The Gypsy in the Parlour – Margery Sharp (1954)

The 1954 club starts today, hosted again by Karen at Kaggsy’s bookish ramblings and Simon at Stuckinabook. Both books I have been reading for this were kindle reads – and kept me happy over the first week of the school Easter holidays. The first of these Gypsy in the Parlour was a surprisingly expensive e-book – but as I had thought I had a copy, finding I didn’t, decided I had to read it. There were other books I could have read instead, but I am glad I shelled out a little more, as this was a great, escapist immersive read.

Set mainly in Devon (where I was while I was reading most of it) in the late nineteenth century, it is the story of the Sylvester family, particularly the women who drive it. As the novel opens, the three Sylvester women – each of them married to one of three brothers, await the arrival of the new, and so far unseen fiancé of their youngest brother-in-law Stephen.

“In the heat of a spacious August noon, in the heart of the great summer of 1870, the three famous Sylvester women waited in their parlour to receive and make welcome the fourth. Themselves matched the day. The parlour was hot as a hothouse, not a window was open, all three women were big, strongly-corseted, amply-petticoated, layered chin to toe in flannel, cambric, and silk at a guinea a yard. Their broad, handsome faces were scarlet, their temples moist. But they stood up to the heat of the parlour as they stood up to the heat of the kitchen or the heat of a harvest-field: as the sun poured in upon them so their own strong good-humour flowed out to meet it—to refract and multiply it, like the prisms of their candlesticks, the brass about their hearth. Nature had so cheerfully designed them that even wash-day left them fair-tempered: before the high festivity of a marriage their spirits rose, expanded, and bloomed to a solar pitch of stately jollification.”

The novel is narrated by the young niece of the Sylvester family who spends each summer at the Sylvester farm, which is a long way from the gracious London home of her lawyer father and society mother. However these are the happiest days of each year for her, her aunts make her so welcome, here she is surrounded by love, and happiness. When at home in London, she longs to be back at the farm. Margery Sharp’s descriptions of the farm do make it sound utterly idyllic, life here is simple, uncomplicated, and honest – the beautiful crab apple that grows outside the window of the niece’s bedroom, a symbol of all that is good and unpretentious in this world.

Charlotte in the oldest aunt – married to Tobias the oldest brother, she chose the wives for her husband’s brothers, Grace and Rachel are women in Charlotte’s own image – they are large, attractive, strong, capable women – good humoured and loving.

“My three aunts talked splendidly. I choose the word with intent. As a rule their continual loud conversation flowed in a spate of broad Devonian, varied by an occasional touch of Norfolk from Charlotte; but they had all received quite grand educations in their time, my Aunt Grace had even been to boarding-school, and when they chose they could out-niminy any lady in the shire.”

Each of the Sylvester women has raised a son, and then sent off their sons to make lives of their own in far corners of the globe. Stephen the youngest brother has long been a happy bachelor. Now out of the blue, Stephen, has gone off and found his own wife to be, and Charlotte, Grace and Rachel are happy for him, anxious to welcome the girl into their family and their home. When she arrives, it is clear that Fanny Davis is a very different woman, they are large, blonde, and impressive, she is small, dark haired and fragile, until recently she had worked in a hat shop. What is less clear at first, is how life at the Sylvester farm will change forever because of her.

Fanny Davis is made welcome by the Sylvester women, for that is all they know how to do. Arrangements for a wedding begin, and our narrator remembers how sad she was that the wedding would take place after her return to London. She looks forward to hearing all about the wedding. However, there is no wedding, for on the eve of the wedding, Fanny succumbs to a mysterious illness. She is confined to the couch in the parlour – where she finds she is able to host the occasional visitor – but can do more than that. The doctor can find no reason for the sudden malaise.

When Charlotte’s niece returns the following summer, she finds the cosy parlour has taken on the air of a sick room, Fanny never moves from it. It would seem that poor Fanny Davis has entered into a decline. The niece knows all about declines for she borrows the novelettes of the cook at home, she sees Fanny as a tragic, rather romantic figure, and Fanny is quick to take advantage. She casts the girl into the role of her ‘little friend’ and manipulates her to do her bidding. The child is only eleven or twelve at this point – and can’t see what is blatantly obvious to the reader, Fanny Davis is pulling a fast one.

Bit by bit that summer the niece begins to detect changes between the Sylvester women, who have always lived so harmoniously together. She is absolutely shocked when she hears Charlotte, Grace and Rachel arguing, in time she begins to see it has something to do with Fanny.

“I stopped talking and lay quiet. Whatever had happened, whatever was going to happen, it was no longer a matter for children.”

Returning to London again, the niece is drawn further into Fanny’s games when she is asked to pass on a letter, and leads her into a delicious little adventure. The niece can think of no malign intention, she sees only good – and so when months later she is back in the parlour with Fanny, she can have no idea that her innocent chatter will have the most remarkable result. She manages to effect a cure, and Fanny rises from the couch. When the truth is revealed – there is nothing more for Charlotte to do but to roll up her sleeves and take on London herself – and this she duly does – in her own inimitable way.

Margery Sharp is a great storyteller and I loved this novel, which is packed full of brilliant women, the men mere bystanders I’m afraid, a perfect holiday read.

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In Pious Memory – Margery Sharp (1967)

My first read for November proved to be a small delight. Sent to me just a day or two earlier by blogger Madam Bibi Lophile – I knew immediately it was the perfect read for my first week back at work after half term, when I was still not that well. Coming in at 160 pages I decided I could claim it as my first read for Novellas in November.

Margery Sharp was a prolific writer, writing for both children and adults over a period of more than forty years. In Pious Memory was published a little later into that career after she had already published around twenty novels for adults as well as several for children.

I am a long way from being an expert on Margery Sharp novels – this is just the sixth I have read – yet for pure enjoyment I must declare it a good one. Perhaps not her best – some lacklustre reviews of Goodreads didn’t put me off – but this is subtle and funny and in the self-deception of several main characters seems to be vintage Sharp. She is one of those writers who beautifully understands the utter absurdity of human beings, she has an ear for their voices and recreates their little foibles to perfection.

The novel opens with Mrs Prelude sat in the tail of the aeroplane that was taking her and her international banking expert husband home from Geneva. It was the one little bit of independence Mrs Prelude insisted on sticking with – she always sat in the tail of the plane – even when her husband couldn’t sit with her. So, when the plane crashes into the Alps – Mrs Prelude is given rather a severe shaking, but her husband – not sat in the tail – is killed. It is in a dazed blur that Mrs Prelude identifies her husband’s body before her son arrives to escort her home. Here there is a funeral to be arranged, a will to be read – and Mrs Prelude still in shock begins to have doubts.

What if she had made a mistake in the identification? What if the dead body she hastily identified wasn’t Arthur at all? Her grown up children William and Elizbeth soothe her as best they can – convincing with the help of a little white lie – that yes of course it was their father. However, their younger sister, sixteen year old Lydia’s imagination is fired up by the idea of her father still being alive. He could be wandering the Alps still, his memory gone, sleeping in a peasant’s hut – in need of help.

By this time the reader has learned all they need to know about Arthur Prelude – international banking expert. His wife had been utterly devoted – but had lived in her husband’s shadow – trailing after him around the world, from international conference to international conference. She listened proudly as others extolled his genius to her – but she never heard his speeches herself – as she was always busy in the hotel bedroom cleaning his portable inhaling-apparatus.

“Besides the inhaling-apparatus and the methylated-spirit stove the Preludes’ luggage regularly included two special anti-asthma pillows and a supply of special yoghurt to be deposited in the hotel refrigerator immediately upon arrival. What with Arthur’s equally indispensable dinner-jacket and tails there would have been excess baggage to pay, if Mrs Prelude put in evening dress and wrap. Fortunately she didn’t need to; one thin silk dress (for Rome) or of light-weight wool (Stockholm) sufficed, and Arthur was very understanding when she had to buy an umbrella at The Hague.”

As the bereaved gather to mourn the dear departed we begin to see the reason for the title. Suddenly, as the talk turns to Arthur’s virtues and accomplishments they all begin, bit by bit to actually change the man he really was in their memories of him. The man who rushed outside in fury to stop the children’s bonfire – is now the father who rushed outside to enjoy the thrill of fireworks and a bonfire with his children, and he is now the man who on meeting his son’s fiancé for the first time, kissed her fondly on the cheek.

“It was quite surprising how much they remembered. Elizabeth, down for the weekend, and alerted by her brother, was particularly fertile in sympathetic anecdotes. ‘Don’t you remember how pleased and proud he was, Mother,’ prompted Elizabeth ‘when I made my first speech at the Union?’ ‘I thought we were in Holland,’ said Mrs Prelude. ‘Yes, but how pleased and proud he was to hear about it afterwards!’ said Elizabeth hastily. ‘Don’t you remember.’”

Once the funeral is over – and things start getting back to normal – Lydia and her cousin Toby decide to head off for the Alps on a couple of bicycles to find Arthur Prelude – who must be desperate for rescue by now. The resulting trip is naturally a mad cap one with one disaster after another – which include a stolen bicycle – an encounter with a strange group of partying Hooray Henry types at a chateau – and a French con man.

Meanwhile back at home, Mrs Prelude seems to be blissfully unaware that there are at least a couple of men, who having thought Arthur Prelude a very lucky man indeed – are now lining themselves up to be Mrs Prelude’s second husband.

This was such a fun little read – the kind of book I would quite have liked to be a bit longer. Sharp by name and sharp by nature – In Pious Memory is deliciously sly which I read with a smile all the way through.

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Rhododendron Pie – Margery Sharp (1930)

With thanks to Dean street press for the review ebook

Rhododendrom Pie was Margery Sharp’s first novel – it is famously hard to find and generally expensive when a copy comes up for sale. Therefore, there was great excitement among Margery Sharp fans when Dean Street Press announced it as one of the titles in their next batch of releases which are out at the beginning of January. I actually read this at the end of October – but have held my review back for a few weeks – it didn’t really seem quite fair to dangle a book in front of your noses when you couldn’t buy it for another two months – now at least you don’t have long to wait.

The story concerns Ann Laventie and her family. The Laventies are a family of social snobs, they see themselves as intellectual or artistic, they are cool and composed. The beauty of their surroundings matters to them enormously – an ugly chair for example is just not to be born no matter how comfortable it might be. Living at Whitenights in the Sussex countryside, they keep at arm’s length people they find dull or ordinary – and are known for not being very sociable locally. Ann however is rather different to her parents, her brother Dick and sister Elizabeth – she gets a lot of pleasure out of the ordinary things in life – and though she is proud of her family, and loves them, she feels unable to admit always to how she really feels about things.

One of the things Ann keeps quiet about is the odd family birthday tradition of presenting whoever’s birthday it is with a floral pie – a thing of beauty which naturally can’t actually be eaten.

“Every year she had hoped against hope, and every year the lovely inedible petals have cheated her. For she has a fundamental, instinctive conviction that they are out of place, Flowers are beautiful in gardens … and in houses, of course … but in a pie you want fruit. Apples. Hot and fragrant and faintly pink, with lots of juice … and cloves. She wished there had been apples in her pie.”

Dick is a sculptor, Elizabeth has become a writer of rather fine essays, Ann does not really have a talent – she is more down to earth, kind, practical and a good friend. Mrs Laventie had some kind of accident years earlier and is now disabled, and we get the impression that Mr Laventie takes himself off to Paris whenever it suits him to do so. The family have what they clearly all see as a more intelligent and progressive attitude to life. While the Laventies generally rather approve of the bohemian lifestyle of Elizabeth and Dick’s London friends and of people living together rather than marrying – Ann rather likes the idea of a white wedding with orange blossom and living happily ever after. She loves the garden at the family home in Sussex and enjoys living in the country. She does not entirely fit in with her sister’s friends in London, although on a visit to London, Ann easily makes friends and is found by everyone around her to be very likeable indeed.

“Ann settled down on the grass again with her chin on her fists and one shoe waving in the air. She wasn’t reading really, only pretending to, so that the others wouldn’t talk to her. It was too nice in the garden to talk. How queer to think she was lying on the surface of the world…an enormous warm green ball spinning slowly through space somewhere, under a lime tree like a sliver of grass, a minute pink dot.”

Ann is good friends with the Gayford family from next door – they are a large, noisy, loving family – a little chaotic, relaxed, and unpretentious and really quite different to the Laventie family. She is particularly fond of John Gayford, a gloriously ordinary young man, who works in the nearby town as a bank clerk. The Laventies sneer just a little at the Gayfords, react to a picnic invitation with eye rolling irritation and are certain that they are on a higher plane altogether.

“Ann reflected with pleasure that she was always known for English at sight – like Dr Gayford, who was invariably answered in his mother tongue whenever he tried to order a meal in French. They were English too – more than that, Sussex – and – well, Ann liked the Gayfords. And she liked Jimmy and James and Delia, and the next time an opportunity occurred she would say so. The flags of Ann’s rebellion swept on unchecked…”

When Gilbert, a handsome screenwriter comes to Whitenights from London to visit – he rather turns Ann’s head. Gilbert’s view of the future though would be totally different to Ann’s dreams – after a whirlwind visit to London, Ann is rather glad to get back home and happy to see stolid, sensible John Gayford again. John Gayford would not be the Laventie choice of suitor for their daughter however, John challenges Ann’s assumptions about him and his family – and while Ann has to find her way to her own happiness she must also find a way of reconciling her family to what she wants. 

Rhododendron Pie is a lovely book, in this first novel by Margery Sharp we can see something of the writer she was to become, as a debut it is excellent. A charming, whimsical novel which I am delighted to see back in print.

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Something Light – Margery Sharp (1960)

When I picked up this book, I was in the need for something comforting, the bookish equivalent to a mug of cocoa and a fleecy blanket. It turned out to be the perfect choice, light, effervescent and endlessly charming. Something Light, is aptly named, but Margery Sharp’s writing is excellent, her characterisation faultless.

First published in 1960, the setting of the novel appears to be just a little earlier, quite possibly the very late 1950s. Certainly our heroine, is a woman who heralds the freedom that the sixties were to bring to so many like her. She lives independently, earning her own living, she has many friends and is answerable to no one.

“For once, rarely, contemplating an abstract conception: the position of the independent woman in modem society. Better their lot by far, Louisa was sure of it, than that of the timid Victorian wife trembling at a husband’s frown. (On the other hand, not all Victorian wives were timid; Mrs. Proudie, for instance, browbeating her bishop, couldn’t have been wholly fictional?)”

Instantly likeable; Louisa Datchet is a woman who has achieved the milestone of thirty. A moment it seems likely to focus the mind. Dear Louisa, has always been a good friend to needy men. She fully admits to liking men, a lot, and is fairly surrounded by them, she even converses quite intimately with her milkman. Men also seem to like her – whenever they have a problem or are ill it is Louisa they turn to. She has been so busy helping out her army of male friends, that Louisa has stopped thinking about herself. When not buying extra yogurt with her daily milk for the resident at number ten or visiting her thespian friend Hugo – ill with a cold – Louisa is a dog photographer. She struggles to keep her head above water, but she is fully independent.

“Bachelors in lodgings going down with influenza employed their last spark of consciousness to telephone Louisa. Sometimes their landladies telephoned her. Publishers of books commissioned but overdue telephoned Louisa. She was constantly being either sent for, like a fire engine, or dispatched like a lifeboat, to the scene of some masculine disaster, and fond of men as she was, by the time she was thirty she felt extremely jaded.”

She now decides, quite suddenly that she wants to get married – and having decided to do so, she immediately sets about it, with, needless to say, mixed results.

She sets her sights on three very different men. The first, a holiday acquaintance who suddenly gets back in touch – asking for help – who just happens to have an awful lot of money. F. Pennon, who Louisa remembers looking rather like a Sealyham, is much older than Louisa, but definitely someone she can get along with. Unfortunately, it is a matter of romance that F. Pennon wants Louisa’s help with – and Louisa finds herself spending a week or so in Bournemouth, playing chaperone to F. Pennon and Enid; the woman who he was separated from twenty years earlier – and has been writing to in Argentina ever since. Does he, however still want to marry Enid after all these years?

When Louisa spends some time with a happily married couple of many years, (taking pictures of dogs) she decides what she really needs is a steady, loyal man. A man like optician Jimmy Brown, who she knew had once admired her when she was still living in her old home town. She decides to go and look him up, and trades a dog photography session for a room in a local b&b. While comfortably ensconced at the guest house, Louisa renews an old acquaintance, and makes several new ones, in her fellow residents, including a dear old admiral and a scot, Mr McAndrew with whom Louisa becomes very irritated. She also needs to get her killer shot of the landlady’s two dogs – in the midst of all this F. Pennon turns up again, in need of a friend.

Back in London, Louisa needs to earn some money, momentarily cheesed off with the dog photography business, Louisa decides on babysitting. One night of babysitting leads to a trial as a sort of girl Friday/housekeeper to a widower with three teenage children. Louisa’s thoughts, naturally enough turn to readymade families, and she soon starts to see herself as a fond step-mama. Having spent a week or so settling in and making herself quite indispensable, Louisa finds herself tucked up in bed, with three teenage children sat around her, confessing their ambitions and asking for help with their father – Louisa naturally agrees to help.

“There they sat, the family of Louisa’s dreams, assembled dressing-gowned about her bed. Catherine was back on its foot, Paul occupied the dressing stool, Toby squatted on the rug. All had brought tooth mugs, Paul nipped down for a bottle of lime juice and a soda syphon; in which heady mixture (for so in the circumstances it was) to drink Louisa’s health.

‘Don’t say it!’ repeated Louisa anxiously. ‘For heaven’s sake don’t jump the gun! He hasn’t asked me yet.’”

Things don’t always go according to plan, as Louisa finds out, more than once – and there is such a thing as trying too hard. Sometimes, the right person is the last person you would imagine. Margery Sharp does a lovely job of rounding this one off, quite satisfactorily.

This was the perfect read for the first tiring week back at work after the summer break. A delight from beginning to end.

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The Innocents – Margery Sharp (1972)

I chose to read The Innocents for Jane’s third Margery Sharp day. It was a novel I was prompted to buy following her lovely review of it last year.

It is a much later Margery Sharp novel, first published in 1972 – it has a rather different feel to the two I have read before. The style is much simpler in many ways, and yet there was something about the writing style that jarred with me a little. I felt some sentences were rather awkward (it could have been me!) and the simplicity irritated me after a while. However, the story itself is lovely, engrossing and readable, and quite moving. Margery Sharp tells a touchingly brave story, one I suspect was not often told even in the 1970s.

The story is narrated by an ageing spinster who lives happily in a small village in East Anglia. She has lived her whole life in this village, which has a wonderfully relaxed and tolerant attitude to their neighbours. Our narrator introduces us to Cecilia the village beauty – who for a long time seemed to have little time for the men who mooned after her, but who suddenly up and married a visiting Scottish millionaire, who now lived in America.

Just before the outbreak of the Second World War Cecilia and her husband return to the village on another visit. They bring their little daughter with them, Antoinette is three, and not quite like other children. She is what our narrator calls – an innocent – she has some unspecified learning difficulty. Antoinette dislikes loud noises, she is easily frightened and isn’t speaking yet.

“At three, she should have been able to untie my shoelaces quite easily. She should have not only uttered, but prattled. At three, Antoinette had still no more vocabulary than—a baby. She was also as physically clumsy as a baby. If I had visualized her carrying bowl of eggs, basket of oranges, with serious, safe care, I soon discovered my error. Anything Antoinette was given to carry she dropped. It was as though her powers of concentration had an unusually limited span.”

While her parents go to Europe for a month, Antoinette is left in the care of our narrator, and despite admitting that she doesn’t give her love easily, she is instantly drawn to the child. She adapts to Antoinette’s ways, understands what the child needs. As the time draws near for Antoinette’s parents to come back for her, our narrator begins to dread handing her back. However, with hostilities starting, Antoinette’s parents head straight back to the US, leaving their daughter where she is, fearful of risking her life on a sea voyage. Antoinette spends the duration of the war in the village with her fond, elderly carer.

“It was a happy time. I even felt a certain guilt, to be so happy; for all this while the wind of war was blowing.”

As Antoinette gets older, she learns five words, experiences horse riding, and settles happily into a quiet life, where her needs are catered to. Her little cot is extended with a piano stool – because Antoinette doesn’t want to sleep anywhere else, when she brings dead frogs into the house to present as gifts they are accepted with equanimity and she is allowed to play Tiddlywinks with rabbit droppings. Antoinette adores the garden, finding little places in which to hide herself away, she loves the wildlife and is never more content than when rootling around in the garden.

“Spoken to always quietly and slowly, Antoinette understood perfectly. All that was needed was patience. She liked hearing poetry, if it had a strong rhythm, as in the Lays of Ancient Rome. I also introduced her—a rather abrupt declension, I fear!—to such easy nursery rhymes as “Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been?”—still substituting for the rather awkward monosyllable “queen” an easier disyllable: “I’ve been up to London to buy a tureen.” Antoinette knew what a tureen was, because it was what I served our soup from. She also appeared to like the word for itself, for its soothing, crooning sound. (“Tureen, tureen!” I once heard her cajole a hedgehog.)”

In time, of course, Cecilia comes back for Antoinette, the war is over, Cecilia is a widow. However, she is a stranger to Antoinette, Cecilia doesn’t understand the child like the woman who has been caring for her does. Cecilia talks about taking Antoinette back to New York, organising speech therapy and counselling, she seems almost oblivious to her daughter’s real needs, seeming almost to blame our narrator for what she sees as Antoinette’s deficiencies. Cecilia wants her daughter to be someone she will never be. Our gentle narrator has no claim on the child she has dutifully cared for and loved; who she thinks of as her own. What – if anything can she do to help her now?

The ending is cleverly ambiguous, leaving the reader with some tantalising questions.

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Britannia Mews – Margery Sharp (1946)

Today is Margery Sharp day – started by Jane at Beyond Eden Rock it’s a day to celebrate the work of Margery Sharp on what would have been her 111th birthday. Last year I read The Foolish Gentlewoman, a book I thoroughly enjoyed. I hadn’t meant to go a whole year before reading another Margery Sharp book – but there it is – as ever too many books not enough time.

My sister did a great job at finding some lovely old books as stocking fillers for me at Christmas– and one was Britannia Mews by Margery Sharp – a 1960’s paperback (pictured above) with a rather startling portrait of a woman who looks nothing like how I pictured the central character Adelaide Lambert.

Britannia Mews is the story of Adelaide Lambert – born Adelaide Culver – from childhood to very old age. Born into a prosperous Victorian family, as a child Adelaide would sneak round to the forbidden Britannia Mews tucked between the streets of conventional middle class homes. Here the coachmen from Albion Place take care of the vehicles and live with their families above the coach houses, a working men’s pub sits on one corner. One end of the mews at this time is respectably working class while the other end is already beginning to slide into slumishness – it is certainly not considered a suitable place for Adelaide to spend her time.

The Culver family move house – and Adelaide and her cousins have many happy days playing in the park. As Adelaide grows up she is not often very happy at home, paying calls with her mother – who, when the time comes, will seek out the right kind of man for her to marry – is not the life she wants.

“Adelaide tilted her blue velvet toque, with the ermine’s head in front, till she could feel its hard rim pressing on her eyebrows. Mrs Culver nodded absently. Adelaide never expected much notice from her mother, which was odd, since Mrs Culver considered that she devoted her life to her children. She did in fact devote herself to the work of making nine hundred pounds a year do the work, or at least produce the effect of twelve, and so from one point of view was possibly right.”

As a young woman Adelaide is educated at home, while her younger brother is sent away to school. A drawing tutor is engaged to teach Adelaide and her cousin Alice – so they can chaperone each other. If Adelaide is the unconventional Victorian young woman, straining against the strictures of a rigid society then Alice is very much the good little Victorian miss. However one day Henry Lambert turns up and Alice suffering from a cold doesn’t and Henry begins to flirt outrageously with Adelaide. Adelaide is old enough to know her own mind, but desperately innocent in the ways of charming, unsuitable young men. Keen to break away from her conventional family, Adelaide elopes with Henry Lambert, marrying him in secret on the day the Culver family move again – this time to Mrs Culver’s dream house in the country. Henry Lambert takes his new young wife back to the rooms he rents above an old coach house – in Britannia Mews.

“Adelaide was very little of a fool: she had gone into the Mews as thought with her eyes open, prepared for the worst; she would have laughed as much as Henry at the idea of calling or being called on; but she had expected to be able to ignore her surroundings. They were to live in a little world of their own, in a bubble of love and hope, whose elastic, iridescent walls no squalor could penetrate. Within a week she discovered that while she could see and hear, such isolation was impossible.”

It isn’t too long before Adelaide must acknowledge her husband to be little more than a good for nothing drunk. Soon Henry as fewer pupils than ever – and is returning home in a pretty sorry state more and more often. With Adelaide refusing to admit her marriage a failure – she decides to grimly set her teeth at living with Henry – rather than leaving him and going home –where she would be welcomed with daily doses of humble pie. The Mews in now little short of a slum, filled with characters, of which the very proper imposing figure of Adelaide Lambert has become one. There’s The Sow, The Blazer and Old’un – all of whom play important roles in the life that Adelaide Lambert carves out for herself in Britannia Mews.

Adelaide’s fortunes fall and rise over the years – as does the character of the mews themselves. Events conspire to keep Adelaide in the mews – until the time comes when it’s the only place she wants to be.

In time Adelaide regains something of the position she was born to – partly responsible for the opening of a successful puppet theatre created out of two of the coach houses. Moving from the 1880’s through to the Second World War, we watch the character of the mews and its inhabitants shift from working class neighbourhood to slum, to a fashionable bohemian retreat in the 1920’s.

“There had always been this quality about Britannia Mews, that to step into it from Albion Alley was like stepping into a self-contained world. Its character might change, its Dark Ages alternate, so to speak, with its Christian Eras, but always it retained this strong individuality. No one passed under the archway had any doubt as to what sort of place they were entering – in 1865 model stables, in 1880 a slum, in 1900 a respectable working-class court. Thus when an address in a mews came to imply a high degree of fashion, Britannia Mews was unmistakably smart.”

By the time the bombs of the second world war are raining down on London, the character of the mews has changed again – the home of the famous puppet theatre who like the Windmill theatre can boast ‘we never closed’ it is a place of stubborn stoicism and grim determination. Adelaide is now eighty, and a younger generation are preparing to take the theatre and the mews forward.

This book kept me company during a very busy week – when I had rather less time for reading than usual. It was a fabulous companion; this is such a compelling novel, endlessly readable – I looked forward every day to getting back to these characters even if it was just for a short time. Margery Sharp was a very good writer; her characters are believable, with all their small flaws and quiet heroisms. I can easily see why this was made into a film – The Forbidden Street – (a rather histrionic title I thought) it lends itself to a good old fashioned epic beautifully.

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The Foolish Gentlewoman – Margery Sharp (1948)

The Foolish Gentlewoman was Margery Sharp’s thirteenth novel in a seemingly long and prolific writing career, yet it is the first that I’ve read. Judging by this novel alone, I feel I have made a discovery; another author I will want to read more of and like so many authors of this era is crying out to be re-issued. Today of course is Margery Sharp day, and I can’t wait to read lots more reviews of books I will almost certainly want to get my hands on.

The Foolish Gentlewoman is set soon after the end of World War Two, when houses are still being repaired from the bombing, and young men and women are slowly picking up the threads of their lives. When Isabel Brocken makes a rare visit to church, she hears one particular line of an otherwise unmemorable sermon, and takes to heart its message. It is a message that will have a lasting effect on the inhabitants of her household, and even upon her own future.

Isabel Brocken is the foolish gentlewoman of the title, a wealthy, childless widow in her mid-fifties. Isabel returns to her home, Chipping Lodge, after seeing the war out in Bath. A former ATS girl Jacqueline lives with her as companion and in another part of the house live the Pooles, a mother and her teenage daughter Greta, originally employed by Simon as caretakers for Isabel during her absence. Mrs Poole, likes to dress up and go dancing, Greta loves film magazines, they are devoted to one another. As the novel begins, Simon Brocken, unmarried, sixty, a little pompous and set in his ways, comes to stay while repairs are undertaken on his own home. Also staying is Isabel’s nephew Humphrey, recently de-mobbed, he is the son of Isabel’s sister, Ruth in New Zealand. Simon considers his sister-in-law to be entirely foolish, and is at a loss to understand why Isabel treats him so kindly and with obvious affection.

Simon remembers a perfect time, before the first war, when Isabel and her sister were girls, and he and his brother Mark were regular visitors at Chipping Lodge. In these days there were dances and house parties, and visitors, the girls had a poor relation as companion, Tilly Cuff, who left later for a lifetime in similar positions.

Now with Isabel certain that she once did Tilly Cuff a great wrong back in those long ago halcyon days, and the memory of that sermon ringing in her ears, Isabel determines to set things right. Her astounded household are soon made aware that Isabel intends to invite Tilly to come and live with them, and further, that in time, she will tell Tilly of her intention to give Tilly almost all her money. Simon is beside himself with disapproval; Isabel’s money had once been his dear brother’s money after all. Humphrey and Jacqueline are a little more sympathetic.
No one it seems is quite ready for the Tilly Cuff of the 1940’s. A lifetime of needing to secure positions for herself in other people’s homes has soured Tilly, and her appearance is stuck firmly and rather incongruously in the past.

“As a rule the chosen style is that of the wearer’s prime, women go on dressing as they dressed when they liked their clothes. The unfortunate thing about Tilly Cuff was that this sartorial turning-point, or rather sticking-point, marked a period not of complacency but of fear. In 1928 Tilly Cuff was forty; it was the period of all others when a youthful appearance was most prized, when all women tried to look like little girls if they could not look like little boys; for six months Tilly was out of employment. She knew then that if she were to survive she must stay young. All advertisements demanded young, bright companions. Young and bright therefore she became; and she still clung to the fashions that had helped her to seem so. “

Tilly is duly installed at Chipping Lodge, and her presence is soon, very much felt by everyone. Tilly insinuates herself everywhere, used to be employed, with things expected of her; Tilly has little to fill her time, and so finds things to do. Tilly is interfering, she involves herself in things she has no need to, she completely monopolises Isabel’s dog and changes the entire atmosphere of Chipping Lodge with her thoroughly unlikeable, disruptive presence. Simon, Humphrey and Jacqueline take to hiding in a bathroom to discuss everything to do with Tilly or Isabel, as Tilly has a rather unnerving habit of appearing whenever she isn’t wanted. In Jacqueline and Humphrey, Tilly recognises a young couple beginning slowly to develop feelings for one another, however in Jacqueline, Tilly thinks she recognises the difficult position, she herself once held, and starts to plant seeds of doubt in Jacqueline’s mind. The Pooles, companionable existence is also threatened by Tilly, who sensing a secret and having nothing better to do, is determined to winkle it out, somehow.

Isabel has to admit that Tilly is not as nice as she had thought she would be, however she is endlessly patient, and despite Simon’s continued disapproval is determined to go ahead with her plan to give Tilly her money.

“He looked across at his sister-in-law. Isabel sat plump and innocent beside Miss Cuff like a pigeon by a battered macaw; her simple face wore an expression of bewilderment. For once Mr Brocken sympathised with her. In the old days Tilly’s chief characteristics had all been negative: she was unassuming, undemonstrative, unobtrusive; now it was as though she had turned herself inside out.”

Living nearby is Dora Tremayne, another contemporary of Isabel, Ruth and Tilly’s she knew them all as girls, and now, having lost all her own money through unwise investment, works as a receptionist at a beauty salon. Dora understands where Simon is scathing, her view of the future for both Tilly and Isabel is rather more positive than the residents of Chipping Lodge believe.
I am so glad that I chose The Foolish Gentlewoman for Margery Sharp day; I loved every bit of it. It is a novel of great insight, humour and warmth; it is a truly delightful read.

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In with the old – re-issuing old favourites

I often wonder what it is that prompts publishers to re-issue the works of some authors and not others. It’s wonderful and fully justifiable that the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Muriel Spark, Angela Thirkell and some vintage mystery writers continue to be made available to new generations of readers, I’m a huge fan of all these so I would hardly complain. Yet there are dozens of other writers out there surely, equally deserving of having their work re-issued. Jane at Fleurinherworld – has declared this coming Sunday – January 25th to be Margery Sharp day, an author I think would be top of Jane’s list to be re-issued by someone out there. I hadn’t ever read Margery Sharp, until I picked up The Foolish Gentlewoman, which – at the time of writing I am enjoying enormously. So if you’re talking books on the internet on Sunday – give a little shout out to Margery Sharp – you don’t have to be a blogger, just get a bit of chat going. There will be reviews of Margery Sharp books popping up in various places, including my review of The Foolish Gentlewoman, maybe you’ll find you fancy reading some yourself. It seems creating a buzz helps in these things, and wouldn’t it be fab if Margery Sharp books were to be re-issued as a result.

 

I tried to do something similar last June – for Mary Hocking, with a #rememberMary month of reading, it wasn’t a huge success, oh well. I still maintain her books deserve re-issuing too – but it seems I was a bit of a lone voice, and some people who wanted to read her books found them too hard to get hold of. Still I loved reading those I did, and I still have three tbr. It would delight me to have someone re-issue Mary Hocking – so I think I may do another #rememberMary event this coming June even if I am on my own, – in fact maybe I should bang on about her every year – until everyone starts listening. So you all have fair warning, if you want to join in with #rememberMary this year, it will be June again – maybe I should limit it to a week this time, I’ll give it some thought – and share dates with you another time. I have found second hand copies of some of her books fairly reasonably priced, although her earlier novels really do seem hard to get.

Are there authors whose out of print works you would like to see re-issued? 

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