Book Review//Father by Elizabeth von Arnim

About a dozen years ago I bought a Kindle and went a bit crazy downloading all the free, out-of-copyright books I could find. The Enchanted April was one of my first discoveries and I loved it. I still do and I reread it almost every April. Obviously, I was thrilled when the British Library sent me a copy of Father and I loved this book too. The Enchanted April and Father are similar in many ways. Both are the stories of downtrodden women who see an opportunity for escape and happiness and immediately seize it.

Father, despite the title, is the story of Jennifer who, at 33, has devoted her entire life to taking care of her father. Ever since her mother’s death she has run his house and acted as his secretary while he writes his books. She thinks this is the way her life will always be and she is resigned to that. Until, that is, her father returns home one day with a new, young wife. Father was resigned to continuing to provide for his daughter and thought Jennifer would be upset by his marriage but it was just the opposite.

Through and beyond father she saw doors flying open, walls falling flat, and herself running unhindered down the steps, along Gower Street, away through London, across suburbs, out, out into great sunlit spaces where the wind, fresh and scented, rushed to meet her, and the birds, and the stars, and those glorious vague beings in the Bible called sons of the morning, sang together for joy. Father, provided for; she, with a clear conscience, free; the twelve years during which youth had been ebbing away, the years shut up in the back diningroom at a typewriter, with no hope that anything would ever be different and no thought of anything but sticking to her promise and taking care of the helpless, gifted man, finished and done with–what did they matter now? Not a jot, thought Jen, her eyes shining with the reflection of what she saw through and beyond father. She could feel the wind–she could feel it, the scented fresh wind, blowing up her hair as she ran and ran…

Jennifer does escape. She takes the one hundred pounds a year she has inherited from her mother and she rents a cottage in the countryside and she is gloriously happy. She rents her cottage from the Vicar who is a young, mild man bossed around by his sister who acts as his housekeeper. It is obvious where this is going. The Vicar falls in love with Jennifer. His sister, Alice does not approve.

Her whole life would be torn up by the roots if anything happened to James–anything finally severing like death or marriage. Why, she would be done for. She would just sink into an unconsidered spinster, with neither authority nor background; and, if it were marriage which severed, she would be unpleasantly short of money into the bargain. Outrageous, of course, that it should be so, but that was life all over–men getting everything, even if they were fools, and women’s only chance of proper recognition and power being in connection with, and through the creatures; unless one were one of these women with so-called gifts, one of these artist-women, but she thanked God she wasn’t that sort. And quite apart from the fact that she owed her comfortable home and position, and her freedom from money cares to James, having ruled him since he was a baby he had now become necessary to her very existence–something to care for and to bully, to goad and to guard, something belonging to her, an object in life. What she would do without James, Alice, in her softer moments, couldn’t imagine.

Alice rushes James off to Switzerland to get him away from Jennifer. Father’s new wife shows up on Jennifer’s doorstep very unhappy and looking to Jennifer for help.

“I don’t know what you think,” said Netta, leaning forward and searching Jennifer’s face as though for help and enlightenment, “but I think there ought to be a close time for such things.”

“What things?” asked Jen.

“Why, lovemaking,” said Netta, looking at her stepdaughter, aggrieved and indignant.

“Lovemaking?” repeated Jen, startled. “Look here, Netta,” she said hastily, turning a little read beneath her sunburn, so strange was it to think of father in these connections, “you must talk to your mother about this sort of thing, if you feel you must talk to somebody. And tea’s ready. Come along–pull up your chair. Will that dog keep quiet, do you think?”

“I haven’t got a mother,” said Netta, without moving

“Well then, I should say it was better not to talk to anybody. I suppose if one gets married one must expect to–to be made love to.”

“But not at breakfast.”

“Why not, if one happens to want to?”

“Two should happen to want to.”

“Well, anyhow I’m sure it’s ridiculous to try and have fixed times for it, and switch it on as if it were electric light.”

“I don’t want to switch it on. I want to switch it off.”

If her father’s marriage falls apart then who will take care of him? Jennifer sees her hard-won freedom disappearing. By this time, any reader will be desperately hoping Jennifer can be happy, James will put his bossy sister in her place, and yes, that Alice gets a bit of security in her life. Elizabeth von Arnim ties it all up together in a neat package and delivers exactly what the reader wants.

This book was a joy to read. Jennifer’s enthusiasm for her new life and her happiness leaps off the page and pulls the reader in. I defy anyone to read it and not want their own little cottage in the countryside.