The Mysterious Mr. Badman by W.F. Harvey

It’s not too late to squeeze in one last summer mystery. William Fryer Harvey’s 1934 novel, The Mysterious Mr. Badman, begins in a Yorkshire bookshop on a sultry afternoon in July.

While on holiday in Yorkshire, Athelstan Digby agrees to look after the bookshop of his hosts for the afternoon. The weather is stifling, so Mr. Digby doesn’t expect much traffic, but over the course of the afternoon a vicar, a chauffeur, and an out-of-towner ask for the same book, The Life and Death of Mr. Badman by John Bunyan.

Mr. Digby has never heard of the book, and there is no record of it in the bookshop catalogue, which is what he tells each prospective customer. When a copy happens to arrive in a bundle of secondhand books, he snaps up the lot double quick. But then the book gets pinched.

Mr. Digby and his nephew, Jim Pickering, are motivated to find out what makes this book so special. Soon they find themselves caught up in a crime more involved than a little antiquarian book theft, and much more deadly.

I was first attracted to this book because it was advertised as a “bibliomystery”. I must admit I was a bit disappointed on that front. I don’t believe I have ever read a book from this sub-genre, or at least not one that was calling itself a bibliomystery, so I may have had unfair expectations that the mystery be entirely wrapped up in books, which it is not. From Mr. Digby’s perspective, the impetus for the mystery is this book by John Bunyan that goes missing, but the book only plays a small role in the mystery as a whole. 

However, I was also very much attracted to reading a mystery set in Yorkshire, and in that regard this book came through. In fact, it is the setting more than the mystery that came out on top for me. I do love descriptions of nature, and books with a setting that is as necessary to the plot as any of the main characters.

At Kildale Mill he stopped to watch the peat-brown water swirling over the ruined weir, and then struck up on to the moor, choosing a patch that had been burned two years ago and which was now carpeted with green bilberry and bell heather. The walking was easy and he made good progress. It was extraordinarily peaceful. The only sound came from a lark, lost in the blue. There was no one in sight, no one, that is, except the young lady who stood silhouetted against the sky-line, apparently lost in admiration of the view. Then, as he looked, she turned and began to walk quickly towards him. It was Miss Conyers, a deeply agitated Miss Conyers, very different from the reserved, slightly cynical young lady he had met the preceding afternoon. (38)

For me, descriptions like this are better than a photograph or a painting, because I get to create images of the place in my mind as I read, like a film strip that alters, fills in, becomes clearer, as I go along. I’m still thinking of this setting with longing and wishing I was Mr. Digby, setting out in the morning with a map, a cocoa tin for any rare flowers I might find, which in the mean time has been filled with half a pound of raisins bought at the village shop (37). I’m not sure I would be as clearheaded as Mr. Digby about coming across a body on the moors, but I would like to think I would be as cool under pressure as he is throughout this book.

Later, when the above mentioned Miss Conyers lends a hand in the investigation, she becomes Diana, not that Mr. Digby refers to her as such, but the reader gets to be on a first name basis with her. Diana has her own peaceful moment in nature.

Jim proposed that they should all drive on to Whitby, but Diana pleaded a headache. She would find a quiet corner in the Spa gardens, she said, and they could meet her, say, at six at the South Cliff tea-rooms.

She sat for an hour, listening to the music of the band, while from the crowded beach below came the cries of happy children. The bay was dotted with boats. A steam drifter was leaving the harbour, the smoke from her funnel hanging like a black streak across the weather-beaten roofs of the old town, backed by the grand silhouette of the castle and the castle rock, weather-beaten too, but still unconquered. (95)

I thought that last sentence was particularly pleasing, so I had to share it. I think the next bit in the book is interesting in terms of plotting and pacing. It is when the sun disappears behind a cloud and the air gets chilly, that Diana makes her way into town to get make some purchases for the house. There she spots a clue to the chauffeur they have been looking for without even trying. If only all mysteries came together so easily! There are plenty of aspects of this case that Mr. Digby properly investigates, but I did find this coincidence a bit too convenient for my liking. I love the scene setting, though, and how the author gives both his character and the reader a momentary break to catch our collective breath before carrying on with the investigation.

For the most part, I felt remarkably relaxed while reading this book, so I was a bit surprised to see the back cover copy describes it as “fast-paced”. It is slim, just over 200 pages including the introduction, and it does get more tense as it closes in on the climax, but looking back on it now a couple of weeks after finishing this book—I know, very tardy in my review writing—I recall finding the beginning intriguing, the nighttime intruder at the bookshop thrilling, the finding of a body on the moors very exciting, and then my interest dropped off for a while. The tension leading up to the climax was great, and I actually felt concerned about the fate of our main characters. That is, until I reminded myself it was going to turn out all right in the end. Probably.

I know I went on about the setting, saying it was better than the mystery, and I stick by that. However, the mystery in this one was not at all bad. It just is not at the same level as the best books in the British Library Crime Classics collection, in my opinion. Harvey did do a great job of creating characters I cared about, and putting them it tight spots that made me worried, and had me nearly convinced they were not going to get the baddie.

Whether you add The Mysterious Mr. Badman to your end of summer TBR or save it for next July, this is a great one for book lovers or anyone craving a holiday in Yorkshire. I suspect many of us fit into at least one of these two categories! 

I have my friend Gina (@babsbelovedbooks) to thank for this book. She absolutely spoiled me by sending me a few (NINE!) British Library Crime Classics. This happened a while ago, and I was so overwhelmed that I haven’t even been able to photograph them all together. If you have visited this blog before, you will know how much I love these books, and how excited I am to have a whole bunch of new ones to read. The only thing I can liken it to is having a whole cupboard full of candy just waiting to be enjoyed. Thank you, dear Gina, for the books, and more importantly, for you and your friendship! 

Gina and I live some distance apart, but we get together at least once a week virtually for our movie and crochet dates. Right now we are both making blankets using the same Flowers in the Snow pattern, but with different colours. You can see a glimpse of mine in the bottom right corner of the last two photos. When I’m not working on it I have the project sitting on my dining room table, so that I can readily admire it every time I walk by it on the way to the kitchen. The muted palate is making me so happy that I just had to share it alongside these beautiful books. I hope you don’t mind the indulgence. 

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Stories for Mothers and Daughters - A British Library Women Writers Collection

I used to start reviews of short story collections saying something like, “I don’t normally gravitate towards short stories”. But I can’t make that claim anymore. In less than a year I went from someone who almost never read short stories to someone who loves them. I enjoy sitting with a short story and knowing that I will be able to find out what happens in the end without staying up past my bedtime. I love that short stories can act as a snapshot, capturing a moment in time. They aren’t required to take us on a sweeping journey, but they might. And they might just capture a woman ironing clothes, while being a million miles away in her thoughts, or a mother and daughter going to the cinema, or a woman wandering her home and missing her daughters. Stories for Mothers and Daughters is full of small moments, big emotions, and the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters. Apologies for the length of this review. I tried to be brief, but there are 16 stories in this collection, and apparently, I had a lot of things to say about them.

“Week-End” by Richmal Crompton (1931)

A woman waits in expectation for her two daughters to come home for the weekend. They bring two friends with them, and basically create chaos in their mother‘s life while they’re there. She says that neither of her daughters is like her, as she had hoped. They don’t enjoy quiet time, and they certainly aren’t bookish. They remind her of her husband, Bruce. It is clear she loves her daughters, but she gives a sigh of relief and smiles when they are gone and her home is quiet again. I can’t say I blame her. The group of four girls together sound more wild than a bunch of monkeys. They also sound very young indeed. They certainly cannot be old enough to be working in an office, but then maybe that’s because I identified with the mother!

“Maternal Devotion” by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1947)

Very amusing story about a woman, Cordelia Finch, who has all of her unwanted suitors sit with her mother. 

“I’m always alarmed when I see people plunge into gardening. Still, if your mother enjoys it ... Besides, there is the Fifth Commandment. I read right through the Ten Commandments the other day, and I was surprised to find how many of them I agreed with. But it would have saved a lot of talk, as well as being much lighter to carry, if Moses had just boiled them down to one compact little commandment—‘Thou shalt not interfere.’ I knew a Mrs Prothero who was perfectly devoted to gardening, and one day when she was being shown around a friend’s garden she saw a weed and tried to pull it up. It happened to be a tight-rooted wolfsbane, and while she was tussling with it, something snapped and she went blind in one eye. Could you have a plainer warning against meddling?” (14)

By the time her mother is through talking their ear off, they are running for the hills. Too funny! 

“The Value of Being Seen” by Inez Holden (1945)

This story is about Daphne, a reluctant debutant. Forced to go to dances night after night, by her mother with the expectation that Daphne be seen, because according Daphne’s mother being seen is the most important thing. But no one sees Daphne. 

She seemed to be seeing hundreds of eyes, which had no separate existence simply a mass of eyes like caviare among noses; they did not seem to be anyone’s specially, they were only a great number of eyes, liquid and dead. So this was her first dance. Her mother’s words about the value of being seen came into her mind, but these eyes did not seem to be looking at her. They seemed to be looking, not at anyone or anything, but only looking. (21)

It is not just that they don’t notice her, it’s as though they cannot actually see her. And eventually she becomes a shade. This interesting story has a spectacular ending, one I’ll be thinking about for some time. 

I really enjoyed the writing of this one and was wondering why the author’s name sounded so familiar, when I realised that’s because I have two of her books on my shelves, Blitz Writing and There’s No Story There. I have not read them yet, but they had been on my wishlist for a while and when I heard that Handheld Press were closing their doors, they were two of the ones I purchased. After reading this sample of her writing, I’m even more excited to get to them.

“Psalms” by Jeanette Winterson (1998)

This one is about a woman who tries to get a job as a tea-taster. Goodness! Who wouldn’t want that job?! She has to fill out a questionnaire, at the end of which she is asked to write about the experience she considers the most significant in the forming of her character. She writes about how when she was little her mother wanted to get her a pet. There’s the impression she would have liked a dog or even a ferret, she already has an imaginary bunny named, Ezra. But her mother decides a tortoise is the best choice. 

“Why don’t I call it Ebenezer?” (I was thinking that would match Ezra.)

“We’re calling it Psalms because I want you to praise the Lord.”

“I can praise the Lord if it’s called Ebenezer.”

“But you won’t, will you? You’ll say you forgot. What about the time I bought you that 3-D postcard of the garden of Gethsemane? You said that would help you think about the Lord and I caught you singing ‘On Ilkley Moor Baht ’at’”

“Alright then,” I sulked. “We’ll call it Psalms.” (31)

And the girl reads to the tortoise from the Psalms everyday. The tortoise seems to be fulfilling its purpose. She learns large chunks of the Bible and she wins all the competitions in Sunday School. This is a funny, odd story and another one that I don’t quite know what to make of. It’s also another one where the mother and daughter seem to be, if not entirely at odds with each other, there is a lack of understanding between them. But as you can tell from the bit of dialogue, it is a very humorous story, indeed. If you are unfamiliar with the song “On Ilkley Moor Baht ’at”, you can listen to it here, and find the lyrics here. By the time worms part of the picture, I was in stitches. 

“The End of the Fairy Tale” by Maude Egerton King (1911)

A normally absent and neglectful mother, who usually leaves the care of her five-year-old daughter to her nurse, ends up putting her daughter to bed when her evening plans get cancelled at the last minute. The daughter is clearly starved for motherly attention, which made me think that the mother was selfish and self involved, but as the story goes on, there’s a suggestion that there is more to it than that. There is perhaps some sort of societal expectation that she has allowed herself to be caught up with instead of investing herself in her daughter’s life. Her husband is away in South Africa, and there is the suggestion of an affair, which takes up her attention, as a man calls at the house, interrupting her time with her daughter. I found this one both touching and sad.

“The Pictures” by Janet Frame (1951)

A mother and daughter go to the pictures. While they’re watching the film, they seem to be on the same plane, both enjoying themselves. “The little girl laughed. She clapped her hands and giggled and the woman laughed with her. They were the happiest people in the world” (50). But when they leave, the mother is thinking about having to return home to the boarding house where she lives alone with her daughter.

And the woman thought of going up stairs and putting the little girl to bed and then touching and looking at the daffodil in the window-box, it was a lovely daffodil. And looking about her and thinking the woman felt sad.

But the little girl in the pixie-cap didn’t feel sad, she was eating a paper lolly, it was greeny-blue and it tasted like peppermints. (53)

There is something so heartbreaking about this one. The disconnect between the mother and daughter in this last snapshot, compared to when they are laughing in the cinema is poignant.

“The Silver Cloak” by Winifred Holtby (1937)

A seamstress, Annie Moorcroft is given a silver cloak from one of her clients. On her way home, she imagines the effect the dress will have on her life. As a young woman of 36, who still looks young, she feels the dress will help her look good for when men come to court her daughter, Katie, who is just coming of age. But when Annie shows the garment to her daughter, Katie seems downcast and sulky, and isn’t nearly as excited as Annie expected her to be. It occurs to Annie that her daughter is jealous of her. Jealous of the dress.

I have mixed feelings about this story, because I just think of all the times that mother sacrifice more than they should. The incident with the garment could have been a learning experience for the daughter, who in my opinion is a bit of a brat. Mothers deserve to have nice clothes too! The daughter is always well dressed, in clothes her mother has made for her. She does not need another dress, and the silver cloak was given to the mother, after all. But I think the story is meant to point to the small sacrifices mothers make for their children every day. 

“History Again Repeats Itself” by E.M. Delafield (1929)

Theodosia invites her friend Alex, and two others to her parents’ house for Christmas. While Alex is not her boyfriend, they have been going around together for the past year. Theodosia has come to think of him as more than a friend though, she has not yet admitted it to herself. Upset at seeing Alex get along so well with Marjorie, one of the other friends invited for Christmas, Theodosia confronts him. She accuses him of being in love with Marjorie, and she surprises both of them when she ends up in tears. Her mother saves Theodosia from embarrassment. Theodosia and her mother do not quite understand each other, they are not quite at odds, but Theodosia does think she knows better than dear mummy. Theodosia is young and perhaps not quite so worldly, or superior, as she had thought. I appreciated how her mother quietly, and firmly guided her daughter when she saw she needed help, but otherwise leaves Theodosia to figure things out for herself. E.M. Delafield’s writing is always a treat. Full of humour and observant of her characters’ flaws, while displaying the foibles that often result with wit and understanding.

“Mothers and Daughters” by Frances Gray Patton (1952) 

Emily and her sister, Belle, chat by the fire one cold March evening while waiting for Emily’s daughter, Laura, to come home. Feeling comfortable, Emily confesses that her daughter is remote, cold, and hostile towards her (84). She immediately regrets saying something so horrible about her own daughter. But Belle brushes it off. Then Laura comes home and Belle sees firsthand how Laura is with her mother. Once Laura has left the room, Belle admits,

“I see what you mean. She doesn’t care for you very much at the moment. You’ll have to trust to time.” She smiled ruefully. “It’s like Mama used to say when we were broken up about something that couldn’t be helped. ‘Don’t struggle, lie down and let the waves beat over you.” (96)

Not bad advice, but Emily feels the need to confront her daughter and what results is enlightening. I had to share this quotation, because I think the author does a great job of showing the gap in sentiment that mothers of teenage daughters must bridge.

“As soon as the conversation gets meaningful you make a wisecrack. You retreat. Why, you haven’t even noticed how beautiful the world is tonight.” She took her mother by the arm and drew her to the window. “Look!”

Emily looked. Her house was on a hill, and across the road, where, the land began to fall away, stood an elm tree, large and symmetrical. Below the tree were rooftops of houses that seemed to form a flight of giant steps going down in the darkness. Tonight, in the ice storm, the elm was a great sequined fan and the ridgepoles were penciled silver lines.

“Doesn’t it make you want to cry?” asked Laura.

“No,” said Emily. She felt too tired and baffled for anything but the simple truth. “Not except when I think how slick the roads will be in the morning.” (99)

This one ends on a surprisingly light note, with Emily understanding Laura’s “problem”.

“The Shadow of Kindness” by Maeve Brennan (1965)

I found this one to be touching, and a bit sad. Mrs. Bagot has sent her children off to a relatives farm for a month. 

[T]here were other things she was going to do, but these preparations, which she had already memorized and timed to the minute, still left her with nothing to do for a month but look forward, and she knew a grown woman should have more life of her own. Even if she had children, a woman should have a life of her own that would stand up when the children were out of the house for any length of time. She knew that. It was not right to let yourself get so lost in your children that you could find no trace of yourself when they were gone. What would she do when they grew up? Of course, it was silly to think of it; not silly—morbid. She was letting her imagination run away with her. She would make herself a cup of tea and cheer herself up. The tea would cheer her up. Still, she did not move. She continued to stand by the big window looking out into her garden. (103-104)

It’s the first day without her children and she is at a loss, and more than a little lonely, but she finds comfort in an unexpected place.

I especially enjoyed the beautiful descriptions of the garden and the interiors of Mrs. Bagot’s house. The children’s bedroom come alive when Mrs. Bagot is confronted with the unfamiliar, or should I say, she sees the familiar from a different perspective. And there is a dear dog, a white terrier named Bennie, a big orange cat named Rupert, and small black cat named Minnie. We know Bennie is a very good dog, because he doesn’t kick up a fuss when greedy Rupert checks Bennie’s bowl for stray morsels of food. A story with a dog is just about guaranteed to be a favourite of mine, as this one is.

“Rose-Coloured Teacups” by A.S. Byatt (1987)

This story is like a snapshot in time, or times. I normally love description, but the large chunk at the beginning of this one was a bit much for me. I felt my attention wain by the second page, and I fear if I had come across this story in a magazine I would have moved on. However, I did appreciate how Byatt showed how people see their experience of a place as being the definitive one. Again, pointing out the disconnect between the generations and the gaps that must be bridged for understanding to be realised. 

“Love is Not a Pie” by Amy Bloom (1993)

I stood and looked and then backed out of the bedroom. They hadn’t moved, the three of them breathing deeply, in unison. What was that, I thought, what did I see? I wanted to go back and take another look, to see it again, to make it disappear, to watch them carefully, until I understood. (139)

The story begins with the funeral of Ellen and Lizzie’s mother, but much of it is set during summers past spent at their cabin. Told from Ellen’s perspective as a young girl, I think Bloom does a great job of capturing the thought process of a child when they have seen something they don’t quite understand. This one is sad, but also really lovely.

“The Battle-Field” by Phyllis Bottome (1934)

Thirty-five-year old, Madeline Writtle has always been delicate, but after her sister’s death she becomes worryingly ill. Eventually, she winds up in a sanatorium for consumption, where the doctor works as much on her worryingly co-dependent relationship with her mother, as he does on building up her physical health. The writing remains fairly light throughout, but the undertone is quite dark. 

“I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen (1961)

A woman ruminates about her daughter Emily’s upbringing after receiving a call from the girl’s school. The mother has to go out to work when Emily is eight months old, the father has left, and the mother is 19. Later, Emily gets the measles and the mother is encouraged to send her daughter to a place where she can recuperate, which sounds more like a prison for disadvantaged children than a rest home.

It took us eight months to get her released home, and only the fact that she gained back so little of her seven lost pounds convinced the social worker. 

 I used to try to hold and love her after she came back, but her body would stay stiff, and after a while she'd push away. She ate little. Food sickened her, and I think much of life too. Oh she had physical lightness and brightness, twinkling by on skates, bouncing like a ball up and down up and down over the jump rope, skimming over the hill; but these were momentary. (173-174)

Heartbreaking. Moving. And I can imagine that a lot of single mothers at this time without independent means were forced to make similarly heart-wrenching choices. 

“The Stepmother” by Mary Arden (1928)

A teacher at a boarding school for girls becomes engaged. She settles down to her new life with her husband, and all seems well enough. But life is complicated by her stepdaughter, who she only meets after she has married the girl’s father, and does not want to have anything to do with her stepmother. Then a little girl who was a favourite of hers at the boarding school writes asking if she can stay for part of the school holiday. This story is about the complicated role of being a stepmother.

“My Mother” by Jamaica Kincaid (1983)

Short, poetic, and figurative. The mother-daughter relationship is mythologised in this powerful collection of vignettes. At first, I thought this was going to be my least favourite story in the collection. And then I read this…

My mother reached out to pass a hand over my head, a pacifying gesture, but I laughed and, with great agility, stepped aside. I let out a horrible roar, then a self-pitying whine. I had grown big, but my mother was bigger, and that would always be so. (201)

How well Kincaid has captured the complicated struggle between the urge to have agency over one’s own life and the power of one’s mother. Then this part just about bowled me over…

My mother, while caressing my chin and cheeks, said some words of comfort to me because we had never been apart before. She kissed me on the forehead and turned and walked away. I cried so much my chest heaved up and down, my whole body shook at the sight of her back turned towards me, as if I had never seen her back turned towards me before. I started to make plans to get off the boat, but when I saw that the boat was encased in a large green bottle, as if it were about to decorate a mantelpiece, I fell asleep, until I reached my destination, the new island. When the boat stopped, I got off and I saw a woman with feet exactly like mine, especially around the arch of the instep. Even though the face was completely different from what I was used to, I recognised this woman as my mother. We greeted each other at first with great caution and politeness, but as we walked along, our steps became one, and as we talked, our voices became one voice, and we were in complete union in every other way. What peace came over me then, for I could not see where she left off and I began, or where I left off and she began. (203-204)

She does not tell how she trusted this mother with a changed face, after her mother turned her back on her. Alas, there is hope here. Hope of new beginnings, understanding, and love, despite all the hurt that gets intertwined over time.

Admittedly, I was unable to enjoy this collection with the same abandon as I did Stories for Summer and Days By the Pool, which came out last year in the British Library Women Writers collection. The mother-daughter relationship is too fraught with landmines to really get comfortable for any extended period of time. But, perhaps, I am bringing too much of my own experience to my reading, and to this review. As a whole Stories for Mothers and Daughters was less fraught with emotion than I was expecting, I held my tears until the final story, but I suspect if you are a mother or a daughter you will find these stories either more or less relatable than I did. There is some fabulous writing in this collection. I suspect Jamaica Kincaid’s “My Mother” is one that will take up residence in my thoughts and the depths of my heart for some time.

Come to this book for the writing. Stay for the emotional exorcism. And if you are not a mother or a daughter, this book provides a glimpse of the many complexities of mother-daughter relationships. 

Thank you to British Library Publishing for kindly sending me a copy of Stories for Mothers and Daughters for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.

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The Chianti Flask by Marie Belloc Lowndes

I absolutely loved The Chianti Flask by Marie Belloc Lowndes. This is one I borrowed from my local library, but by the end of the second chapter I had added it to my wishlist. And believe me, I would have bought it immediately if I had not already acquired quite a few books this month. This British Library Crime Classic, which was originally published in 1934, is a book that will keep you guessing, but I found there was also a certain inevitability that made it none the less both atmospheric and compelling.

Laura Dousland is on trial for murder. Accused of poisoning her husband, Fordish. It is assumed that the poison was in the wine Fordish had with his evening meal. The poison itself was thought to be something that a friend of Fordish, Dr. Mark Scrutton, had brought over to the house to help with a rodent issue. Fordish was careful to find out that the poison would painlessly kill rodents. But he also asked Dr. Scrutton if it would be effective on humans too, and the doctor confirmed that it would. 

The damning thing for Laura, and the reason Dr. Scrutton was called to testify for the prosecution, is that this conversation took place in Laura’s hearing. The couple’s servant insists that he put a flask of Chianti on Fordish’s supper tray, but the flask went missing the night Fordish died. That is, if it was ever there at all. The flask never did turn up. Everyone wants to solve what the press are calling, the Chianti Flask Mystery, but Laura would do anything to never hear it mentioned again.

This is not a courtroom drama. Laura is acquitted in the second chapter, but she does not seem as relieved as she should to be found not guilty. Laura is the kind of woman that everyone wants to look after. Men flock to her and women seem drawn to her too. Although, some do just seem to want the inside scoop about her trial and to discuss what she thinks happened to the missing Chianti flask. It isn’t surprising that she wants to get away from everyone she knows and leave the past behind. But at the same time, she is hesitant to cut ties as dramatically as her old employers suggest, by moving to one of the colonies. 

As the book goes on we see that Laura’s relationship with her friends, the Haywards, is complicated by the fact that she was governess to their daughters before marrying theHaywards’ friend, Fordish Dousland. Fordish was taken with Laura, but Laura declined his offer of marriage numerous times before finally accepting him. It was Mrs. Hayward who urged Laura to accept Fordish, because, as she pointed out to Laura, a single woman without family or money of her own may not get many offers. Mr. Hayward was less encouraging of the match. But Mrs. Hayward got her own way, as she generally does. After Laura is acquitted, Mrs. Hayward asks Laura to stay with them at Loverslea for a bit. While Laura does not seem eager to take up the invitation, she does it anyway. She certainly doesn’t want to stay in the house she shared with her husband.

Meanwhile there suddenly rose from the terrace below the half-moon window, sounds of laughing and talking, and to one of the two now in the King's Room, those sounds appeared oh! so strange and unreal. Laura Dousland had not heard people laughing and talking in that light, care-free fashion since she had stayed at Loverslea three years ago. It made her feel even more remote from ordinary human kind than she had felt that morning in her prison cell. (77)

It soon becomes apparent that Laura is not thriving in her new life. Dr. Scrutton sees her—at Mr. Hayward’s request, I might add—and suggests keep to her room for a few days, which is a blessing, because Mrs. Hayward has been expecting that Laura is just going to buck herself up and come down to join the guests that have been invited over for dinner. Honestly, this woman doesn’t have a clue. Laura was in prison that morning and Mrs. Hayward is worried that Laura is going to ruin her dinner party. If there was anyone in this book who I would have gladly seen get bumped off, it’s the controlling Mrs. Hayward. Our author is kinder to her than I.

Alice Hayward had not known she was being hideously cruel. Indeed she was, in actual fact, a truly kind woman. But she, Laura Dousland, in that unreasonable, as those who have been flayed alive are no doubt apt to be, felt that she would give years of the life she had long valued but lightly, never to see that kind woman again. (123)

I couldn’t agree more, Laura! But we do have Mrs. Hayward to thank for something. It is, in part, the mutual dislike of this woman that brings Dr. Scrutton and Laura together.

“You must stay on in bed till I give you leave to get up; and I hope you will see as few people as possible.”

He had come close up to her by now, and all at once a quick look of secret understanding flashed between them. Each was thinking, and each knew that the other was thinking, of Alice Hayward. (80)

He even offers to tell the Haywards that Laura has been forbidden to talk for the next three days. But Laura persuades him not to do that. She claims, “Mrs. Hayward has been wonderfully good to me” and being able to talk to them is “the only way I can prove how grateful I am to them” (80). Laura does have a point. These people have taken her into their home and tried to do right by her, but I found her constant willingness to be submissive to other people’s wishes, even to the detriment of herself, did start to annoy me.

Thank goodness, Dr. Scrutton—who we will refer to as Mark from now on, as he and Laura are soon on a first name basis—offers to lend her his cottage so she can have a proper rest. Mark proves himself to be a dependable doctor and friend to Laura, and continues to show up for her. You know he is going to fall in love with her too. I don’t think that spoils any of the plot, because you can see his feelings for her from early on. We should all be so lucky as to have a person like Mark in our corner.

The Chianti Flask starts in early summer, and ends in the early autumn. While it isn’t a particularly seasonal book, I did enjoy reading it this time of year when we are enjoying some warmer weather. As far as I am concerned, this one of the standouts in the British Library Crime Classics collection. I loved how this book was constructed with Laura’s acquittal at the beginning. It feels like it starts at the end, but it is really just the beginning for Laura. From the start, this book reminded me a lot of Frances Iles’ Before the Fact, not in content or premise, but in feeling. (You can read my review of Before the Fact here.) The Chianti Flask kept me wondering what the truth really was and if I was missing some vital clue that was yet to be revealed. The author creates this amazing tension with such a subtle and deft hand. I would love to read more by Marie Belloc Lowndes. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that the British Library republish a few more of her books before too long. 

(I just wanted to note that I have linked to the UK edition of The Chianti Flask, which is published by British Library Publishing, not the American edition by Poisoned Pen Press, which is the one that I borrowed from my library and is pictured in these photos. The editions are slightly different sizes and the covers have different textures, but the contents are the same.) 

This blog post contains affiliate links for Blackwell’s. As a Blackwell’s Affiliate, I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase through one of the links on my website. I recommend Blackwell’s because I use them myself. This helps support me in sharing—what I hope is—valuable content. Thank you for your support!

The Spring Begins by Katherine Dunning

First of all, I just want to thank everyone who visited Caro’s Bookcase last month. My views have continued to increase with each month since I started this blog a year and a half ago, which is very encouraging. But when I checked my stats on 4 May you could have knocked me over with a feather. On that single day this blog had 733 views! Which, to put it in context, is more I had in my first two months of blogging. And, yes. I do realise that my stats may sound little league to some, but as I am only competing with myself, I’m pretty thrilled. There are so many other ways that you could be spending your time, so I just want to say that I am very appreciative to all of you who carve out some of your valuable time and spend it here with me.

As I mentioned in my last post, I got completely swept away with Katherine Dunning’s 1934 novel, The Spring Begins. I meant to sit down and just read a couple of chapters, but Dunning’s writing made it necessary to keep reading. Her descriptions of setting are gorgeous. The women in this book are so well described, and you cannot help but feel for each of them. And I think Dunning does a fantastic job of capturing the tension, unease, and vulnerability of being a woman, especially—I assume—a woman in domestic service in the 1930s.

Despite the title, this book is set in the heat of summer. The spring referred to is a figurative one alluding to the awakening of three women. At least, that’s what I inferred from the title! Lottie is a young nurse maid who cares for the two Kellaway girls, and is painfully innocent and fearful of the world of men. Maggie, the Kellaways’ scullery maid, is more knowing of men, but perhaps not as experienced with them as Cook seems to think. The oldest of the three women, Hessie, is a spinster and governess to the two Benson girls at the rectory. When her younger sister gets engaged she faces a crisis. All of these women are domestic servants within two neighbouring homes. Despite their proximity to each other, these women rarely interact, and the narrative switches from one woman’s perspective to another throughout the book. 

This is the passage that told me that me I was going to get on well with this book.

On the way to the child's bed Lottie could see herself in the long mirror of the wardrobe as she went by. The glass gave her back a strange reflection, as if her white figure had sunk deep down into the mirror's dark silver, and when she paused to wave her arms up and down she looked really queer. Her nightgown floated mistily around her and, with her startled face, startled by her own appearance, she looked like a phantom figure that had blown in from the night itself, its flapping wings disturbing the pressing darkness. (5)

The image is a beautiful one, but I think it also points to Lottie’s innocence. She is not much more than a child looking after children with all of the fascination with her reflection in the dark that one would expect of her charges. But then we see an awareness of her body and a dismissal, or a covering over, of it at once.

If she just turned quickly on her toes like the children did when they were pretending to be fairies blown through the garden by the wind, her nightgown fled out away from her, leaving her body bare and light against the air. But it was not delicate or nice to think of herself as naked. It was all right from her head down to the top of her collar, and from her knees down to her toes she was flesh and blood again, but in between there was nothing at all—just a conveniently sized dummy's model on which to hang her blue gingham frock and white apron. (5)

That it is not “delicate or nice to think of herself as naked” points to the narrative about the female body she has internalised from Nurse, the woman she works under in the Kellaway home, and likely what she was taught at the orphanage where she grew up. The combination of Lottie’s innocence and Nurse’s worrying fascination with warning Lottie that all men are bad and not to be trusted, even ones that appear to be kind, makes Lottie fearful of coming into any contact with men. 

Lottie’s love of the children she cares for, especially for the younger girl, Isobel, was really sweet to read. At times Isobel clings to Lottie and seems to really respond to Lottie’s love. Although, I did worry at times that the elder girl, Anne, didn’t get the same outpouring of love from Lottie, or anyone else, and while there is not so much as a hint that this is the case, it did worry me that Anne just about fades into the background.

Maggie, the Kellaways’ scullery maid, seems to be more sure of herself than Lottie and Hessie. She may have the lowest position among the indoor servants in the Kellaway house, Cook may rag on her, and her attic bedroom may be the hottest room in the house, but she has a spirit that will not be tamped down.

Maggie leant farther out of the window. Gazing down at the garden and sea and up at the sky she felt as if she owned them all by virtue of the fact that she alone was looking at them. Her arms were damp with dew. Nothing stirred anywhere. No sound came from the sea, or from the birds either. Maggie ran her hands up through her hair. It was dark and shiny and waved naturally, thank God. She felt the back of her strong round neck. Yes, but for her hands and feet she was a girl well worth looking at, and Cook could say what she liked. (63)

Maggie flirts with whom she likes, from the hired waiter to the head gardener, propriety be damned. Although I worried about her less than the other women, I still had a niggling feeling in the back of my mind that perhaps she was not as capable of looking after herself around men as she might think.

Hessie, the governess at the rectory, spends a lot of time playing out scenarios in her head. At one point I had to go back and reread a section because I thought, “Wait. How would she have been privy to that conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Kellaway?” only to discover that Hessie was simply fantasising about what the couple might have said in a certain circumstance. Of all of the women in this book it took me the longest to warm up to Hessie. While holding the place of governess, she thinks of herself as a lady, and looks down on others. At times she is downright cruel, making herself come off poorly in the process. 

At the annual summer fête that the Kellaways host, she bullies a little boy, who does not know her, into joining in on “Here We Go Gathering Nuts in May”. She picks him up, despite him urging, “Let me go—let me go—”. So painfully awkward. All through the game she is fantasising about what game she will organise once this one is over. She imagines Mr. Saul, the curate, alongside, because of course she is doing all of this to get his attention and show she would make an ideal clergyman’s wife.

Panting a little, Hessie dropped the child, who glowered at her ungratefully and ran away. Now what should she suggest? A tug-o’-war? With her on one side and Mr. Saul on the other. That would be fine! His side would win, of course. A man was always gallant to a defeated woman. Besides, men were the stronger sex, they should domineer and win, and then be gentle towards the conquered. Strength and gentleness combined, and when it was over he would say, “That was a splendid game! Your little team fought gallantly but you need a rest now, Miss Price. Come—let me get you an ice.” Then side by side they would walk off, he glancing down at her, she up at him, admiringly, intimately. (132)

But it becomes increasingly apparent that Hessie lives in her imagination as a way to escape reality. The scene continues,

The game was ending now. Hessie ran forward and clapped her hands. But Mr. Saul was not there! He was threading his way through the outer fringe of children. The smile died from Hessie's lips. She put her hand to her head. (132)

As the book goes on I found myself empathising with Hessie more. I think she shows the most growth over the course of the summer, and she has the furthest to go to even recognise what is happening to her.

Supposing she screamed now. Just dropped the plates and opened her mouth and screamed. Hessie bit her under lip as she ran out into the kitchen. She laid the plates with a clatter onto the draining-board by the sink, and pressed her hands to her head. How could she live through Hilda's wedding, and afterwards, too? Evenings alone with Mother, while Hilda sat with her husband, and afterwards Hilda and Albert went, upstairs together. Hilda would be a wife, a married woman. Hilda would come back to see them, and she'd talk about ‘my husband’ and Mother and she would exchange meaning glances, leaving Hessie outside the fraternity of married women. (146)

From the start, Hessie is on the outside, standing apart in her keenness to be seen as a lady, or at least not expose herself as not being one. She is one of the surplus women left over from the First World War, and with each year it becomes increasingly unlikely that she will ever get married. I won’t spoil how her story progresses, but it is not the only aspect of this book that took me by surprise.

Well, if the length of this review is any indicator, I loved this book. It is not a plot-y book, but how the narrative alternates between these three women’s perspectives kept me glued to the page. I wouldn’t be surprised if this makes it on my top ten books of the year. There is usually at least one book from the British Library Women Writers series to be found there. I expect The Spring Begins will be on many other readers’ lists too.

Thank you to British Library Publishing for kindly sending me a copy of The Spring Begins for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.

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This blog post contains affiliate links for Blackwell’s. As a Blackwell’s Affiliate, I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase through one of the links on my website. I recommend Blackwell’s because I use them myself. This helps support me in sharing—what I hope is—valuable content. Thank you for your support!

Crooked Cross by Sally Carson

Is it too early to claim I have just read a book that will be among my top ten of the year? Don’t bother answering that. It has already been decided. The newest book to be republished by Persephone Books is Sally Carson’s 1934 novel Crooked Cross. It is a powerful account of the rise of Nazism in Germany and how it affects one family in Kranach, a small Bavarian market town in the mountains south of Munich. As of right now, it is my pick for favourite book of the year.

 Christmas 1932. The Klugers are happy and looking forward to the future with optimism for the first time in years. The younger son has joined the Nazi Party and the elder son who has been unable to find work soon joins up too. The daughter Lexa, is engaged to Moritz Weissmann, a surgeon with a bright future. Recently, Lexa has quit her job at the library in preparation for their upcoming wedding and the couple’s excitement is evident during the holidays. Moritz and his father, Professor Weissmann, celebrate Christmas with the Klugers and the two families already feel joined.

But all of that is about to change. In the new year, Hitler is elected Chancellor, and changes quickly occur that on the surface may seem small. Moritz loses his job at the hospital because he is Jewish, and he is unable to find another. Professor Weissmann, who has all but lost his eyesight, had to give up his work at the university some time ago. With no money coming in, Moritz and his father are forced to move to a one-room flat. Soon Lexa’s brothers, Erich and Helmy, are telling Lexa that surely she must see that she has to give Moritz up because he is a Jew. As the Klugers effectively cut ties with the Weissmanns it becomes increasingly difficult for Lexa and Moritz to see each other. 

‘Is it worth it, Lexa?’ he asked. ‘Do you realise all it means?’

She was looking at him directly.

‘To me — everything,’ she answered.

[…]

Moritz said, ‘But it seems hard — too hard on you. I didn’t know you felt like that about it too.’

Nor had Lexa known until that moment. All her muddled ideas and thoughts, her worries and anxieties for Moritz had a reason, a point, an ending now. This was her loyalty; this was where she had to act. This was her moment, the moment for which she must have been waiting. (109)

At the risk of sounding trite, this is a beautiful love story set from Christmas 1932 to the summer of 1933. This book is poignant, moving, and powerful. And oh, so devastating. All while I was reading I kept marvelling at the fact that Crooked Cross was published so close to the time it is set, just a year later. Without the benefit of hindsight this book is a warning to the world of what was happening in Germany at the time, and written by an English woman who spent holidays in Munich in the early 1930s.

The whole way through I felt like I was waiting for something to happen. Of course, we know the history, we know what is about to happen, but it is nonetheless shocking. I have never read a book that was set in Germany at this time, and from a German perspective. One of the things I have never been able to wrap my head around was how someone like Hitler came into power. I did not understand the effect that losing World War I had on the German economy and how that must have in turn affected the citizens. The desperation of people who are hungry, out of work, and feeling a loss of identity is fully captured in this book. 

Allow me to quote from Laura Freeman’s preface, as she sums up this book so much better than I can.

The ‘crooked cross’ of the title refers to a swastika. Hitler called it a ‘hooked cross.’ The Nazi party may pretend that they offer stability and peace, but, as one character observes, ‘the price these people paid for their songs, their uniforms and their promises was a strange feeling of unrest and uncertainty.’ This is a book in which everything is crooked and in which people are hooked. If you have ever wondered how a nation was mesmerised by the lies of an authoritarian regime, Crooked Cross explains it with chilling force. (viii)

I hesitate to call this an important book, because if you are anything like me you read that and think, ‘ugh, sounds a lot like work’. But I assure you this book is the easiest time you will have broadening your mind and exposing yourself to a unique perspective.

As far as I am concerned this is a must read. If you are not ‘into’ politics, that’s fine. You don’t need to be. The love between Lexa and Moritz is like a bright light that gives these characters hope—that gives them something to fight for even when the chips are down and all is against them. So enjoy the rare treat of reading about a young couple whose feelings for each other go far beyond that of infatuation under the guise of love. 

The one thing about this book that I was not sure worked for me is so small a thing that I’m not even sure I need mention it. But, of course, I am going to because for better or worse, I do like to have a bit of a complain. For the most part, this book is written in third person past tense. However, scattered throughout the book the narration slips into second person. Sometimes it is just a sentence or two. Other times it is a few paragraphs. Second person narration is so uncommon in novels that I found it jarring each time I came across it. As I was reading I thought that the point might be to get the reader to better imagine themselves in a character’s shoes in moments of high emotion. But now that I’m not sure that its intended purpose was not to be jarring. It grabbed my attention every single time, causing me to pay special attention to those moments. Perhaps, that was Sally Carson’s intention. After he loses his job, Moritz asks of Lexa, “I wonder how much courage you’ve got, Lexa” (54), because he anticipates that things are going to get much harder for them. As Laura Freeman points out in the preface, the reader keeps asking themselves the same thing throughout the book. I think using the second person forces the reader to do this in specific places in the narrative, but without it, we would still be asking ourselves how much courage we have.

Sally Carson wrote two sequels to this book, The Prisoner (1936) and A Traveller Came By (1938). While Crooked Cross does have a definitive conclusion, it does end in the summer of 1933 when something momentous happens to the Klugers, and the second book is said to pick up in August of the same year. I am very much hoping Persephone will republish the other two books in this trilogy. 

I had a hard time figuring out how to approach reviewing this book. I can’t tell you this book is cosy, or lovely, or will make you feel good. But if you want to read an important book that will make you think, that presents a perspective to which you might not otherwise be exposed, that is terrifically well-written, then you should read this one. Book of the year material, this is.

This blog post contains affiliate links for Blackwell’s. As a Blackwell’s Affiliate, I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase through one of the links on my website. I recommend Blackwell’s because I use them myself. This helps support me in sharing—what I hope is—valuable content. Thank you for your support!

The Jasmine Farm by Elizabeth von Arnim

At Shillerton that week-end, the week-end before Whitsuntide, they had gooseberry tart—or is it pie? Daisy Midhurst, in whose house it was eaten, never quite knew, but anyhow it was the thing with pastry on its top instead of its bottom,—for luncheon on Sunday; and it was a hot gooseberry tart, because pastry is better hot, though gooseberries are worse; and the guests, having eaten it were hot too, and not only hot but uncomfortable; for the gooseberries, on whose sourness no amount of sugar flung and cream emptied had the least effect, almost immediately, on getting inside them, began to ferment. 

 
Daisy Midhurst, normally known to be an impeccable host, serves her guests underripe gooseberries. Serving them once is a mistake any hostess could make. Perhaps not someone of Lady Midhurst’s standards, though one might take comfort in the fact that even she makes mistakes now and again. But when the gooseberries appear at each successive meal, the guests start to wonder, and talk among themselves… 

This novel isn’t just about what happens over the course of the weekend, which is what I had been expecting going in. The story really starts at the tail end of the weekend when Daisy’s daughter, Terry, makes a fateful slip of the tongue about her mother’s secretary, Andrew, to old Mr. Topham, endearingly referred to as Topsy, and known to be “the chief of the London leakers”.

“Any other of her men friends would have died sooner than tell on her. Theoretically Mr. Topham, too, would have died. He couldn’t, however, help himself. He was made that way. Leak he must, and leak he did” (104).

Just like that, the secret is out, and while no one can quite believe it of the girl, they can’t entirely dismiss the rumour about Terry and Andrew as untrue, either.

From an English country house to the south of France, this story covers such unexpected topics for a book published in 1934, as extramarital affairs and blackmail, and, perhaps more anticipated, love, forgiveness, and the complexities of marriage. As usual Elizabeth von Arnim does a number on the married state, but with a lightness and humour that is all her own. 

Daisy’s husband is dead, but we get a glimpse of the couple on their honeymoon, and the first time they came across the jasmine farm that Midhurst would buy for his wife.

A reserved girl, his Daisy, and becoming, it seemed to him, every minute more reserved. Bad, that was, in a bride. Brides, in his opinion, if there was to be any real fun, should be headlong. He had never had one before, but in spite of his youth was experienced in that which, if legalized, would have been brides, and knew what he was talking about. Waste of time, held Midhurst, to be ladylike in bed; keep that for interviewing the housekeeper. Till the day the Napier broke down in the lane that ran through what they afterwards learned was a jasmine farm, Daisy had been very ladylike in bed, giving him to understand by her recoils and her silences, that he was no gentleman. (168)

In the present, Daisy has run away from London, and the scandal around her daughter, to the jasmine farm they owned, but had never been to since. The farm has been cared for by a man named, Adolphe, and the house remains just as they left it more than twenty years ago, right down to Midhurst’s yellow pyjama’s which are still lying folded on his pillow.

All these years they had been utterly forgotten, but now with what vividness she remembered him in them, coming out of the little dressing room opposite, his fair hair, so like Terry’s tousled, and taking a flying leap on to the bed—a boy the same age as herself, but versed in many things of which she hadn’t an inkling.

Wasn’t this horrible? Could she sleep, side by side with Tom’s empty pyjamas? And he dead. Poor Tom dead. So long dead, poor little Tommy, while his pyjamas went on being as fresh and yellow as ever. (185)

This passage and the one previous, highlight the complexities of marriage at a time when men had more experience, or at least had access to knowledge of sex and all that marriage would entail, while women, especially in the upper classes, were sheltered and kept ignorant. Note how Daisy is both repulsed by the pyjamas and feels almost a tenderness towards them, as, in the same sentence, she refers to her husband as “a boy the same age as herself” behaving like a child and “his fair hair” recalling their daughter’s, and contrasting this childlike appearance with his knowledge “in many things of which she hadn’t an inkling”. Then her next feeling is tenderness towards “little Tommy”, while still wanting the physical reminder of him, the pyjamas, to be taken out of her sight and in fact the next thing she does is calls for the servant to remove them.

We see this abhorrence and horror at the physical side of marriage again and again in Elizabeth von Arnim’s novels. There is often a comedic bent to the telling, but the feeling of discomfort is no less potent. This dislike of marriage is present in a number of women in this novel. See the thoughts on love by Mumsie, the mother of Rosie, who is Andrew’s wife.

Love, too, that such a fuss was made over. Nothing in that, either. She supposed she had had as much of it as most women, first and last, yet she wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t really had any. Not love. Not what you’d call love. However pleased one was each time at the beginning, fancying one had got hold of the real thing at last, it always turned out to be nothing but just another husband. If you married him or didn’t marry him, it made no difference. She had tried it all ways. Lovers didn’t exist, only husbands. By the third morning, when the bickering began, the man didn’t live who wasn’t indistinguishable from a husband. (233)

I love that line, “it always turned out to be nothing but just another husband”. Elizabeth von Arnim is so good at these humorous turns of phrase. Initially, it isn’t clear if Mumsie is talking about sex or something more innocent, until the end of this passage where she refers to “the third morning” when talking about men all being like husbands even when they aren’t husbands in the traditional sense. While we get the sense that Mumsie may enjoy sex to the extent that she is willing to welcome a man into her bed without being bound to him by marriage, we can see that men have been a disappointment to her, as they have for Daisy.

There is also a very funny exchange between two women near the end of the novel. I will resist the urge to share it here, but it makes the point quite clearly that life without a husband is preferable to life with one.

From what we find out about Rosie, she isn’t a fan of the physical aspect of marriage either. Both Rosie and her mother seem to be solely interested in Rosie’s marriage for what they can get out of it without having to put much in. Rosie, in fact, seems to prefer being left out of it. It’s Mumsie who acts the part of puppet master, keeping things running smoothly between the couple, especially once Andrew’s affair comes to light.

“And if, said Mumsie, Andrew as a husband was a wash-out, and didn’t do any of the things he ought to have done for a wife like Rosie—dress her, pet her, flaunt her,—the way of peace lay in laughing and forgetting it” (47).

Meanwhile Daisy is “sprawling on the sofa” (201), “bored dead” (202) at being stuck in the flat in the days following the affair coming out. “Why should she, Rosie, have to spend a whole summer day cooped up in doors, waiting for these developments?” (202).

While I have focused on the representations of marriage in this novel, there is an interesting dynamic between mothers and daughters. It cannot be an accident that we have two sets on either side of this affair, Terry and her mother, Daisy, and Rosie and her mother, Mumsie. Both mothers are widows, which Elizabeth von Arnim uses to both humours and potent effect. This book might not put marriage in a positive light, but in contrast it does emphasize the care and investment that mothers make in their daughters’ lives. 

Daisy’s husband died in the First World War, so he doesn’t feature in the present drama with Terry, but he does indirectly effect Daisy’s reaction to the news that her daughter is having an affair with a married man. Daisy is horrified, and quickly flees London for France. It seems like an overreaction from a spoiled, sheltered woman who cares more about appearances than she cares about her only child with whom she is supposed to have a close relationship. That is until you consider that Daisy's husband was known for his affairs. He would flaunt his relationships in public, not even bothering to hide his mistresses from his wife. In addition to knowing her husband had started cheating on her not long after they returned from their honeymoon, she had the additional upset of having all of London privy to their marital discord. After Midhurst’s death, Daisy and her daughter drew closer, making Terry’s actions all the more hurtful to her mother. Not only because Terry kept this huge secret from Daisy, but because Terry would be both acting as Midhurst did in disrespecting the married state, as well as causing discord in a marriage. Aligning her daughter with Midhurst's mistresses, must have done Daisy's head in.

I read this book along with my friend, Gina. In fact, she sent me this book so we could read it together. She is @babsbelovedbooks on Instagram and blogs over at ‘Babs' Beloved Books’. We have read a number of Elizabeth von Arnim’s books together and it’s always a pleasure to have someone with whom to share ideas about her writing. And thank you for being here, too. It's a joy and a privilege to have so many fellow book lovers to talk with about books.

It would be remiss of me if I didn't share any of Elizabeth von Arnim’s delightful descriptions of nature in this review, so I'll close with this short passage I marked. 

It was very quiet; a hot summer afternoon, hardly stirring in its sleep. Over the hills lay blandness. The single cypress might have been carved in black stone, it stood so motionless. The grass in the olive-grove below the wall was patched with lovely lights, and all the fields were spread with jasmine. (177)