Excellent Women

The clothes worn by the women in this photo look exactly as I
imagine those worn by Mildred and her friends.

Today's offering for the 1952 Club, is Excellent Women by Barbara Pym, which is, as you might expect, an excellent book! The heroine (I will call her that, although I am certain it is not how she would see herself) is Mildred Lathbury, a 30-ish spinster who is a stalwart member of the local church, helping with teas, flowers, jumble sales, fetes and so on. She works part-time for an organisation which aids impoverished gentlewomen, which is, she tells us 'a cause very near to my own heart, as I felt I was just the kind of person who might one day become one'. 

But Mildred's colourless life takes a turn for the better when Helena and Rockingham Napier move into the flat beneath her. When the two women first meet (by the dustbins in the basement), it is obvious that they are unlikely to become friends. Helena is 'fair-haired, and pretty, gaily dressed in corduroy trousers and a bright jersey'. Mildred is clad in a shapeless overall and an old fawn skirt, which draw attention to the fact that she is mousy and plain. And their outlook on life is also at a variance: Helena has no use for church, and no time for cooking and housework.  An anthropologist, she is writing up her notes on kinship groups, following a research trip to Africa with a male colleague. Meanwhile, her naval officer husband has spent the last 18 months in a luxurious Italian villa looking after 'dreary' WRNS in 'ill-fitting white uniforms'. 

When I was a child, women wore crossover overalls 
to to protect their clothes around the house. They were
 often made from old dresses, sometimes with sleeves, and 
were usually shapeless and faded,  with a tie round the waist.
(Pic of vintage overall pattern from Etsy site My Vintage Wish)

Rocky is charming, an educated, sophisticated man of taste, who puts people at their ease without even trying. I imagine him looking a bit like Montgomery Cliff in The Heiress (which is a travesty of Henry James' Washington Square, but nonetheless very enjoyable). Sensible Mildred feels the attraction, though she is aware he is frivolous, flirtatious and unreliable, totally unlike her friend the Vicar, Father Julian Malory. It might be supposed that Mildred and Julian are destined to marry - what could be be more suitable you ask yourself. But he falls for the charms of beautiful, sad-eyed widow Allegra Gray. 

I think this advert, from 1951, has something of the feel 
of Rocky charming an adoring woman. (Pic from 
 https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1216651471/vintage-ad-1951-pacific-mills-mens-suit)

Much to her surprise, Mildred finds herself drawn into the Napiers' chaotic lifestyle, and meeting new people, including Helena's fellow anthropologist Everard Bone. Mildred decides she does not like him - she doesn't like fair-haired men, his nose is too pointed, and he seems to view the rest of the world (especially Mildred) with disdain. But, as we all know, couples who affect to dislike each other are generally hiding their true feeling...

Barbara Pym is often compared to Jane Austen, who once described her method of writing as being done with a fine brush on a 'little bit (not two inches wide) of ivory'. Like Austen, she portrays the everyday domestic details of life, showing us the concerns of ordinary people, and ignoring the bigger picture. You would hardly know Excellent Woman is set in the aftermath of WW2, but it's the small things in life that seem to affect people most. Pym is a very humorous writer - she's not laugh out loud funny, but she makes you smile, with the kind of quiet irony you might find in Austen novel. Take this sentence when Mildred admits:

"I suppose an unmarried woman just over thirty, who lives alone and has no apparent ties, must expect to find herself involved or interested in other people's business, and if she is also a clergyman's daughter then one really might say that there is no hope for her."

I love that - pure Austen I think, as is Mildred's wry observation that it's the unsuitable women that men fall in love with.

Stylish trousers and brightly coloured jumper,
like those worn by Helena.
(https://wearinghistoryblog.com)

Pym's books are comedies of manners, and this is no exception. She draws her characters with precision, placing them in a particular time, place and social strata. But while she pokes gentle fun at them, she is never cruel, inviting us to smile with these people rather than at them. There are far too many characters to mention them all, but I like the Vicar's sister Winifred, who looks after him, dresses in clothes from the church jumble sales, and keeps a battered copy of Christina Rossetti's poems by her bed. A hopeless (or perhaps that should be hopeful) romantic, she has never been in love, and no-one has ever loved her, but she is happy with her life. Then there is Mildred's old schoolfriend Dora Caldicote, a jolly hockey sticks sort of woman, who harbours the forlorn hope that her brother William will marry Mildred, even though he is obviously not the marrying kind. 

There are some wonderful descriptions of social events, like the complexities of lunch at a self-service cafeteria, where the trays rattle along on a moving belt at terrifying speed and bewildered Mildred ends up with things she doesn't want and no saucer for her coffee. Talking of which, my local Co-op cafe provides a not-bad pot of tea, with a cup, but no saucer, so I know exactly how she felt!

I could go on and on saying how much I love this book, and what a marvellous writer Barbara Pym is, but to be honest it's difficult to know what to put in and what to leave out, because so many other people have expressed their thoughts so much better than I can. Just read the book - and if you've already read it, please read it again!

The 1952 Club runs all week, hosted by Simon at https://www.stuckinabook.com/, and Karen at https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress. 

My Virago edition has a lovely foreword by
Alexander McCall Smith, who is kind, warm and
generous in his appraisal of Barbara Pym. 

The Borrowers

Arrietty wandered through the open door into the sitting -room. Ah, the fire had been lighted and the room looked bright and cosy. Homily was proud of her sitting-room: the walls had been papered with scraps of old letters out of old waste-paper baskets, and Homily had arranged the handwriting in vertical stripes, which ran from floor to ceiling. On the walls, repeated in various colours, hung several portraits of Queen Victoria as a girl; these were postage stamps, borrowed by Pod several years ago from the stamp-box on the desk in the drawing room. There was a lacquer trinket-box, padded inside and with the lid open, which they used as a settle; and that useful standby - a chest of drawers made of match-boxes.

The room, and its occupants, are part of the enchanting world that exists beneath the floorboards in the Big House, in Mary Norton's classic children's book, The Borrowers. OK, I know it's a children's book, but adults can still enjoy it and, since it was first published in 1952, I thought it would be just perfect for The 1952 Club. I was prompted to read it again because I couldn't find my little embroidery scissors, or my skein of green thread, and I found myself thinking 'the Borrowers have taken them'. For those who don't know, Pod, Homily and little Arrietty are Borrowers. Everything they have is 'borrowed' from the Big People (otherwise known as Human Beans) and put to ingenious use. All the small day to day items that disappear from your home - pins, safety pins, razor blades, scraps of food - turn up in their minuscule domain. 

The Borrowers, drawn by Diana Stanley, the 
original illustrator of the books.

They have a deep red blotting paper carpet, a table made from the base of a pill box, and a mustard pot which now does duty as a coal scuttle, filled with slack and candle drippings. Homily makes soup in a pewter thimble and uses pins and a reel of thread to knit jumpers for her family. Arrietty reads miniature Victorian books (as big as church Bibles to her) and keeps a diary in Bryce's Tom Thumb Diary and Proverb Book, which has a saying for every day of the year, and space for her to write. In her hands, the small pencil from a dance programme is as big as a rolling pin to us.  

Pod, Homily and Arrietty are the Clock family, because the entrance to their home lies behind the kitchen clock. Once upon a time there were dozens of Borrowers living in the Big House, including the  Overmantels, who lived in the Morning Room on a limited diet of breakfast food (what else would be served in the morning room!), and the Harpsichords (who changed their name from Linen-Press) and Rain-Pipes. In those days the house was full of people; now only Great-Aunt Sophy, who took to her bed 20 odd years ago, is left, and the army of servants dwindled to Driver the cook and Crampfurl the gardener, who care for the old lady and the building. It means there are slim pickings for the Borrowers, so gradually the families have moved elsewhere, and only Pod, Homily and Arrietty are left.

Homily hard at work while Arrietty writes in her diary. (illustration
by Diana Stanley)

Like all Borrowers, they believe the Big People are there for their benefit, to provide the necessities of life for them, but at same time they are frightened of the consequences of being seen. Poor Uncle Hendreary was forced to emigrate to a badger's sett when a cat was brought in after he was spotted by a maid on a mantlepiece and he sneezed when she dusted him!

So the little Clock family continue their uneventful, hidden lives - until the day a Boy comes to stay, sent home from India to recuperate after illness. The Boy sees Pod, and actually helps him 'borrow' a cup from the dolls' tea set. This is obviously a crisis, and a very shaken Pod considers moving home, but the family stay put, and Pod even teaches his daughter how to 'borrow'. But this leads to their downfall, because Arrietty makes friends with the Boy, who 'borrows' all sorts of wonderful things for them, and is eventually caught by the two servants (who have always believed he is sly and up to good). There are some heart-stopping moments when it seems the Borrowers' lives are threatened but, thankfully, they escape to the outside world, with a helping hand from the Boy who is being shipped back to India.

And if you want to know what happens to them in the great outdoors, the next book in the series, The Borrowers Afield, is even more magical. I'm aware there are people who think adults shouldn't read children's books (unless, of course, they are reading aloud to children), and I've probably made it sound very silly and whimsical, but it really is a lovely book, and I adore the concept of these little people living beneath our feet, and making good use of items we don't look after. 

The 1952 Club, runs throughout the week, and there are links to the many other books published or written in 1952  at https://www.stuckinabook.com/, and https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress, the blogs run by Simon and Karen, who are hosting the event.

Murder in the Mill-Race

 

Doctor Raymond Ferens, his health ruined by his wartime experiences, and his wife Anne move to Milham in the Moor, an isolated village high on Exmoor. It seems idyllic, but soon they find themselves caught up in a murder mystery when Sister Monica, warden of the local children’s home, is found drowned in the mill stream. Villagers, who generally regard Sister Monica as ‘a wonder’ claim she must have come over dizzy and fallen off the bridge. But Sgt Peel (from the nearby town of Milham  Prior) is not so sure. He is suspicious because there was another unexplained drowning (of a maid from the children’s home) in the same place. And there are puzzling aspects to the case. So Scotland Yard is drafted in to help, in the shape of Chief Inspector Macdonald and Detective Inspector Reeves.

Murder at the Mill-Race: A Devon Mystery, by ECR Lorac, is one of those lovely British Library Crime Classics, with an interesting introduction by Martin Edwards, who edits the series, and has a very nice blog here. I’d never been a huge fan of crime fiction until I discovered these BLCC ‘Golden Age’ murder mysteries, and I think I’ve loved all the ones I’ve read. There’s not too much blood and gore, which is what puts me off many modern crime novels, which sometimes seem almost to be a celebration  of violence. These bygone authors (who were immensely popular in their day), produced well crafted tales, with believable characters, and their detectives (policemen as well as amateur sleuths) rely on their brains (rather than intuition) to unravel the clues, which is something I always appreciate. And their portrayal of the life and times they write about is nearly always brilliant – Golden Age crime writers are really good on domestic detail, the social set-up, and the way people respond to events, and that’s especially true in this book.

Anyway, I digress. Our Scotland Yard detectives quickly discover that Sister Monica (or Miss Monica Emily Torrington, as she should really be known) was neither as wonderful nor as well-liked as people would have them believe. A post mortem reveals traces of alcohol in her blood, yet she was a strict tee-totaller, and her secret savings amount to far more than her meagre wage – so where does the money come from? But no-one is willing to admit any fault in Sister Monica. And if they have their suspicions about the identity of the killer and the reason for the murder, they’re not admitting that either. Lorac tells us:

“Never make trouble in the village,” is an unspoken law, but it’s a binding law. You may know about your neighbour’s sins and shortcomings, but you should never name them aloud. It’d make trouble, and small societies want to avoid trouble.”

Chief Inspector Macdonald and Detective Inspector Reeves pursue their inquiries kindly, but firmly, and are quite prepared to undertake practical investigations to prove their suspicions – unwittingly aided by Dr Ferens and land agent John Sanderson, who carry out their own experiment in a bid to discover what really happened.

Gradually a clearer picture emerges of Miss Torrington, who adopted the title ‘Sister’, along with an air of religious humility, and a ‘long dark cloak and veil  which hospital nurses had worn as uniform in the early nineteen hundreds’. A capable nurse, she managed the children’s home efficiently and economically for almost 30 years, and while the youngsters in her care were not loved, they were not ill-treated. But by the time Raymond Ferens and his wife meet her she is ‘ageing, domineering, narrow-minded’ and has been in the job too long. Miss Braithwaite, one of the few people to speak out against Sister Monica, tells the police:

“She was one of those women who cover a mean and assertive mind with a cloak of humility, and there was something abnormal about her, almost pathological. Also, she was a malicious gossip, an eavesdropper  and a raker-up of other people’s secrets.”

There’s a host of believable characters, and I like the way you get a glimpse of their personalities, as well as a descriptions of their physical appearance, each of them a power within their own own sphere, like Mrs Yeo who runs the Post Office, the village shop, the WI, the Mothers’ Union, and all the other ‘worthy efforts’. But the social niceties of the village hierarchy must always be observed – it would take a brave person to treat Lady Ridding as a social equal! On the whole I rather like Lady Ridding, whose aristocratic charm hides a shrewd business brain, and I love the way the London detectives remain polite, but steadfastly refuse to be influenced by her social standing! However, she is chairman of the committee which runs the children’s home, and I couldn’t quite understand why she closed her eyes to Sister Monica’s oddities.

There is quite a bit of dialect in this novel, which I don’t always like, but here it somehow rings true, isn’t patronising, and seems in keeping – as I was reading I could hear that lovely slow, soft-spoken Devonshire burr. And I liked the way Milham in the Moor ‘ten miles from anywhere and nothing but the moor beyond, all the way to sea’ was as much a character as the people – there are some lovely descriptions of the landscape, and I can see how its isolation could make villagers band together against outsiders.

Overall I really enjoyed this, and I didn’t guess who the killer was – but then, as I’ve said before, I very rarely do. My main quibble is that we kept being told that some women go a bit peculiar as they get older, especially when they’ve been in a position of power for a long time, and they become very dominating, and Sister Monica is one of these. She was certainly very unpleasant, and the more we found out about her, the more unpleasant she became, and I know this was published in 1952, and you have to put things in perspective, but it’s a spurious argument.

Why is it that women in positions of authority, like hospital matrons, headmistresses, chairwomen of committees and so on, are so frequently portrayed as power-crazed, domineering harpies, who should be retired, or removed from their positions? But men’s right to abuse their position, or hang on to power when their abilities are no longer up to it is rarely questioned. Sorry about the rant. I could go on about this for a lot longer, but it didn’t actually spoil my enjoyment of the book – I just felt I had to say something!

I've used this before, but am reposting it in a bid to revive the blog, and to join The 1952 Club, which runs all week, hosted by Simon at https://www.stuckinabook.com/, and Karen at https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress. It seems a good choice, since I have recently moved to Devon, albeit nearer Dartmoor than Exmoor!

The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

I am trying to make up for lost time here! I cannot believe nothing has been posted on the blog since July (apart from Sunday's offering). I had such good intentions of keeping it going, but my husband got ill again, and life has been hectic with his latest round of hospital appointments. Anyway, as I've said before, this week is The 1962 Club, organised by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, so I'm doing my best to join in. 

Agatha Christie has featured in many previous Clubs, and the current one is no exception. Usually I really enjoy her Miss Marple books, but I struggled a bit with The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, and am not sure why. There are some very good things in it, but I don't think it will become one of my favourites. Like many people, I watched the old BBC dramatisation, with the excellent Joan Hickson as Miss Marple, and the more recent ITV version with Julia McKenzie starring as the spinster sleuth, but I don't think I've read the novel before - if I have, I've completely forgotten it.

It's quite slow moving, there are some loose ends that don't lead anywhere, and are never explained, and there's a lot of domestic detail that doesn't add anything to the plot - I normally like domestic detail, especially in 'Golden Age' crime novels, but this time there was too much. And I always feel Christie never quite adjusted to life in the 1960s, and the novels she wrote during that period somehow seem a little less real than her earlier work.

Agatha Christie

Anyway, The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side centres on the death of Heather Badcock. organiser of the local St John Ambulance, who dies after drinking a poisoned cocktail at a fete held to raise money for the charity. Police assume the intended victim was American film star Marina Gregg, the new owner of Gossington Hall, where the fete is held - after all, who would want to murder Heather, a kindly woman who always wants to help people, even if her efforts are not always appreciated. Other deaths follow, along with mysterious telephone calls, death threat notes, and poisoned coffee. Is someone really trying to kill Marina? And if so, who? And why? Or, however unlikely, could Heather have been the target? 

There are plenty of suspects, including Heather's downtrodden husband; Marina's current husband the film director Jason Rudd; a wealthy movie mogul who was spurned by Marina, and his film star wife who was once married to one of Marina's ex-husbands. Scotland Yard sends Chief Inspector Dermot Cradock to investigate, and he enlists the help of the redoubtable Miss Marple, who is already trying to unravel the mysterious goings-on at the Hall and the nearby film studios.

She is particularly interested in her friend Dolly Bantry's account of a meeting between Heather and Marina Gregg, and the odd expression on the film star's face, which reminds Dolly of Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott, which is referred to several times throughout the book:

"Out flew the web and floated wide—

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

"The curse is come upon me", cried

The Lady of Shalott."

John William Waterhouse's painting of The Lady of
Shalott - I've included because I love it!

The Lady of Shalott, for those who don't know the poem, could only look on the world through the reflection in her mirror, and the tapestry she was weaving - otherwise she will die. There are parallels, I think, with Marina Gregg, who is also unable to face reality, and whose life is shattered when a long hidden event from the past reppears. Dolly, a former owner of Gossington Hall, is much more astute than I remember her being in The Body in the Library, and offers some useful insights into Marina's character.  She explains how the actress began to say all the usual things. "You know, sweet, unspoilt, natural, charming, the usual bag of tricks," she tells Miss Marple. Christie builds Marina's character bit by bit, seeing her through the eyes of staff, residents, her husband, people in the movie industry, and the police. She is insecure, craves love and affection, and adores being  the centre of attention. She can be sweet and charming when it suits her, but suffers mood swings with dramatic highs and lows - I guess these days she would be described as bi-polar.

Christie also paints a sympathetic picture of the ageing Miss Marple. In most of the books Jane Marple remains much as she was in her first appearance some 30 years earlier, and life in St Mary Mead (and elsewhere) doesn't seem to have moved on. But here Miss Marple and the world around her have changed. She is frailer than she was, and trips and falls while out on walk. She can't see clearly enough to find dropped stitches in her knitting, and can no longer do the garden - there is a man who drinks lots of tea and does very little work. There is no maid, but Cherry from the new housing estate comes in to cook and clean, and although her work is not quite up to the standard expected, she is cheerful and caring. Less caring is Miss Knight, employed by Miss Marple's nephew Raymond West to look after her following a bout of bronchitis. 

Since devoted maidservants have gone out fashion, people like Miss Marple have to rely on the Miss Knights of the world for help when they are ill. "There wasn't, Miss Marple reflected, anything wrong about the Miss Knights other than the fact that they were madly irritating. They were full of kindness, ready to feel affection towards their charges, to humour them, to be bright and cheerful with them and in general to treat them as slightly mentally afflicted children. 'But I,' said Miss Marple to herself, 'although I may be old, am not a mentally afflicted child.'" It did make me think about the way society treats the elderly, and people focus on what they think is good for pensioners, rather than considering what they actually want and enjoy.

If you want a slightly different view of the book, then read Karen's review here - she was much more enthusiastic than I have been.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

l’ve just re-read Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which is every bit as brilliant as it was first time around, and since it was published in 1962, I've re-posted my review for the 1962 Club, which is cheating really, but I’m sure organisers Simon and Karen. I raved about the book here when I was halfway through, because I was so surprised to discover how good Jackson is, and how much I liked this novel. I didn’t expect to enjoy it because I hated her short story The Lottery, and this slender novel is not my usual style at all. It’s bizarre, macabre, unsettling, disturbing – and utterly compelling. I was totally gripped from the opening paragraph to the last word. I just couldn’t put it down.

As I said in my previous post, Jackson writes like a dream, but the tale she tells has a nightmarish quality. Gothic horror doesn’t even begin to describe it and it’s impossible to categorise or find a comparable author. Angela Carter, Barbara Comyns, and Alice Thomas Ellis have all written strange, unconventional novels with a dark edge, and some of the short stories penned by Margaret Atwood, Sara Maitland and Sylvia Townsend Warner are very odd indeed, but I’m not sure any of them quite match Jackson when it comes to weirdly wonderful.

It’s well nigh impossible to write about We Have Always Lived in the Castle without giving the plot away, but it’s become something of a cult classic, and elements of the story seems to be so well known that perhaps spoilers don’t matter. If you don’t want to know what happens then stop reading!

Basically the narrator, Merricat (Mary Katherine Blackwood), and her sister Constance live with their Uncle Julian in a run-down family mansion. Six years ago the girls’ mother, father, aunt and brother all died when someone put arsenic in the sugar bowl. Uncle Julian survived, with his mind and body irreparably damaged; Merricat escaped poisoning because she had been sent to her room for a misdemeanour, and Constance never took sugar. However, she prepared the meal and washed the sugar bowl before the police arrived – there was a spider in it, she claimed. She was tried for murder and acquitted, though local people remain convinced of her guilt. It’s obvious that bad feeling between the Blackwoods and the villagers goes back a long away – well before the murders, but it’s never explained. Once a week Merricat runs the gauntlet of hostile, staring, jeering villagers to change library books and buy groceries, because her sister never ventures beyond the confines of house and garden.

Everything changes when Cousin Charles arrives, seeking the fortune he believes Mr Blackwood has left. He beguiles Constance. And Merricat, excluded from her sister’s new relationship, seeks a way to banish him and restore their usual way of life, but things don’t go according to plan. She sets fire to Charles’ bedroom in the hopes that he will leave, but the flames spread – and the fire brigade, having extinguished the blaze joins the crowd of villagers in systematically smashing the Blackwood home and possessions to piece. It’s every bit as terifying as the mob that stones a woman to death in The Lottery.

The girls clad themselves in table cloths and drapes (their clothes have been destroyed), and barricade themselves in the ruined house, while the villagers, ashamed of their actions, take to leaving gifts of food on the doorstep.

The past unfolds slowly, there is a feeling of unease from the outset, and the tension just keeps on rising, highlighted by the juxtaposition of everyday normality with the weird. It’s told from Merricat’s perspective, her internal musings, which are frequently very unpleasant, but always entertaining, and it soon becomes apparent that she is not merely a little odd, but deeply, deeply disturbed, and that it is she, not Constance, who is the poisoner. Yet there are times when I wondered if the sisters were complicit in the murders, and it is strange that Constance tells the police her family deserved to die. 

Merricat’s life is dominated by her protective charms and rituals – words that she mustn’t say, a buried doll, a book nailed to a tree – that go hand in had with her self-imposed rules on what she can and can’t do. It’s like some kind of instinctive sympathetic magic, but I think there’s more than that; it’s like some obsessive behavioural pattern taken to extremes. 

This all sounds very dark and chilling, and it is, but We Have Always Lived in the Castle also has one of the funniest scenes I have ever read in any novel. An old friend of the sisters’ dead mother comes to tea, accompanied by ‘little Mrs Wright’, whose avid curiosity about the murders overcomes her good manners – she can’t bring erself to drink tea or eat any of Constance’s cakes and sandwiches, but she takes a ghoulisjh interest in the details of the crime. And Uncle Julian rises to the occasion magnificently. He is a showman, displayimg his exhibits – the house, its inhabitants and their possessions - and he does it with outrageous charm, old-fashioned courtesy, and a wry sense of humour. 

“Would you like to view the dining room?” he asked. “The fatal board? I did not give evidence at the trial, you understand; my health was not equal, then or now, to the rude questions of strangers.”

“Madam.” Uncle Julian contrived a bow fron his wheel chair, and Mrs Wright hurried to reach the door and open it for him. “Directly across the hall,” Uncle Julian said, and she followed. “I admire a decently curious woman, madam; I could see at onceqq that you were devoured with a passion to view the scene of the tragedy; it happened in this very room, and we still have our dinner in here every night.”

He continues with great relish:

“The sugar bowl on the sideboard, the heavy silver sugar bowl. It is a family heirloom; my brother prized it highly. You will be wondering about that sugar bowl, I imagine. Is it still in use? you are wondering; has it been cleaned you may very well ask; was it thoroughly washed I can reassure you at once. My niece Constance washed it before the doctor or police had come.”

Amidst the horror and oddities everyday concerns loom large. Gardening, cooking, clothes are all important, as are good manners – at the end, despite everything that has happened, when villagers leave food Constance is concerned about what people would think of them if they sent the dish and cloth wrapping back dirty.

And nothing is ever explained. When terrible things happen, in fiction, as in life, we like to know why. We look for reasons, justifications, attributions of blame, anything that will make it easier to accept and understand. But Jackson offers no clues. We never know why the family were murdered or what has caused the bad feeling between the Blackwoods and the villagers, but you can see how fear, rumour and suspicion feed prejudice in small town America.

The Ladies' Paradise

This cover of this edition of The Ladies' Paradise
by Emil Zola features a scene from the BBC
adaptation, which I didn't see. The book is excellent. 

“Hanging from above were pieces of woollen and cloth goods, merinoes, cheviots, and tweeds, floating like flags; the neutral, slate, navy-blue, and olive-green tints being relieved by the large white price-tickets. Close by, round the doorway, were hanging strips of fur, narrow bands for dress trimmings, fine Siberian squirrel-skin, spotless snowy swansdown, rabbit-skin imitation ermine and imitation sable. Below, on shelves and on tables, amidst a pile of remnants, appeared an immense quantity of hosiery almost given away knitted woollen gloves, neckerchiefs, women’s hoods, waistcoats, a winter show in all colors, striped, dyed, and variegated, with here and there a flaming patch of red. Denise saw some tartan at nine sous, some strips of American vison at a franc, and some mittens at five sous. There appeared to be an immense clearance sale going on; the establishment seemed bursting with goods, blocking up the pavement with the surplus.”

Denise and her brothers are standing awestruck outside The Ladies’ Paradise - the biggest store in Paris - in Emile Zola's novel of the same name. The orphaned trio hope to find a home with their uncle and his family. Even more hopefully, 20-year-old Denise believes she will be able to work in her uncle's drapery shop, earning enough to pay for Pepe, aged five, to be educated. Meanwhile, she has already apprenticed Jean (16) to an ivory carver. But her uncle cannot help because he, like all the other small, old-fashioned establishments in the area, is facing bankruptcy, pushed out of business by the ever-expanding emporium directly opposite his premises.

Le Bon Marche, the iconic French department store
may have been the inspiration for The Ladies Paradise.
(Pic: Wikipedia).

Denise finds work in the ready-made section of the store, where she is ostracised by the other women because she is plain, small (she is described as being 'puny' and a 'bag of bones'), and poorly dressed. They are also annoyed because the boss of the store has taken an interest in her. She perseveres, scrimping and saving so she can looking after her brothers - especially Jean, who is a charming, feckless womaniser, always in need of cash to get himself out of a scrape. Eventually, though no fault of her own, she loses the job, but gets it back later. She is very naive, and it takes her a while to realise Octave Mouret (the man in charge) has more than a passing interesting interest in her, and even longer to realise she is in love with him. 

I always think of Zola as being a kind of French Dickens. He doesn't copy Dickens, he very much has his own style, but he has the same ability to juggle various plots and subplots with ease, and a talent for describing what seems like dozens of characters so clearly that you can see them and hear them - you know how they behave, as well as what they look like, and they are all credible. Even if you wouldn't act like that, you can understand that other people would. The Ladies' Paradise features a young woman (Denise's cousin) who dies of love because her fiance is besotted with a salesgirl who sleeps with anyone and everyone, a kindly old umbrella maker, a vengeful ex-mistress and a henpecked  husband who has only one arm. There are shy young men and women, brash, confident young men and women. And there are all sorts of customers, like the shoplifter who is desperate to keep up appearances and possess lovely lace that she hides some up her wide sleeves, or the beautiful and mysterious lady who spends a fortune and could be a duchess or courtesan, but no-one ever discovers which!

Denise and her brothers arrive at their Uncle Baudu's
shop and home. (Pic from 1886 edition on Poject Gutenberg)

Another similarity is his descriptions of buildings, landscapes, interiors, gardens and so on: he paints pictures with words. Dickens' descriptions are often criticised by modern readers - I think they would prefer more conversation and action, and they would probably feel the same way about Zola, But I love the way he describes the window displays, and the goods which are piled high in every department. He layers image upon image, making the store feel like some kind of magical Aladdin's cave, just as in Le Ventre de Paris he stacks the market stalls at Les Halles with every food imaginable with an assault on the senses that overwhelms you. 

Additionally,  Zola, like Dickens, was a social commentator, with a strong sense of the need for justice and reform. Just as Dickens highlighted social issues in his novels and journalism during the early and middle years of the 19th century, so Zola showed similar concerns in his work during the last part the the 1800s.  He exposes the hypocrisy of people at the top of the social pile, and the squalor and misery of those at the bottom. 

Inside Le Bon Marche, The interior of The Ladies' Paradise
must have look much the same. (Pic: Wikipedia)

In The Ladies' Paradise (or Au Bonheur des Dames to give it its French name) he has a field day showing how the business methods used by Octave Mouret, which were very innovative (and, possibly unethical), ruined lives. Traditionally there were lots of small shops, all catering for different things: umbrella makers, silk dyers, ready-made clothes, materials, gloves, lace... You name it, there was a specialist shop to meet your needs. But Mouret, the driving force behind the retail giant, is selling all the these goods in different areas of the shop, and has even branched out into furniture: it's the beginning of the department store! To make profit, he buys goods as cheaply as possible, so smaller artisan suppliers can't compete with prices offered by bigger, mechanised company, and he introduces 'loss leaders', like the very expensive silk which he sells cheaply to attract customers - and once he's pulled them in, they're hooked, and buy all sorts of other things they probably neither want nor need. Mouret also buys up surrounding buildings, so his empire is growing bigger all the time.

Some staff sleep in small, cold rooms at the top of the building. Denise is installed  in No 7, where her box had already been put. "It was a narrow cell, opening on the roof by a skylight, furnished with a small bed, a walnut-wood wardrobe, a toilet-table, and two chairs. Twenty similar rooms ran along the convent-like corridor, painted yellow; and, out of the thirty five young ladies in the house, the twenty who had no friends in Paris slept there,” Zola writes. They wear regulation black silk dresses, which rustle. "All wore between two buttonholes of the body of their dresses, as if stuck in their bosoms, a long pencil, with its point in the air; and half out of their pockets, could be seen the white cover of the book of debit-notes" he adds.  

The salesmen and women, who live in little, cold rooms, at the top of the building, rely on commission from sales to eke out their wages - and many of the women find lovers to help keep them. There is supposed to be a system of 'taking your turn' with sales, but the more sales you make, the more money you get, so there's a lot of competition between the sales staff, and very little help or companionship. In addition, there's a reward  for reporting mistakes others have made, and there's a strict hierarchy, so there's a lot of currying for favour and jostling for position. As well as sales girls there are clerical staff and administrators who handle paperwork and money. And, since customers (the wealthy ones at any rate) don't carry their purchases home themselves, there are also staff who wrap and deliver parcels, and inspectors who check that neither staff nor customers are stealing from the store.

Madane Boves being searched for stolen lace
in a 1988 edition on Project Gutenberg

Despite the fact that it was written in 1883, The Ladies' Paradise still has relevance today. The issues raised haven't gone away, and human nature hasn't changed that much. I think Zola deserves to be more widely read than he is today.

*I've posted this for Paris in July 2023, which used to be hosted by Tamara at Thyme for Tea, but is now organised by Emma, who was born in France, but now lives in America. You'll find the main post about the event, together with other participants, at her Words and Peace website.

Time for Crime

A 1958 edition published by
Hodder and Stoughton.

Althea Graham is 27 and has 'let herself go', which is hardly surprising since she spends her time looking after her demanding mother. "It was years since she had had her hair done at a shop. It was years since she had stopped using make-up. It was years since she had stopped taking any interest in how she looked." Five years to be precise. That's when she had planned to marry Nicholas Carey, but her mother, who considers herself to be an 'invalid', protested and fell ill. So Althea broke off her engagement and put her life on hold, while Nicholas (a journalist), went abroad. Now he's back in town, and the attraction between him and Althea is as strong as ever. But Mrs Graham remains vehemently opposed to their marriage. Then tragedy strikes when her body is discovered in the summer house where the lovers have held a secret meeting. She has been strangled, and the finger of suspicion falls on Nicholas... But is he guilty? And if not, who is the real killer? And what is their motive? 

That, briefly, is the plot of The Gazebo, one of Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver mysteries. Miss Maud Silver, for those who don't know, is an elderly one-time governess who has turned her hand to detecting, a little like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. A former governess, she is very observant while remaining unobserved herself, with a wide knowledge of human nature (just like Miss Marple). She also enjoys knitting, and loves Tennyson - she can (and frequently does) produce an apposite quotation for every occasion. Oh, and I nearly forgot, she has a trademark cough, which can be prim, gentle, hesitant, warning, expressing all kinds of emotions and thoughts. Whenever I read these books, I'm always amazed at the many different ways a person can cough! 

Anyway, that's quite enough about Miss Silver. Let's get back to Althea. The plot is fairly simple, but also features two unsavoury men bidding to buy the house where Althea and her mother live, even though it is not on the market - so why are they so desperate to buy it for far more than it is worth? Ne'er-do-well Fred Worple, who talks and looks like a spiv, is a one-time local who has returned with money to spend, while Mr Blount, an antique dealer with dodgy taste in suits and a terrified, downtrodden wife, claims to be visiting the area. We learn that he is thought to have killed his father, and his first wife, but nothing was ever proved, although his current wife is convinced he is trying to murder her. 

Stories of the past come to light, with an account of the Gordon Riots in the 18thC, when the original house on the site of the Grahams' home was burned to the ground, and there are rumours of hidden treasure waiting to be found. Then a valuable diamond goes missing from a ring: its absence is noted by others, but goes unreported by the owner, who offers to provide a false alibi for Nicholas, and you wonder why, and whether any of these events are linked to the murder. The local police are baffled, so Scotland Yard sends its best, in the shape of Detective Inspector Frank Abbott, an old friend of Miss Silver who, fortunately, is on hand to lend her expertise.

At a cocktail party held shortly after Nicholas
returns, Althea makes the effort to llook attractive,
and is described as looking pretty in a green 
dress - something like the one in this old
McCall's pattern perhaps.

Patricia Wentworth is sometimes accused of creating caricatures rather than fully rounded characters, and it's true that her books abound with 'types' who look and behave just as you would expect, but she describes them so well they still seem credible. And when she is in the mood she can really bring a character to life, skewering unpleasant people with pinpoint accuracy. Her description of  Althea's widowed mother Winifred is wonderful, and tells you all you all you need to know. "Mrs Graham wore her invalidism in a very finished and elegant manner, from her beautifully arranged hair to the grey suede shoes which matched her dress. It is true that she wore a shawl, but it was a cloudy affair of pink and blue and lavender which threw up the delicate tints of her face and complemented the blue of her eyes," she tells us.

Wentworth is good at showing character and social class through clothes. Mrs Graham, whose pretty, blond looks have faded over the years (along with her finances), keeps her hair soft, pretty and full of lights with the aid of Sungleam hair rinse, which sounds a little like the Hint of a Tint available when I as young - does anyone remember it? Her hair, make-up and clothes, are all understated,but tasteful, designed to emphasise the fact that she is fragile and delicate.  Her friend Ella Harrison also colours her hair, but looks like what she is - an ex-chorus girl who has married into money. She has brassy hair, a voice to match, and wears too much, too bright make-up and a lot of showy jewellery. And her clothes are most definitely not understated. There is a 'clinging garment of royal blue, the colour being repeated by a twist of tulle and a jewelled clasp in the hair', and plaid skirt worn with a twin set 'in a lively shade of emerald', and again with a scarlet jumper and cardigan, which is 'even more startling'. They seem an unlikely duo to make friends, but I think they are both outsiders, both disliked or distrusted by other women.

This black and white photo of Anne Francis in the 1960 film,
Girl of the Night is not an exact match for Ella in her plaid skirt
 and bright twin set, but has the right air for the woman and the
 period. Ella liked clothes that clung to her curves, so she would
 have worn a skin-tight pencil skirt. rather than a flared one, and her
jumper and cardigan would also have been very tight indeed.

There are some lovely 'bit part' players in the story. I particularly liked the three Miss Pimms, Maud, Nellie and Lily who, like the Grahams, have come down in the world, with a reduced income and shortage of domestic help. They know everything that goes on in Grove Hill, and live for gossip, garnering all the local news and secrets between them, and see nothing wrong in passing the details on to others. And Fred Worple is also well-drawn. He is good-looking in a 'rather obtrusive' way and his tone is one of 'impertinent familiarity'. He is described as being 'quite dreadful' and 'forward and pushing'. He turns out to be an old beau of Ella Harrison, which is unsurprising since they both like lots of noise, glitter, and plenty to drink. I assume they never got together on a permanent basis because neither of them had any money.

Sadly, it's difficult to build much of a picture of Althea's appearance or personality. She's obviously a thoroughly nice middle-class girl, who was once bright, lively and pretty, with brown, curly hair, but has been thoroughly squashed by her selfish, manipulative mother, and has steeled herself to show no emotion, and to remain uncaring about her appearance. She plods through her days, weeks, months and years as if she is sleeping, but is brought back to life when Nicholas reappears. Again, he seems a little shadowy, although he's obviously honourable, good-looking, devoted to Althea, and more than a little reckless and impetuous. Somehow, I always expect the central protagonists to stand out more strongly, but here the action happens around them. They, and almost everyone else, are pushed into the background by Mrs Graham, even though her death her occurs very early in the novel. 

This is Alexandria of Denmark, wife of
Edward VII. Her curly fringe was copied by many
women, including Miss Silver. 

Miss Silver, whilst happy to remain unnoticed, retains her identity and would never, ever allow herself to be pushed anywhere. Being quiet, friendly, and unobtrusive allows her to obtain information from people in a way the police could never achieve, and her appearance reinforces people's perception of her as a harmless, little, old lady. She may have a razor sharp mind, but she looks dowdy and old-fashioned, and is probably the last woman in England to sport an Alexandra fringe - a curly fringe made famous by the wife of King Edward VI. Wentworth says: "She had on one of those patterned silk dresses which are thrust upon elderly ladies who have an insufficient sales-resistance. It had a small muddled pattern of green and blue and black on a grey background, and it had been made high to the neck by the insertion of a net front with little whalebone supports."  Her hat is black, as usual, but she has departed from her custom of straw or felt (depending on the season) and has donned a black velvet toque, bought for a wedding in the spring, and trimmed with three pompoms, one black, one grey, one purple. 

j
Toque hats usually had small brims, and tallish, straightish, squashed down crowns.
In the 1950s and '60s some were taller and smoother, but I think Miss Silver
would have opted for something similar to this Julie Magner
toque in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The book was originally published in England in 1958, so I assume it was written around that time, but it's difficult to tell what period it is set in - life doesn't seem to have changed much since Miss Silver first appeared in the late 1920s. Like many other early and mid-century novels, what strikes you how limited women's lives were. Marriage was still the ultimate goal, and few of them had careers: Nurse Cotton is an exception, as is Miss Silver, with her thriving sleuthing business, and Ella was a chorus girl (which is not considered at all respectable). But most other working women only do a few hours cleaning for those higher up the social scale. 

This may not be the best Miss Silver mystery, but nevertheless I enjoyed it a lot.