Sylvia Townsend Warner is such a curious writer. To be honest I'm not always entirely sure what it is that lurks beneath the surface of a story by her, but I always enjoy the journey to that final destination. She is whimsical and witty and she cracks me up with her oddness. I like her. This will give you an idea. Two characters in a story are lighting a fire and a third character who is in the kitchen smells something singeing.
"Good Lord, have I set fire to your hair?" he exclaimed.
"Oh, it's nothing," Antonia said. "Frizzy hair like mine catches fire so easily".
Hah. Must mind my own frizzy tresses. Do you see what I mean? Not exactly out of nowhere but sort of.
I read two stories from The Music at Long Verney this weekend. In "Maternal Devotion" a daughter pawns off unwanted suitors on to her welcoming mother. Nothing odd there, really. She's not a cougar mother looking for a young conquest but more an enthusiastic conversationalist in search of an 'eager' audience. What young man in love/or admiration of a young lady doesn't want to impress her mother, eh?
"As kittens bring in the mice that are too much for them to be finished off by the cat, Cordelia Finch had the habit of depositing any inconvenient suitors with her mother and leaving the rest to nature."
When Mr. Weatherby finally escapes Cordelia comes in with a revivifying pot of tea and plate of sandwiches. She may not be the most honest of girlfriends, but she is most appreciative of her mother telling her, "my gratitude no words can express." Amusingly done.
My favorite however is the singeing hair story. STW's stories are always just the tiniest bit satirical (sometimes not so tiny at all) and the characters play off each other in the most amusing ways. Sometimes they are awfully curmudgeonly, rather back biting or short tempered. Definitely quirky.
In "An Aging Head" a very helpful niece takes care of a favorite aunt who is down with influenza. Actually Auntie Georgie (Georgina) sees Antonia as more of a busybody and is only too happy to see her leave with the "bronchitis kettle" in hand. It is the things she thinks when Antonia has left for home (after eliciting a promise that Auntie George will ring up when after she has "rested") that makes this story especially entertaining and amusing. As Auntie George is quite the Tartar, let's face it.
Antonia gives her detailed instructions on where to call after she has rested. And Georgina's mental reply . . .
"'No, don't bother. She's in the book [referring to the phone number where Antonia shall be]. And anyhow, I shan't want to go to bed. I'm up for good and all. Thanks to your nursing, my child'. How many more times must I thank you? thought Georgina. And will you never be gone? But the Devil tweaked her tongue . . ."
It is with a "luxuriating sigh of relief" that Georgina returns to her solitude and does all the things she normally would, certain that she is much improved health-wise. At the same time she dismisses all of Antonia's good will, the soup and tea she made, Auntie George disdainfully slurps down! She goes out to garden (having lost a whole week's worth of work when she was kept in bed by that prying niece) and she calls a favored friend, who has on occasion asked her to marry him. And they are indeed a pair.
"Where she was brilliant and malicious, he was placidly savage. Where she went to work with a dancing, prancing stiletto, George would aim one accurate condemnation and chop a head off."
A proper meal and conversation out is just the ticket. George takes her home later, telling her she does look a little wiped out and surely not quite recovered. After their evening filled with biting bantering anyone just over influenza would look worn out. The last laugh is on Georgina, however. Antonia, worried over the failure on her aunt's part to call and give a health report, comes over and an overheard tete-a-tete between her niece and George rather puts her in her place. And worse (or maybe better and predictably) the pair seem to hit it off even as they criticize Georgina.
Townsend Warner certainly turns a mean sentence. Next week "Love" and "Stay, Corydon, Thou Swain". Doesn't that latter story sound most intriguing?!
By the way I must mention the forthcoming collection of this year's O. Henry Prize Stories which I have as a galley copy loaded onto my tablet. I read the first of twenty or so stories, "Irises" by Elizabeth Genovise which was first published in Cimarron Review. If it is anything to gauge the collection by, this should be a good read indeed. The story is told from the perspective of a child, a baby in the womb telling the mother's story and you wonder just whether the baby will be born and what the circumstances will be. The mother is unhappily married and begins an affair with the intention of leaving husband behind (and maybe baby) behind and starting her life somewhere else. It was quite well done. I'm new to Genovise's work but it looks as if she has had stories published in a number of literary magazines and has a couple of collections of stories published. I will be on the look out for her other work now.