Miss Browne's Friend - F. M. Mayor

When I first started blogging I was reading a lot of Virago Modern Classics, 12 - 13 years ago was a good time to be collecting the old editions, one way or another almost every title I've wanted has turned up in a charity or second hand book shop - things I just don't see anymore. That's how I found all three of the F.M. Mayor titles that Virago had printed (The Rector's Daughter, The Squire's Daughter, and The Third Miss Symons). It was also around the same time that Susan Hill recommended 'The Rector's Daughter' somewhere and there was a lot of discussion about it and Mayor going around at the time. 

I suppose she's probably fallen back into relative obscurity again now, which is a shame because she's a remarkable writer and it's a real shame that her books are not all properly in print at the moment. There is a collection of ghost stories I'd very much like to read - 'The Room Opposite and Other Tales of Mystery and Imagination'. One of these stories; 'Miss de Mannering of Asham' is available in the Virago Book of Ghost Stories and The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales - either of which are worth having around (or even both, as I find I have) reading it really makes me want to read the rest of them. There's an early collection of short stories written under a pen name - 'Mrs Hammond's Children' which I know nothing at all about.

'Miss Browne's Friend', just republished by Michael Walmer as part of his Zephyr series, originally appeared in 4 parts in the Free Church Suffrage Times between June 1914 and March 1915 which puts it in the same period as 'The Third Miss Symons', also very short. 'Miss Browne's Friend' is hardly even a novella, but it's very good and deals squarely with Mayor themes, though maybe with a bit more humour than in her other novels (though the humour is there in Miss de Mannering of Asham). 

If I wasn't so stony broke I'd have felt guilty accepting this as a review copy and denying Michael the cover price in the process, but as it stands I'm just really grateful I'm able to read it and add to my sense of Mayor as a writer. 

Miss Browne is one of the army of well meaning spinsters that 40 years later Barbara Pym would write about. Her family depend on her but don't much appreciate her; her life is full of self sacrifice and good work. It's the good work that leads her to Mabel, inmate of a rescue home. The language is hazy and the circumstances vague, but we can assume that some young man has helped Mabel get into trouble. 

Miss Browne is struck by the girl's beauty and is enthusiastic about officially befriending her. As a mentor she's doomed to swift and recurring disappointment - Mabel is a force of nature unlikely to be contained in domestic service, but the story ends with an unexpected twist. 

In some ways I find this a precursor of The Rector's Daughter in that both feature women that on the surface might seem to have fairly empty, unsatisfactory lives, but in the end do not. Or at least I certainly don't think they do. They may be disappointed by aspects of their lot, who amongst us isn't from time to time, but these are not empty lives, they're not untouched by love or satisfaction, and Mayor gives Miss Browne an unexpected dignity. 

'Miss Browne's Friend' is a perfect gem of a story with the perfect mix of pathos and humour about it, it's available directly from Michael Walmer's website along with quite a few other interesting things, and honestly, read it if you possibly can.