Old Bestseller Review: Rochester's Wife, by D. E. Stevenson

Rochester's Wife, by D. E. Stevenson

a review by Rich Horton

Dorothy Emily Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1892. She was first cousin once removed to Robert Louis Stevenson, so she came by her writing chops (if you want to assume there's a genetic component!) honestly. That said, her parents seem to have disapproved of her interest in writing, and they would not let her attend college. She married James Reid Peploe, an officer in the British Army, in 1916. She began publishing with a book of poems in 1915, and her first novel was serialized in 1923. She hit her stride in the 1930s, especially with the very popular Mrs. Tim books (about a British Army wife -- based of course on her own life) and the likewise popular Miss Buncle books. She was very popular, publishing in the end some 40 novels. She died in 1973. In the past decade plus many of her books have returned to print -- some from Persephone Books, and many more from one of my favorite imprints, the Furrowed Middlebrow imprint of Dean Street Books, curated by Scott Thompson of the excellent Furrowed Middlebrow blog, which focuses on British women writers of the early to middle 20th Century. 

I have over the past couple of years found about four of her books used, and have intended to read them for a while, prompted by Scott's enthusiasm, and likewise by recommendations from Jo Walton. I finally grabbed the latest book of hers I found (at an estate sale a week or so back) -- Rochester's Wife. This was published in 1940, but my edition is an Ace reprint from about 1980 (based on the price ($1.95) and on the Ursula Le Guin editions advertised in the back of the book!) The cover to this Ace reprint is execrable, as you can see -- it is true that there is scend of a game of tennis in the book, but there is no way that those people resemble this novel's characters in the least. 

As with many of Stevenson's books this can be called a "light romance". The main characters are Kit Stone, who is in his late 20s, and was trained as a doctor with the goal of taking over his father's practice. But his father died early, and the practice had to be sold. Kit's rather older brother took his half of the inheritance and set up as a stockbroker, but Kit, restless, decided to travel the world for a few years. Now back in England, he agrees to a trial period working for an older doctor in a London suburb, Minfield, where Kit's brother's partner Jack Rochester lives. 

Kit's new boss, Dr. Peabody, lives with his 30ish daughter Ethel, who keeps house; and his grandson Jem, whose mother decided to leave him with her father while she and her husband manage a tea farm in Ceylon. They are soon joined by Dr. Peabody's other daughter, Dolly, who has been sent home by her Navy husband because she is pregnant. There are tensions, mainly due to Ethel, who immediately manifests a dislike of Kit, and who clearly does not get on with her sister at all. But Kit settles in; impressing his new mentor with his skill. He also makes a great friend of Jem. Then he is called to the Rochester house to treat their housemaid, and the instant he sees Jack's wife Mardie, he falls desperately in love. 

That sets up the fundamental arc of the novel. It soon becomes clear that the Rochester marriage is troubled -- because Jack is undergoing what I'd call a nervous breakdown. Kit (and Dr. Peabody) decide that he is dangerously insane -- paranoid -- and I have to say that I found Stevenson's treatment of mental illness rather off. Kit tries to keep from getting too involved with Mardie, but it's hopeless, while Mardie, though attracted to Kit, remains loyal to her husband and tries to control his moods. It all comes to a head when Rochester disappears. This is an issue for Kit's brother -- to have a partner act so irresponsibly is bad for business! -- but of course much more so for Mardie, who has to give up her house and move back to her home in Scotland. As for Kit, he tries hard to find Jack Rochester, all the while aware that his love for Mardie is hopeless ...

The resolution, I have to say, is a thudding disappointment, the author essentially taking an implausibly easy and convenient way out. I think the novel ultimately a failure, marred by its bothersome treatment of mental illness and by its botched ending. But there is a lot to like -- Jem is a delightful character, and much of the day to day action, and the treatment of the main characters, is very nicely done. On the evidence of this novel, Stevenson was an effective storyteller, and had a nice light hand with her characters. This book didn't work, but a quick check showed me that Stevenson's fans seem to share my view -- this was not the right Stevenson book with which to start! I'll be reading more of her work -- I have an old copy of Miss Buncle's Book, for example, which seems quite highly regarded.

A couple more minor points. The book is set in 1938 or more likely 1939 (one character saw Snow White "several months earlier" and it went into wide release in February 1938.) A prominent character is a Navy wife -- and yet there is no presentiment of her husband's likely fraught responsibilities, and indeed she is shown, months later, frolicking on the beach in Bermuda. Another character (not seen) lives in Ceylon; and at the end of the movie Ethel departs for India (with her "great friend" Olive -- I don't think Stevenson meant this but it's intriguing to wonder if Ethel is a lesbian.) (Indeed, I felt Ethel was a missed opportunity -- she's portrayed as mostly rather an unmotivated shrew, her dislike for Mardie never explained, her dislike for Dolly maybe resulting from her interest in Dolly's husband? A better back story for Ethel, a fuller characterization, would have been nice.) Anyway -- we know now that the near future for all these characters is going to be a struggle -- and the novel as written is entirely unaware of this. Granted, Stevenson was writing in 1938 or 1939, and perhaps understandably couldn't foresee the future, but it does resonate oddly in our minds. Always I remember Philip Larkin's great poem "MCMXIV" -- "never such innocence again".