The Matchmaker – Stella Gibbons (1949)

It seems a long time since I have read anything by Stella Gibbons. Best known of course for Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons was in fact a very prolific writer of novels short stories and poetry, she even wrote a children’s book. The Matchmaker was her eleventh novel – and it’s a fairly chunky one. There were moments when I felt the novel maybe could have been shorter – the narrative certainly slows down a little in places, but really that is a small thing. Overall, this was a novel that was a pleasure to spend time with – and what I really appreciated was that Stella Gibbons had the ability to surprise me – she doesn’t always go down exactly the route you think she will.

In the first early winter of peace, after the end of the Second World War, Alda Lucie-Brown and her three young daughters move to Pine Cottage in rural Sussex uprooted by the bombing of their family home near London. As the novel opens Alda’s husband Ronald arrives home on leave – and together they explore the little cottage that the family will move into in the following days. It’s far from ideal – and it is really a case of making do.

“Alda had been homeless for so long that she had almost ceased to grieve (or so she told herself) for the elegant homely double-fronted house in the old quarter of Ironborough which she and Ronald had been carefully, lovingly filling with furniture and books. Home, for her, was now wherever Ronald and the children and she herself could gather together in front of a fire or about a table…”

The cottage is quite remote, their nearest neighbours are the Hoadleys at Naylor’s farm, and just behind Pine cottage is a small chicken farm. With no car, and no bicycles, the youngest child just three years old getting out and about will become challenging for Alda as the winter takes hold. She is certainly used to a busier life – she’s also used to having her girls around her all day – with the move to Pine cottage, the older two girls, Jenny and Louise will be attending the convent school each day. She really needs something to do – something to liven up her life at Pine cottage.

Alda’s friend Jean arrives to stay following the death of her father. Jean is quite a wealthy woman having inherited her father’s business and having grown up in a well to do family. She is a kind, loyal friend, she adores Alda’s girls – for what Jean really wants – and has always wanted is a family of her own. At around thirty-two she is about the same age as Alda – they were friends at school. Her most recent romantic disappointment the latest in a long line. For fifteen years Alda has supported her friend through numerous trials and disappointments – offering advice whenever she can. Here, the reader begins to wonder whether Alda’s advice is always good. There is just a suggestion of the smug married here – Alda who married young for love – who could have had her pick – and went on to have three lovely daughters – surely, she must therefore be a dispenser of good, sound advice on matters of the heart. If you’re already thinking Emma Wodehouse – you’re not far from the mark.

Meanwhile, at Naylor’s farm the Hoadleys are helped on the farm by two Italian POWs – Emilio and Fabrio arrive each day from the camp. Emilio has a family back in Italy, a wife and children – Fabrio is unmarried though he sometimes gets letters from Maria who he hasn’t seen in years. Fabrio longs for his home in San Angelo. The two men struggle with their English and are viewed as lazy by Mr Hoadley. A young land-girl comes to the farm, Sylvia is eighteen, a communist with ambitions to go on the stage. Fabrio is shocked at her blowsy appearance as she strides around in trousers, her hair piled up on top of her head – she isn’t at all what he thinks of as a young lady. Sylvia is a bright, breezy breath of fresh air – and offers to teach Fabrio English.

“And Fabrio did not feel himself to be a slave. How should he? In that unbroken pride of youth which is so strong that the young man or woman who experiences it feels: I shall never die, and this warm sunny wind blows into my face while I stride against it like a lord of the earth, and then (if she is a girl) she moves her rounded neck to see her gold earrings reflected in the window of the car and feels her power, right down to the very tip of her eyelashes. Fabrio, too, was still sustained by his former close contact with the earth and the sea, though month by month, as the life of the camp held him fast, the refreshing force declined in strength.”

At the chicken farm Mr Wait leads a rather lonely life – he is a good looking man – Alda soon discovers, though very old fashioned in his views. However, old fashioned opinions aside, he is soon revealed to be a very kind man. Alda and the girls make his acquaintance soon after moving in, but with the arrival of Jean the two households begin to have more and more to do with each other.

Alda is soon on full interfering alert – she decides that Mr Wait will do perfectly well for Jean, and silly little Sylvia really could do a lot worse than marry Fabrio. The trouble is Alda makes really rather too many assumptions about people – and thinks she knows what is best for them. If that isn’t enough, Jean’s last romantic entanglement – hearing of her father’s death – comes looking for her.

Not quite everything is tidied up neatly – just like life – which I rather liked – and Stella Gibbons really allows her characters to be flawed. There are no road to Damascus moments with people suddenly realising the errors of their ways and swearing to do better – something else that never happens in life. Alda is annoying – Mr Wait needs to be brought up to date, and Sylvia can be stubborn and selfish. Some hearts get terribly bruised thanks to Alda’s interference – but the ending is something of a joy – but perhaps not the one many readers would be expecting.