Earlier I said Dorothy Whipple's Greenbanks wasn't of the same caliber as Someone at a Distance, but I am rethinking that idea now. Greenbanks was Whipple's second novel published in 1932 while Someone at a Distance was her last novel published in 1953 (it looks like her later works were juvenile fiction). Someone at a Distance is a very assured novel and a highly polished one, so perhaps it is technically a superior novel, but I think I like Greenbanks better. Both stories deal with serious family issues, particularly Someone at a Distance, and both have strong, sympathetic matriarchs, as well as optimistic endings. But I felt so much more comfortable inside the pages of Greenbanks, and so much less emotionally drained by reading it.
Greenbanks is the name of the Ashton family home. And the heart of the family is Louisa Ashton, a woman quite content to be a homemaker. The novel is very much a family drama which begins on a quiet Christmas day as Louisa's grown children and grandchildren gather together to celebrate. But there are tiny cracks below the smooth surface. Louisa is the glue that holds it all together. She loves her husband and children, but they are often demanding and unappreciative. Her favorite son, Charles, who also happens to be the least successful calls her "bon comme le pain".
"The French have an expression 'bon comme le pain.' When I heard it, I thought of you. You're good, like bread; you're essential, you know, Mother. The world couldn't get on without people like you."
Certainly Louisa's family couldn't get on without her.
The Ashtons are ordinary, middle class people, living lives filled with small pleasures and big disappointments. Despite a philandering husband, Louisa keeps her head up and presses on, happiest in her home now nearly empty as her children are leading lives of their own. Her granddaughter Rachel, whom Louisa dotes on, spends much time at Greenbanks and is happiest with her grandmother. Rachel's own parents are in a stifling marriage. Her mother, Letty, always thinking someone would come along and sweep her off her feet finds herself at forty wondering if this is it? Louisa's daughter Laura marries the wrong man, and son Jim cares only for making money, and who's only too ready to pack Charles off to one of the colonies and get him out of the way. Hopes and dreams for the future fall on Rachel's shoulders. She signifies a new era of thinking and was my favorite character after Louisa.
"Rachel had a passion for reading, shared by no member of the family. None of the Ashtons read much; Ambrose read the papers; London and local papers, morning and evening papers took up all his spare time. The boys progressed from Sexton Blake to Sherlock Holmes and historical romances, and seemed to stop there. But Rachel, surreptitiously visiting the book-cases where her father had all the best books on show, extracted volume after volume of Shakespeare, Sterne, Fielding, Goldsmith, Dickens, Scott, Jane Austen, bound Cornhills, bound Punches...She skimmed over what she did not understand and got what she wanted from the rest. The illustrations of Doré in Dante's Inferno terrified and fascinated her; they gave her nightmares, but she went on poring over them. When she wanted to impress Judy Spence with some horror seen or imagined, she would say: 'You know--like in Dante's Inferno'."
In many ways there is nothing especially surprising about this story, and over seventy years after it was written it's easy to see how little human beings, and human nature has changed. However there are marked differences in attitudes and in how women were thought of and treated. A nineteen-year-old Rachel is shocked that a forty-something woman could have romantic feelings for a man (but maybe young adults still feel that way?!). Rachel's desire to study at university is stymied by her father. Often women didn't have control over their financial affairs; Louisa's finances were managed by her son-in-law to somewhat disastrous results. And the worst is a woman bearing a child out of wedlock, who it seems must spend the rest of her life repenting. But World War I changed so many things as well and gave women new opportunities. And perhaps for Rachel things will change.
"Elton seethed with war-time activities, and women discovered new values. Delicate daughters who had hitherto done nothing but follow their mothers from drawing-room to drawing-room, now stood daily in hospital sculleries, steeping their thin white arms in greasy dish-water, in the hope of reaching wards when all the examinations should be passed. At these examinations, girls from shops and offices might be seen scribbling competently through their papers, while young Miss from the Manor, the Hall and the Grange, bit her pen and wondered how on earth to spell 'diarrhoea'."
It was easy to get caught up with the Ashton family, with their joys and sorrows. I was a little sad to turn the last page and even sadder to return the book to the library. I realize that Greenbanks is out of print and not easy to come by, so I feel a little bad talking about such a wonderful story that might not be easily accessible to many (libraries being the best bet), but it is well worth the read if you can get your hands on it. It reminded me a little of one of my favorite Persephone novels, Richmal Crompton's The Family Roundabout. Greenbanks seems like it would make a great addition to the Persephone list of books, so perhaps they'll consider reissuing it at some point. Thanks to Rachel, whose lovely post is what compelled me to go looking for this book. My Whipple-fest will continue, though I'm not sure which book I'll pick up next! She seems to be full of endless surprises with her wonderful prose and sensitive stories. I will leave you with a quote from Dorothy Whipple--this fits her work perfectly.
"I begin each novel gaily, then I get drawn in, it becomes an extremely serious business, it looms up and covers my life. I live like a hermit during this time. I weep over the sad parts. Chekhov says this is a bad thing to do, but I can't help it."