Miss Fallowfield's Fortune by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler (1908)

This one marked a change of publisher, and one wonders why. Did she feel dissatisfied with Hutchinson and seek new energies elsewhere? Did Hutchinson reject this? I feel it must be the former, considering how well she continued to do, and Cassell were the lucky recipients. My copy is from the fifth thousand in the first year of publication, so things appear to have gone well in this first instance. This one is not markedly different, in terms of contents, to those which it succeeded, but whether it's my brainscape talking, or whether there is a slight alteration, it feels a little more airy, bright and confident than she has for a while. The story is of a young woman mid-century who loses her lover before their marriage, but is nominated by him to receive the enormous fortune his uncle has just bestowed upon him. Thus Charlotte Fallowfield becomes a wealthy woman on her own in the world. We skip forward in time to her very well-established in the manor house at Dinglewood in the midlands (Fowler's favourite territory, re-dubbed, as she always does, Mershire), which is a fairly small village. There is with her her niece, the daughter of her dead sister Phoebe, to whom we had been introduced earlier. Dagmar is young and beautiful, of course, and quite forthright, like her mother. It is at this point that the really enjoyable humour of this piece is introduced, in two forms. One is a chorus of women of the village who meet to knit, sew and read improving books, and gossip like hell. Thelma Barlow, Pam Ferris, Deborah Findlay and other actresses perfectly calibrated for these roles immediately come to mind. The other is in some subsidiary characters who have puffed up opinions of themselves, particularly a young journalist with the improbable name of Octavius Rainbrow, and a persistently disappointed young cleric with snooty tendencies whose savage mother is part of the sewing circle, Theophilus Sprott. The push and shove comes when a new vicar is touted for the parish and, as usual, Theophilus misses out, disgracing himself with hopelessly propounded self-congratulatory views and no 'people-sense' whatsoever. The man who is offered the job comes from a little further north, has lost his wife, and has a son in his early twenties with him who spikes the local female interest. Dagmar also takes an interest in Claude, but they are doomed to a lot of misunderstanding in their primary, opinionated and varyingly idealistic natures. However, as they are more mature, the affinity between Charlotte and Luke Forrester, the new vicar, is quickly developed. They marry and head off to Australia on a very extended honeymoon. But, on the way their ship strikes a reef in the Indian Ocean, and all aboard perish, bar one, Octavius Rainbrow, who has accompanied them. Before this is known, though, the probate court operate on the interesting assumption that Forrester would have been likely to have survived his wife, being a stronger male, and that therefore the fortune should go to his son Claude rather than Dagmar. Once Rainbrow returns to Mershire, and explains that Forrester went down in the ship quite quickly, but Charlotte was with him in one of the boats and survived a few days, it becomes clear to the probate court that the fortune should go to Dagmar instead. This means that an architecturally beautiful retreat-style religious house that Claude has started building will no longer be funded. Dagmar asks him once she's re-inherited to continue building it, but instead to dedicate it to her favourite passion, an orphanage. Claude is pretty devastated by the loss of his dream, but complies. Through these testing monetary times, when absolute enmity could have eventuated, he and Dagmar have managed to remain not only civil, but connected as friends. Dagmar is more aware than he is (he is lost in his dreams of the helping of humankind) and sees eventually that the dream which he has embraced is not a slap in her face, but rather something quite separate, and part of his soul. She makes a deep sacrifice to her own dreams, and foregoes the beloved idea of her orphanage so that Claude can have his 'monastery' (an Anglican institution of retreat and religious education, rather than anything "Popish"!). Even the love that she shows him by this act doesn't quite get through Claude's dreaming miasma. He still doesn't register that she cares for him enormously. Then, in an enormous surprise, Luke Forrester himself turns up at the manor. He has survived the wreck by clinging to a spar and being picked up by another ship. His memory was temporarily expunged by the deprivations and he lived for some months in Australia not knowing who he really was. So, with all the joy that his 'resurrection' brings also comes yet a third turnaround for the fortunes of Miss Fallowfield's fortune. He tells Claude very tenderly that Charlotte was quite clear about how she wanted her fortune used should she die, and that his 'monastery' will need to be turned this time into almshouses for older single women! Claude is devastated for a second time, and contrarily some very blackly funny dialogue is perpetrated between he and Dagmar about how old women will have no appreciation of the beautiful building, it will be wasted on them, and that people of that age don't care where they live or what they do. In the end, in talking it all over with Dagmar, he is carefully alerted by her to the slightly cryptic Biblical text of the alabaster box of ointment, whose contents was better poured out than sold and the proceeds given to the poor. Claude decides, in a moment of enlightenment, that he needs to simply pour out his contribution and have it used in any way that God wills. The fact that Dagmar alerts him to this finally opens his eyes to her care for him, which is perhaps for me the least believable part of this already stretched tale in the matter of plausibility. But again, what saves it is Fowler's cheerful and robust storytelling. Despite her nonsenses, one wants to spend time in her company.