Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Lady Maid’s Bell, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Marital Conflict and Jealousy
Class and Hierarchy
Mystery and Ambiguity
Illness, Isolation, and Loneliness
Summary
Analysis
Another week or two go by, and things at the house seem more or less normal, but Hartley is not doing well: ever since the nighttime incident, she lies awake all night, waiting for the bell to ring, certain that Emma Saxon (The Ghost) is lurking across the hall. Again she thinks about giving notice but decides against this step out of loyalty to Mrs. Brympton. Unfortunately, Mrs. Brympton doesn’t seem to be doing any better than Hartley—her strength is fading and she seems dispirited. Mr. Brympton goes away for a while, but even this doesn’t help lift her spirits.
Hartley’s condition continues to deteriorate: she stays up all night thinking about the ghost across the hall and imagines that it is lurking just outside her door. Her isolation from the other servants and her deteriorating mental state might make readers question her sanity. Nevertheless, Hartley refuses to leave out of loyalty to Mrs. Brympton, even if she can’t put her finger precisely on her reasons for staying. Underlying her uncertainty is the deepening affection she has for Mrs. Brympton, a sign that their relationship is becoming closer than that of a typical servant-mistress pair.
Themes
The staff learn that Mr. Brympton is in the West Indies, news that brings joy to them all. They have a lively dinner to celebrate his absence. Even Mrs. Brympton seems to be enjoying herself. After dinner snow begins to fall, and Hartley thinks that things might be looking up. The snow will cover the dreary vegetation that surrounds the house. Just as she’s starting to feel better, she hears someone enter her room. Assuming it is another maid, she turns—and sees Emma Saxon (The Ghost).
The servants are never happier than when Mr. Brympton is away, and there are signs that Mrs. Brympton’s health might be coming around in his absence, too. Mr. Brympton, it appears, is the toxin that makes life miserable at Brympton Place, and his absence seems to cure these ills. Hartley makes it clear that the snowfall symbolizes this apparent fresh start. But things are more complicated: instead of bringing about a new start, the snow actually brings the undeniable appearance of the ghost. The snow, then, represents a false promise: far from a new start for Hartley, it signals that her troubles are getting worse.
Themes
Hartley and Emma Saxon (The Ghost) look at each other in silence for a long time: Hartley in terror, and Emma with a beseeching look. Finally Emma turns and leaves the room, and Hartley understands that she is to follow her. She follows Emma through the house and out onto the snow-covered path through the woods. Hartley notices with a chill that Emma leaves no footprints in the snow. She tries to return to the house, but Emma turns and looks at her, and Hartley finds herself unable to resist the pull of the ghost.
The relationship between Hartley and the ghost is characterized by mystery and incomprehension: it is clear that the ghost is trying to tell Hartley something important about Mrs. Brympton, but Hartley cannot figure out what it is. Over and over again, Hartley experiences deep uncertainty about what the ghost wants from her. And yet, despite her fear, she follows the ghost, seemingly unable to resist it. Hartley’s observation that the ghost leaves no footsteps in the snow suggests again that snow brings Hartley closer into contact with death, not farther from it.
Themes
Finally they reach Mr. Ranford’s house. Emma Saxon (The Ghost) continues to look hard at Hartley, who senses that there is something Emma wants her to do—but what is it? Hartley is certain only that there is something hanging over her mistress and Mr. Ranford: something the ghost is trying to draw her attention to. Suddenly Mr. Ranford opens the door and asks why Hartley has come. Hartley turns to the ghost, but she has disappeared. At this Hartley feels hollower and more helpless than ever. She doesn’t know what to say and, suddenly feeling weak, faints.
Hartley’s perplexity deepens: nothing makes sense to her, and she is at a loss. Emma Saxon’s stare summarizes Hartley’s experience at Brympton Place: there is something she needs to do, but she cannot figure out what it is. This inability to guess the ghost’s intention leaves her feeling more alone than ever. However, she has pieced together one important part of the puzzle: whatever threatens Mrs. Brympton threatens Mr. Ranford, too. In Hartley’s mind, they are now linked—even if she will not articulate the idea that they are having an affair and that what threatens the pair is Mr. Brympton.
Themes
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After a drop of brandy at Mr. Ranford’s, Hartley recovers and heads home to look after Mrs. Brympton, who remarks on how pale she looks. Hartley claims to have a headache and is released from her duties, but she has no desire to go up to her room and go to sleep. She goes to the servants’ hall, hoping that the company of others will distract her from her terrifying experience. Still, there’s no avoiding her loneliness in the end, and when the rest of the servants go to sleep, Hartley heads to bed herself. Eventually she manages to doze off, but she is awoken once more by the frenzied ringing of the maid’s bell. Hartley rises and gets dressed, thinking to herself that whatever is going to happen, it is going to happen now.
Mr. Ranford helps Hartley in a moment of need, showing again that he is a good man and that kindness and loyalty can cross class lines. Hartley heads to the servants’ hall, looking to her fellow servants for comfort, but they are unable to prevent the night from coming—and the bell from ringing. In this sense, the story suggests that the disturbance in the hierarchy at Brympton Place goes beyond class and social expectations—it can only be explained by the breach in the natural order represented by the ghost.
Themes
Hartley leaves her room and prepares to go to her mistress’s room, but at the head of the stairs she sees Emma Saxon (The Ghost), who is waiting and staring down into the darkness. Emma Saxon disappears, and in the same moment Hartley hears a sound downstairs: someone is coming in the front door. Hartley hurries to her mistress’s room. Mrs. Brympton opens the door, and Hartley notices that she hasn’t undressed for the night. When Hartley asks what she rang for, Mrs. Brympton looks shocked: she didn’t ring the bell. Her voice takes on a harsh edge as she tells Hartley to go back to bed. But Hartley, hearing the sound of a footstep downstairs, insists that there is someone in the house.
Mrs. Brympton’s confession that she didn’t ring the lady’s maid’s bell suggests definitively that the ghost is in control of it and uses it to summon Hartley to her former mistress in moments of danger. Indeed, the ghost’s behavior—staring intently downstairs, as if at an impending threat—would seem to confirm this idea. Thus, Wharton uses the symbol of the bell to show that the ghost’s appearance in the house has upset the typical hierarchy: instead of the mistress ringing for the servant, the (former) servant rings. Hartley’s observation that Mrs. Brympton is fully dressed, despite the late hour, suggests that she was expecting company, and perhaps that she is being unfaithful to Mr. Brympton—an idea reinforced by Mrs. Brympton’s uncharacteristic impatience with Hartley.
Themes
Mrs. Brympton gives Hartley a puzzled look: who is it, she asks. Hartley replies that it is probably Mr. Brympton, words that cause Mrs. Brympton to crash to the floor. Hartley sees immediately that Mrs. Brympton is in peril. As she tries to help her, the door crashes open, and Mr. Brympton walks into the room. He seems surprised to find his wife and Hartley in this situation, but is unconcerned with his wife’s condition. Instead he walks past them, claiming that he’s looking for a friend—presumably, Mr. Ranford. He opens the door of his wife’s dressing room, and Emma Saxon (The Ghost) stands before him. He falls back, shielding his eyes. Mrs. Brympton lifts her head from the floor and gives Mr. Brympton one last meaningful look—and then drops dead.
The unexpected arrival of Mr. Brympton at the story’s climax brings together several of the story’s central ideas. First, Mr. Brympton’s sudden appearance causes his wife to die; their doomed marriage has finally resulted in her death. Second, the ghost, alert to Mr. Brympton’s mission and to the danger it poses to its former mistress, intervenes, but its efforts to save Mrs. Brympton are overpowered by the fact that the Brymptons’ terrible marriage is doomed. Finally, readers are left with the deeply ambiguous image of Mrs. Brympton’s final moments: she fixes a meaningful look on Mr. Brympton, but Hartley is unable to interpret it. Wharton suggests that some mysteries simply are not meant to be solved, and that they disappear with the deaths of the people who figure in them.
Themes
Mrs. Brympton’s funeral takes place three days later during a snowstorm. Few people attend, Hartley notes, because of the weather and because Mrs. Brympton had few friends. One of the only attendees is Mr. Ranford, who, despite his youth, now leans on a cane when he walks. Mr. Brympton sends accusatory looks Mr. Ranford’s way throughout the funeral service but says nothing and leaves the funeral as soon as it concludes. The last words Hartley hears from him are his order to the carriage driver to take him to the station. The servants head back to the house alone.
As before, snow appears in the story to symbolize contact with death and the false promise of rebirth: it not only snows during Mrs. Brympton’s funeral, but it makes it an even lonelier affair, as it prevents more people from attending. The animosity between Mr. Ranford and Mr. Brympton is the story’s most direct suggestion that Mrs. Brympton had an affair with Mr. Ranford, although, as usual, this is left somewhat ambiguous. One possible explanation is that Mr. Ranford was indeed in Mrs. Brympton’s boudoir, and that he injured himself jumping to the ground while Emma Saxon distracted Mr. Brympton. In any case, the failure of the Brymptons’ marriage and the final intervention of the ghost have changed life at Brympton Place for good, and in the story’s final line Hartley notes the unusual situation, as the servants head home to a house with neither master nor mistress.
Themes
