Yes - I hate Roger for that too, and I also (perhaps unfairly) hate Elsbeth for so eagerly playing along as the poor helpless woman. And I also thought it was absolutely true that Alwynne would have been better off with Clare, but still can't quite decide whether that's me being unreasonably, irrationally, and disproportionately sympathetic towards Clare. Even leaving aside any unintended affection for Clare (and I simply can't decide whether it is unintended, on CD's part), there is a real statement about the inadequacy of Alwynne's 'happily ever after', isn't there? (Isn't there? Am I just reading that because I want it to be there? I suppose it's possible that it's only accidental that the relationship is so unconvincing, but in the context of CD clearly having some well-developed thinking on contemporary feminist issues and female experiences of marriage in particular, I think this is a deliberate comment from her.)
- Or is it? Is there supposed to be a genuine relief/thrill/romance/happiness to Alwynne suddenly "breaking free" of Clare and rushing to intercept Roger at the train station? Ugh.
I think the thing about the manipulations being a red herring is that the focus shouldn't be on them (i.e. her behaviour and the ways she goes about callously gaining the affections of others) but on the underlying worldview that, as you say, leads to the behaviour. So, it's like a tragic flaw which leads ineluctably to her demise, and looking merely at her actions misses the point. I think. I'm not sure that the manipulations can be separated from the holding love too cheaply either, so perhaps I too am missing the point being made. Maybe it's arguing for a more humanising view of the LV than is sometimes depicted/read - you could read ROW on the basis entirely of Alwynne's experience and accept that Clare is variously the object of desire, the object which stands in the way of her happiness, someone awful who Alwynne witnesses destroying the life of other people around her. I think the many many lesbian/feminist readings of ROW which dismiss it as perpetuating a damaging stereotype are assuming this reading, right?
It's a really interesting point about how on earth women would have been able (or unable) to make sense of their own relationships or feelings, without having any cultural reference points at all, or any of the language around it. Awful. And so damaging. And yet there are still the faintest echoes of it today, I think - I imagine it's still not unusual for the first same-sex relationship one knows 'in the flesh' to be one's own first relationship, which is a strained dynamic to deal with. Not a problem on the same magnitude as then, but still an additional burden to navigate with often limited sympathy from friends and family. Certainly I think the damaging nature of excessive LGB introspection is still a recognisable phenomenon.
And then of course there are these snippets of evidence of apparently quite self-accepting and very self-aware lesbianism at various points in time - Ann Lister is one obvious example, Natalie Barney another. I remember reading a biography of Una Troubridge which remarked that while Radclyffe Hall spent a lot of time confessing about contacting the dead (and trying to find a sympathetic confessor in relation to this particular sin), she never seemed to feel it necessary to confess her lesbianism, which interested me. It's very very difficult to imagine how much these experiences were perfectly normal vs completely unheard-of.
With reference to Clare in particular, I think there are hints that she has some awareness of herself as a lesbian (although not in those words): in the part where Elsbeth comes to ask her to give Alwynne up to Roger, when she points out that there are other/better things in life than marriage, and when she suggests that she will offer Alwynne all that Roger offers her, and that Alwynne will prefer her offer. There's also something about the way that she runs away after first kissing Alwynne... On the other hand, I'm sure there is a comment somewhere about Elsbeth knowing what both Alwynne and Clare feel better than either of them do, which rather undermines that argument. Clare is an extremely intelligent woman, who has ample time for introspection, and yet appears to have learned an enormous degree of cognitive dissonance (evidenced in her response to Louise's death). That all fits the picture of being unable or unwilling to deal with her lesbianism. But she also takes quite obvious delight in keeping her thoughts, feelings and intentions hidden - she doesn't really show her hand at all until the very end, at which point it's impossible to determine whether this is her admitting (to Elsbeth and the reader) what she has inwardly known all along, or whether events cause her realisation...
I could see an argument that CD is particularly vexed about the 'unhealthy' atmosphere of single-sex (all single-sex? or just all-girls?) environments because they become a breeding ground for overwrought and emotionally dishonest interrelations. I'm not sure where women like Clare would fit in to the wonderful new world of co-ed schooling: would Clare still be Clare, but in the healthier open air of a mixed school she wouldn't be able to wield the same influence over the pupils as she does over Louise and others? Would Alwynne still appreciate that she is a far more attractive prospect than Roger? Or would Clare herself even be different, if she taught in a mixed school - or would she never choose to be in that environment, would she have taken herself off to the nunnery or something instead? Would Clare never have grown up to be Clare, if she herself had gone to a healthier school... I think CD's passion for co-ed schooling transcends what detail she gives in ROW, and I'm not entirely sure how she ties Clare to it, other than as an exaggerated example of the festering dangerous darkness of it.
I think CD is also trying to say something with regard to Elsbeth having once been Clare's teacher - but I'm not sure what it is. It seems too weird a fact to add in for no purpose, though.