Landscape in Sunlight – Elizabeth Fair (1953)

Elizabeth Fair wrote six novels, now all thankfully brought back to us by Furrowed Middlebrow and Dean Street Press. Landscape in Sunlight was her second published novel, and the third of the six I have read to date. I also think it is my favourite so far too. It was the perfect book for me last week, undemanding, gently witty examining the politics of village life with a knowing eye. Of this novel, Compton Mackenzie said it was ‘in the best tradition of English humour.’

A novel of vicars, village rivalries, summer fetes, little snobberies and burgeoning romance, it is a perfect example of a certain kind of English middlebrow novel.

The novel is set in Little Mallin, separated from the larger country market town of Mallinford by a toll bridge across the river. As spring looks like turning into a glorious early summer, village life is mainly dominated by the preparations for the August Festival. Vicar’s wife; Mrs Custance is the driving force of the festival which she has decided this year will be held in the grounds of Sir James Brigham’s house. Mrs Custance has taken against George, Sir James’ son, who was once quite close to her daughter Cassandra. Feelings have been hurt and gossip aided misunderstanding – but Cassandra is thrown together with George over the summer – and perhaps a thaw is starting. It’s not just George, who Mrs Custance has taken against, Mrs Midge is another, she lives in Prospect cottage with her son Lukin – a grown man, who is supposed to be delicate.

“At the end of the war, Mrs. Midge stayed on. While the war lasted Mrs. Custance had accepted her as part of the war-effort; it was only in the past year or two that Mrs. Midge had been transferred to the category which Mrs. Custance described as “people we could manage without.”

Before the festival preparations get underway properly, Mrs Custance seems more concerned with getting her daughter married off. Her husband, meanwhile, spends rather a lot of time dreaming about ancient Greece.

Nearby, the eccentric Eustace Templer and his sister Isabel live in Prospect House. Their brother-in-law Colonel Ashford, recently retired from the tropics, is staying with them while his wife is in a nursing home. Eustace and Isabel’s two orphaned nephews and a niece also live at Prospect House, and Cassandra is employed to teach the youngest, Leonard. Lily is the eldest, at seventeen she has just left school and is desperate to grow up, she has started practising with lipstick. Prospect Cottage where Mrs Midge and Lukin live also belongs to the Templers, and it has occurred to more than one person that the cottage could be perfect for Colonel Ashford and his wife – if only Mrs Midge could be made to leave. Lily, realising she also needs practise talking to men, decides to befriend Lukin, who she has rather dismissed in the past. It is around this time, that Lukin decides it is time to start and defy his mother.

“Just as Lukin, to forestall or deflect criticism, adopted the character of a small boy, so did Mrs Midge, in moments of crisis, adopt the third-person and the lofty personification of herself as ‘Mother.’ At such moments it was not her everyday self who spoke, but a Superior Being inspired solely by an anxious devotion to duty, and therefore entitled to respect.”

Aside from summer festival preparations, there is an eventful picnic, tennis parties with Lukin, and some surprising matters of an artistic nature to be dealt with. Over all this, Elizbeth Fair casts her wry observant eye.

Like the village of Mallin itself, Landscape in Sunlight is filled with a host of memorable characters, including the Misses Fenn, middle aged sisters who live by the toll bridge. Whenever anyone they want to speak to pulls up at the toll, they race out to talk to them, caring little whether they hold everyone up. They really are a couple of characters, nicknamed Fizz and Pop, the talk about mysterious Mr Xs gushing and giggling like young girls. Poor old Sir James is living in thrall to two lazy servants who haven’t cleaned his large house properly in ages, are now refusing to do the mending, and simply won’t serve him custard cold as he likes it.

When Sir James decides his vicar Mr Custance needs a holiday, but, realising the Custances can’t afford it – he persuades his son George to write a cheque, and sends them away for a fortnight to Cornwall. A prospect that fills the poor distracted vicar with some small dread.

When the Custances return, arrangements for the festival get into full swing. Mrs Custance is a force of nature – but in the end it does seem as if there is a role for everyone.  

This was a novel I was quite sorry to finish, I liked spending time with these people in Little Mallin. It’s a different time of course and took me right away from current nonsense in the strange old times in which we live. I have a feeling, I may be reaching out for more of my furrowed middlebrow titles in the coming weeks and months, I have a few of the paperback books and several more on my kindle.