Rose Reads Novels

The Foolish Gentlewoman by Margery Sharp

When I found a battered copy of The Foolish Gentlewoman by Margery Sharp in an Op Shop (otherwise known as a thrift shop or charity shop, depending on where you’re from), I thought myself very lucky indeed, as I’d adored The Nutmeg Tree, which featured a charming, disreputable heroine who lived her life with pleasure and without guilt.

I didn’t like The Foolish Gentlewoman quite so well. It was a more serious story sent in more somber times. It was still very enjoyable, though; the plot was good, the characters felt real and so did their various predicaments.

The story was set soon after the end of World War Two in London, when bombed homes were being rebuilt and food was still being rationed. Disapproving, set-in-his-ways Simon Brocken was forced to live with Isabel, his brother’s widow while the roof on his own home was being repaired, along with a menagerie of people and animals that Isabel had collected.

Along with Humphrey, a nephew of Isabel’s from New Zealand who sunbaked naked below the terrace, Isabel also had Jacqueline, a young companion who was a poor-relation of someone or other living with her at Chipping Lodge, plus a dog that Simon said in Isabel’s hearing should have been put down. Old friends of Isabel’s popped in and out and were made more or less welcome, while the house itself was managed by a Mrs Poole and her young daughter, Greta.

All was well until Isabel went to church and caught a few words of a sermon, which was surprising, because she freely admitted that she’d never really gotten into the habit of listening to sermons. The gist of the fateful words was that time did not absolve a person who had carried out an unkind act of having been unkind, which caused Isabel to reflect on something she had done a long time ago to another girl. In short, Isabel had prevented a romance from blossoming between a young man she was in love with and Tilly Cuff, another of Isabel’s poor relations, out of jealousy. Tilly had been very poor, and after leaving Isabel’s home soon after the thwarted romance, had always worked as a companion or as a nurse for her elderly, dying relations.

Isabel’s conscience got the better of her and she invited Tilly to stay with her at Chipping Lodge with the intention of signing over her home, money and worldly possessions to Tilly to make amends for the wrong she had done to her.

Simon, not surprisingly, was horrified, as was Humphrey, even though he knew and freely acknowledged he had no claim on his aunt’s property. The group already living at Chipping Lodge were even more dismayed when Tilly turned out to be a nasty troublemaker who completely upset the delicate balance in the house.

There were some very funny moments in this book, including a description of the other housemates sidetracking Tilly when she was going to do something terrible by saying they’d found a Colorado beetle, which backfired on them when Tilly phoned up the Ministry of Agriculture to report the find. When the Ministry phoned back, Humphrey intercepted the call and described the beetle as ‘being bright red, with black spots, and responsive to the cry of “Fly away home”; exchanged a few sentiments on the unreliability of women, and parted from the Ministry on friendly terms.‘

I enjoyed several references within the story to Jane Austen’s works, including the description of Humphrey and Jacqueline’s courtship as being at ‘Jane Austen’s tempo’, which seemed to me to be lovely, a slow-paced, leisurely romance compared to the speed of modern romances. I also enjoyed one character’s musings on seeing a sign over a shop that said ‘Elizabeth Collins’ – of course her imagination led her to wonder what might have happened if Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice had married Mr Collins.

The Foolish Gentlewoman can be read on several levels; as witty, light entertainment, or as a deeper, thoughtful look at how people live with and atone for past behaviour that they believe was a sin.

I’ll continue to seek out other books by Margery Sharp.