This novel is set in a country house in Ireland. The household is dominated by Olivia, Lady Bird, a matriarch who bullies the servants (particularly poor ineffectual Miss Parker the governess) unmercifully, holding over them the ultimate power of unemployment, and bullies her children; her husband, Julian adores her (despite the fact that we are told in the second chapter that she had "entanglements" due to her "promiscuous generosity" early in their marriage) and spinelessly puts her and her interests first, even before his children. The children respond by hating her. John, the eldest (whom she still refers to as 'Boy'), is returning to the house after being treated for a nervous breakdown; Sheena the daughter copes though subterfuge and defiance, Markie the little boy shows disturbing symptoms: he calls his mother a “silly bitch” (all three refer to their parents as Olivia and Julian rather than mum or dad), he kicks his pet dog and shows a bloodthirsty interest in hunting and fishing.
The monstrousness of Olivia's behaviour has made this family dysfunctional. They all seem mad; John's behaviour is the least of the problems. Nevertheless, the plot rests on the assumption that the madness in the family resides in Julian's genes (he had a mad ancestor) so when Sheena proposes to marry Rupert (who also had a mad forebear) the young people themselves accept that any children they might have are almost certain to be mad. The resolution of this quandary doesn't seem to solve the problem.
The love affair of Rupert and Sheena is the principal plot, a classic comedy (in the sense that two lovers are kept apart by opposing forces and yet reconciled at the end); the sub-plot of the adventures of Miss Parker never actually goes anywhere and we are forced to conclude that Miss P is herself to blame for being subservient and bullied because she is too weak to stand up for herself, a conclusion which left a rather unpleasant taste in my mouth, since the reader had been led to pity Miss P, to no avail.
It's not much of a plot (the problem is that when you write a story about bored people it can easily become boring) though it is well paced with significant turning points at the 25%, 50% and 75% marks and a classic peripeteia (a twist which is unexpected and yet which has been well-signalled) in the last 10%.
The characters, though more caricatures than nuanced, are beautifully drawn. MJF is also brilliant at description, often milking the pathetic fallacy:
- “A double, twining staircase of lovely swinging curves - two airy curves perfectly resolved in wood. A romantic staircase, perpetually pleasing.” (Ch 3)
- “All the sofas that had been superseded in other parts of the house seemed to have gathered themselves here in ungainly hordes.” (Ch 4)
- “The sun was gone. The lake was the colour of a grey boat and the colour of the last primroses and the colour of moonlight. And the sky was grey. There was no bright sun to make the water dance and glitter offensively. But whenever they lifted their heads to the mountains those heights were changed a little, for the light was not dead.” (Ch 18)
- “It had a disheartening effect upon her, this lovely gateway, for it was sad as many gateways are. The curves of its walls were melancholy and the perpetual damp of the climate had greened each separate fluting of the four cut-stone pillars.” (Ch 22)
- “The sky arched pale and tremendous over the sea, and the headlands and the mountains were as dark in the evening as the red fuschias.” (Ch 27)
It is written in the 3rd person omniscient and the past tense and the style uses short pithy statements, often splitting up longer sentences in favour of sentence fragments, thus: “Sheena had learnt to accept Julian's attitude of defence towards Olivia. His standing between her and her own idiocies and between her and their children's unkindness. It was no good questioning it. There it was. And one could often work round Julian and get the inside turn of Olivia. So long as he knew she suspected no conspiracy or understanding between any of them against her. But he would sacrifice any of them or any of their schemes rather than hurt her. For he loved her best. They all knew this.” (Ch 6)
But what let it down was the tendency to interject exposition. The omniscient narrator is forever commenting upon what has just happened. There is a moment of action or dialogue, and then MJF tells her readers what to think. It is as if she doesn't trust her readers to infer what has just happened, she has to make it clear. For example: “Rupert depended on his own power too much. He was not particularly vain but it did not occur to him that he could lose Sheena like this, or ever. He kissed her, and because she responded defenselessly with virginal ardour he thought all argument was over. There were no words or reasons left against such love as this. This was not an older love such as understands itself, keeping its rules and knowing its own brief limitations, knowing how purely incidental its kisses are, knowing how time love changes love and asking no imperative question of the future hour. Such love as they had was not schooled at all by accepted experience. They knew of no great lovers but themselves. Love was theirs alone for they had found it and the very meaning of these embracing lay in their belief that such happiness can be changeless.” (Ch 18) This is not character thought because the whole point is for the narrator to point out that Rupert and Sheena are making a mistake due to their inexperience. This comment accompanies a delightful section of dialogue between the two which is full of illogicalities and inconsistencies. Nevertheless, MJF has to tell, rather than show. She particularly uses exposition to create character, for example:
- “The inconsequence and the obviousness of all her posturings and nonsense. How could she blind herself to the fact that they could not deceive her reasonably intelligent and spiteful offspring? They did not even see the shadow of her pretended self, only her pretences.” (Ch 4)
- “Why was Rupert romantic? Partly because he looked romantic, which really meant nothing at all. Partly because he did dangerous and skillful things well. But neither of these given things imply romance. Romance is a quality some people have the power of keeping within themselves. A power to be alone and secret. Rupert had this and with it he had a great simplicity of spirit.” (Ch 11)
- “To be young is to care too much.” (Ch 3)
- “Greetings of any sort are mainly futile, futile whether they mean nothing or anything.” (Ch 4)
- “She knew her only use and power with her friends. She loved and she was of use to them. They loved her for her use but not for her love.” (Ch 4)
- “There was Sheena holding her breath as it were in one hand and her shoes in the other.” (Ch 7)
- “Because she was for once without people she was less lonely. For it was the loneliness of being with people that Miss Parker knew about, not the divine loneliness of being by herself.” (Ch 17)
- “She looked so like a choir boy who had gone wrong (very wrong) that it was touching indeed to see her with that fat, hardy old tart Silene, talking sense to her there in the sunlight.” (Ch 18)
- “Miss Parker read it through again, and as she read it the sense of not being to others a person filled up at the first time with anger.” (Ch 27)
- “Olivia ate an immense meal, complaining a great deal as she did so about the way her cook cooked French beans, about the way her cook made curry, about the way her gardener grew lettuce, about the way her cook made cream cheese, biscuits, plum tarts, and coffee.” (Ch 28)
- I wasn’t sure whether “she was as greedy as a bird” (Ch 5) meant she gobbled like a gannet or ate almost nothing.
- Who or what is the WG?
- At one moment they play Heavy Saturn; my research suggests this my be a Victorian parlour game in which the players had to blow a ball of wool sitting on a table so it fell off the table on their opponent's side rather than theirs.
- I couldn't decide, given the evidence of this passage, whether MJF approved or disapproved of fox-hunting.
- “Below the moat [was] a gorse covert where a famous breed of foxes habited and reared their children now in great peace and comfort, and heaps of leisure to teach them to be straight-necked and to smell strong like all their uncles and aunts, and to enjoy their gallant deaths when the proper time came.” (Ch 11)
March 2026;315 pages
First published by Collins in 1935
My Virago Classics paperback was issued in 1986.
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