The Squire – Enid Bagnold (1938) 178 pages
The Squire is a novella I have two copies of – one in Persephone edition and one in VMC. Sometimes I wonder if having several copies of the same books in different editions is the sign of a problem – but I suspect readers of this blog are the wrong people to ask 😀
The Persephone edition has smaller print so meets my novella criteria at coming it at under 200 pages (the VMC is 270 pages but much larger print and wide margins). Either way, it’s a quick read!
The squire of the title is the privileged middle-class lady of Manor House, wife of a “Bombay merchant” who is away in India on business (aka ripping off traders in the name of white imperialism) while she awaits the birth of her fifth child.
“Drifting towards the birth of her baby with a simple and enchanted excitement she walked in radiance like a bride.”
The novel covers the last few hours before the birth, and after. This is a life of ease, albeit with servant worries and a best friend more concerned with her latest love affair. The squire drifts through it all:
“She who had once been thirsty and gay, square-shouldered, fair and military, strutting about life for the spoil, was thickened now, vigorous, leonine, occupied with her house, her nursery, her servants, her knot of lives, antagonistic and loving.”
The setting is resolutely domestic. There are no concerns for the squire outside of this sphere. Reading it now, the order, predictability and comfort struck me as particularly poignant, as we know that in just over a year the world would change irrevocably. It’s unlikely the squire’s staff of seven for her family of six would still be in place once war was declared. But for now:
“The last curtain was drawn, the parlourmaid had gone and the hall was empty. It smelt of greenery and flowers and polish, very still, folded for its evening, waiting for its night.”
There is some lovely characterisation in The Squire. My particular favourites were her son Boniface, who determinedly stays in his own world, refusing to pander to his mother’s feelings by saying he missed her when he didn’t; and Pratt the butler, grumpy and unyielding, but also very fond of his mistress:
“Pratt bent his tall figure over the library fire, fire-tongs in hand…Only the firelight lit his trousers. The lights on the circuit had fused. The circuit involved the squire’s bedroom above, the staircase and landing outside. He heard her calling for a candle. He stood still (a dignified, black figure, holding the fire-tongs) because his smouldering nature was accustomed to save itself by inaction. Let her mend her fuse.”
Thankfully for the squire, the more accommodating live-in midwife arrives, swelling her staff to eight. The midwife and the squire have known each other for years and speak intimately and frankly, as you’d expect considering what they have been through together:
“ ‘As I grow older I come to consider men…husbands of women, husbands of mothers…as hindrances to my work.’
‘You wouldn’t get your work without them.’”
The Squire was considered very frank for the time, apparently HG Wells, despite his liberal views, was shocked at Bagnold’s use of the word nipple 😀 What surprised me as a twenty-first century reader was the squire’s alcohol consumption (port in gravy, sherries before dinner) and the readiness of the doctor to prescribe a “quarter of morphia” to a woman who has just given birth as he considers her over-excited. Later, after the squire has breastfed, she observes “the morphia still drifting about her like evaporating wool” so presumably the newborn has just had a dose of controlled drugs too – eek.
The Squire is beautifully written and very readable, capturing a particular experience of motherhood and birth at a very specific time.
I like the idea of Boniface! Interesting for his time as well, since one would have thought more conventional responses would be expected of him. Another new to me author. I think your novellas month is going to end up adding a lot to my shopping/TBR list 🙂
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Oh, I thought I didn’t know the author, but I see now she also wrote National Velvet
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Boniface is brilliant! Such a little character.
I hope you enjoy this when you get to it Mallika 🙂
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No problem. Nothing to see here. Move on.
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I knew it. Thanks for the reassurance Kate 😀
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I had a copy of this when I was expecting my first offspring, but was warned by a fellow new mum not to expect it to be realistic! I suspect much of its charm now comes from capturing a time long gone, and also available to only the privileged, although it was obviously a very groundbreaking work. I’m probably not the best audience for this as I hated being pregnant!!
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It’s definitely a highly privileged life she leads, and a time long gone. It’s interesting that it was seen as so frank and controversial at the time, when to 21st century readers it’s so vague. If you hated being pregnant I’m sure this won’t resonate – the squire wafts around in a blissful stupor! I must admit that despite never being pregnant myself, I felt pretty certain this wasn’t a typical experience!
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I’ve still never read any Bagnold, and this isn’t one of the ones I have, but it does sound wonderful. If Persephone and Virago both picked the same book, you know it’s gotta be a good’un!
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I can definitely see why it appealed to both, its such a snapshot of a female experience at this time. And it’s very readable! I’d like to read more by her – I’ll be interested to hear how you find her other writing.
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Lovely review. This was one I read because I had a green vmc of it but didn’t expect to like it all that much. However, I absolutely loved it. It is as you very domestic but no worse for that. I found it so warm and charming, very much depicting a bygone age.
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It did feel such a lost age when I was reading it. I can’t believe that domestic situation would continue in the same way after the war. Lovely to hear you enjoyed this too Ali.
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But on the upside, the morphia probably meant the baby went to sleep – no crying! I reckon we should give all babies morphia three times a day till they’re about twenty-five… 😉
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It’s an interesting plan FF, we do seem to have rather lost the knack there… 🤣
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I read this a few years ago and didn’t particularly like it. I found it bossy and brisk and toe curling,calling women over excited! I might have been too close to having young children though and I feel I should give it another chance!
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I wasn’t sure Bagnold fully endorsed the doctor’s assessment! I felt she liked the midwife but the doctor was there to just ensure male authority was consulted 😀 But definitely very different attitudes to pregnancy and birth now.
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