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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56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - The Clue of the Broken Locket

Week 11, Book 11

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post.

Edition pictured: Revised text (20 chapters, 175 pages)

Cover illustrated by: Rudy Nappi

Revised text publication date: 1965

Original text publication date: 1934

My edition printed: approx. 1985

Ghostwriter: Mildred A. Wirt Benson

Editors: Edna Stratemeyer Squier & Harriet Stratemeyer Adams

Revised by: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams & Grace Grote

Setting: River Heights & Misty Lake in Maryland

Originally published in 1934, I will be reviewing the revised text edition of The Clue of the Broken Locket, published in 1965 and pictured above. 

Nancy Drew’s lawyer father, Carson, asks Nancy to go to Misty Lake to give a young woman, Cecily Curtis, the keys to a summer cottage owned by one of his clients. Carson also tasks her with finding out what has frightened Henry Winch, the man who was supposed to hand over the keys (1-2). The next day, Nancy and her friends, Bess and George, are on their way to Maryland. Before they reach Misty Lake, they stop for an early supper and come across a man, who looks strangely familiar, and a red-haired woman having an argument about a law suit and an iron bird (7-8). After supper, Nancy and friends have an unfortunate occurrence with a rickety bridge while looking for a missing earring, which involves the red-haired woman. Although, she assures them she isn’t hurt, the woman seems upset, but before they can find out why, she rushes off (9-11).

When they arrive at Misty Lake the owner of the guest house where they plan to stay tells them all about Henry Winch’s experience of seeing the apparition of a phantom launch, and the history behind the long ago boating accident that drowned everyone on board (14-15).

Once at the cottage, Nancy runs into the red-headed woman from earlier, but strangely, the woman flees. Thinking the woman might be Cecily Curtis, Nancy calls after her to asks. But instead of answering, the frightened woman says, “You can’t stop me from getting the babies!” (19) before disappearing into the woods.

Cecily Curtis still hasn’t shown up to get the key, so the young women decide to stay the night. When Cecily does arrive, she is the same red-haired woman from earlier. But apparently her and the woman in the woods are not the same person, they just look remarkably alike (23-25). 

Finding out that Nancy, Bess, and George had been planning to stay the night before she showed up, she asks them to stay and keep her company. Nancy feels unsettled and gets impression Cecily feels similarly (30). What with mistaking a loon call for a screaming woman and Cecily going out in the middle of the night, and Nancy discovering her unconscious with a large bump on her head, by morning the group is chatting like old friends and Cecily tells them all about an iron bird, a broken locket, and Pudding Stone Lake (36-38). She even talks about being engaged to pop singer, Niko Van Dyke, and the law suit regarding royalties owed him by record company (38-39).

With a strange humming noise that they can’t discover the source of, a first hand sighting of the phantom launch, and neighbours that run hot and cold, but mostly cold, the mysteries around Misty Lake begin to stack up. Good thing Nancy is the queen of multitasking!

In this one, Nancy connects a young woman to her relatives, discovers an ancestral fortune that his been hidden since the American Civil War, and stops a gang who pirate pop records and who make a sideline of kidnapping. 

Nancy still finds time in her schedule to buy groceries, drive into town (many times), hang out at the soda shop, practice first aid, buy a record, call it an early night, let her imagination run away with her, rent a canoe, poke around an old house, get trapped on a roof, tidy the cottage, take the canoe out twice, and nearly go down with the ship the second time (sabotage!), chase a prowler, call the boys, take a hike, go for a swim, drive to Baltimore, visit a record label, go to see the Flying Dutchmen play a show, hang out at a soda shop some more, lounge by the fire with the boys, lug the world’s heaviest flamingo home, get scolded by a police chief, feel crushed, buck up, get commended by the police for her excellent detective work (nice one, Nancy), and receive an apology from the police (sweet justice!), eat 19 meals, and 6 snacks, including two rounds of ice cream, cookies and bottles of soda.

Time of year

No detective work necessary to find out what time of year this one is set. Carson Drew tells us.

    Her father explained that since it was the middle of September, there would probably be few vacationers at the lake. “I can’t imaging why Cecily Curtis want to say there. If you meet her, Nancy perhaps you can find out.” (2)

We don’t get much seasonal description in this one. I would have liked a bit about the leaves starting to change and more about the chill air at night, though we do get a bit of that when Nancy takes an unexpected dim in the lake at night. There is a brief description of the river and garden around the Old Mill restaurant that Nancy, Bess, and George stop at on their drive to Misty Lake.

    There was a profusion of many colors and varieties of chrysanthemums, late-blooming roses, and petunias. A path through the center of the garden led directly to a rustic white-painted bridge over a rushing stream. (6-7) 

 

We also know that Ned, Burt, and Dave are able to go to Baltimore to see Niko’s performance “since their college term had not yet started” (85).

Timeline

The action takes place over 10 days. What typically happens in these books is that one of the last days tends to be unusually long. In this one, it’s the ninth day, which straddles five chapters and is very action packed. 

Reading this book as a child

I feel compelled to explain why the edition of this book that I have photographed looks so tattered. It’s the same copy I had as a child and it was handed down to me from a family friend. As I’m sure you have gathered by now, I really loved my Nancy Drew books, and I loved them hard! A few months ago when I was still toying with the idea of reading the first 56 books in this series in as many weeks, I picked this one up off the shelf to read. A handmade bookmark was tucked inside, coloured by me and my niece. Speaking of colouring and drawing, Nancy Drews made for the perfect colouring board. While I had the presence of mind not to colour over the edges of a page when using the book cover as a hard surface, the endpapers didn’t receive the same level of care, judging from the speckles of pencil crayon inside.

The funny thing is, I have a second copy of this title that is a little older than this one. But that one looks equally battered. It makes me think that The Clue of the Broken Locket was a popular title. I loved any Nancy Drew I owned and reread them often, but I especially liked the cover of this one. Three friends wading in the water to investigate a wardrobe. They are wearing suitable attire, jeans and blouses, and its looks as though the shoes they are holding could be canvas. But it was the colours of the artwork that really pleased me. I liked that every girl had their own colour. Although, it did bother me that Nancy’s shoes weren’t yellow to match her top when the other girls’ shoes and tops were the same colour.

I was enthralled with secret passages, hidden treasure, and anything that had a disguised compartment to conceal treasures. A locket seemed like a treasure in itself, and it being something that could carry a photo of a loved one or a secret message, gave me a thrill. 

More of the same, only different

The other thing about this book that captured my imagination isn’t specific to this title, but can be found in a lot of Nancy Drew books. This is a mystery revolving around a lake. We saw a trip to the lake in The Secret of the Old Clock, The Bungalow Mystery, Nancy and her friends visit a swimming hole in The Secret at Red Gate Farm, and a river is made heavy use of in The Mystery at Lilac Inn. There is so much scope in a setting like this. In The Clue of the Broken Locket, there are the woods that surround the lake, the mysterious house with the illuminated bull’s-eye window that shines across the water, and of course there is the water that is put to optimum use by Nancy going out in the canoe, finding a rowboat banked in the mud and hidden by reeds, and holds an important clue. Of course, without a body of water, we wouldn’t have the phantom launch. This book hangs on Henry Winch’s sighting of the ghostly vessel and his reaction to it. Nancy wouldn’t have been sent to Misty Lake by her father, and we wouldn’t have this mystery without a watery setting of some sort.

Of course, lakes are by no means the only reoccurring aspect in this series. Another popular one is mistaken identity. In The Mystery at Lilac Inn, it’s Nancy with the doppelgänger, whereas in this book, it is Cecily Curtis and the frightened woman in the woods. The startling similarity between the two women puts Nancy and the reader on guard. 

    The girl from the White Mill restaurant again! But this time she was not wearing the raincoat and scarf. She had on the same outfit they had seen at the restaurant, and was lugging two suitcases.

    "Oh, hello!" she said pleasantly. "Well, this is a nice surprise! Are you vacationing here?" Nancy and George were confounded. Hadn't the newcomer recognized them? And why had she changed her clothes again?

    "Are you Cecily Curtis?" Nancy asked as the girls hastened to help her.

    "Yes, I am. But how did you know?" 

    Nancy, though bewildered, decided to ask no questions, but she did notice the girl was not yet wearing a wedding ring. She introduced herself and George. "Mr. Winch is out of town, so we came here with the key to open the cottage for you." (23-24)

Bess isn’t as tactful as Nancy, which only throws further suspicion on Cecily.

    By this time the three had entered the cottage.

    At once Bess exclaimed, "I'm so glad you got here, Cecily! We were terribly worried. Why didn't you stay the first time you came?"

    Cecily looked at her blankly. "The first time? I haven't been here before."

    It was Bess's turn to look perplexed. "You mean you weren't up in the woods on your way here a few hours ago?"

    Cecily shook her head. "If you thought you saw me, I must have a double in the vicinity." She changed the subject. "I had an awful time getting to this cottage. A bus brought me to Misty Lake village from Baltimore, and I tried to get a taxi to bring me here. Nobody wanted to, but finally one man agreed to drive me as far as the end of the lane. I had to lug these bags and my cat all the rest of the way." (24-25)

Is Cecily’s account of her actions truthful, or was she lurking in the woods by the cottage? What begins by adding confusion to the case is turned on its head when Nancy uses Cecily’s similarity to the other red-headed woman to fool the woman’s suspected kidnappers. 

Suddenly Nancy asked, "Who is that red-haired girl down on the beach? Do you know her?" 

The question had an electrifying effect on the Driscolls. They rushed to the window and looked out over the bluff. Cecily was in plain sight below.

Now she turned as if heading for the misty end of the lake. With a muttered excuse, Karl Driscoll fairly ran into the kitchen. The girls dared not follow, but they heard a door close softly and footsteps pounding down the cellar stairs.

[…]

With difficulty, Nancy kept calm. She was sure her ruse had worked! The other red-haired girl was being held in the house and the Driscolls thought she had escaped!

"Now to hunt for the prisoner!" Nancy thought. (140)

They don’t get the opportunity to search the house right away, but using the similarity between the two red-headed women to advantage Nancy confirms her suspicions that the woman is being held hostage in the house.

Come to think of it, in The Mystery at Lilac Inn Nancy uses the similarity between herself and the woman impersonating her to advantage too. Nancy impersonates the woman, which helps her gain insider access to the woman’s nefarious scheme. Perhaps a more appropriate title for this section would have been, simply, "More of the same"!

Favourite quotation

Since I spent some time earlier in this post reminiscing, I’ve selected a passage that I know I would have gotten a kick out of as a child. And as my sense of humour hasn’t changed much over the years, I still love this snippet of dialogue as in it Nancy uses one of my favourite words in the Nancy Drew lexicon.

    “And now, about that other red-haired girl. I have two completely opposite ideas about her. One is that she is in cahoots with the Driscolls in some underhanded scheme; the other is that she’s their prisoner or is somehow in their power.” (110)

Nancy Drew loves using the word cahoots, and so do I!

56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - The Secret of Shadow Ranch

Week 5, Book 5

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post.

Edition pictured: Revised text (20 chapters, 175 pages)

Cover illustrated by: Rudy Nappi

Revised text publication date: 1965

Original text publication date: 1931

My edition printed: approx. 1978

Ghostwriter: Mildred A. Wirt Benson

Editor: Harriet Otis Smith

Revised by: Grace Grote

Setting: Phoenix, Arizona & Shadow Ranch in Arizona (150 miles away from airport)

Originally published in 1931 and written by Mildred Wirt, I will be reviewing the revised text edition of The Secret of Shadow Ranch, published in 1965 and pictured above. 

Nancy arrives in Phoenix, Arizona where she is met by her friends, cousins, Bess Marvin and George Fayne. The plan is to spend the summer at Shadow Ranch, owned by the girls’ aunt and uncle. But Nancy is barely off her plane before the cousins inform her that they have to go home tomorrow (1). There’s a mystery at the ranch and Uncle Ed thinks it isn’t safe for the girls to be there (2). The girls advise Nancy to let Hannah, the Drew’s housekeeper, know she will be returning home tomorrow, but Nancy has other ideas. The cousins take turns telling Nancy the details of the mystery. 

Bet and Ed acquired Shadow Ranch two months ago as payment for a debt. They had always wanted to be ranchers, so they moved there and began work. Then the accidents started. Since then, there have been so many unexplained happenings that they believe the ranch is being sabotaged (4). The girls thought their aunt and uncle were overreacting, but they were convinced as soon as they caught sight of the phantom horse (5)!

According to legend, the phantom horse is the ghost of the horse belonging to old-time outlaw, Dirk Valentine. Dirk Valentine was the sweetheart of Frances Humber, the daughter of the local sheriff, the original owner of Shadow Ranch. One night, Dirk went to the ranch to see Frances and the sheriff shot him. As Dirk died, he put a curse on the Humber property. Now, when the ghost of Dirk Valentine’s horse is seen running across the meadow, destruction is said to follow (5).

Nancy is quick to spot that the phantom horse must be a trick and that someone is trying to scare Uncle Ed and Aunt Bet away from Shadow Ranch (6). The question is, why?

Along with friends Bess and George, Nancy stops a gang of thieves, reunites a kidnapped bank manager with his daughter, uncovers the secret behind the phantom horse, and finds a hidden treasure! But she still has enough time to go horseback riding, shopping, go to the rodeo, win a square dancing competition, stop a shoplifter, show off her knowledge of textiles, bake a chocolate cake, appreciate a handsome cowboy when she sees one, eat 16 meals, including tacos and spicy chilli and a lot more cold sodas than usual. Gotta stay cool and hydrated when your detective work takes you to the desert!

This book is particularly interesting as there are a lot of firsts in it. It’s the first Nancy Drew Western. It’s the first book where cousins Bess Fayne and George Marvin are Nancy’s sidekicks instead of Helen Corning. And it’s the first time we hear mention of Ned, the one love interest of Nancy’s that is mentioned throughout the series.

Let’s talk about the genre of this book first. We know it’s a mystery of course, but when I read the synopsis (which appears on the first page with text in my edition) I was surprised by the last sentence. 

    For those who enjoy a suspenseful thriller, Nancy Drew’s first Western adventure makes truly fascinating reading.

For one thing it had never occurred to me that this book was a Western. While Nancy and friends do spend time outside in Arizona, they are only visiting for the summer and they have access to vehicles. I’ve always thought that the characters in Westerns need to spend extended time in the harsh environment and struggling to survive in those conditions. Is there any struggle when you are a wealthy tourist visiting for the summer, riding horses you don’t have to care for, taking a vehicle into town or even into the city when you need a day of shopping, and the rest of the time having all of your meals provided by a live-in cook? Well, I don’t think so. But there are definitely scenes that have a Western feel to them, I’ll grant the publishers that. Nancy and friends do hit the trails on horseback, outwit outlaws, and do battle with the elements in the great outdoors. However, they always manage to get back in time to shower and change before enjoying a meal they didn’t have to prepare for themselves.

Describing this book as "Nancy Drew’s first Western adventure" makes it sound like there are more of them to come. But I’m fairly sure this is the only book in this series that could be described as a Western, by any stretch of the imagination. If you can think of another, please pop it in the comments! Also, I’m not an expert on the Western genre, or even on Nancy Drew, for that matter, so if you believe this  book fulfills the criteria of a Western, please feel free to set me straight.

In my mind, one of the most exciting things about this book is the introduction of Bess and George. Now, this isn’t to say I don’t like Helen Corning, because I like Helen a lot and it makes me sad that she just drifts out of the series. I like that Helen is three years older than Nancy and that they are still good friends even though they are at different phases in their lives. A three year age gap is nothing to an adult, but when you’re a nine year old reading these books, three years seems like a big difference. It can’t help but fill you with awe that Nancy not only has a friend who is three years older than her, but who also treats her as an equal.

I also like how Helen and Nancy play off of each other. Helen is quick to speak her mind and quicker tempered than Nancy. At the start of The Mystery at Lilac Inn, Nancy and Helen’s canoe capsizes. Afterwards, Helen expresses her annoyance about a man nearby who must have seen them but didn’t offer to help. While Nancy doesn’t seem bothered by the incident, Helen is steaming. In The Hidden Staircase, Helen is frightened by a face appearing in the window, but upon investigation, no one is there and there is no evidence that anyone had been. While Nancy goes straight for the logical explanation, Helen comments that she had never before believed in spooks but the ongoing incidents at the house are starting to make her wonder.

Helen is a likeable character with human faults and frailties, who allows her emotions to get the better of her in times of stress. While Nancy acts correctly, moderates her emotions, and always thinks logically.

So now that I have defended Helen, let’s talk about the cousins.

    The three girls had grown up together in River Heights, and had shared many exciting adventures. (2-3)

So we know that Nancy has known Bess and George since they were children. Later, they are referred to as Nancy’s “best friends”. If they are all such great friends why were they not even mentioned in the first four books? Helen gets engaged, drops out of Nancy’s life, and then Nancy remembers she has two other best friends. Is that what we are supposed to think?

From the start, Bess and George are typecast in a way that I don’t think Helen is. Here’s our introduction to Bess.

    The pretty, slightly plump blonde was not smiling as usual. (1)

Bess is pretty, usually smiling, and is, apparently, “slightly plump”. From what I’ve noticed Bess is never depicted on the cover art or the internal illustrations of this series as being any less trim than Nancy and George. That in itself is a problem. If you are telling young girls that this character is fat and she looks like everyone else, then doesn’t that just create an impossible and very unhealthy standard? But no one comments on Bess’s weight, besides her cousin George, who seems to make some snide remark about it every time Bess eats or talks about eating. I’ve noticed George only does this when it is just the three friends together. Perhaps, George doesn’t want the chance of someone standing up for Bess?

    “This mystery has me so upset,” she declared, “that my appetite is gone.” Then she added, “I’ll have a double chocolate sundae with walnuts.”

    Nancy and George grinned. “Poor girl,” said George, “she’s wasting away.”

    Bess looked sheepish. “Never mind me,” she said. “Start telling Nancy about the mystery.” (4)

Later, George makes a more blatantly mean comment to Bess.

    Bess sighed. “I’m so hot, I’d like to have a cold drink and I think I need a hot dog to go with it.” 

    George grinned. “Eating is really a very fattening hobby, dear cousin.” (138)

Bess isn’t given the opportunity to say anything because they are interrupted, which is a bit disappointing. I would have liked to know how Bess would have responded to George’s needlessly hurtful comment.

We tend to think of Nancy in the revised text editions as being perfect. But I think this is one instance where she doesn’t get it right. Nancy is present on both of these occasions, but she doesn’t stick up for Bess. Nancy either exchanges a grin with George or she remains silent. I have no problem reading about a character with faults. Faults make a character feel human. What I do take issue with is a character who always knows what to do behaving like this, because that means Nancy believes that George bullying Bess about her weight is acceptable. And I know it’s not acceptable, but I’m an adult. When I was a child, I didn’t see anything wrong in George being mean to her cousin. Aren’t siblings and cousins supposed to make fun of each other? As an adult, I recognize that any fun being had here is one-sided.

As a child, I didn’t see George’s behaviour as bullying or fat shaming. Fat shaming wasn’t in the lexicon back then and it most certainly wasn’t when these books were written and revised. I saw George’s behaviour as evidence that George didn’t like Bess as much as she liked Nancy. That might be part of what is going on here. I think it’s a sign that George doesn’t like herself very much. But I also wonder if George isn’t a teensy bit jealous of Bess. Bess is fun and she eats when she feels like it. I mean, I know which one of the two cousins I would prefer to be friends with!

Part way through this book, a question popped into my mind. Did the writers, editors, and revisers, and ultimately, the publishers, do a disservice to Bess?

Let’s have a quick description of George for comparison.

    George Fayne, an attractive tomboyish girl with short dark hair. (1)

 

The word “tomboy” is dated, but from it we can assume that George is athletic and perhaps less feminine than Bess. And I think this is a fair assessment. George is strong and capable, purposely sticking out her foot and tripping the big baddie at the climax (173). While she doesn’t have Nancy’s detective skills, she can look after herself. In contrast, Bess is often treated as a figure of fun. 

When Nancy has first arrived in Phoenix, Bess notices Nancy’s knitting bag and asks what her friend is making. Nancy explains that she is knitting a sweater for her father.

    “He’ll love it. Not to change the subject, but there are some handsome cowboys at the ranch,” Bess remarked. As she told Nancy of the fun she and George had been having, Bess grew more cheerful. (4)

Bess is all about the boys. She is always looking to matchmake and puts forth effort to always look her best.

Early on the book, when they are driving from the airport to Shadow Ranch, they get caught in a storm that blows the sand across the landscape with such force that it sifts through the cracks around the windows and doors (14). Once it dies down, Nancy pulls the truck over so they can freshen up.

    She poured some water from the Thermos onto her clean handkerchief and wiped her face and hands. George and Bess did the same, then the girls combed their hair and put on fresh lipstick.

    Bess giggled. “I don’t know why we bother. There’s no one out here to see us but prairie dogs and lizards!”

    “Cheer up,” said Nancy. “You’ll soon be back among all those handsome cowboys!” (16)

Nancy says, “you’ll” instead or “we’ll”, implying that it is only Bess who is freshening herself up for the cowboys. However, I think it is fair to say Nancy and George do their fair share of flirting with cowboys in this book too. After all, it is all three of the friends who find dates among the cowboys at the ranch.

Later on, just after the cold soda and hot dog incident, two men try to kidnap Nancy by the refreshment stand at the rodeo, and it’s Bess who is first to come to Nancy’s aid.

    “Bess’s voice rang out. “She is not going with you!” (140)

George then chimes in with “Let her go!” (140). Oh, and why are Bess and George down by the refreshment stand instead of up in the stands watching the guys compete in the rodeo? Because Bess wanted a hot dog. 

This is one incident where Bess comes out as the stronger of the two, but more often it seems as though the character of Bess is being used as a foil for Nancy.

Bess is more traditionally feminine than either George or Nancy. Across the series, she is always the one who is more easily scared and less likely to want to do detective work. We are meant to identify with Nancy, who manages to be feminine, to still comb her hair and refresh her lipstick after going through a sandstorm, but she is also brave, knowledgeable, and skilled in basically anything one could be skilled in. She is never in a situation where she says, “I don’t know anything about that subject” or “I don’t know how to do that”.

In one scene, Bess is being taught how to rope a steer by one of the cowboys. (44-46). The “steer” is played by a cowboy named Bud holding his hands on his head like horns as he prances in front of Bess’s horse. Nancy and George show up and watch from the sidelines. 

    Bess frowned, bit her lip, and managed to get a noose twirling. Then plop—it dropped over the head of her own horse! 

    Tex gave a piercing whistle. George and Nancy burst into laughter while the “steer” helped blushing Bess to dismount.

    “Never mind,” said Nancy. “You didn’t want to be a cowboy, anyway.” 

    As the boys called joking remarks about the next roping lesson, the girls walked off together. (46)

On her first try Bess fails, and then gives up. If it had been Nancy, she would have executed it perfectly on the first try. If, by some miracle she was not successful, then she would have kept trying until she was not only successful, but until she was roping steers like a pro.

And while Bess is the only one of the friends to have trouble crossing a river on horseback, we know it is only her horse that doesn’t like water. This sets it up so that Nancy can come to the rescue, by taking the reins of Bess’s horse and leading him to land. 

But we could look at this from another angle. If it wasn’t for Bess telling everyone about Nancy’s bravery over supper later, cowboy Dave may not have come around and admitted to Nancy that he was wrong in assuming that Nancy was a “tenderfoot” (75-76).

The next day, the ice has thawed between the two.

    She admired the confident way he did his job and his kind, firm manner with the animals. “I do hope he’s not mixed up in the mystery.” She sighed. (89)

Nancy isn’t much of a sigher, so you know she’s got it bad for Dave.

 

I think it’s interesting to note that when the group returns to the ranch after a rough river crossing, it isn’t only Bess who scoots off to shower and change (74-75). It’s all three of them!

So, I guess I haven’t answered the question I raised about whether a disservice is done to Bess. I think how she is portrayed as being “slightly plump” and how she is treated by George (and Nancy) in that regard does more of a disservice to the readers of these books. In this book, Bess seems capable of looking after herself, as far as her cousin is concerned, anyway. Perhaps the characters of both Bess and George are nothing more than foils for Nancy. I’m sure my thoughts on this topic, and many others, will develop as I continue through the series. 

Favourite quotation

In most books, the main character goes through some personal journey of growth as the story progresses. This doesn’t happen with Nancy Drew, because as we’ve discussed, she’s (mostly) perfect already. (She is in the revised text editions, anyway. Original text Nancy is more human.) Instead, I think it’s the reader who gets to take away a kernel of knowledge from these books.

In this one, we learn that what happens in Arizona, stays in Arizona. At least, according to Nancy!

    When he was out of earshot, Alice said, “As for you, Nancy, he’s really flipped!”

    “And what’ll poor Ned do?” George teased.

    Nancy grinned. “We’ll be home by the time he gets back from Europe.” (111)

Got that? As long as your boyfriend is in Europe and you get home before he does, it is fine to flirt with handsome cowboys on a trip out of state.

I found it very funny that Ned is mentioned in an off-hand way, as though we already know all about him. Apparently, Bess and George aren’t the only people in her life Nancy has been keeping secret!

More importantly, what we learn in this book is that listening to our bodies’ need for sustenance is as good for our own health as it is for our friends’, especially if the friend in question is about to be jumped by two baddies! So go on. Get yourself a hot dog to go along with that cold soda you've been craving!