Rector's Daughter IV

Mary finds that her friendship with Kathy cools a bit, and then she has an operation to fix her mouth, which works, restoring her good looks. Kathy is well meaning, but she finds her other friends more fun than Mary. Mary's father dies, and she is deeply upset. She goes to live with an aunt, in a suburban part of London and has a more fulfilling life, seeing some writers whom she finds too Bohemian.. and getting involved in a local church. She rarely sees Herbert and Kathy, who now have another son. He loves his wife, but accepts that she is silly at times and can't live up to his intellectual level.. but she is devoted to him and tolerates his seeing old college friends for more interesting conversation. Some time passes and Mary becomes ill. She dies only in her 50s. Her life has been lived for others, and she is worn out.

Rector's daughter III

Kathy decides to go for a holiday in France with her sister in law, and she meets a young man there who flirts with her. She is getting more and more fed up with her husband and she toys with the idea of running off with her admirer. Herbert is not very sorry to have a break from his wife. Kathy goes on with her flirtation, and then finds that she has an abscess on her mouth. She is told she will need an operation. In England, Mr Herbert spends more time with Mary, and one day kisses her. She feels guilty for loving a married man but she still can't help herself. Kathy has her operation and to her horror it goes wrong. Her mouth's nerves are damaged and it leaves her with a distorted face which mars her looks. She is desperately upset as she knows that her beauty is the only thing that makes her interesting. She wants to die, and finds that her friends on the Riviera are embarrassed and avoid her. Mary does not know what to expect when she hears that Kathy is coming home. When she gets home Herbert pities her because she is being very brave about her disfigured face. He tells her that they can try another doctor and try to put it right. THen she finds she is pregnant. She feels a bit better because she hopes that even if she has disappointed Herbert by her lack of brains, she can give him a son. Mary feels pity for Kathy and since Kathy begs her to visit, she comes to see her often. THey become more friendly and Kathy gets through her pregnancy and has twin boys.

Rector's Daughter Part II

Mary has a passionate nature, in spite of her being dismissed as dull and churchy by many people and she is falling deeply in love with Mr Herbert. Then he writes to her to tell her that he has become engaged to a young upper class girl called Kathy Hollings, who is beautiful and charming. However she is not very clever and she dimisses people who are below her in class. Mary can't believe that Herbert has fallen in love with Kathy and abandoned her when she was hoping he would propose. She does not exactly dislike Kathy but she thinks that she is silly and vulgar and not up to Herbert's intellectual level. He marries quickly and for a year he is infatuated with his wife. She tries to adjust to life as a clergyman's wife, but she loves hunting and social events and horses, and still hangs around with some of her society friends, including her sister in law who are spoiled and selfish and who dimiss country clergy as nobodies. Soon Herbert finds himself getting very dissatisfied with his bride, she irritates him by her vulgar silliness, her slangy conversation and her habit of singing saucy songs at village concerts and sniggering in church. Herbert and Kathy begin to quarrel. She feels irritated at his condescending ways and he feels foolish for having fallen in love with her.

Rector's Daughter

this is the story of Mary Jocelyn, a clergyman's daughter who lives in a dull fading little village called Deadmayne. Her mother is dead, her older sister, who had mental difficulties, dies young and her older brothers all fall out with their father and go to live abroad, so she is very lonely. She has one or 2 friends of her own class but she is very painfully shy, and her father who is elderly and a very clever man, puts her down all the time. Her best friends are the village people and the servants at the vicarage who are very fond of her. Mary loves to read and does some writing, but her father criticises her work and only wants her to do the traditional work of the Vicar's wife or daughter, teaching Sunday school etc. When she is in her 30s, a clergyman, WIlliam Herbert comes to work in the parish and as his father was a friend of her father's, she grows friendly with him. He seems to like her and she begins to believe that she has found a man who might love her.

FM Mayor

Flora Mayor was a not very prolific writer who lived in the UK. She was born in Surrey in 1872 - her father was a professor of classics and an Anglican clergyman. She had a twin sister Alice who was very dear to her. She was intelligent and her father gave her a good education, sending her to college which was unusual at the time. However she did not do very well at college - spending a lot of her time enjoying herself. Her family were not too well off, and she tried to earn her own living. She was interested in the stage and tried to get into acting. However she did not have any success though she took classes and joined shaky touring companies. She found the actors were rough and not very refined, and began to give up hope of succeeding on the stage. She started to write stories and began to have some small success. She had an admirer, Ernest Shepherd, who wanted to marry her but it took him some time to get a job in India, which meant that he could support her. Alice was rather jealous of losing her sister. Then in 1903 Ernest died of typhoid while they were planning their wedding. Flora did not have any more chances of marriage. She lived with Alice for the rest of her life. Her health was not very good and while she wrote a couple of successful novels, she did not write a lot. She died in 1932 and Alice survived her for many years. Her best known novel is the Rector's Daughter which is about a very shy Victorian girl who lives with her elderly and difficult father in a village in the country. He is a scholar and a clergyman and he seems indifferent or hyper critical to all his children. I'll blog about her novels soon.

North and South Part II

Margaret does her best to like Milton Northern... but she finds it difficult. She meets some of the mill owners at a dinner and finds the women are very boastful. She tries to like John Thorton her father's pupil but she does not like his arrogance and hard hearted demeanour. He does not like his workers to oppose him and claims that he made his way up from poverty so they should be able to do the same. She is cool with him but he finds her attractive. She meets some of the mill workers, and finds it hard to understand them. She is shocked by their organising themselves to strike and not work, and she finds she is snubbed by Higgins, one of the more intelligent workers, when she offers to visit his 2 daughters. She does not seem to have a role as the vicar's daughter, visiting and helping the poor. The Northern folk are too independent for that. Margaret becomes friendly with Nicolas Higgins and his daughters and begins to understand why they have to organise a union and strike... When a strike happens, Margaret protects Thornton from the milling crowd, and he thinks that that means she is in love with him. Then he sees her at the railway station one night with a young man and begins to think she is in love with someone else and seeing him secretly. The truth is that Margaret's brother, Frederick who was in the Navy, led a mutiny because of ill treatment on his ship and he has now had to live abroad and she has to keep his visit to England secret. He comes back to see his mother who is increasingly ill and then goes back to his new home. During his brief visit, he knocks down a man who has gone to the police about him, and Margaret tells lies to cover this up. John knows she is lying but he backs her up.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

This is one of Gaskell's earlier social problem novels. It is set in Manchester though the name is not used. Margaret Hale, the pretty cultivated daughter of a vicar, finds that her father has begun to have doubts about his religious beliefs, and feels he cannot go on as a Church of England priest. (Mrs Gaskell's father, a Unitarian minister resigned from his position because of religious doubts). He has to give up his living and find another job. Mrs Hale is a nervous sensitive woman who is upset by this development. Margaret is also distressed at her father giving up his work and even more so to learn that the family are going to have to move from their pretty parish in Southern England, to move up North and live in an industrial city. When she sees Milton Northern she is depressed at how ugly it is, and worries that it will be difficult to live there. Mr Hale finds that some manufacturers who have worked their way up from poverty to wealth, are keen to get some of the education they missed out on as boys. THe finds a pupil, John Thornton, who has a mill and who wants to study the classics.