Staying Put by Dorothy Lambert

I’m on a roll with reading the Dorothy Lambert four books Dean Street Press are republishing on 1 July. I’ve now read three and I’m tantalisingly close to finishing the last one. (Here are links to my reviews of All I Desire (1936) and Scotch Mist (1936).) Scotch Mist was such a great book and ticked so many boxes for me. I loved the Scottish setting, there were lots of lovely descriptions of nature, and to top it off there was a wonderful cast of characters, some likeable ones and some that are so awful you can only laugh at them. The problem was that I loved that book so much it was with some trepidation that I picked up Staying Put (1941). How could it possibly compare to Scotch Mist?

It had the toughest act to follow, but I really did love this one, too! In setting it is nothing like Scotch Mist. Staying Put is set in the south east coast of England at the start of the war. Broadly, this book is about how one village bears up under the strain of the war. There are the typical village events, planning meetings, fundraising events, sewing circles, church services, tea parties, but also spies, intrigue, dogfights overhead, bombs, and the damage that comes with them. But this is also a domestic novel, full of the long quiet moments between the episodes of chaos.

It is the outbreak of the Second World War, and widowed Lavinia Falcon lives close to a south coast port in a house called Beech Hill.

Beech Hill was half a mile from the village up a steep hill, and people were generally puffing a good deal when they arrived on the level gravelled square in front of the long low white house. (9)*

There, Lavinia lives with her two youngest children, 19-year-old Richard, home from Cambridge, and 17-year-old Felicity, who is sure to be a troublesome child, as she is said to be lovely. Lavinia’s eldest daughter, Rowena, is 22, living away from home, highly educated and efficient, but her most predominant characteristic is her snobbishness, something she shared with her father. 

The usual villagers who tend to get involved with Swansford events meet to discuss what they can do at home to help win the war. Lady Bulstrode, who fancies herself the lady of the manor and social benefactress, goes about taking over organising the local women for war work. From among them, she chooses Lavinia to be her deputy, not because she believes Lavinia would be the best at the job, but because Lavinia will do what she is told, won’t try to take over, or take credit for the work. Had Lady Bulstrode noticed the hint of humour in Lavinia’s “grey eyes and sensitive mouth” she wouldn’t have seen it as an asset (33). This throws Lavinia in the way of Ralph Thurston, Lady Bulstrode’s son from an earlier marriage. And we quickly see where this is going. Dorothy Lambert’s romances may be predictable, but it is no less enjoyable to see them play out. One might argue that how the couple finds their way to each other, is much more interesting than who the couple is.

There are these little clues about the characters that tell us early on who among them we should be rooting for. Take Lavinia’s daughters for instance. There is no one of Felicity’s own age and social class in Swansford, but she doesn’t want to leave home to find work that would “keep her out of mischief” (6).

[Felicity] declared herself perfectly happy, and was assured that one day something would turn up. Rowena frequently remarked that undoubtedly it would and be a shock to everyone if not actually a disgrace, as Felicity seemed to be without the proper sense of the difference in their own social position and that of common people, a sense that was so very well developed in Rowena that she was thoroughly unpopular in Swansford and enjoyed a splendid isolation when she was at home. (6)

We see a bit of this outdated belief in maintaining the separation of social classes in Lavinia, as well. But in someone older it seems much more understandable. After all, this book is set at the beginning of the Second World War. During the war people from different walks of life were being forced together in a spirit of camaraderie in a way they hadn’t been before. Lavinia is just one of many middle-aged people who are about to have their life disrupted by the war and their ideas of class disrupted, but that process hasn’t happened yet. The fact that Rowena is much more snobby than her mother, and is concerned not only with who her friends are, but how wealthy they are, really does not speak well of her when we see Felicity at the other end of the spectrum, not giving a fig what class her friends are from. By the end, Rowena does not come out well, while her mother, Lavinia, is taking small steps to change.

When Lavinia wants to ask a favour of someone, she invites them over for tea.

She considered that it was practically impossible to return a flat refusal no matter how doubtfully the scheme might be received, when one was gorged with a superabundance of rich chocolate cake and whipped cream and pâte-de-foie sandwiches. (10)

The villagers are aware of this, but still they come to tea willing to pay the penalty of a free meal. With chocolate cake and whipped cream on the menu, I think I would, too! This time, the issue is not a “wearisome campaign about drainage or garbage or something unsanitary” which one of the women remembers preceded the chocolate cake. (Okay. That might put me off my feed.) Lavinia wants to get everyone together to discuss what they can do in the village in the event of war. The Vicar notes Lavinia is “wearing her most determined ‘deeds, not words’ expression” (11). I couldn’t help but think we are supposed to make the connection to the suffrage movement, as this was the motto of the Women’s Social and Political Union. Despite being a youngish widow, Lavinia’s eldest child is 22 years old, so she would likely have been somewhere around her daughters’ ages when the First World War broke out. Even if Lavinia wasn’t a suffragette, I believe this suggestion that she is seen to be wearing the face of suffragette, with her “‘deeds, not words’ expression”, indicates to the reader that Lavinia is a good person, who is willing to do the work to keep the home fires burning and fight the war from the home front. 

When Germany advances on Poland, and war becomes an inevitability for Britain, Lavinia feels the blow. Although, Richard would prefer to carry on at Cambridge and for there to not be a war, he and Felicity are taken up with the excitement of change. Richard soon joins the Air Force and Felicity wishing she was old enough to join one of the services, becomes a telephone operator. Lavinia satisfies herself with staying put, as the titles suggests. Even in a moment when the prospect of war is at risk of diminishing her, she finds something to hold on to.

It was difficult to believe, for the sun was still shining and below the brick steps the garden glowed with colour and scented the warm air. The valley was green and peaceful and the water by the white mill was a silver streak. “Well, at any rate,” she thought suddenly, “these things are the real things. They will remain whatever war may bring; we must remember that and hold on to it. I think it will help us to bear the rest.” (26)

It is in the simple pleasures, the real things that matter, that give Lavinia strength as the war goes on and her family and the community around her begin to feel the effects of rationing, bombing, and knowing loved ones are putting themselves in harm’s way for those at home. A year into the war, after an afternoon of heavy gunfire from battles going on in the air above, Lavinia cuts the same flowers from her garden as she did in peacetime, Michaelmas daisies and early chrysanthemums, while appreciating “the sunshine and the cloudless skies” (201). 

Lavinia is not thrilled by the excitement of being bombed, like Felicity is. But she does step up and carry on. When Beech Hill is first bombed in the middle of the night, she takes a moment to appreciate that Felicity is still young enough to be more concerned about the safety of her toy bears than her mother. It’s a sweet moment between the two. The mother admiring her daughter’s little quirks left over from childhood, even while trying find their way to safety through the rubble. 

There are moments of lightness and quiet amongst the wartime conditions of Swansford, but some of the funniest scenes happen while things are at their bleakest. I cackled at Rowena’s reaction to her fiancé having been killed. (And then I read the passage to my husband, and laughed hysterically, again.) Felicity’s bear family are lovingly carted around, and it’s delightfully fun. Mrs. Beckett, a woman in the village, reminded me of Miss Bates from Emma. She has these long monologues about the silliest things and asks advice from everyone, which of course needs to be weighed ad nauseam. As someone without humour, Lady Bulstrode is a character that is the subject of a lot of humour. What lengths she goes to in order to keep Lavinia and her son, Ralph, apart! 

But perhaps the most satisfying thing about this book is that the characters who are good and work hard are rewarded, and the real baddies meet disastrous ends. Because, don’t forget. As I mentioned at the outset, there are spies and intrigue, too! After all, Swansford is a village on the south east coast of England near a port. But a lot of that happens in the second half, and I really should save some surprises for you to discover yourself.

Thank you to Dean Street Press for kindly sending me a copy of Staying Put for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.

My review of Dorothy Lambert’s Harvest Home (1950), will be posted in the next couple of days. 

In the meantime, it’s not too late to preorder your copy of Staying Put. Staying Put, All I Desire, Scotch Mist, and Harvest Home are all coming out with Dean Street Press's Furrowed Middlebrow imprint on 1 July 2026.

*All page numbers are from the ebook and may not correspond to the paperback edition.

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