Only ten stories left in the Persephone collection. Of course with just one story a week that will take me well into summer before I actually finish. I've truly been savoring these stories and taking them slowly has made the experience an enjoyable one and something to look forward to each coming weekend. How do you follow up a collection like this? With something entirely different? Or maybe pick one of the authors in the collection who has written more short stories?
I'd not heard of Frances Towers before, or thought I hadn't anyway until I realized that Persephone Book #44, Tea With Mr. Rochester is a collection of short stories by her. I have many a time perused my paper copies of the Persephone Catalogue. So much so that the the last one I received (now the title listings and descriptions are all online so they no longer send them out) is all worn and dog eared. I feel like I've studied the offerings forward and backward, but somehow I guess I managed to miss Tea With Mr. Rochester. I wasn't always a fan of the short story genre and I suspect when I saw it was a collection of stories I was simply dismissive of it and moved on to the next title. Perhaps I'll try and get my hands on a copy of it when I finish the Persephone Book of Short Stories.
I must admit that I found "Spade Man from Over the Water" a bit perplexing. In a way that's part of the charm and certainly part of my fascination now with the author. As nice as it is to have neat and tidy stories with neat and tidy endings, there is also much to be said for stories that are not so straightforward. I like stories that leave things up to the reader to interpret and decide for themselves just what's what. Then the story becomes something a little bit different for each new reader who encounters it. I'll likely be giving away a few details in writing about the story--just a heads up in case you plan on reading it soon.
First, the title. It's very curious, don't you think? I hadn't a clue what it meant when I started reading. "A dark man from over the water . . . a stranger." The reference is to the husband of Laura Penny. The story unfolds over the course of an afternoon when two women are having tea together. Laura and Rupert are living in the country--it's the one concession he gave to his wife as he travels so much for his work. Although she had fallen in love with a little cottage with the quaint name 'Miss Lemon's Cottage', it was too damp and draughty. By chance, however, the new owner and Laura become fast friends. Mrs. Asher is awaiting the arrival of her children who are going to begin attending a local school rather than continue their studies at a boarding school.
As the two women pass the afternoon chatting Mrs. Asher notices a photograph of a man she takes to be Laura's husband a man she believes suits Laura so well--appearing kind, fastidious and sensitive. Dismayed, however, Laura tells her friend the man is not her husband but a cousin. Mrs. Asher tells her that he looks like "the man you ought to have married". It's then she tells Laura that she must really have married the "Spade man from over the water . . . a stranger." When Laura does pull out a photo of Rupert, Mrs. Asher takes it to the window (the light having dimmed with the passing of the afternoon) to look more closely at it. Of course she is inscrutable.
"Mrs. Asher's past might lie beyond a closed door. She might have come into one's life as down a long corridor of time, but she had brought her memories with her. They were behind her eyes, looking gout of them, and in the tones of her voice, causing vibrations like those of a bell when its peal has died on the air."
Laura and Rupert have not long been married. Laura feels as though being married to Rupert is like you are as beautiful as Helen of Troy. He's a handsome man with shining eyes and when he looks at you you feel almost helpless. Yet she still is uncertain of how he will react to things. He is still like "an unexplored country."
When the two women part company later that afternoon, Laura doesn't realize it will be for the last time. Although Mrs. Asher had implied she would remain forever in the cottage--'until she died'--when next Laura passes by it is dark and empty. No golden light and no smoke and a house for let sign in front. There is only one word on Laura's lips and that is treachery.
So you see, open to interpretation. Just who has committed the treachery? My take is that Mrs. Archer knew Rupert before. There is no sign of Mr. Archer. Yet there are two young boys. Hmm. Curious story with overtones even of what might even be interpreted as ghostly or supernatural (though that could easily be my own overactive imagination), though perhaps better to say almost dreamlike. I liked it. I'm not sure I understand just what happened, but I liked it. You have to appreciate an author who can tell such a story, so infused with meaning (however vague it might feel) in such concise and elegant prose. It only took a few pages yet it opened up a small world filled with so many possibilities.
Next week another story by Mollie Panter-Downes.