Wilfred and Eileen - Jonathan Smith

 

'Wilfred and Eileen' is the kind of book I'm quiteSummer in February' - Jonathan Smith wrote both the book and the screenplay so although I haven't read it I'm assuming the film is close enough to the book. I went as part of a family outing mostly because there was dinner on offer before hand which probably demonstrates the level of enthusiasm I felt beforehand. Not Smith's fault, but faced with the cinematic choice of a woman with clear mental health issues making a series of terrible relationship decisions or something with explosions in it I normally choose explosions. This policy has lead me to sit through some terrible films.

wary of so bear with me through this post, I will be trying to keep my prejudices in check but they're more than likely to get away from me. First up I didn't much enjoy the film version of '

'Wilfred and Eileen' is based on the lives of Wilfred Willet and Eileen Stenhouse, they were the grandparents of Anthony Seldon who Smith taught at Tonbridge school and who gave him the bare outlines of the story one day after class. This is the second reason I'm wary - I'm not on the whole a fan of biography's, and though theoretically the admission that some of this is fiction the pedant in me wants to know exactly how much. The bare biographical bones are as follows, Wilfred and Eileen meet in Cambridge, it's 1913, Wilfred has just finished his degree and it's the last round of formal events before packing up and returning home ostensibly as an adult. Wilfred is destined for medicine and has a summer course at the London hospital, Eileen it turns out is a nearish neighbour and chance acquaintance deepens to friendship and then love. The two marry secretly, sneaking off to a hotel for snatched hours alone, Wilfred is immersed in his studies and doing well at them, and then all of a sudden war is on the horizon. He feels it's his duty to sign up and despite Eileen's dismay does so. On the 13th December 1914 he's shot in the head whilst trying to help a wounded comrade. Miraculously he survives and is eventually rescued from almost certain death in a Boulogne hospital by Eileen who has managed to get a passport and passage over. She brings him back to London, makes sure he gets the best possible chance, and eventually will dedicate her whole life to this man - she really must have been a remarkable woman.

My third reservation/prejudice is that this book was initially published in the 1970's. Smith had the help and approval of Willets daughter and his research is clearly impeccable but my preference is for books contemporary with their setting - which may be why I'm not much of a fan of biography. All these prejudices aside this is a fascinating book, especially given that it's based on true events. Smith is clearly with Wilfred Owen on the whole "My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
/ To children ardent for some desperate glory / The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
/ Pro patria mori.". Our Wilfred sets off to war with all the idealism a young man of his class and education would be expected to feel and gets a very rude awakening. His medical career is finished and there must have been real questions over what he would have been able to do with the rest of his life. For Eileen married to a man she's known for less than 2 years there's the possibility of being tied to a stranger for the rest of her life who will be utterly dependant on her. This isn't quite how it turns out but I get the impression that Wilfred wasn't an easy man.

The afterword gives a little bit more information, the couple had 3 children, Wilfred joined the Communist party and did a lot of work for trade unions as well as writing a series of books about birds and flowers. Eileen remained devoted to him and presumably they had a happy marriage but what Smith didn't find out for some time was that their first child, a son, seems to have become totally estranged from his parents and there is talk of moods.

It's hard to know what sort of man Wilfred would have been without the head injury, he seems to have been a dedicated and brilliant student, though only a year into his medical studies who can know what sort of surgeon he would have made, and then the secret marriage is odd. Smith suggests a tricky relationship with Wilfred's parents, it seems he couldn't talk to them about getting married at all - the couple were young so their initial dismissal is understandable, but Wilfred is also unwilling to reassure Eileen's parents about his intentions which rather reinforces why his parents should be so hostile to the idea. I also find it odd that after getting married they don't tell their parents, socially Eileen is a step up for Wilfred - it's a romantic story but I don't understand the secrecy.

What I find really interesting though is the sense of social change behind this story. The war may have been full of donkey's leading lions but without it one wonders what would have happened. Assuming Eileen wouldn't have got pregnant and caused the sort of furore that would have caused Wilfred's parents to cut him off without a penny it seems likely he would have turned first into the sort of doctor that he rather despised as a student, and then into much the same man his father was. Nothing can have shown him quite as much equality as life in the trenches. And as for Eileen, she wasn't bought up to be the sort of girl who could have taken on the war office and managed to get herself across the channel before circumstances turned her into that woman. Wilfred went on to lead a useful life, the personal loss was terrific but not all the changes were bad.     

Diary of a Provincial Lady - E. M. Delafield

Today I overslept a bit, finally got up and attempted to make cinnamon buns prior to friends coming round - they might have turned out better if I'd not been so sleepy I poured cold milk straight onto the flour and yeast (it should be scalded then cooled, and I can now confirm that this does make a softer bun) but my friends were charmingly polite about them. I did manage to make a really good wholemeal loaf (for which credit belongs to the kitchen aid that did all the hard work) but forgot to offer it to friends who would probably have been grateful for a sandwich instead of an indifferent cinnamon bun - they were to polite to suggest it. Whilst the bread was rising I bumbled round the flat making neatish stacks of things, throwing away old newspapers, and getting rid of the worst of the dust - all in the hope I would give a vague impression of domestic competence. We talked about old acquaintances all of whom seem to have been very successful. After they left I gave in to a lurking cold and spent my afternoon on the sofa with the Provincial Lady and watching the boat race.

The details of the P.L.'s life are quite different from mine (not married, no children, don't have to worry about servants.) but generally we have a lot in common (a tendency to being ever so slightly over drawn, a partner who doesn't even need a copy of the times to fall asleep in his chair, never being quite as organised as I would like, and a feeling that in some direction I'm not trying quite hard enough). Not trying quite hard enough ought possibly to be capitalised and mostly concerns the books not read, the plays not seen, the exhibitions not visited - it's the uneasy sense of horizons narrowing, and the most disquieting thing about it is that most the time you don't notice it's happening because you get so bogged down in the day to day stuff - see above. (Horizons may be just fine, but a cold doesn't encourage a particularly positive outlook on life). 

I can't remember when I first found the Provincial Lady but it must be twenty years or more ago, my original copy has all but fallen apart so I'm very pleased to have the new Persephone edition, she always comforts me. At 40 I have heard of and read more of the authors the P.L. mentions but otherwise I don't think my reaction to her has changed at all. The afterword here has a faintly apologetic air (the ladies at Persephone are not provincial) which I don't really agree with. I've only read a couple of Delafield's other books (Thank Heaven Fasting and The Way Things Are) neither of which I thought as good as The Provincial Lady. I found myself particularly out of sympathy with Laura, the heroine of The Way Things Are who is a sort of precursor of the P.L. who's charm lies in her acceptance of her world and her ability to make the everyday amusing. I even like the phlegmatic Robert (he seems like a reliable man, the sort who might not declare his undying love, or even whole hearted support, but very much the sort who will get you to or from the train station on time along with other equally practical attributes). I even sympathise with the servant and school fees problems, my equivalent is a mortgage and a crazy china habit. The bottom line is that I love this book and everything about it, I think it's a work of genius. I'm guessing that most people reading this will also be fans but on the off chance that it's new to anybody - well just get a copy and read it. (Please).

  

The Two Mrs Abbotts - D. E. Stevenson

It's that stage on a Sunday evening when I try and persuade myself that bunging on a mixed wash is basically all the housework I really needed to do (it isn't), worry about what work will bring tomorrow, and wonder why I didn't write this post hours ago (I was probably looking at twitter). However I'm here now and ready to think about 'The Two Mrs Abbotts' (Persephone book 104). It's both an obvious and a curious choice for Persephone - obvious because as a sequel to 'Miss Buncle's Book' and 'Miss Buncle Married' (Persephone's 81 and 91 respectively) it makes sense to complete the trilogy. Curious because this isn't Stevenson at her best (that would be in 'Miss Buncle's Book') which is not to say that the book is without interest or isn't enjoyable (it's both interesting and enjoyable), unusually there is no preface or afterword (we are directed to the earlier Buncle books instead) which I also think suggests that this one has been published for slightly different reasons. 

Plot wise there isn't much to say. Barbara Buncle (now Mrs Abbott) plays quite a small part in the action most of which centres around the household of her niece by marriages - Jerry - the other Mrs Abbott. There is a touch of romance and a bit of adventure but nothing that really counts, what interested me was the view of war time Britain that I got from this - one that was subtly but disturbingly different from any other home front sort of book I think I've read, especially Thirkell's 'The Headmistress' from a few weeks ago.

The first surprising thing is how little Barbara's life has changed with the war, her home is still well ordered, her husband is to old to have been called up so is still engaged in his publishing business, she still has a cook and a nurse for her children - apart from having to walk more and think a little bit harder about meals there's no outward sign of conflict. For Jerry the situation is rather different, her husband has gone, her business is all but closed, she's turned her home into a sort of canteen for local soldiers - in many ways her life is on hold, it's certainly turned upside down. 

Really though what was most striking was how segregated life is. Men and women live separate lives (one passage makes it clear how wide a gulf of wartime experience there is between Jerry and her husband Sam), the soldiers who use the house use the kitchen and back premiss - Jerry and her old governess Markie are on the other side of the baize door. Town in the form of a family of refugees refuses to mix with country; Mrs Boles removes herself and her children back to London disturbed by the ideas they are picking up. Class is still more rigidly segregated, the Boles family are definitely common and also dirty and dishonest, everybody is glad to see the back of them - it takes a week to clean the house to something like normal after they've gone and then Elmie the 14 year old daughter returns. When she does Jerry and Markie agree to take her in without informing her parents the rationale being that she's better off in the country and away from their influence. Elmie is described as an intelligent girl who turns into a nice looking child with the right care and you would think having fallen into the hands of a committed educator (Markie) that she might have a bright future but instead she's trained as a housemaid - something that I found rather jarring. There is also the matter of Pearl - another common young woman from London who has enthralled a young man by the name of Lancreste Marvell, and although nobody likes him they still don't think Pearl 'suitable'. Naturally soldiers and civilians remain somewhat segregated, and so do the Abbott children from their parents. 

I'm in the habit of thinking of the war as a time when social boundaries started to relax and crumble, Stevenson is obviously holding out against that but also, I presume, illustrating how rigid some of those codes actually were. It doesn't always endear me to her as a person but it's an interesting insight. The other moment of insight she offers is in Barbara's dealings with her children - Simon and Fay. Fay is still at the chubby almost a baby stage (about 4 I think) Simon at roughly 7 is something of a menace. Turning into the golden child of her imagination he is the apple of his mother and nurses eye but there is something off about Simon. He shows Barbara how little control she has over him one night when he behaves badly at bedtime, and worries her again when he lies easily to his nurse about an expedition to buy her a birthday present. Barbara know this lie is harmless and comes with the best of motives but it makes her uncomfortable showing as it does that children don't always remain innocent and beguiling creatures. Stevenson was good on children in 'Miss Buncle Married' too which makes me wish she had explored this particular relationship a little further. 

Miss Buncle Married - D E Stevenson

I thought 'Miss Buncle Married' would make for nice gentle holiday reading (how long ago that seems now) and I was right. It's years since I read 'Miss Buncle's Book' and it turns out my memories of it are vague - I think that Miss Buncle writes a book using her neighbours as the characters, and then the things she invents for them come true (or something rather like that), it all gets rather fraught and eventually Miss Buncle is forced to flee the village  - which she does, and falls into the arms of her rather nice publisher Arthur Abbott in the process. 'Miss Buncle Married' picks up the story about a year down the line. Barbara Buncle is now Mrs Abbott and very happy with her Arthur, but if there's a fly in the ointment it's this - they're too popular. Instead of spending time together it's a constant round of dinner parties and bridge which neither of them are really enjoying.

The answer is to move and what follows is a long search for the perfect house, some crazy coincidences, the threat of another novel, and some suitably happy endings. D E Stevenson was a prolific author, and extremely popular in her day, but the majority of her books are distinctly average, 'Miss Buncle's Book' it seems, was the exception that proved the rule - it's genuinely charming. 'Miss Buncle Married' appeared a couple of years later and is 'dedicated to those who liked Miss Buncle and asked for more'. I seem to remember that after Miss Buncle first came out Persephone stated quite clearly that they wouldn't publish the sequels because they simply weren't good enough - taking the book on it's own merits this is quite true, it's a fun read, but lacks the extra something that Persephone books normally have. That said I guess they re-printed it for the same reason Stevenson wrote it - for those who liked Miss Buncle and asked for more, and really what better reason could there be? Not every book has to be a masterpiece and before it was reprinted second hand copies of 'Miss Buncle Married' where around £50 a throw.

It's by no means a bad book, there are plenty of moments when Stevenson offers a piece of real insight or something which made me laugh out loud and for anybody (like me) who enjoyed Miss Buncle it's well worth the time spent on it. There is one thing that really stood out though. The Abbott's new neighbours have 3 children; an older son who despite his angelic appearance leans towards the demonic, a younger son who is placid and reasonably ordinary and inbetween a daughter who clearly has obsessive compulsive issues. There is a heartbreakingly sad little portrait of how she deals with her anxieties towards the end of the book - and it's those moments that make all the difference. 

Heat Lightning - Helen Hull

'Heat Lightning' is exactly the sort of book I associate with Persephone (and then I'm constantly surprised by how varied their list is) and I'll say it now - quite an odd one to read whilst there's still traces of snow on the ground (although thankfully it's starting to warm up) because oppressive heat is inescapable in the novel.

Amy Norton is visiting her parents somewhere in the mid west, she's recuperating from an operation and also running away from something uncomfortable in her marriage. Back at home in the stifling heat of that mid western summer Amy is able to observe her family with some of the impartiality of an outsider and hopes that this will give her some clarity to help deal with her own problems. It's also 1930 - the drought stricken summer that followed the stock market crash of 1929  - still the beginning of the depression and all sorts of storms are about to break over the Westover family.

Patricia McClelland Miller raises a couple of points in her introduction which I found particularly interesting. The first is about the American search for a national identity in the face of a lack of common tradition. This is something that was a major theme in American art (or perhaps more properly in the arts) at the time, the Westover family has acquired first and second generation immigrants amongst it's daughter in laws who bring their own cultural values and expectations with them. One of the problems Amy is grappling with is her attempt to work out her own set of values to live by in a constantly shifting society. The second point, and it's worth some consideration, is about the changing fortunes of domestic and 'feminine' fiction. McClelland says that ' When Helen Hull's earlier novels were described as 'women's books', reviewers meant that they were written on controversial topics from a woman's point of view.' By the 1930's though it became a somewhat more pejorative term, it still is, but really - why should it be? 

When Amy returns home it's to find the family suffering from the heat and all a little bit on edge. Things aren't going well in her father's business, nor are they looking good for her uncle. Cousin Tom may be having an affair with the maid, and Grandmother Westover promptly reveals that the increasingly erratic man she has to do the garden is in fact her husbands illegitimate son - his learning difficulties persuaded her that something had to be done for him and she's not the woman to renege on her responsibilities. 

As the heat shows no sign of breaking the tension increases, the cracks in Amy's marriage show, the financial implications of the depression get closer to home for Dewitt Westover who's about to show just what a man will do for money and then something happens which utterly alters the family dynamic. There's a lot going on in this book, Hull uses this extended family to work through all sorts of ideas - and the genius of it is that everybody has a domestic setting of some sort, whereas our individual experiences of the world outside of the home isn't always easy to translate into the experience of others, what happens within the home is far easier to empathise with. 

It's not the biggest spoiler to reveal that Amy's husband has been unfaithful , and as the book I'm struggling to finish at the moment is also about what I'm coming to think of as good old fashioned adultery, it's interested me to see the differences. In this case the marriage has hit a rough patch where both Amy and Geoffrey are out of sympathy with each other. When Amy catches him out she's not in a position to immediately have it out with him, but when they do they do at least manage to be honest with each other. The implication is that they might be able to repair things but that it won't be easy. As examples Amy has, amongst others, her grandmother who was able to accommodate her husbands indiscretions within their marriage somehow, her mother who has made her father her life, and an aunt who's marriage failed after a series of infidelities. Examining all those relationships allows her - and the reader - to consider what she wants from her own husband and what she's prepared to give. 

It's a rewarding book as well as a really enjoyable one, it's also a book to go back to and one that I whole heartedly recommend.   

The Exiles Return - Elisabeth De Waal

When I read 'The Hare With Amber Eyes' Elisabeth De Waal was one of the characters I wanted to know The Hare With Amber Eyes' she must have been a remarkable character and certainly deserves some attention. Amongst everything else Elisabeth was also a writer, leaving behind five unpublished novels including this one, all in manuscript, and inherited by her grandson housed in an old carrier bag.

more about. Edmund De Waal's grandmother lived through interesting times. She fought for the chance of an education - successfully, she studied law, set off into Europe where she married outside of her own super rich Jewish circle, finally settled in England, extracted her father from Nazi Vienna, and in 1945 went back to see what could be salvaged - that much I remember from '

It seems that Elisabeth De Waal tried and failed to get her books published in her lifetime but kept on writing anyway. Edmund quotes Elisabeth on this:

 'Why am I making such a great effort and taxing my own endurance and energy to write this book that no one will read? Why do I have to write? Because I have always written, all my life, and have always striven to do so, and have always faltered on the way and hardly ever succeeded in getting published...What is lacking? I have a feeling for language...But I think I write in a rarified atmosphere, I lack the common touch, it is all too finely distilled. I deal in essences, the taste of which is too subtle to register on the tongue. It is the quintessence of experiences, not the experiences themselves...I distill too much.' 

I'm not convinced that this is a particularly well chosen quote for this book. I suspect the problem with it may have been the fairly sensationalist plot which includes homosexuality, suicide, adultery, many titled folk, and a young girl who is seduced and then abandoned by a princely but unprincipled lover. If Elisabeth wasn't such a good writer in other respects the last part of this book would be something of a mess as the plot, which I do not feel entirely hangs together - enjoyable as it is - takes over from her perceptive exploration of exile. 

Exile must have meant a lot of things to Elisabeth personally and she explores many of them here. There's exile from home, from class, from family, from church, and from status, nor does she forget to look at the children of those who make the choice to leave - the legacy, even of self imposed exile, is passed down the generations. The first exile we meet is Professor Adler, a Jewish scientist on his way back to Vienna after 15 years in America. His wife and daughters have done well in the U.S. and have no desire to return to Austria, but the professor has never felt at home there - shocked by the casual anti-Semitism he's met with in New York, uncomfortable with his wife's success, and simply missing home, he takes his chance at repatriation returning to a country that has promised reparation but neither knows what to do with, or particularly wants, this ageing man who has experience but no capital. 

This is the point when the occupying forces of the four powers are about to move out of Austria, Vienna is recovering and rebuilding, and after 15 years there is a post war generation taking possession of it's future without perhaps being over anxious to examine it's immediate past, it's also interesting that there are so many upwardly mobile young people in this book. Adler's return is a difficult transition, the few old acquaintances he has left have lived through there own difficult years which leave them slightly embittered towards those who got away - who had an easy war safe in a country of plenty. Initially Adler is paranoid and hard to like, but homecoming suits him, and in the end he gets his moment of catharsis in conversation with someone who admits to having been a Nazi.  

If Adler is our hero Resi is the heroine. Resi has been sent to her Austrian family from America - they have adjusted to life there, it suits them, but to Resi something is missing and she doesn't quite fit into the country that's been home almost all her life. In the Austrian countryside with her aristocratic though no longer wealthy family she finds peace and purpose and in Vienna her connections open doors to her. Elisabeth chose her own route, arguably the war, for all the loss and heartbreak it bought, also created opportunities for people like her who wanted to escape the constraints of the rarefied society they were born into - there is little of the sense of loss in this book that characterises 'The Hare With Amber Eyes' - instead it feels like someone making sense of a changed world. Resi however is a problem. She has neither the confidence, born of knowing precisely who you are and where you're from, or the ambition of her parents who fought to go their own way, to back her up so she's a little bit adrift in the world. 

Persephone have a talent for finding thought provoking books and this one is no exception, I'd even go as far as to say that it's almost the quintessential 'Persephone'. The success of 'The Hare With Amber Eyes' should guarantee a certain amount of publicity for 'The Exiles Return' (it's already been discussed on Radio 4's Front Row) which it deserves. Elisabeth has basically successfully distilled her experience to create a really interesting discussion about the experience of exile, and about Austria's past, present, and future as it was in 1955, and better late than never we can now all read it and engage with her. 

Cheerful Weather For The Wedding - Julia Strachey

It occurs to me that it will probably take me longer to write this blog post than it did to read the actual book - it's a very short book but my reaction to it is quite confused, sorting out my thoughts is taking a while. This was a re-read prompted by Stuck In A Book's read along of a book I first read just before I started blogging - it's one of those books that I vividly remember buying and reading - in Carlisle and then on the train back to Leicester on a warm and sunny June day - which I mention because I think the weather on each reading very much altered my perception of the book.

Last time, on a day which would have been cheerful weather for a wedding, my memory was of a mostly funny book, I thought it a bit uneven, but I don't recall picking up quite so much cruelty in the humour as I did this time round. The weather today has been bright, but perishing cold with a stiff wind blowing - very much as described in the book (very much, as the difference between the 2nd of February and the 5th of March is more noticeable in the hours of daylight than the degree of warmth) it's not the kind of weather that promotes ease. 

The opening paragraph doesn't really promote ease either but it does set the tone: "On March 5th Mrs. Thatcham, a middle-class widow, married her eldest daughter, Dolly, who was twenty-three years old, to the Hon. Owen Bigham. He was eight years older than she was, and in the Diplomatic Service." That 'middle-class' has a sting in it - the couple are being married from Mrs Thatcham's country house (or as Strachey has it - house in the country - there is a difference) she has parlour maids, a sewing maid, a cook, a gardener, a ladies maid, and help in from the village - there are likely more staff (I suspect a chauffeur) all of which feels quite lavish for a middle class household in 1932. I assume the inference is that Mrs Thatcham would be insulted by the label, that her daughter is marrying 'up', and that the absolute desirability of a well off young man with a title as a son in law to a middle class mother is distinctly non-U. 

The bride herself is more harassed than anything else - her wedding preparations seem to mostly consist of downing the best part of a bottle of rum. There are regrets for a boyfriend of the previous summer - Joseph - and the suggestion that they loved each other rather more than Dolly loves Owen. Joseph is sitting downstairs wondering of he can stop the wedding without seeing to what end - he doesn't want to marry Dolly, and he's easily the most likeable character in the book, she clearly wants a husband - probably as a way of escaping her mother in a conventionally acceptable manner which also marks her as 'middle class' in the most damning way. A point underlined when Strachey describes her as being a touch vulgar in her going away outfit. 

Mrs Thatcham - modelled on Strachey's own mother in law - is a monster. Dull, narrow minded, waspish, critical, forever changing her mind and orders then blaming the servants for their extraordinary mistakes, and unkind to small boys in the matter of chocolates she bustles through the book an enervating, irritating, presence wherever she appears. It's funny but also appalling, the more so for realising she's a portrait as Strachey shows her no compassion whatsoever. 

The redeeming element of  'Cheerful Weather For The Wedding' for me though is the running battle between two brothers - Robert and Tom. Robert is wearing emerald green socks and his brother is in anguish over it. He's desperate for Robert to divest himself of those bounders socks before someone else notices them and just can't let it go. He tries every form of blackmail he can think of - all to no avail - and it'll clearly end in tears. I wish all the book were as perfect as the sock episodes. It's funny because it's so recognisable - both the agony and anger you feel when a sibling looks likely to cause you embarrassment (and how out of proportion it gets), and the distress of being bullied.

I doubt I'll get the chance to see the filmed version of this - and doubt how well it will have been adapted - at it's heart this is a bleak little book full of snobbery and meanness for which I rather admire it, but I suspect that it will have been sweetened up for a film audience and that some of the claustrophobic feeling of a house full of family will be lost. I would however travel a distance to see a stage version... 

  

The Making of a Marchioness - Frances Hodgson Burnett

One of the few bits of Christmas television that I'd heard about, and was also looking forward to, was an adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's 'The Making of a Marchioness' renamed The Making of a Lady, and rescheduled to be shown last Sunday evening. There was a slightly worrying article in the Telegraph over the weekend which rather dwelt on the shoe string budget and didn't inspire confidence in the finished article. Fears that turned out to be well justified; The Making of a Lady was mostly terrible, I won't knock the acting particularly - I don't know how much they could have done with what ended up being a rotten adaptation of quite an interesting story, Elaine has strong feelings about this book, her reactions and the following comments sum up what went wrong. The good to come out of it was that I reread my own copy.

'The Making of a Marchioness' must have been one of the first Persephone's I bought, it had been a while since I read it, and the details were hazy - I remembered enough to know that the first half was a Cinderella story, the second a thriller. Lingering impressions were of an enjoyable but not brilliant read. Second time around I have a better appreciation of why this book is such a favourite with some. 

Emily Fox-Seaton is 34, well born, desperately poor, and frequently described as childlike in her goodness, innocence, and when she smiles. Emily doesn't think of herself as an intelligent woman, and neither does anybody else, but she's extremely practical and thoughtful with excellent taste. Her childlike qualities have nothing to do with childishness and are principally an innocence concerning worldly matters, a limited sense of humour, and an ability to take pleasure from any mildly pleasant thing around her. 34 is a depressing age for an unmarried woman though, there is a growing sense that one day she will be unable to run the errands for people by which she makes a sort of living, as well as the realisation that she is quite alone in the world except for the interested affection of her landlady and landladies daughter.

Loneliness, poverty, and the need to maintain appearances are not issues that have gone away so it's deeply satisfying when Emily is rescued by Lord Walderhurst at a moment when everything seems quite hopeless (and a great pity that this scene was dropped from the adaptation as it's hilarious). Walderhurst's proposal isn't particularly romantic, but Emily likes him, and the reader can agree with his aunt that he's shown remarkable good sense in choosing her, and really, what sensible girl wouldn't be thrilled to hear the words "You are the woman I want...You make me feel quite sentimental."? It's enough for Emily and I anyway.

So much for the Cinderella story, now the thriller - and this is the bit that ITV really made a mess of. Lord Walderhurst has an heir presumptive, a generally bad egg called Alec Osborn, Alec comes back on leave from India with a bitter wife and a silently watchful servant. Hester Osborn is Emily's opposite in every way. Where Emily has always looked for the silver lining, Hester has brooded on life's slings and arrows, Her marriage isn't happy - Alec is an abusive drunk - and pregnancy is adding to her anxieties. It would be so much better for them if an accident were to befall the also pregnant Emily; just as long as nothing could be proven...

I have no idea how common or otherwise depictions of domestic violence were in popular Edwardian fiction, I can think of a few examples but suspect that then, as now, it's a somewhat taboo subject. Burnett was apparently writing from experience, she certainly paints a convincing picture of how a thing can get out of hand. Hester, who remembers that she loved her husband as well as being frightened of him, shares his sense of resentment that the Walderhurst fortune is slipping away from them so at first it's easy enough to ignore his plotting, but can she continue to do so?

The beauty of the book is that there is an acknowledgement that it's all ridiculous and melodramatic - everybody gets caught up in the situation which Burnett then diffuses quite naturally before building it up again with the everyday drama of childbirth and reunion. 'The Making of a Marchioness' isn't a perfect book - some of it has aged in a way that's just a little awkward, but it's a really satisfying one which deserved rather better treatment than it got the other night. 

Treats

My friend C and I went to London today, ostensibly to see the Northern Renaissance exhibition at the Queens Gallery - it's very good - and something we particularly wanted to see to honour the memory of the history teacher who made the time and subject come alive. Of course there was also some time for shopping so there was a quick visit to Persephone books. C and I also have birthdays in the next couple of weeks so I bought myself a present - I'm so excited about these - the books should be the reasonably light reading I want at the moment and the bowl and jug combine two things I'm quite keen on (Persephone books and Emma Bridgewater). A very definite extravagance but I'm very happy with them - now all I need to do is find them a home.  

100 Persephone Books

Persephone books have reached the magic hundred (I personally own 46 if anyone is curious) which seems like something to celebrate more especially since it looks like there will be more to come. A year or two back there was talk that they might stop at a hundred titles and although it's a nice round number, and there might be a sort of sense in that, it would be such a shame to have no more Persephone books to look forward to. I'm already particularly excited by news that they're publishing Elizabeth de Waal's 'The Exiles Return' as book 102. Elizabeth's story doesn't get much of an airing in Edmund de Waal's 'Hare With Amber Eyes' but there's a sense that it's worth hearing so I expect this book to be one of next years highlights. 

I hope to call into the Persephone shop later this month to pick up a copy of 'Patience' and possibly a few other titles (well it would be nice to have a round 50 titles...) I'm also coveting the Emma Bridgewater Jug and Bowl that commemorate the occasion and as it'll be almost my birthday by then perhaps I'll feel like I can be that extravagent. Who knows, maybe I'll even take them some 'Persephone Jam' (would that be to weird a thing to do?) because I do feel that some sort of thank you beyond spending money is due.

Along with quite a few other bloggers I got a surprise copy of 'The Persephone Book Of Short Stories' through the post as their thank you for my (our) enthusiasm over the years (it's precisely the sort of thing one daydreams about happening). I'm a big fan of short stories and this is a nice collection. Some are already familiar to me, like Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery', some others from the Persephone Biannually, but I haven't read many of them and am looking forward to working my way through the collection.

Persephone books are the sort of thing where you most definitely remember your first time. I discovered them in 2004, I must have read about them somewhere and they sounded like just the thing for some reviews I was writing for a local magazine. I called them and instead of the one book I was interested in I got sent 3, they also recommended an online book group I might like. I did. 

There are no shortage of publishers specialising in reprints and rescuing lost classics these days but 8 years ago there were rather fewer, Persephone Books looked very different to anything else around and still feels like more of a lifestyle choice than most books do. There is the shop for a start - a pilgrimage point for the devoted, the Biannually helps with the club atmosphere, as do all the enthusiastic online readers - not even a love of Virago books has led to so many real life friendships. There is also the very classy merchandise (Emma Bridgewater, those lovely diaries...) always strictly limited and very desirable. Over all though I think it's Nicola Beauman herself that makes Persephone so special. These books feel like an extension of her personality, you simply can't imagine anything she wasn't absolutely passionate about getting through the net. I might not share that passion for every single book but seeing those grey covers is as good a recommendation as any I know. 

In the Kitchen

I have good intentions regarding spring cleaning but they never actually amount to very much. Autumn is a different matter - the run up to Christmas is such a big thing in retail that over the years I've developed a real need to feel organised in good time, part of that is a desire to clear the decks of all the past years accumulated crap, another part is settling down to making things ready for Christmas. I know it's only October but now is the time for jam and jelly making - and I've made a lot of it. It's also turned into a big week for baking...

Work asked me to make a cake for the shop's second birthday on Friday - a cake - there are about 150 of us and although not everyone will be around at cake time one was never going to be enough which I maybe ought to have thought of before I said yes. In the end I made four cakes, two got sandwiched together to make a giant chocolate cake, there is a carrot cake because it's my favourite and that's what matters after a couple of hours baking, and a lemon layer cake which tried to escape from it's pan but was just about rescued... Because I was in the kitchen all day and the oven was on I also made jam, some scones for afternoon tea with the Scottish one, roasted a pheasant to share with the blond, and made some Brownies as well. She had to stop me from making short bread too - by that time I was on a roll and didn't want to stop. 

It was, by my standards, a lot to get through in one day, normally my Kitchen would look like a bomb site at this point, but happily the blond took charge and wouldn't let me leave the washing up, she also put everything away so I really do feel organised today which is wonderful (it won't last).

The jam is particularly exciting - it's the Fig and Pomegranate from 'Salt Sugar Smoke' which I've wanted to make since I first opened the book. I think I'll call it Persephone jam though, partly as an homage to Persephone books reaching their 100th title, and partly because the generally Greek and Autumnal feel of figs and pomegranates make it appropriate - mostly though it's because I struggle to spell pomegranate (I try to put in another 'm', spell check changes it to permanganate which baffles me, and the whole thing becomes very stressful) Persephone I'm fine with. 

This is a lovely jam and absolutely worth making, figs in supermarkets are fiendishly expensive but I managed to buy well over a kilo of them for £3 from my local market. It was the end of the day and they were going cheap, normal price is four for a pound which is still considerably cheaper than the supermarket rate, so it's worth shopping around as 400g is roughly nine to ten figs.

  

Harriet - Elizabeth Jenkins

When I think of Persephone books I think of titles like 'Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day' or 'Miss Buncle's Book' but really that's only a very small part of what they do. Persephone also excel at finding unexpectedly dark and thought provoking books; Dorothy B. Hughes 'The Expendable Man' is one of the best thrillers I've ever read, it's shocking and brilliant. 'Harriet' is that kind of Persephone, I finished it a week or more ago but it's still haunting me - 'The Tortoise and the Hare' is meant to be Jenkins masterpiece but I would be prepared to debate that now.

'Harriet' is based on the once notorious Penge mystery - although when I googled it I found very little that wasn’t related to this book. In 1874 the 33 year old Harriet became engaged to a Louis Staunton, a hard up auctioneer’s clerk. She had what we would describe now as learning difficulties, Jenkins makes these quite severe, but  Harriet was lucky to have a loving mother and plenty of her own money so life was on the whole a pleasant round of shopping and visiting within the extended family. It’s on a visit to some distant and hard up, cousins that Harriet met Louis. Despite her mother’s efforts to stop the marriage it goes ahead, which leads to a total estrangement between the two women based on Louis’ insistence. After Harriet has a child Louis removes her to Kent and the house of his brother and sister-in-law. He himself starts to live with Alice (his brother’s wife’s younger sister) in a neighbouring house. Within two years of her marriage Harriet and her child are dead.

Only known photograph of Harriet Staunton

It’s a curious book to read, Jenkins changes the surnames and Louis to Lewis but that seems to be all. The book was written in 1934, the same year that Louis Staunton died, the children he had with his third wife, the children of Patrick and Elizabeth Staunton – any of them might have read this reworking of their parents crimes and although right at the end Jenkins leaves us with the slight possibility that the Staunton’s might not have been guilty of premeditated murder by starvation everything that precedes suggests that they are. Perhaps because it’s based on fact there’s a hard to define something about the tone of the book as well, it’s not quite journalistic, rather more like a play with instructions regarding motivation, but not quite like a novel – the result is compelling, and really doesn’t feel like fiction at all.

Jenkins paints a horrific portrait of Harriet’s fate, she’s incarcerated in an attic, her cloths removed and given to her husband’s mistress to pick over, she is steadily terrorised, starved, and probably beaten, she becomes filthy and lice infested steadily losing the outward trappings of humanity. She must have watched as her child wastes away until he’s taken away from her hours before he dies, and then finally she too is at deaths door whilst all the time Patrick, Lewis, Elizabeth, and Alice watch on, their own lives made comfortable by her money.

For those four Harriet is a resource to be exploited, less than human, incapable of feeling as they do, undeserving of the good things in life when they have had to struggle, and finally an inconvenience to be disposed of but their own relationships also bear inspection. Lewis and Patrick Oman have an intensely close relationship; Patrick worships his brother to the extent that he’s prepared to do anything for him without question, Alice is infatuated by Lewis too which suggests he has a certain charisma, but it’s the relationship between Patrick and Elizabeth that disturbs me. Elizabeth is totally submissive to her husband’s will; his temper is violent and unpredictable and we would now consider Elizabeth to be an abused wife. The death of Harriet’s baby isn’t really discussed much in the book, so was presumably not a major factor in the trial either, and whilst I suppose that attitudes to child mortality were rather more resigned in the 19^th century it’s still hard to understand how Elizabeth as an apparently loving mother can reconcile herself to the babies fate.

There is one particularly shocking scene where Patrick wrenches the child from Harriet to baptize it. Jenkins makes his actions violent but Elizabeth hardly reacts. It’s one of the pivotal moments in the narrative – the power of the book is in the way that for most of the time it’s quite possible to follow the Oman’s reasoning – Harriet is to them sub human, she cannot feel as they do, and then of course they are so poor, always hungry; is it fair she has so much when they have so little? Violence is implicitly suggested but rarely explicit, so when for example we find Alice remodelling Harriet’s cloths for herself and wearing her jewellery it takes a moment to absorb the full implications of what’s happening. These are the points in the books where Harriet’s eventual fate is made clear, and where I also think Jenkins makes it clear that she believes that the Staunton’s were guilty of murder.

‘Harriet’ isn’t always an easy book to read but it’s rewarding and an effective way to challenge your own prejudices. It’s a simple thing to be impatient with those not quite like us, harder to question that reaction. This is a book that shakes your complacency and sticks with you for a long time. Highly recommended.   

Ten books from the last twelve months.

Books of the year lists are a bit of a departure for me but I thought I’d give it a go, indeed I meant to do it for the first of December but didn’t get organised in time – which is why lists like this generally are a departure for me. However it’s the season to look back on things and having looked back at books it feels like it’s been useful – and slightly surprising. I’ve not perhaps read as much as I hoped I might this year but that’s par for the course (damn having to work for a living and its constant getting in the way of more entertaining things) but although there have been a lot of good books – this is after all the year that I finished Trollope’s Barchester chronicles, read my first Walter Scott, and worked through Mrs Oliphant’s Carlingford series – I don’t feel that it’s been a vintage year. It’s not a struggle to come up with ten books I’d happily recommend, anything I’ve written about I’ve been enthusiastic about, but it’s been quite hard to identify the ones that really stood out – the books which might make it to my fire shelf.

Somehow though I managed, and so in no particular order here they are – all read between December 1^st 2010 and December 1^st 2011. First up is Matthew Sweet’s ‘West End Front’ from a couple of weeks back. The more I think about it the more time I have for this book. It’s a lot of the dirtier side of war which we do well to remember, it’s also a lot of stories that deserve to be told, thoroughly entertaining, and at times desperately moving. All good.

Another recent read was Constance Maud’s ‘No Surrender’ from Persephone books. Not the best novel ever written but possibly a contender for the most passionately heartfelt. It has an enthusiasm for a cause that’s infectious. It’s also a book that makes you question how much things have changed, and how much has stayed the same. The answers aren’t entirely encouraging for anyone of a feminist persuasion and again these are things which should be thought about otherwise nothing will ever change for the better.

Mark Girouard’s ‘Enthusiasms’ also makes the list, partly because it’s a lovely thing in itself, partly because it’s entertaining, but mostly because it’s a showcase for the virtues of good scholarship – whatever they’re being applied to.

A.S Byatt’s ‘Ragnarok’ was easily my most anticipated title of the year, it didn’t disappoint. I read it months ago but there are still bits that run through my head. I think Byatt is at her best when she writes short stories and novellas; she’s pretty bloody good when she writes epic doorstops as well but I find her shorter books perfectly polished jewels – or something like that anyway. She’s just very, very, good.

Preparation/anticipation for ‘Ragnarok’ featured Kevin Crossley-Holland’s ‘The Penguin Book Of Norse Myths’ which I approached in the manner of a chore. It wasn’t, and good intentions to read far more saga’s feature for next year.

 John O’Hara’s ‘A Rage to Live’ was a great big messy compelling wonderful book – I love vintage for reprinting him (and so many others). He’s a slight departure from my normal middle brow women – rather less tea and a nice sit down with a scone, more dirty martinis and a few too many of them.   

Sticking with sleazy was Mae West’s ‘The Constant Sinner’ – not just an eye opener. I have more Mae West to read which is something to look forward to. She’s everything I hoped in the way of one liners and wisecracks but underneath that there’s a veracity that makes the heroine Babe Gordon stick with you.

I’m a big fan of Victorian literature and if I’d read Lady Audley this year she would be a shoe in, but I didn’t and I also really love Mrs Oliphant so I’m going with ‘Phoebe Junior’ the last of the Carlingford chronicles. I think it stands well alone, has a cracking good plot, and rips of Trollope with style. That’s virtually the perfect Victorian novel in my world.

The last two books on my list are both a little bit Noir. Vera Caspary’s ‘Bedelia’ which had a twist I didn’t see coming and which turned something run of the mill into something extraordinary. Dorothy B. Hughes ‘In a Lonely Place’ was even darker – and nothing like the film which is good, but an entirely different story. Dorothy B. Hughes was a Persephone find and since then I’ve come across a few of her other titles. Persephone’s ‘The Expendable Man’ is so far the best; ‘In A Lonely Place’ is a very close second.

Now I need to go and get a head start on next years list.  

No surrender – Constance Maud - Persephone Books

A week or two back Simon Stuck in a Book asked what was more important plot, character, or writing style? This book was very much on my mind at the time because, and Persephone are quite upfront about this, the style isn’t up to much, the plot isn’t up to much, and honestly the characterisation isn’t up to much but it’s still a brilliant read. When I started it, it was in the hope that it would be interesting as an historical document – a rare contemporary fictionalised insight into the suffragette movement, and not too hard to read. Expectations were far exceeded by the irresistible page turning quality of what I’m guessing must have been a labour of love for Constance Maud.

She was clearly very passionate about the cause and although Maud never went to prison herself she knew several people who did – with this book the devil is in the detail, it’s the descriptions of meetings, of court, and of prison which really ring true and which in turn are thoroughly gripping. The other thing that’s important, and which I didn’t really expect, is that the heroine of the piece is a mill girl – Jenny Clegg. I did at least know how important working women were in the suffragette movement – and it amazes me how these girls found the time, money, and energy to work as they did and contribute to a cause outside that of keeping body, soul, and home together – it’s a true testament to how vital the issues they faced were.

Jenny lives at home with her parents and a collection of brothers and sisters, her mother is a downtrodden drudge, her father a drunkard with a taste for gambling, but this is as nothing to her sister Liz’s husband Sam. Sam is not only violent (in the first chapter he turns up at the family home with a dog whip intent on fetching back his wife) he’s sold two of his children to an aunt and uncle in Australia without their mothers knowledge. The point that Maud makes is that not only are these men entitled to their wives earnings they are also legally allowed to beat them and mothers have no rights over the children they bear – they aren’t joint guardians, children are the property of the father. All this and more is pushing Jenny into the women’s movement and a clamour for the vote because she believes it’s the only way anything will change.

What the women want are better provisions for health and safety within the factories they work in, better provision for education, the right to work in jobs that pay a living wage, for fathers to maintain their children, for parity in divorce laws – in short to be properly represented for the contribution they make to society and to be protected by the law. The books other heroine is Mary O’Neil a member of the landed and mill owning classes with political connections. After a visit to Jenny’s mill she takes up an interest in the cause which sets her at odds with her family. The women in Mary’s class are far better protected and far more likely to be Anti’s – although as Maud points out a few times as strongly as these women objet to the idea of the vote and the erosion of their position as the angel in the house they aren’t prepared to go to prison or otherwise court opprobrium in the way their suffragette sisters are.

Belief in their cause and actions to further its aims lead both Jenny and Mary into prison and into hunger strikes in a system where class and connections make a difference. This book was written in 1911 when the militant movement was still relatively tame; the criminal acts the women are convicted of mainly consist of window smashing, the treatment they meet with disproportionately harsh. As Maud makes clear women weren’t treated as political prisoners but as common criminals, the hunger strikes are a protest against this and the establishments answer of force feeding leads to one of the novels most powerful scenes.

‘No Surrender’ should be a curiosity documenting a struggle long won but sadly 100 years later we still don’t have the kind of equality that Constance Maud dreamt of and worked for. This is a significant book both as a reminder of how far we’ve come and how far we have to go – and why fairness is worth fighting for. Of all the Persephone books I’ve read and loved (I have just over 40, have read about 30, was only underwhelmed once) the only one that matches ‘No Surrender’ in terms of making a point is Dorothy B. Hughes ‘The Expendable Man’. ‘The Expendable Man’ is technically the better book but ‘No Surrender’ is written with a passion and conviction behind it that makes it far more than the sum of its parts. It may be riddled with faults but it’s utterly compelling, not to mention enjoyable, to read. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Votes for Women

It’s only a matter of weeks before the latest Persephone books hit the shelves, particularly exciting this time because of Constance Maud’s ‘No Surrender’. It may be that I’m missing something obvious but it seems to me that the battle for women’s suffrage is rather glossed over in popular history. What I remember from school is the Pankhurst’s, from university a few details about the contagious diseases act more Pankhurst’s and somewhere along the line a mention of Millicent Garrett Fawcett. I definitely came away with the impression that it was a middle class movement, that Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst got women the vote almost single handed, and that Emily Davison should have known better.  

I can’t remember how I came by ‘Votes for Women, The Virago Book of Suffragettes’ but it was an eye opener which made me hunt out more books which wasn’t as easy as I imagined it might be – everything had to come from amazon; I had neither internet or computer at the time so it was more of an effort than it sounds. As history goes this is really quite exciting stuff filled with character, action, injustice, faith, betrayal, feuds, and scandal - also it makes a nice change from The War (actually come to think of it either War) so why isn’t it more popular? The edited highlights that I was taught hardly do justice to the history.

There is a story, probably apocryphal, about Emily Davies, Elizabeth Garrett, and Millicent Garret (Fawcett). Emily and Elizabeth were friends and the tale goes that one night when Emily was staying with the Garrett’s the two older girls and a much younger Millie were sat by the fire talking about the women’s cause. Eventually Emily sums the matter up like this; she would secure higher education for women - she went on to co-found Girton College, Elizabeth would open up the medical profession – she became a doctor after a long struggle - the second woman to have her name on the U.K. Medical Register, the first to have qualified to do so in Britain. After that they decided that Millie would have to get votes for women which arguably she did far more towards than the Pankhurst’s and all their stunts.

I haven’t been able to find a biography of Millicent Garrett Fawcett and do not understand why her name isn’t better known. It bothers me to that the role that working woman played in demanding a vote isn’t celebrated more. I was taught plenty about how perfectly foul conditions were for working women in mills and factories across the country – long hours, low pay, harsh conditions. I don’t remember being taught that a strengthening trade union movement refused to admit female co-workers, or actively sought to keep women out of better paid employment, or that the emergent Labour party turned its back on working women.

So there you have it, some of the reasons why I’m really quite excited by the prospect of having another piece of Suffragette literature to add to a collection which fiction wise pretty much consists of H.G. Wells’ ‘Ann Veronica’, a mention in E.F. Benson’s ‘Mrs Ames’, and Cicely Hamilton’s ‘William - an Englishman’ (which is also a Persephone book). Any suggestion for more would be gratefully received. 

The best laid plans...

And my plans are seldom the best laid. I had meant to spend the afternoon cooking something from any one of my previously unused Persephone cookbooks; unfortunately what actually happened was more like this – pulled the books off the shelf, started reading other blogs, found myself watching ‘come dine with me’ for hours, realised that I wanted to bake but nothing appealed in any of the books, watched some more ‘come dine with me’ and finally admitted a certain level of defeat.

Honestly I wasn’t trying very hard – the book I really wanted to use was Patience Gray and Primrose Boyd’s ‘Plats Du Jour’ but Patience and Primrose don’t do baking and the way the day panned out (slept in, large late breakfast, plenty of leftovers in the fridge and too much in the freezer to feel good about buying new things, pouring rain all day) well you can’t go wrong with a cake or a biscuit at a time like this. There’s a lot of information in ‘Plats Du Jour’ and all of its good. I really can’t understand why Elizabeth David is so well known in comparison to Patience and Primrose. ‘Plats Du Jour’ was far more popular when it first appeared than David’s books and with no disrespect to Elizabeth David I think there are good reasons for this.

There is something of the same didactic tone common to all of these women (you just wouldn’t argue) but ‘Plats Du Jour’ won my heart first with the chapter on wine – a mere 5 pages of good sound advice on buying, drinking, and food matching. Twelve years in the wine trade and I don’t think I’ve read anything better. (Particularly true of the advice regarding wine and heat – too much heat destroys wine, but 54 years after this book first hit the shelves we still have a habit of overheating our red wine in this country. Don’t do it people – wine should be room temperature and no more, and now I’ll dismount from this particular hobby horse.) I’m determined to cook from it one day, although in the meantime I can learn a lot about pots, pans and techniques. I’ve been reading ‘Plats Du Jour’ on and off all afternoon (in-between low rent television) and plan to take it to bed with me in a minute for more concentrated perusal.

Having rejected ‘Plats Du Jour’ for cooking purposes today I also hit Florence White’s ‘Good Things In England’ which has a lot more in the way of baking suggestions, but somehow nothing really appealed to me – or at least not to cook. Florence White herself sounds fascinating; after being blinded in one eye as a child her marriage prospects were blighted so she went out to work in a variety of roles (governess, teacher, ladies companion, cook, writer) by the 1920’s, by which time she was in her late 50’s/ early 60’s she was earning a living as a freelance food writer ‘Good Things in England’ came out when she was almost 70. It’s a collection of historic recipes which are fascinating to read about but which have bought me to the conclusion that real vintage cooking isn’t my passion. Reading vintage recipes is another matter it’s a whole fascinating part of history.

I hope, but don’t really know, if I’ll ever manage to cook anything from these books. For once it doesn’t really matter they’re great to read, give me a great deal of pleasure, and are something I would never have found without Persephone Books – how’s that for appreciation. I’m hoping that others will have written about these books this weekend and will be scouring Claire and Verity's round ups to see, if anyone’s cooked anything it might be just the push I need to be a bit more adventurous.

The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow – Mrs Oliphant

Claire and Verity are hosting their third Persephone reading extravaganza (on the off chance that this is news do go and have a look; there are a whole lot of competitions going on to win books and although it seems wrong to have a favourite Verity’s picture test is especially brilliant.) I normally stand back in a state of mild admiration for people who join in; I was going to say challenges but on reflection join in covers it, it’s not my strongest point. This kind of celebration though works even for people like me. I like Persephone books, I have unread Persephone books, why not read some Persephone books...

‘The Mystery of Blencarrow’ by Mrs Oliphant (I like the formal titles that Persephone grace their authors with) was a purchase from my last visit to the shop back in November, it’s been the next book I’ll read almost ever since. I loved ‘Miss Marjoriebanks’ but despite having turned up a few more Carlingford chronicles since I’ve got no further than an abortive attempt with ‘Hester’ when it comes to reading Oliphant. Still a pair of novellas can hold no terrors about lapsing concentration ‘The Mystery of Blencarrow’ is paired with ‘Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond’ and both have reignited my passion for the hard working and prolific Mrs Oliphant.

Both stories deal with the breakdown of relationships and the lack of options for a woman in an unsatisfactory marriage before divorce became possible. Mrs Blencarrow’s mystery is not much of a surprise – a widow still in the prime of her life marries in haste only to repent at leisure. For good enough reasons she keeps the fact of her marriage a secret but these things have a habit of catching up with you and it doesn’t look good for the poor woman. What Oliphant makes very clear is the potential cost of Mrs Blencarrow’s mistake. Marrying beneath her station means not just a loss of status but the loss of her children. Legally she is the property of her husband and expected to obey him in all matters – his interests must come first. Her children however seem to belong to her late husband’s estate to be cared for in the same way that the land is, she is not their sole guardian and it’s entirely within the power of her brothers to remove them from her if they should judge it appropriate.

Caught between a husband who neither loves nor needs his wife and children who adore and depend upon their mother what is Mrs Blencarrow to do, where does her true duty lie? I think I’m making this sound more melodramatic than it is – what really struck me was how matter of fact it all was and how terrifyingly limited a woman’s life could be by convention.

“Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond” deals with a couple just past their prime. A prosperous, well liked couple, whose eldest children are just entering adulthood whilst the youngest are still in the nursery – a good wife who interests herself in her husband’s comforts, a kind and loving father who’s lived an honest life until he quietly disappears. Of the two I found this the more affecting tale. The wife in this case realises that she doesn’t really want her husband back and so forgives gross selfishness on his part. Quiet separation may sound respectable enough but it seems to me that being neither wife nor widow isn’t much of a position to find yourself in. The husband of the piece puts himself in the way of fairly thorough reprisals which his wife declines to take – but had she chosen to do so I imagine the scandal would be worse than the chosen course of do nothing, say nothing.

Mrs Oliphant seems calm enough about the fate of her heroines but they made my inner feminist roar; this is why we needed the vote and a voice. I’m glad I’ve finally read this book it’s been thoroughly provoking which was timely, it also fits beautifully into the Persephone tradition of confounding my expectations – for every happy, cosy, read there seems to be something a little darker. This book is sending me to bed happy that my life has more choices than boundaries.