Agnes Grey: Chapter 4: The Grandmamma Summary & Analysis

Agnes notes to readers that she has enumerated the difficulties of educating Tom, Mary Ann, and Fanny without support from Mr. Bloomfield and Mrs. Bloomfield’s “more potent authority” specifically to enlighten parents and help other governesses.

Back at the Bloomfields’ after a happy Christmas at home, Agnes returns to work with resolve. One snowy day, Tom, Mary Ann, and Fanny try to throw Agnes’s work-bag into the fire and her desk out the window. As Agnes rescues her possessions, the children flee into the snow. Agnes is unsuccessfully ordering them back inside when Mr. Bloomfield comes by and yells at her. He orders the children back inside, tells her how obedient the children obviously are, and commands her to make the wet children “decent” again.

As Agnes follows the children inside, she overhears Mr. Bloomfield’s mother—Mrs. Bloomfield Senior—asking the younger Mrs. Bloomfield whether Agnes is a “proper person.” Up to this point, Mrs. Bloomfield Senior has been talkative with Agnes, even indirectly criticizing her daughter-in-law for not supporting Agnes’s authority with the children more—criticisms Agnes has ignored, finding the way Mrs. Bloomfield Senior expresses them rather tasteless. Now Agnes realizes that Mrs. Bloomfield Senior is a back-biter.

The next time Mrs. Bloomfield Senior cozies up to Agnes, Agnes is stiff and chilly. Mrs. Bloomfield Senior becomes hostile until, one day, Agnes—out of mere politeness—asks after Mrs. Bloomfield Senior’s health, at which point Mrs. Bloomfield Senior animatedly tells Agnes about all her illnesses and her “pious resignation” to them. Yet ultimately, because Agnes fails to flatter the woman, Mrs. Bloomfield Senior turns against her and begins telling Mr. Bloomfield that Agnes is a terrible governess.

Mr. Bloomfield starts surveilling Agnes. One day, in the spring, Tom, Mary Ann, and Fanny complete their lessons for once, and—kept indoors by rain—play with broken toys and, for some reason, eggshells. Because they aren’t fighting, Agnes lets them play their odd game while she sews a dress for Mary Ann’s doll. Then Mr. Bloomfield pops in, throws a fit about what effect the shells might have on the (plain, brown) carpet, and leaves the schoolroom slamming the door.

One day, when Agnes tells the children they must pick up after themselves before they’ll get their next meal, Mary Ann and Fanny do it—but Tom, furious, hits his sisters, throws furniture, and scatters coal around. Agnes seizes Tom and sends Mary Ann to get Mrs. Bloomfield—only for Mrs. Bloomfield to order the maid to clean up and to give Tom his meal. Tom, while stuffing his face, gloats about his victory over Agnes. The only person who sympathizes with Agnes is the nurse, Betty, who has had to deal with similar problems—but she has been fired for corporally punishing the children.