Tyler asked:

I'm assuming Rivers slept with Agnes, but how did she suddenly or at least seemingly develop scarlet fever? EDIT: But apparently he didn't sleep with her? "'You mean Agnes, I suppose. Don't flatter her. There are more ways of shaming a virtuous girl, than that one. You ought to know.'" So what happened?

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8 years ago
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Laurean

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Beth

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[There's nothing in the text to support the idea that they slept together, or even whether any consensual contact, whether kissing or oral sex, occurred between Agnes and Gentleman. Here's what the text does tell us:

Gentleman has a history of entering women's bedrooms without their consent. We know this because he says so, explicitly, before assuring Maud that this isn't why he's come to her bedroom that night. He also tells her that they will need to get rid of Agnes, and that there is only one way to be sure she won't stick around. We know that whatever he is planning to do to Agnes must be particularly terrible, because though Maud routinely harms Agnes without remorse, she feels badly about setting Agnes up for this. Gentleman tells Maud to make sure that the door between their rooms is closed, and that if Agnes calls for help Maud should not intervene. We know that Agnes finds it peculiar that Maud tells her to close the door that night, because Maud normally forbids the door being closed. Maud has never shown any sign of feeling badly about pricking Agnes with needles, but she feels badly about this, and stays up listening in case Agnes does call for help. We know from previous scenes where Maud has attacked Agnes, that Agnes responds to attacks by freezing up, unwilling to resist in case resisting provokes more severe violence. Agnes does not call for help. Though Agnes has always managed to keep to her work schedule in the past, even after being beaten by Maud, the next morning Agnes is unable to get up for work. Her mouth is red and inflamed, as if it has suffered some physical trauma, and she claims to have a contagious illness that she's exhibited no symptoms of. This means she has to be quarantined, keeping her at a safe distance from Maud and everyone else in the house for the first time since she became employed there. Though Agnes has suffered extensive abuse from Maud without complaint, whatever Gentleman did to her that night proves too much for her to endure, and as he predicted she quits her job. It's also important to note that for the first time in her employment, Agnes openly expresses anger towards Maud, seeming to blame her for whatever happened to her. It's not difficult to make the connection between her employer telling her to close their shared door for the first time and Gentleman entering Agnes's room just moments later. It's apparent that Agnes knows Maud set her up for what happened.

None of these facts lends themselves to an interpretation of consensual contact between Agnes and Gentleman. If it were consensual, there would be no reason for Gentleman to mention his history of entering women's bedrooms when he isn't welcome, and no reason for him to specify that Maud shouldn't intervene if Agnes calls for help. He would have no reason to worry that Agnes would call for help if he was planning to charm Agnes into a consensual encounter. There's also no suggestion as to why consensual sex between them would cause her to quit her job. Additionally, if Gentleman were planning to in some way woo Agnes, there would of course be no reason for Maud to feel guilty over it, let alone so eaten up by the plan that she feels worse about it than she ever felt about stabbing Agnes with pins. Most tellingly, there's no reason that Agnes would show signs of trauma, or that she would be angry, or that she would blame Maud, if she had wanted whatever contact occurred between herself and Gentleman. Whatever he does to her is ultimately the last straw, the one thing that was too much to bear, and it doesn't make much sense that a pleasant evening with someone she was interested in would serve their purposes at all, because that alone would not be reason for Agnes to leave her job when not even the beatings had driven her off.

Lastly, the theme of women setting one another up to be sexually assaulted appears elsewhere in the book as well, such as when Sue arranges and abets what she believes to be the repeated rape of Maud by Gentleman at Mrs. Cream's cottage. There, Maud begs her to promise that she will come if Maud calls for help, but Sue refuses to promise and makes every effort not to hear what happens in their adjacent bedroom. She watches Maud become more withdrawn and subdued, and believes that Gentleman is attacking her on a nightly basis, but does not intervene. Sue is willing to allow Maud to face sexual violence in order to further a scheme, just as Maud was willing to let Agnes face sexual violence to further her own plans. That Sue turns out to be mistaken and nothing occurs between Gentleman and Maud does not change the fact that sexual assault as a plot device is something this book makes a point to engage with. It's not at all farfetched that this particular book would include the detail that Agnes was sexually assaulted by Gentleman, with the help of Maud.

Given the facts the book provides us with, the most straightforward explanation is that Agnes was subjected to unwanted sexual contact which caused swelling and inflammation in her mouth. (hide spoiler)]

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Karen My guess is that he forced his genitals into Agnes's mouth, and in doing so, infected her with some kind of STD that everyone called "scarlet fever" out of prudery or ignorance.

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Laurie Burns

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