Stuck in a Book

I downloaded an ebook of the complete(ish) works of E. Nesbit a few years ago, and I have it for emergencies on my phone’s Kindle app. Since it really is only for emergencies (I usually have a book in my bag, as a first port of call) it probably takes me a year to read each book. Often I’ve forgotten everything that’s going on by the time I stumble to the end. But no matter, they are there to reread, the whole collection cost me about a pound.

I’d just finished Daphne in Fitzroy Square and decided to start 1902’s The Red House. Here’s the opening…

Conventionally our life-story ended in a shower of rice at the church door, amid the scent of white flowers, with a flutter of white favors all about us. We left behind us those relatives whose presence had been so little desired by us during our brief courtship, and a high-heeled white satin slipper struck the back of the brougham as we drove off. It was like a parting slap on the shoulder from our old life—the old life which we left so gayly, eager to fulfil the destiny set as the end of our wooing’s fairy story, and to “live happy ever after.”

And now all that was six months ago; and instead of attending to that destiny, the fairy princess and her unworthy prince were plunged over head and ears in their first quarrel—their first serious quarrel—about the real and earnest things of life; for the other little quarrels about matters of sentiment and the affections really did not count. They were only play and make-believe; still, they had got our hands in, so that when we really differed seriously we both knew exactly how to behave—we had played at quarrels so often. This quarrel was very serious, because it was about my shaving-brush and Chloe’s handkerchief-case. There was a cupboard with a window—Chloe called it my dressing-room, and, at first, I humoured her pretty fancy about it, and pretended that I could really see to shave in a glass that faced the window, although my shoulders, as I stood, cut off all light. But even then I used really to shave at Chloe’s mirror after she had gone down to make the tea and boil the eggs—only I kept my shaving things in the embroidered vestments which my wife’s affection provided and her fingers worked, and these lived in the “dressing-room.” But the subterfuge presently seemed unworthy, and I found myself, in the ardour of a truthful nature, leaving my soapy brush on her toilet-table. Chloe called this untidiness, and worse, and urged that I had a dressing-room. Then I put the brush away. This had happened more than once.

This contretemps leads to the narrator (Len) and his new wife Chloe deciding that their home – though happy – is inconvenient and cramped. And, would you believe it? They are suddenly left The Red House as an unexpected legacy. It is far too big for them, and they couldn’t possibly live in it, but they might as well go and see it…

I had read about this far when I knew I needed to have a paper copy. Reading on my phone wouldn’t do. I suspected I would love The Red House – I already loved Chloe and Len. It had ingredients that I can’t resist: house-hunting, and an Edwardian contended whimsy, where the stakes are low, the humour constant, and the whole thing delightfully affable. It reminded me a lot of the sketches A.A. Milne wrote for Punch. This wasn’t quite house-hunting, but it was house-viewing, and that would do.

Original copies of The Red House are hard to find, and even nice editions aren’t easy – so I had to settle for one of those print-on-demand editions that apparently forgets the size that novels always are and prints oddly tall books with too much text on each page. No matter; the book was in hand and I could dive in.

Of course, as the title betrayed, after some debate Chloe and Len move to the Red House – which, confusingly, is built from yellow bricks. That was never really explained. Here is their first sight of it:

“Is this really it?” asked Chloe, in a whisper. And well might she ask. The yellow brick on which in my talk I had laid so much stress was hidden almost—at any rate transformed, transfigured—by a net-work of great leaves and red buds; creepers covered it—all but. And at the side there were jasmine that in July nights would be starry and scented, and wistaria, purple-flowered and yellow-leaved over its thick, gnarled boughs, and ivy; and at the back, where the shaky green veranda is overhung by the perilous charm of the white balcony, Virginia-creepers and climbing roses grew in a thorny maze. The moat was there, girdling the old lawns—where once the Elizabethan manor stood—with a belt of silver, a sad swan and a leaky boat keeping each other company. Yellow laburnums trailed their long hair in the water, and sweet lilac-bushes swayed to look at their pretty plumes reflected in it. To right and left stretched the green tangled mysteries of the overgrown gardens.

It is too big for them, and run down, and has all manner of problems – and, of course, they have to move there. Having read Julia Briggs’ biography of E. Nesbit a while ago, it’s interesting to see that the house is closely based on one the Nesbit lived in herself – though towards the end of a difficult and unhappy marriage. She has chosen to redeem it in this novel, putting it at the beginning of a marriage that is joyfully happy. Think Greenery Street levels of cheer and wit. I was intrigued that she chose to write from the man’s point of view, and I wonder why. It works, but it is a curious decision if the couple are even loosely based on her and her husband – or her imagined, hoped-for versions.

Chloe is an illustrator and Len is a writer of short pieces for magazines – they continue this work, earning enough to keep going and not much more. And the plot is really about their everyday life – the trivial ups and downs of early married life, and of trying to make ends meet in a home that is impractical but much loved. Harriet has written a lovely review of this book, and I have to agree with her when she writes “You might think that doesn’t sound like much of a plot, but it is narrated so vividly and joyfully, and Chloe and Len are such immensely loveable people, that the sheer verve of it all carries you through, if you’re like me, loving every minute.”

I haven’t mentioned Yolande – their straight-talking friend, much more practical than them – or the series of people who move into the cottages that come with the estate. There are some interesting moments with local villagers, and a few stray maids and the like who come for a bit. It’s all quite episodic. Most interesting for fans of Nesbit’s children’s books are the arrival of a group of children – who are the Bastable children from The Treasure Seekers and other books. I think I’m right in saying that the event appears in one of the Bastable books, from the children’s perspective rather than Len and Chloe’s, which is a fun moment of what we called intertextuality at university.

Few books can live up to the unalloyed joy of Nesbit’s final novel, The Lark, but this is right up there. It’s a thoroughly happy book, and how many of them are there in the world? I’m afraid, for the time being, it’s not easy to get nice editions. Until such a time, I think it’s worth getting hold of any copy you can.