How good it is to discover a new author. Having so much enjoyed Jill Paton Walsh's The Bad Quarto, which I wrote about a few days ago, I have managed to get hold of two more of her books from the library. Debts of Dishonour is the third Imogen Quy novel, and finds Imogen rather out of her comfort zone, the Cambridge college where she works as the college nurse. A combination of circumstances plunges her into the world of big business where, together with her friend and ex-lover Andrew Duncombe, she finds herself investigating the death of the wealthy businessman Sir Julius Farran. Her college, St Agatha's, had hoped for an endowment from Farran, but instead finds itself dangerously on the brink of financial ruin when the new bursar's rather dodgy dealings with Farran's company prove to have sucked millions out of the college accounts. As she and Andrew delve further and further into the backgrounds of those involved in the company, more and more disturbing secrets come to light. The final ingenious denouement leaves Imogen with a difficult moral dilemma, though with her usual thoughtful intelligence she manages to solve it to her own satisfaction. This is all so well done --I really like Imogen and felt for her here as she is forced to work with Andrew, and at the same time resist his attempts to get her into bed "for old times sake". His unreliability in the relationship department is only too obvious, but she has to struggle with feelings she realises are not as dormant as she had hoped. Great stuff.
Greedy for more of this excellent author, I forced the librarians down into the basement and they came up with Lapsing. This turns out to be JPW's first adult novel (she has written many books for children) and is, I am guessing, to some extent autobiographical. The protagonist here is Tessa, an attractive girl from a good Catholic background, who is studying English at Oxford in the 1950s. Intelligent, innocent and devout, she joins a "cell" of young Catholic students who meet each week to discuss theology under the leadership of a young priest, Father Theodore. Soon, to Tessa's shocked amazement, Theodore is confessing his passionate love for her. As she learns of his unhappy childhood and his problems with his vocation she becomes increasingly attached -- and attracted -- to him but, believing their relationship can only ever be platonic, she agrees to marry the serious research student Ben. The three of them set up home together for a while, an arrangement which causes both great joy and great pain to both Tessa and Theodore. Finally the young priest breaks free of the church and soon afterwards tells Tessa he has met someone he wants to marry. Desperately unhappy at this betrayal, Tessa herself abandons the church, though she will never lose her spiritual vision.
As I write this I'm thinking, goodness, it all sounds really cheesy. But I can assure you it is not. It is in fact a most remarkable combination of humour and seriousness, written with great compassion and intelligence. Oxford in the 1950s is brilliantly evoked, and Tessa is the most delightful of protagonists, whose thoughtfulness and deep religious convictions are constantly threatened, but never overturned, by her growing awareness of sexuality. I suppose all this is very old fashioned, and perhaps that's why the novel is out of print, though you can get it for a penny or so on Amazon. I liked it very much indeed.
