Are people of the British Isles exceptionally good at writing about mothers or do the British Isles have exceptionally good mothers to write about? Whatever the circumstances that have resulted in the memorable accounts of Mrs. Sowerby, Mrs. Garth, and the other esteemed mothers of good literature—how rare is a good and worthy living example of motherhood in literature—let us add to the list Mrs. Peterson of George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin.
Mrs. Peterson is by all estimations a minor character. She appears infrequently, speaks little, and takes only a small part in the definitive action of the story. Yet, her presence is felt keenly through her son, Curdie. A child working late into the night in the mines, Curdie is motivated by his mother and his warm affection for her is unwavering.
The narrator confides, “All mothers are nice and good more or less, but Mrs. Peterson was nice and good all more and no less.” Her home is an extension of her and a sheltering place for her husband and son. The description continues, “She made and kept a little heaven in that poor cottage on the high hillside—for her husband and son to go home to out of the low and rather dreary earth in which they worked.”
In a story about a motherless princess, the descriptions of Curdie and his mother are especially poignant. Perhaps modern readers will be put off by the great-great-grandmother figure—ostensibly a force of good?—who comes to care for the Princess Irene. It may be the stench of a post-modern era that has poisoned us from enjoying good and beautiful stories or there may really be something smothering and creepy in the maternal affection of the spirit grandmother detached from ordinary experience. Curdie’s mother is thoroughly involved in sense experience, difficult work to complement the physical travails of her men.
As such, in contrast to the age-less, serene grandmother, Mrs. Peterson looks like an ordinary woman aging in the world. The story allows, “True, her hands were hard and chapped and large, but it was with work for them; and therefore in the sight of the angels, her hands were so much the more beautiful.” Like so many women marked by work, she sacrifices her looks in service. Unlike many families, Mrs. Peterson’s recognize and appreciate her sacrifice.
Curdie works late in the mines in order to buy a warm coat for his mother because of his love for her. The sentimentality between them could be quite drawn out, but we hear little of it. The narrator notes, “Not that she and Curdie ever thought of how much they worked for each other: that would have spoiled everything.”
She is not a woman who spends time explaining herself, rather her simple actions speak for themselves. Rather than carefully poised, ready to explain every fault, anticipating every criticism, Mrs. Peterson simply follows the thread, just as her husband and son must do to get out of the mine. Moving from one task to the next, her simplicity should not be misread as a lack of depth. As the narrator observes, “the less clever she was with her word, the more clever she was with her hands; and the less his mother said, the more Curdie believed, she had to say.”
The wonderful benefit of a good mother is that their gifts are not used up on their children. In their sons and daughters, their gifts multiply and their love becomes a shelter for many people beyond the family. Whether Mary Lennox in The Secret Gardenor Princess Irene in The Princess and the Goblin, motherless children find enduring and transformative love in a mother, even one who is not her own.
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