I hope and suspect that most of us have read one of the books that E.M. Delafield published in 1930 – The Diary of a Provincial Lady. Rather less popular is the title that I picked off my well-stocked Delafield shelves: Turn Back The Leaves. I have quite a few unread Delafields among the many that I have read, and it was good to get one down.
Turn Back The Leaves is a very different novel from The Diary of a Provincial Lady. It is not at all funny, for starters. Often Delafield combines serious topics with some levity, but this is nearly absent in this tangled story of illegitimacy and secrets. And, above all, the tensions of a family maintaining Catholic mores.
The novel starts in 1890 and ends in 1929, though most of it takes place just before and after World War One. But that section needs a bit of back story, and that’s what Delafield starts us with. In brief, a woman with the extraordinary name Edmunda marries a man named Joseph, despite neither of them being enthused by the match. They are both ardent Catholics, and their families are keen for them to marry other upstanding Catholics. It is a loveless match, though neither of them have been and love and don’t particularly miss what they haven’t had. Except then, of course, Edmunda does fall in love with another man – and Stella is born illegitimately. Joseph forgives her; they have four other children; she dies. Stella is left alone in London with a paid governess and nurse, and the others grow up with Joseph and his second wife.
Fast forward a few years – and some rather unnecessarily detailed characterisation of characters we will never see again, along the way – and Stella moves back to live with her half-brother and half-sisters, though none of them know the connection. She is only there as a ‘family friend’. And has been taken in because Joseph and his new wife are keen to give her a ‘good Catholic upbringing’. Only… there are temptations in the way of her and one of her half-sisters. They both fall in love with Protestants. Marrying out of the Catholic church is not forbidden, but it is only allowed if the non-Catholic partner allows their children to be brought up as Catholics – ‘the promises’ – and the prospective husbands won’t allow this.
Delafield’s author’s foreword reads that ‘this book is in no way intended as propaganda either for or against the Roman Catholic faith. It purports only to hold up a mirror to the psychological and religious environment of a little-known section of English society as it has existed for many years, and still exists today’. This is pretty disingenuous. As with quite a lot of Delafield’s novels, particularly the early ones, this is clearly motivated by some distaste for her Catholic upbringing. It isn’t a bitter book, but you never get the sense that the author is ambivalent.
But the Catholic characters are not monsters by any means. Sir Joseph is rather domineering, but others are motivated by their love for their church and their eagerness to do right. And it’s a very engaging, well-written novel, with vivid characters who only slightly lose their vividness by the author’s attempt to have slightly too many focuses. Stella should really be front and centre, but disappears towards the end when Delafield wants us to empathise with the rest of the family too.
I don’t know much about Catholicism, and I don’t know if inter-marrying is still as big a deal, or if the official line is still that no other Christian denomination is properly following Christ. I do know that Protestants still follow the beliefs of the Protestants in this novel – that following Christ is the important bit, not the specific church. As Delafield writes in her foreword, the Catholic angle was a niche point even in 1930 – and many readers might be uncertain that their interest could be sustained in a novel which revolves around the Catholic/non-Catholic angle.
Which would be a pity, because I think Turn Back The Leaves is very good indeed. At her best, Delafield is great at giving a novel momentum as well as psychological complexity and empathetic characters. Her writing is not unduly fancy, nor does it have the hilarious phrasing of the Provincial Lady books, but she does use the quiet, unshowy prose to pull the rug from under our feet. We are suddenly hit by observations and emotional moments, in few and precise words, that we might not be expecting. I think this is the 25th novel I’ve read by Delafield, and it’s up there among the ones I’ve enjoyed most. It feels odd to read one in which she is almost never humorous at all – but perhaps she wanted to make her 1930 output as distinct as possible. And the Provincial Lady this ain’t!
Interesting! I somehow always expect her to be humourous, but this is anything but. As for the Catholic element, despite having a working connection with the religion, I’m not that much of an expert. But I would say that it’s probably still in some areas frowned upon to step outside your own faith. I would have hoped we’d moved into a more inclusive world, but alas that seems less likely daily….
I did find it funny how everyone who isn’t Catholic was considering Protestant. Even a Christian like me would now not fall into either of those categories!
Oddly enough, I think that religiously mixed marriages were more easily dealt with 50 to 100 years ago. My grandparents had to promise to bring up boys as Catholics and girls as Protestants . This was Pre-WWI in Vienna. When I married we had a shorter service in the Catholic Church, not the full Wedding Mass. (Neither of us could have cared less!)
Much earlier, my great great grandfather , in Ireland , was brought up as a Protestant so that he could inherit the family estate, which Catholics could not do. He later became a member of parliament, in Westminster, which as a Catholic again he could not have done. Over the years emotions seem to have taken the place of straight politics and convenience.
Although I thought I had all of her books I don’t know of this one at all and am now going to look for it., Thankyou.
That is interesting! Thanks for sharing. And I wonder if it had a different title in the US? Quite a few of hers did, as I’m sure you know.
As Karen said, interesting. I have a number of unread Delafields, but not this one. But now I feel I need to read it!
If you’re happy with ebooks, I think there are loads out there – she’s out of copyright now, in the UK at least.
I haven’t read any Delafields yet, it seems I have a lot to look forward too!
Definitely! I think this is a case where her best are the ones still in print, so I’d go for Provincial Lady first.
Delafield no 25? You really are a super-fan! This does sound very different from The Provincial Lady (my only experience of EMD so far), but I can see how the religious tensions would give it an additional dimension. Not an easy subject to remain neutral or objective about, and that clearly seems to have come through in the text.
I am a superfan! It’s spread out over fifteen years, I suppose, but still. Quite a lot of them were in a row in the first couple of years – and quite a few more on my shelves waiting.
I’ve only read Diary of a Provincial Lady and somehow expected all Delafield’s work to be humorous.
From what I understand of friends and cousins who are Catholic (mind you this was 30 years ago now when they were marrying) a mixed marriage was OK but the non-Catholic spouse had to agree to baptize and raise any children as Catholic.
On the flip side, my Methodist grandmother would have been upset if any of her grandchildren married a Catholic.
She really veers from hilarious to miserable in her oeuvre, and everything in between. And interesting, thanks – I wonder how much things have changed, if at all.
Wow, I hadn’t heard of this one and it does sound interesting. I don’t mind her non-funny ones but Provincial Lady is still my favourite, of course. Not such a superfan as you but I have read the whole lot of PLs three or four times!