william

William by E. H. Young (Readers Club, 1941)

 William Nesbitt and his wife Kate live in a provincial sea-side town in England near the Channel where William owns a successful shipping company (he was formerly a sea captain).  They are comfortably upper-middle class and their five children are all grown and married except for the youngest, Janet, who still lives in her parents’ beautiful home in Upper Radstrowe.  Mabel, Walter, and Dora also live in Radstrowe; only Lydia, William’s favorite daughter, has ventured to London where she leads a cosmopolitan life with her husband Oliver.  As the book begins everything seems fine with the family, despite some domestic tensions, but midway through Lydia causes a scandal by leaving Oliver and going to live with her lover, Henry, in his ancestral family home not far from Radstrowe.  This development upsets everyone: Mrs. Nesbitt cannot forgive her daughter, who she has never particularly liked, considering her spoiled and selfish; Lydia’s siblings and in-laws think that her actions will reflect poorly on them and their children; and Janet, on the verge of marriage herself, begins to wonder if it’s an institution she cares to join.  Only William is sympathetic and understanding, and wants Lydia to be happy.  He is deeply disappointed by his wife’s stubborn and ungenerous response to their daughter’s plight, and refuses to moderate his beliefs and actions to please her.

Because this situation now seems rather inconsequential and quaint, much of the drama and tension in the book falls a little flat.  This is also because Young is not very adept in creating complex characters or finessing plot.  She has a heavy, rather broad hand when dealing with both these things, and the book on the whole feels somewhat artificial, and unsubtle.

William, however, is an interesting and unique and vital character, seeing through and gently manipulating all those around him.  He’s a very wise and loving — and funny — father, and a charming character.  Lydia also rises above the commonplace: she sees herself clearly and suffers accordingly, and there is something unexpectedly poignant about her plight.

Carl Van Doren, in his introduction to this edition (reprinted by Readers Club in 1941, fifteen years after its original 1926 publication), makes a case for the book being republished during WWII based upon the Nesbitts’ decency and stalwartness — in other words, their Britishness.  What allows the Nesbitt family to make their way through the crisis of Lydia’s scandal is exactly the same qualities that will enable the British to survive and win the War.

In an interesting but undeveloped subplot, Janet, the unmarried daughter, goes on a walking holiday with a “mannish” young woman.  Janet appears to be a lesbian — she is private, removed from the family, and seems totally uninterested in men.  But then towards the end of the book she puts on her dancing slippers and marries a doctor who William finds to be “dry as dust,” but doesn’t go and live with him.  It’s all very curious, and one wonders what Young’s conception of the character was.  She seems to be unaware of her own character’s sexuality, but that doesn’t stop her from revealing it, if only between the lines, to the contemporary reader.