Eldest daughters

I keep thinking that I’m going to run out of obscure mid-20th century English women novelists to read, and I’m sure I will eventually, but not yet. Not today. I just discovered Elizabeth Caddell and I’ve never even touched Ivy Compton-Burnett. It’ll be years before this genre runs dry.  

Elizabeth Caddell was born in India in 1903 to a British officer and his wife. Based on my first experience with her, the delightful Iris in Winter, she wrote comic society novels - more light and silly than Barbara Pym, less unhinged than Margery Sharp, less cynical than Muriel Spark, but similarly preoccupied with social mores amid the routine of everyday postwar British life - especially food.  You can’t read Barbara Pym or Muriel Spark or Margery Sharp or Elizabeth Caddell without wanting a boiled egg and toast and maybe a nice cup of tea.

Iris in Winter’s titular character is the younger and more glamorous sister of Caroline, a young widow who has settled in the fictional country town of High Ambo. Caroline, a placid and peaceful person, would probably have been quite happy to keep in touch with her boisterous sister and her outrageous brother Robert and his young fiancee by mail and telegram, but the whole crew come and descend upon her, leaving her to contend with a very busy household full of lively and interesting and and slightly crazy close relatives who naturally expect her to feed them all and clean up after them all and generally upend her quiet life to accommodate them. 

*****

Did you know that August 26 was National Eldest Daughter Day? As an eldest daughter myself, I approve of a day dedicated to recognizing us. Iris in Winter spoiler alert: Caroline is an eldest daughter, so of course she welcomes her crazy siblings and takes care of them and cleans up after them, literally and metaphorically. What else is she going to do, let them starve? 

*****

LIke almost every other female protagonist in a post-war British novel, Caroline is preoccupied with food - procuring it and preserving it and preparing it and making a little go a long way. Caroline notices with dismay that Iris and Robert and Polly consume far more butter and sugar and milk and eggs than their combined rations allow, and it falls upon her to figure out how to stretch their food stores to keep everyone fed. And of course, no one other than Caroline gives a thought to housekeeping or economy, except for sweet, spoiled Polly, who tries to help with the cooking, predictably making a mess in the process. 

*****

On Sunday, my husband hosted a fantasy football draft at our house. I helped him arrange everything; and about an hour before his guests were to arrive, I asked him if I could do anything else to help, and he said “No, just do me a favor and don’t make any messes.” 

Excuse me? Have you met me? I’m an eldest daughter and I have never made a mess in my entire life.

*****

OK, back to the book. When Iris, an aspiring young reporter, comes to High Ambo on assignment from her editor, she meets a handsome young schoolmaster on the train from London. She falls in love with him, and is utterly flummoxed and confused when he doesn’t immediately fall in love with her in return, because most men do immediately fall in love with young, beautiful, charming, fashionable Iris. Why wouldn’t they?

Meanwhile, the school where the young schoolmaster teaches is struggling to remain afloat, and the insufferably arrogant and selfish Robert ends up saving it. Lots of other things happen, too - Caroline and Iris befriend a charming little band of schoolboys, who help with repairs in exchange for the occasional treat (everyone in postwar Britain is obsessed with food), and Iris is nearly arrested for sneaking into the wrong house to steal back an umbrella that had been earlier stolen from her by a kleptomaniac old man, and the flighty and whimsical Polly goes missing for a bit. It's all very screwball comedy. 

But everything turns out as it should and everyone ends up where they should be, or at least close to where they should be Ideally, Iris and her beloved schoolmaster would finish their courtship in a Margery Sharp novel, and they’d be married and on a plane to New York by the end. Caroline would spend the rest of her quiet life arranging jumble sales and inviting the curate for tea in a quiet Barbara Pym London suburb. Robert and Polly would end up at Blandings Castle or at Bertie Wooster’s Aunt Dahlia’s country home. Aunt Dahlia would try but fail to evict them and then she’d force Bertie to come down from London so that Jeeves could get rid of them for her. But even Robert would be no match for Lord Emsworth.