets drop to one of the protagonists, Beauclair, that his soon-to-be bride has been receiving advances from another man. It’s false. Sansfoy merely heard that from Du Lache, the scheming mastermind employed in the service of the Baroness De Tortillee: a married woman bursting with sexual appetite. False though it is, it completely serves the purpose. Rumors swirl and build, and before long, Beauclair has sent an acerbic letter to his once dear sweetheart, breaking things off. He’ll regret it — oh, will he ever — but in the meantime, he’ll find some comfort in the arms of the baroness, which is exactly what she contrived to bring about.
This larger than life character — endowed with almost outlandish levels of pomp, pride, and hedonism — forms the center of Haywood’s novel. As unceasingly selfish as she is, she’s nonetheless savvy enough that her old and wealthy husband doesn’t suspect a thing. In fact, neither do any of the numerous men with whom she has trysts. Each of them believes that he, and he alone, receives her affections. The baroness has the world on a string, and what she wants, she gets.
That includes the aforementioned Beauclair. The fact that he’s long been attached to the good-hearted Montamour matters not a jot to the pleasure-seeking baroness. In fact, any anguish or agony she can whip up in the heart of the other is like cherries on top.
As wicked as the baroness is, Du Lache is in many ways as despicable a figure. He earns his paycheck from the baroness by setting in motion whatever schemes, rumors, or publicity her newest desire requires. His strengths are cunning and invention, and he knows how to put them to use. Combined with the baroness, the two are a duo of conniving and self-absorbed personalities run amok.
Haywood published the novel in 1733, around 30 years before The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessemy, her final novel. The Injur’d husband is about a quarter of the length, but the novels share some similarities in narratives.
In each, a young couple — who are widely known in their social sphere to be destined for marriage — face trials regarding supposed infidelity or impropriety. The origins of these problems arise from rumors that are specifically created to split the couple apart. Also similar is that both pairs of couples have lived fairly blissful lives, and have had no real relationship squabbles. Indeed, Haywood uses rumors as a way to propel her young characters to learn about the other sex, themselves, and each other. The process of unwrapping — and dealing with — the tangled situation they find themselves in goes right alongside self-discovery.
But to return specifically to The Injur’d Husband. Natural storyteller that Haywood is, she manages to create a tightly-woven story that both intrigues and explores. Issues of gender are obviously present, not least in the way that the scheming and selfish seducer is not a man, but a woman — and a married one, at that.
Deception is also an omnipresent theme in the novel. Virtually all of the characters are deluded in one way or another. For Beauclair in particular, things are rarely what they seem. For him, deception comes both verbally and visually, and often in ways that bolster prior (false) beliefs; evidence seems to mount in Montamour’s disfavor, rather than inspire confidence in the character of the woman he once adored.
Truth, too, interestingly enough — on the few occasions it actually occurs — comes in surprising forms. That’s partly to do with how Haywood manages the character of Montamour. A beacon of truth and virtue — and the ardent love object of Beauclair, especially after he realizes his gross errors — she nonetheless feels almost like a character offstage. Indeed, compared to the dominating presence of the baroness, it is, at times, actually quite easy to forget her presence in the novel. That changes considerably as Beauclair eventually reshifts his focus back on to her; but even then, she’s not a character that lights up the page or gives off a kind of flamboyance in the ways that the baroness or Du Lache do. She doesn’t broadcast her emotions, including even to Beauclair — which is what makes his post-revelation road to getting her back such a difficult process.
Tense all the way up til the end, The Injur’d Husband is one of many of Haywood’s finely-written novels. But this one — and especially in contrast to her more lengthy ones — seems well made for discussion. But whether consumed and digested alone or in the company of other readers, The Injur’d Husband is a novel worth reading.
_______
Hawyood, Eliza Fowler. The Injur’d Husband, or, The Mistaken Resentment; Lasselia, or, The Self-Abandon’d. Edited by Jerry C. Beasley. Eighteenth-Century Novels by Women. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.
Spectatio 