
Up there, in the pure, clean moorland air, the pattern of life showed more clearly, on a larger scale. I lifted my eyes to the hills; and I perceived how minute, how unimportant, a portion of that pattern we made, all of us; and we no longer seemed to matter greatly.
I feel very fortunate that there are publishers who send me books on request, and even more so if they send them without being asked. Top of that list must be the British Library, who have kept me happily supplied with their Crime Classics series since it began, and more recently with the wonderful Women Writers books, which have given me more pleasure than I can say. Despite the fact that I live in rural France, their books have turned up regularly, with no problems at all. No problems, that is, until last October, when a copy of this one failed to arrive. Despite a flurry of emails with the BL and with the warehouse where the books are sent from, neither the first copy they sent nor the second one they sent as a replacement has ever reached me. Who knows where they may be now - in a ditch somewhere? On the bookshelves of an anglophone courier? A great mystery.
Of course I had to read it anyway so I bought a copy - why not, after all! It's time I put some money in the coffers of the BL. Was it worth waiting for? Oh yes. This is a truly magical book. Though written in the 1940s, it takes place some time at the beginning of the twentieth century. The story is told by Ryan Ashley, now an ageing woman, who is looking back to her own childhood. She is seven when the story begins, living in the Manse of her father, a strict non-conformist Minister. She has an older sister, the beautiful Sylvia, and a toddler brother Clem, who suffers from an unspecified disability. Then there's her beautiful, aristocratic mother, who sacrificed her comfortable life for the love of a man who hasn't fulfilled her expectations. Her restless unhappiness hangs over the house like a pall, and the children can feel it even while they don't comprehend it. Ruan is a tomboy, and not in the least jealous of her sister's beauty, though she does wonder if her own rather ordinary appearance might be the reason her mother doesn't seem to love her so much.
I've seen this described as a coming of age story, and I suppose it is in one sense, even though it covers only about six years of Ruan's life, making her thirteen when the novel ends. However, she's amazingly mature even as a young child, and the many and varied experiences she goes through during those six years simply develop her further and better. Heartbreaking things happen to her - little Clem dies, her mother leaves and then dies, her father goes off to Africa as a missionary and dies there. But the net result of all this is that she and Sylvia end up living with their mother's brother, Uncle Alaric, in his large and beautiful country house. He is a wise, kind and clever man who, seeing how unhappy Ruan is at the school she's been sent to, undertakes to educate her himself at home. As this consists mainly of letting her loose in his huge library, she devours everything she can lay her hands on, perhaps the best possible education she could have had.
Then there's another side to Ruan's life, something that takes her through the worst ups and downs she has to suffer. She's befriended by Rosie Day, a young woman who lives with her newly rich father in a soulless modern house on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. Also in the house lives a boy called David, who was adopted by Rosie's parents when he was orphaned. David is six years older than Ruan, but they quickly become inseparable. She spends long holidays there, and the two of them ride or walk for endlessly enjoyable days on the moors, talking about everything under the sun or just lying side by side on the heather breathing in the freedom and peace. The years pass, and David is no longer so readily available - school and a long year abroad take him away, and Ruan sometimes wonders if she will ever see him again. But - yes, sorry, spoiler - she does, and we are left with the hope that he will always be a part of her life.
So - this is a love story. But should we be disturbed by the fact that at the end Ruan is thirteen and David is nineteen? I wasn't, at all, and I think it would be a mistake to be troubled by it. This is not a sexual relationship - there's absolutely no suggestion of that. It's a very deep and loving friendship, a meeting of minds, and there's no earthly reason why that should not happen at any age, or why it should not endure or even develop over time.
Dorothy Evelyn Smith was fifty when she wrote this, her first ever novel. How autobiographical it is nobody seems to know - certainly she was the daughter of a non-conformist minister and loved the Yorkshire moors. Her love of that gloriously wide open countryside is woven through the whole novel - I'll leave you with the very end, where Ruan, full of happiness, runs up to the moor alone.
It was calm that evening; calm and clear and very beautiful. The moor was settling down for her winter sleep. The heather had faded and the gold was dimmed, but the bracken was high and tawny and the great hills held the sun in their arms. Far down the valley I could hear the blacksmith's hammer. Cows were moving slowly homeward, lowing contentedly. The clock on Staving Church struck six.
I stood very still. So still that I could feel the heart of the moor beating beneath my feet: everlastingly patient with my foolishness: eternally kind...