Someone at a Distance Part II

Louise is unhappy and angry at her French lover's desertion and she hate the provincial town where she has grown up.. Her parents are fond of her but she is a restless difficult person. She is not much liked by the local married ladies, and they discourage their sons from courting her, so her chances of marriage in France seem very slim. She goes back to England after spending a few months in France, and then visits again, but soon afterwards Mrs North dies. She leaves Louise a lot of her jewellery and a thousand pounds, which is a handsome sum to add to her dowry. Louise decides to go back to England again, to make sure she gets the bequest and while she is staying there, she starts an affair with Avery, who is an amiable but selfish man. Ellen, his wife, is a good, kindly woman who is busy with keeping house and her children and she does not devote much energy to her looks or clothes, and Avery is drawn away towards Louise, who is smart looking, intriguing and beautiful. Avery finds the affair exciting, and Louise becomes more selfish and difficult as a guest, but when Ellen suggests that she could now go home to France, she makes excuses to stay a bit longer. Then, when Anne, the Norths' daughter comes home from school, she and Ellen walk in on Avery in a passionate embrace with Louise. Avery loves his daughter and his son Hugh who is in the army doing National Service, and he is dreadfully ashamed of hurting his daughter, so he ends up taking Louise away and going to London. She is delighted, as she feels this will push the marriage towards an ending and she will be married to a rich English man.

Someone at a Distance By Dorothy Whipple

This is one of Whipple's later novels, set in France and England. It is the story of a middle class English family and a French girl who becomes involved with them. Louise Lanier is a cool hard headed French girl, who has been having an affair with a man from a much richer and grander family, in her provincial town. He deserts her to marry a well bred religious minded woman from a rich family. Hurt and angry, Louise goes to England to become a companion to Mrs North, a well to do English lady. Mrs North is an elderly widow who has a son Avery who lives nearby. I hope to write a full review of this later.

Absolute Truths Part III

Charles drives Harriet home, and she astonishes him by telling him that she feels he's unfairly hostile to Neville. He can see she is clearly very fond of Aysgarth. He is surprised to be accused like this, and then she makes a pass at him. She tells him Neville is not her type physically but she does find Charles attractive. Startled, he rebuffs her rudely, and the following day, he and Neville end up in a row. Neville accuses him of having an affair with Harriet. Charles is horrified, because he and his Dean are on such bad terms over Neville's bolshie behaviour about the accounts for the Cathedral fund raising... He has begun to fear that Neville might lash out and make a public accusation of the alleged affair. However, he remembers that he has had a fling with Sheila Preston which means that he is very little better than Neville with his weakness for young women. He goes to Jon, who has Neville with him, also seeking help because of their row. Jon tells him that the 2 of them have to make up their differences. Charles tells Neville that he did not sleep with Harriet. Neville realises he is sincere and accepts the assurance. Charles says that he thinks that Harriet made up the story to defend him, Neville, because she is very fond of him. Neville is flattered at the fact that this attractive woman seems to care for him, but he tells Charles he's very sorry that he believed the accusation. Charles feels very guilty when Neville says this, and it looks as if they might begin to reconcile. Neville tells him that he knows that Charles has always had uneasy feelings about him because he kissed Lyle years ago after Bishop Jardine's funeral. Charles finds it hard to admit this but he knows it is true. The 2 men try to talk and realise that both of them have had problems in their past, with difficult uncles or fathers..(Charles' adoptive father was strict with him and Neville's uncle Willoughby was a domineering man). Then Jon pushes Neville too much, and irritates him. So, the Dean says he will try to be more agreeable in future, but he does not want to continue the discussion. However, Neville then comes clean to his bishop. First, he tells Jon that he wants to resign as Dean and Charles is astounded. Jon suggests that he asks Neville why he's making such an unusual gesture. Neville explains that he had hit on a brilliant scheme to raise money for the cathedral's repairs, but it is a bit unorthodox. He also has wanted to leave Starbridge, but this leaves him with the problem of how to buy a new house. Dido wants to live in Surrey, and he has always tried to give his wife what she wants, to keep her calm and help her control her neurotic side. He says he realises he was not suited to working with others as Dean.. but he could get a fund raising job in another area. But he does not have the capital to buy a house. So he decides to invest the money raised for the repairs in the art market. He had asked Harriet to help him find paintings to buy and sell. She and he worked together and he has raised a lot of money. The shady bit is that he has paid himself a commission as "Art expert", to get money for his house. Charles is shocked. But he finds himself unable to judge Neville. He says that he knows Aysgarth has raised a lot of money and that he did the rest to look after his wife.. and that he forgives him. Neville is relieved, but says that he will resign from his job, once the appeal has raised enough to fix the roof. And he'll move to Surrey and find a retirement job with a church organisation. Charles is relieved that the mystery of why he was so cagy about the accounts is solved and that he and Neville can now get on. But Charles still has worries. Sheila Preston has come to Starbridge for a holiday, and he is sure that she's trying to lure him into a proposal. He agrees to meet her but is scared, when he does so. She then tells him that she is not trying to catch him, but that she wants to tell him that her marriage was not happy. Derek, her husband, was a homosexual, and while they cared for each other, and were good friends, they had no sex life. When they talk a little, Charles feels deep pity for her, and wonders if she and he might work out as a couple. He then finds that Paul, one of the canons at the Cathedral, has met her during her holiday. Paul has now asked her out. He is relieved that she has some chance of another happier marriage and that he now understands her much better. Charles has become friendly with Lewis Hall, a maverick Anglo Catholic priest, who has come to Starbridge and wants to set up a Healing Centre. He is unusual in that he is divorced, though he does not believe it is right for a priest to remarry after a divorce. He has a daughter Rachel, and Charles finds him an interesting companion, if eccentric. Charles' sons turn up, both involved in a crisis. Charley has told Michael's girlfriend that he was cheating on her. Holly Carr, the girlfriend, gets very upset and kills herself and Michael is shaken but angry with Charley who now feels guilty. Charles tries to sort out their problems. He tells them that they are both his sons. He tells Charley that he knows now that he was not fair to Jardine, Charley's biological father, and that he gave his adopted son a false picture of him. Alex Jardine had his faults but he was a good man, intelligent, brave, and tough enough to survive a difficult marriage and a disastrous love affair... and Charley begins to feel more secure about himself and his relationship with this adoptive father. Charles, feeling a little easier, goes to pray in the Cathedral. There he has a scary experience; he thinks that he sees Jardine's ghost. He calls Lewis and talks to him... and Lewis, who is experienced in the paranormal, helps him to accept his complicated relationship with Jardine and forgive him. He says that whether Charles saw a ghost of Jardine or not, is immaterial, it is what the apparition means that is important. He agrees to celebrate Mass on the spot where the ghost appeared. Charles goes back home, to his surprise, Loretta is waiting there. She tells him that she cancelled her flight. She feels he wants to be with her. Charles kisses her happily and shocks Charley, who is still rather a prude. Charles and Loretta marry after a suitable interval, and he has a loving companion in his old age. Sheila marries Paul Dalton, and he gets a transfer to another diocese. Charles finds himself being a more flexible bishop, able to look at things from different viewpoints. He and Neville don't become great friends, but they get on well and see each other's good points. Charles retires a few years later. He and Loretta move to Cambridge where they can both pursue their writing interests. Neville works very hard to raise more money for the Appeal, raising a triumphant amount. He ends up with a surplus. Then he retires and gets a part time job fund raising for the Church in Surrey. We learn that he and Dido rub along all right, but there are tragedies in the family, such as Christian's death, and Neville's health becomes a problem. He comes to Starbridge at times to visit the graves of his dead babies. He has a stroke, but he manages to go and see Venetia Flaxton again, and he keeps in touch with Charles.. Charles is shaken up, when he hears he has died, soon after he saw Venetia. Neville asks for Charley to preach at his funeral and he produces a splendid sermon. Charles finds that as he grows older, he and Charley disagree on theology. Charley is a modern Evangelical and Charles is a middle of the road Anglican. However he gets on much better with Michael (who marries Marina Markhampton) and loves his grandson by Michael very much.

Absolute Truths Part II

Charles turns to Jon Darrow, now an old man and a recluse, for help and advice, but as he tries to recvoer from Lyle's death, times are very hard for him. He worries about Neville's work on the Cathedral appeal. The dean is very reluctant to show his accounts to the other clergy who are involved. Neville and Dido, trying to be friendly, invite him to dinner, and there he meets Loretta Staviski, the American lady whom he had romanced briefly many years ago. They talk and he tells her some of what has happened to him over the years, and he finds he still enjoys her company. She tells him that while she used to be an agnostic, she now goes to an Episcopalian church. He and Charley have a row because his son insists on repeating gossip about Michael to him. Charles has always tried to convince himself that his relationship with Charley is just the same as if Charley were his biological son. He has been a loving doting father for a long time. But now, he is having to admit to himself that he and Charley have little or nothing in common, and he loses his temper and calls him a bastard. Then he feels guilty. In a desperate attempt to make up to his son, he goes to London with him to hear him take a service at his church. Charley then has to go to lunch with a parishioner. Charles decides to go for a walk and get his own lunch. He wanders around and finds himself in Pimlico, where Sheila Preston, the widow of his friend Derek, is now living. He calls on her, and finds her pleasant company. She is now living in a small flat in London and she and he talk about their lives. She tells him that she feels angry that the church lost touch with her once Derek died, and treated her as a non person. Charles, feeling desperately lonely, winds up in bed with her. He realises that this was a dreadful mistake. He knows it was wrong. Also, she will now expect, as a respectable clerical widow, that he will marry her when his mourning period is over. He returns to Starbridge for advice. Jon is busy looking after his younger son, Nick, who has come home from Africa. Charles invites Martin, Jon's older son, who is gay and an actor, to come and stay with him, to keep him company. It will be at least a few days before Jon is able to help him again. He dines with Martin and Harriet March, a sculptor who has been doing a model of Aysgarth's hands and who is close friends with Neville. He finds himself flirting with her and worries about his weakness for women.

Absolute Truths Part I

Charles is now Bishop of Starbridge. He is very hard working and he is devoted to his wife and 2 sons, one of whom is not his biological son. Neville has tried to get over his romance with Venetia and commit himself again to his marriage to Dido.. He also works very hard and is currently engaged in raising money to maintain the cathedral's structure. He is a talented fund raiser. Charles has had problems with his 2 boys. Charley, the elder one, has become a clergyman and he is something of a prig. Charles loves him, and is indulgent towards him, but at times he finds him hard going. He realises Charley is prone to moralise and to tell tales on his brother but he always forgives him. Michael however is a womaniser, who likes to drink. He started off studying medicine but was thrown out of medical school. He has now gone into the BBC where he is a trainee TV producer. Charles worries about him, as the 2 of them are always having rows but he has Lyle to turn to for comfort. They had had a rocky start to their marriage but have grown closer as they got older. He has had a visit from Michael, to tell him and Lyle that he is engaged to an American girl he has been dating. She is one of Marina Markhampton's set. Both Lyle and Charles are shocked. It seems clear that she is marrying Michael for his money. She is silly and vulgar and also takes drugs. Lyle has a chat with her and hints that the Ashworths are not as well off as she thinks, and that Charles does not have any private money. Dinkie is not pleased to hear this. She has no intention of marrying Michael if he is not well off. She breaks off the engagement, as soon as she can. Lyle feels a bit resentful that she is always being called on to solve practical problems. She and Charles sigh with relief. Then, after Charles has had a very busy day at his work, he goes home and Lyle collapses and dies. He has now lost the wife who was his friend and who was a buffer between him and the boys.

Absolute Truths

This is the final novel of the Starbridge series, its set in the 1960s, a couple of years after Neville Aysgarth's affair with Venetia Flaxton. He is still Dean of the Cathedral, and Charles is still the Bishop and there is tension between them. M/F

Persuasion Final Part

Louisa is badly shaken by her fall and is nursed by Mrs Harville.. Anne has to go back to Bath but is relieved that the girl is recovering slowly from her injury. In Bath, she visits Mrs Smith, and the invalid lady tells her that she herself knew William Walter in her younger days. Anne is horrified when Mrs Smith tells her that Elliot behaved very badly towards her and her late husband. He got Mr Smith into debt, then later when she herself was ill and in financial trouble, he refused to help her. She tells Anne that she hoped that he might have reformed now that he is older. She did not say anything about him, because he seems to genuinely care for Anne herself. Anne is disappointed by her friend not telling her this earlier but accepts that as a helpless invalid, she is not always able to control her own life. She assures Mrs Smith that she has never cared for William and would not marry him. She meets Charles Musgrove and his family who are staying at an inn, in Bath, buying clothes for Henrietta's wedding. Charles tells her that Louisa is now engaged to James Benwick. He became fond of while she was recovering from her injuries. She is now a quieter, gentler girl and Benwick, now recovering from the loss of his fiancee, has fallen in love with her. Wentworth, in the room with the family, writes her a letter telling her that he loves her and never loved Louisa, and they become engaged. They walk through Bath happily. However, Elizabeth finds that her hanger-on friend Mrs Clay has been seeing William Elliott on the sly, and having an affair with him. He and she run off together. Elizabeth realises that the woman she thought was her friend, and the man whom she half hoped to marry, have betrayed her. Mrs Clay is sly and ambitious, and she had been hoping to marry Sir Walter, but she was having no luck courting him. William however will be the baronet, when Sir Walter dies. He also has a comfortable fortune. She hopes that as his mistress, she can persuade him to marry her. Wentworth and Anne marry, and she gets a carriage as a wedding present. The Crofts continue to live in Kellynch.