Pomfret Towers

Many years ago, "Pomfret Towers" was my introduction to the Barsetshire novels of Angela Thirkell. I am now trying to read all of them in sequence and the end of "Summer Half" brought me to this one which I had read out of sequence. While I usually don't read many books more than once, I decided to do so in this case (and will do the same with "Before Lunch") because I didn't remember that much of the story.

I did remember that some of the action centered on a weekend house party given by Lord Pomfret at his ancestral home, but I had forgotten how much, indeed more than one half of the book. As usual there is a connection between the characters in this novel and Thirkell's other novels. In this case, Lord Pomfret's sister is the Lady Emily of "Wild Strawberries," an earlier novel in the series. In addition to being siblings, the Pomfrets have something tragic in common, both of them lost their eldest son to the carnage of World War I.

Obviously that is sad in both cases, but in the case of the Pomfrets it raises other issues as the Pomfrets have no other children so there is no immediate heir to the family's wealth and estates. The next in line is an elderly, unloved man in ill health so the real heir apparent is a young man named Gillie Foster. Most of the story in "Pomfret Towers" centers on who he will marry and unlike the 2/1 dynamics set up by many authors in these situations (including Thirkell), this time there is actually a 3-1 dynamic. Obviously there can only be one "winner," and not surprisingly, Foster makes the right decision which is confirmed by the lady's response.
Interestingly though at the end of the story, the two who weren't asked (and probably aren't disappointed by the fact) are in what are clearly "to be continued" situations. I think I know how one comes out, it will be interesting to see about the other.

As I got to the end of this book, I thought that this time Thirkell would not include the two things that I had seen in the last two novels, "August Folly" and "Summer Half" - unspoken masculine communication to resolve problems and a deeper issue somewhat below the surface. I was definitely wrong on the first one because at the very end there is a situation where one of the male characters expects a "homily" from another, but the issue is again dealt with in an unspoken way.

I am not sure about the deeper issue - in "Summer Half" at first I found Rose Birkett to be such a caricature that it was hard to take her seriously thus, I thought, weakening the book. The longer I thought about it, however, the more it seemed that she was presented in that way as a vehicle to present a deeper issue. In that case, the danger of unhealthy relationships. In "Pomfret Towers" I was put off by Alice Barton who's timidity and shyness seemed to be as much of a caricature as Rose Birkett. I did remember Alice from my first reading and for some reason, it didn't put me off that time. Thinking about it now, I wonder if the extreme shyness of Alice is again a vehicle for consideration of some deeper issue - if it is, the issue isn't clear to me at the moment. But it may be that part of Thirkell's skill as a writer is to portray these almost caricature characters to allow the reader to consider deeper issues - perhaps different issues depending on the reader and how he or she interprets the book. Something to think about as I move on to "The Brandons."