The Furrowed Middlebrow series from Dean Street Press are turning out to be books that I can pretty much guarantee to love. There is another batch due out very soon and they look amazing. I was lucky enough to receive a couple of them in the post recently – and Beneath the Visiting Moon was one I decided I had to read almost straight away.
Romilly Cavan was a new name to me – but Scott from Furrowed Middlebrow was able to fill in a little background. Beneath the Visiting Moon was her final novel – and it would seem as if at least one of her other novels is certainly not as good. Never mind, this one is excellent I am so pleased it is being brought back for a new audience.
Beneath the Visiting Moon is a little longer than some of the other Dean Street Press titles I have read – a fully satisfying novel that combines family life, romance and the trials of growing up. Scott recommended it particularly for fans of Guard your Daughters, and I can see why, although this novel isn’t as dark as Tutton’s brilliant novel, there are shadows, glimpsed fleetingly at a distance.
What we do have though is a genteelly impoverished family living in a large house in a typical English village – characters are wonderfully well drawn, their voices distinct. There is a large supporting cast of eccentric characters, in whom we can see some slightly darker elements hidden beneath the surface.
It is 1939, and beneath the cosy domestic surface there is the threat of impending war – a subject mentioned several times. Bracken; an American explorer and long-time friend of the Fontayne family, reminds us that the world might end soon. Aristocratic Mrs Oxford cares very much that everyone should stay in their rightful place in society, and yet is cruelly dismissive of her own young orphaned granddaughter, a working class woman whose absurdly beautiful triplets win a beautiful baby competition, a gossipy seamstress and a couple of spiteful office girls. Cavan’s writing is very good, there is some wonderfully humorous dialogue and her descriptions are lovely too. Here her description of the village.
“The place often had a satisfactory depthless look, with light and shadow lying in neat lozenges of effectively thought-out patterns. Times when window boxes, slung casually from the second-story windows of houses that were shops on their ground floors and residences above, were not the mere artistic whims of nature-loving dwellers, but the very expression of a street made from a child’s single-minded design and carried out with the expert aid of scissors and paint-box and glue.”
As the novel opens the Fontayne children are peering over the banisters as yet another prospective buyer is shown into the flower room. Their widowed mother Elisabeth has been trying without success to sell the house, also called Fontayne – the children have little hopes of her success. The eldest is Sarah – at seventeen she is practically grown up, she is beautiful and restless, longing for change. Twins Philly and Christopher are nearly sixteen, and the youngest is Tom, nine years old with a rather delicious turn of phrase and the ability to pretty much run around as he pleases. The only one of them who goes away to school is Christopher – the others educated by a governess – who is never a presence in the novel – and one suspects not in their lives either.
When the siblings hear of the family of a composer renting a nearby property – the hatch a plan to call – and get them to buy their house. The result is that their mother – after just four meetings, decides to get engaged to Julian Jones. Their step-father to be has two children of his own, Peter at eighteen is already very grown up – admitting to a shockingly romantic liaison in America to Sarah, and Bronwen who at thirteen is just about to publish her first book.
“When Elisabeth unexpectedly came in, the scene was one of suspended yet vigorous animation. Enthralled, Bronwen turned the pages of an immaculate copy of her book and masticated sausage with solid but abstracted determination. Peter’s face advanced and retreated in an olive pallor behind a mug of beer. Tom groaned pensively, placidly, swiping at his food with misdirected and eccentric implements. Philly, her back to the evening sunlight, her pale brown hair threading out to a haze of gold, was lost over the mysteries of a knitting pattern that Mrs Moody had given her. Sarah ate in a dream, fork hovering between plate and mouth. Ernest lay stretched at his ease, nicely poised between Philly’s elbow and the loaf; occasionally he lifted a moist pink nose and sniffed delicately at the flowers that overwhelmed a thin vase rocking drunkenly on its foundations.”
The blending of these two families is politely uncomfortable. Poor Bronwen, who hates her own plumpness and envies her step-sisters’ their slim attractiveness, rather annoys everyone with talk of her publisher. The piano playing Peter rather goes his own way, while the slightly dizzy Elisabeth – happiest tinkering about in the garden, and Julian are clearly quite happy. Philly is happiest with her cat Ernest, she is less confident than Sarah, dreads having to dance with people, and finds herself having to sit for a dull local painter.
“Long-threatened calamity had come to be. Philly was sitting for her portrait to Mr Lupin. Outdoors; in tribute to the golden-child-of-the-morning subject. She sat in a pose of unnatural naturalness beneath a meagre sapling of an apple tree, the only one in Mr Lupin’s cottage yard-cum-garden. She leaned lightly back on her arms, her head raised. At least, the ‘lean’ had been light at first, but was now tearing the muscles in her forearms. If she could have kept silent, it might have been bearable, but Mr Lupin expected to keep up a running, not to say leaping, conversation.”
At a local dance, Sarah meet Sir Giles Merrick, a thirty something diplomat who has to dash off across Europe from time to time to deal with the unfolding crisis. Sarah is instantly smitten – and works very hard to throw herself in his way ever afterwards, writing little notes – that aren’t strictly necessary – and trying to persuade her mother to hold a weekend party. Giles is charming and very kind, but the reader is never sure whether this potential romance is a good idea. Eventually, Sarah decides to leave home, getting a rather menial office job in London – and finding that two pounds a week really isn’t enough to live on.
The novel ends in August 1939 – as Sarah turns eighteen – and the ballroom of Fontyane has been spruced up – and the longed for dance/weekend party finally takes place. There is an added poignancy to the novel ending then – just weeks before the outbreak of war – we can’t help but wonder what the future has in store for these characters. First published in 1940 the author must have been wondering the same thing.
This lovely novel was a wonderful companion during a fairly slow reading week, characters who are a pleasure to spend time with.
This was my 13th book in #20booksofsummer, swapped for Girl, Woman other.
The quotes you pulled out are delightful – I particularly love that ‘unnatural naturalness’ phrase. Very taken with the jacket, too.
There was a lot I could have quoted. The jacket is a very pretty.
This does sound wonderfully absorbing, just the thing for a long, uninterrupted spell of reading. How does it compare to the work of someone like Dorothy Whipple? For some reason her novel, The Priory, came to mind as I was reading your review.
I find it hard to compare different writers, I think there is more humour in Cavan. But I suppose I would say that people who enjoyed Dorothy Whipple would also like Romilly Cavan.
I loved the quotes you chose, Ali. Great review! I keep meaning to read one of the books in the The Furrowed Middlebrow series, but somehow I’ve not done it (yet). Cavan’s book sounds like something I would enjoy (and the cover is lovely, too).
It is a wonderful series, this one is particularly good.
This sounds absolutely delightful, if slightly clouded by the prospect of war.
I think the gathering storm adds some poignancy to the story. I suppose Cavan was already looking back to the previous year with nostalgia for a time before the world went mad.
And then it got much worse…
This sounds lovely, she’s not an author I’m familiar with. I shall have to get a copy to read soon.
So glad to hear you’re interested in this one. Hope you enjoy it.
I had high hopes for this one, and it’s lovely to have it confirmed that I’m right. I’m reading another of the new FM books at the moment -Miss Carter and the Ifrit’ – and I think you’ll love that one too.
Ooh lovely I’m looking forward to hearing about Miss Carter.
Oh, this does sound lovely, Ali – novels written on the eve of the war are always fascinating, and the fact that it draws comparisons with Guard Your Daughters has to be good!
It is, and I can imagine those who enjoyed Guard Your Daughters will find lots to like about this one too.
This sounds like a lovely read Ali – and that cover is just beautiful!
I just love the cover, such a pretty blue! It was a lovely read yes.
This sounds brilliant, I have to add it to my wishlist! I don’t THINK I was sent this one … nope. So onto the wishlist it slips.
I think you would love this, of course you could borrow my copy (I am keeping my Dean Street editions but happy to lend to you).
i might well do that, thank you, although will add to my wish list, too. Such a lovely cover!
Will pass it on next time I see you. 😊
This sounds like it has so much to enjoy. I really like the fact of where it ends too – we know as readers that everything is about to change in unimaginable ways.
Absolutely, that ending does add poignancy. It was a lovely read.
[…] Beneath the Visiting Moon by Romilly Cavan was another big hit for me from Dean Street Press, their Furrowed Middlebrow series is becoming a favourite. Likened by some to Guard your Daughters, it features an impoverished blended family and a large cast of supporting eccentric characters, romance, family and coming of age in the last summer before WW2. […]
[…] gefiel Beneath the Visiting Moon (1940) und Despised and Rejected (1918) von Rose […]
This is one of the ones I’ve got, and that we’ll be doing on Tea or Books?, and I can’t wait to read it!
So glad you will be doing it on Tea or Books. I will listen out for it, I think it’s one you will enjoy.