Hostages to Fortune

'He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue, or mischief'- Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Well, here's Francis Bacon's analogy from a female point of view. Hostages to Fortune isn't a title that you hear about often, or one that had ever really jumped out to me while browsing through the Persephone catalogue. I was very lucky to receive a token for two Persephones as a leaving present from the organisation I was doing a placement with and chose one that I'd had my eye on (To Bed With Grand Music by Marghanita Laski) and took a chance on the other. I'm certainly glad that I did because this is a novel that really challenges preconceptions of the domestic novel as something 'nice' and 'cosy.' In fact, this is a novel steeped in domesticity without a trace of sentimentality.

Like her protagonist Catherine, Elizabeth Cambridge was also a doctor's wife raising three children in isolated rural Oxfordshire after the First World War in middle class poverty (though I had to raise an eyebrow slightly at the way in which they have a house that is admittedly too large for them, a car, a maid and a gardener). Catherine's husband William is invalided out of the army and is ambivalent towards his children upon his return, they struggle with too little money, and Catherine's literary ambitions are stifled by rejection and lack of time.

Perhaps strangely, the book it most reminded me of was Lark Rise to Candleford (Flora Thompson's trilogy is exquisite and infinitely better than the schmaltzy TV show that shares its name, but very little else) in the way in which there is no plot in the traditional sense and it details a way of life soon to disappear over a period of about 15 years, from the birth of Catherine's first child Audrey to when Audrey is on the cusp of adulthood and her youngest joins his brother at boarding school. It's at the end of this era when she realises that the drudgery and tedium has been worth it.

The simplicity of the writing (at least on the surface) and understated tone also reminds me of Dorothy Whipple, particularly in her short stories, but Whipple is an extremely moral writer. As much as I love her, she can be a tad all-knowing at times, while there are no heroes and villains in Cambridge's novel. Her characters are people doing what they feel is best in less than ideal circumstances.

I'm becoming increasingly interested in life writing and autobiographical novels like this seem to blur all sorts of boundaries between reality and fiction. I wonder how Cambridge's children felt about this as Catherine's children aren't always portrayed in the most positive light.

A couple of sample passages:

She didn't want Audrey to love her if Audrey wasn't ready to love. She wasn't bound to, just because she and William had begotten her. Love had to grow, like everything else.  She would have to obey, and at once, without argument, life was so sudden and dangerous for the very young. But love? She loved Audrey, that was enough for the present. (31)

'Fairies poached eggs!' Audrey said, pointing to the floating daisies.
   Catherine laughed, her face close to Audrey's. She kissed her
'You don't encourage her for doing something for you,' Violet said, 'but you kiss her when she talks nonsense. As if she was always going to be a baby!'
   Catherine said nothing. She thought her daughter had really done something more deserving of kisses than the dumping of discarded flowers. She stood up, the bowl of shelled peas in the crook of her arm, and reached for the basket of pea shucks with her other hand. (110)

It's only Wednesday and I'm 'between jobs', so what next? I have a Penguin copy of The Winds of Heaven by Monica Dickens, one of the autumn re-prints, so maybe I'll have a little sneak preview.