Susan Settles Down by Molly Clavering

Title: Susan Settles Down
Author: Molly Clavering
Publication: Furrowed Middlebrow, Dean Street Press, 2021 (originally published 1936)
Genre: Fiction

Setting: Susan Parsons and her brother – who has been invalided out of the Navy – move to the Scottish countryside when Oliver inherits a small farm, Easter Hartrigg (surely a peculiar name for a farm?). To spare Oliver’s feelings, Susan hides her reluctance to give up London and her friends there for the rural town, although she is candid and amusing about their adventures in letters to their naval friend Charles Crawley. Soon, to her surprise, she becomes attached to the simplicity of country life. Housekeeping for Oliver on their tiny income while maintaining her own writing career is not easy but slowly the Parsons make friends, from their diamond-in-the-rough neighbor Jed Armstrong to the warmhearted vicarage family. Susan’s down-to-earth friendliness and willingness to throw herself into her new life ensure she makes new friends even when juggling drunk servants, overly inquisitive neighbors, and a so-called literary society. There is also a much more satisfying (romantic) conclusion than in Dear Hugo, my only previous Clavering.

My Impression: Susan is a confident woman in her 30s with a bad romance in her past and a determination to help her brother regain his health after a severely broken leg forced him to leave the Navy. Despite the difference in their ages, she makes an instant impression on the vicar’s 19-year-old daughter who is in need of a friend:

Peggy, singing with the unselfconsciousness of a thrush, still looked from time to time at Miss Parsons. There was something about her – not beauty, for she was not beautiful – that made you look, and look again. “She’s like a person out of a book,” thought Peggy, unable to describe Susan’s curious appeal even to herself.

Susan reminded me a little of Margaret Hale in North and South in her initial disdain for the individuals she deems to be rough around the edges; however, Susan has a much easier life than Margaret and gets over herself faster. Her biggest troubles are Oliver’s moodiness and the inadequately covered rat holes in the Parsons’ new home (admittedly, that would have sent me rushing back to London). But like a Seinfeld episode, it is the narrative about the little things that make up her new life that renders this book so pleasing.

“Please call off your goat,” she said in muffled accents. “I don’t care for it.”

“Feardy! Feardy!” jeered Mr. Armstrong with his schoolboy grin and at least seven r’s reverberating in each word. “I believe you’re scared of him. Scared of a billy-goat!

“I am,” said Susan with shameless frankness. “I am terrified of it, and I’ve only one hand to ward it off, because I need the other to hold my nose. So please take it away.”

This book takes place between the wars.  Life in the remote town is unexpectedly full of picnics, local concerts and recitations, and dinner parties. Susan and Oliver are welcomed into the community and are considered gentry although their means are so modest that Oliver has to get an actual job!  

Susan is not looking for a romance of her own but is a little concerned about her impressionable brother:

“Of course Oliver’s heart is like a sponge, it’s so absorbent,” thought his sister with brutal candour. “But this is the first symptom of girl-friend-itis I’ve seen since his smash. He must be getting better. Pity he always selects such impossibly stupid young women!”

It is to Susan's credit that she wants Oliver to find the right young woman even though it will mean an end to her housekeeping for him, as she knows she would be in the way of a newly married couple.  The age difference between Oliver and his ultimate choice seems like a lot to a modern eye, especially given the difference in education and sophistication but was not atypical of the era.

Clavering, courtesy of Furrowed Middlebrow

I had never heard of Molly Clavering until Scott of Furrowed Middlebrow brought her to my attention but her light fiction is somewhat similar to that of D.E. Stevenson, a friend who lived near her in a Scottish Borders town.  Jerri Chase got me excited about reading this one, which was a great choice for Liz Dexter’s Dean Street December Challenge, and I recommend it. 

Source: Library