One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes

Title: One Fine Day
Author: Mollie Panter-Downes
Publication: Virago Modern Classics, paperback, originally published in 1946
Genre: Fiction
Setting: 20th-century English countryside

Description: It is a warm summer day in the village of Wealding, although Victoria is still in school. Her father, Stephen, heads irritably to the train and London job, while her mother, Laura, has an endless day of chores. The Marshalls are trying to adjust to post-WWII deprivations, which primarily involve the lack of household help as well as higher prices and continued rationing. Stephen worries the garden has grown out of control while he was away fighting and Laura, not brought up to cook or clean, has only Mrs. Prout to oblige, three mornings a week (the woman is barely useful and works primarily to gather gossip about her employers) so has her hands full. Laura has a busy day ahead – housework, feeding her ducks and chickens (ugh), grocery shopping in the village where Victoria attends school (as much as she can carry home in a basket), an attempt to secure a gardener, an encounter with the Vicar, and picking gooseberries for coworkers of Stephen’s. An errand to retrieve her dog who has escaped to visit a gypsy camp includes a stop at the sweet shop and, more interesting, a visit to the manor house, which has been sold to become a hostel and agricultural training center for boys. Only when Laura finds her dog does she do something for herself: the gypsy suggests she go to the top of Barrow Down to enjoy the view. That becomes the high point of her day and it is no coincidence that there she is entirely free, enjoying both the good weather and the freedom that no one knows where she is.

My Impression: Although very little happens during this extended, sleepy summer day, Panter-Downs paints a vivid picture of the adjustments this more-or-less affectionate couple has to make after WWII. Laura’s family was Anglo-Indian military so got used to inexpensive servants and a certain way of life; her mother thinks Laura married down and is appalled that she now has to do much of her own cleaning and cooking. There is not as much of a servant shortage in Cornwall where Laura's parents have retired. Laura is also portrayed as vague and dreamy (at least, that seems to be her husband's and the cleaning lady’s opinion – I think she gets a lot done on this day!) so her lack of efficiency doesn’t improve the situation. The country house that Laura and Stephen bought proudly as newlyweds is deteriorating due to lack of maintenance:

Ought they to sell? Every now and then they asked themselves that, but the answer was always the same, thought Laura, for they both loved it. Stephen loved it especially, their first home, his first stake in the country; he had lived in a flat in London before they married. And, if they did sell, where were they to go? Everyone who was lucky enough to have a house was sitting tight in it, drawing in their horns, shutting up another room or dividing with another family. Anything but that, Stephen said firmly. The house was not really big enough for that sort of thing, he said.

Luckily, the Marshalls seem to be reasonably fond of each other and not have serious money worries – I was afraid, in addition to the constant descriptions of neighbors and friends leaving Wealding and environs for less expensive places, that Stephen would lose his job. I considered that it must be difficult to resume a job in finance after years away at war. Laura also seems at loose ends.

I don't care for this cover

During the war, she often had friends making long visits with their children so had many distractions and companionship but now she seems isolated when Stephen leaves for work and Victoria for school. She is friendly with the vicar but he is not a soulmate and when she goes hunting for a gardener, she feels she has reached the quasi-invisibility of middle age:

He looked at her amiably, as though she were a nice sofa. That must be the penalty of grey hairs, the tired shadows under the eyes, that must be the beginning of getting old. She had noticed it. Young men looked at you as though you were a nice sofa, an article of furniture which they would ever be desirous of acquiring.

I know exactly what Laura means but she’s only 38! Maybe she just needs to color her hair and spend a few days at a hotel so she can get her groove back.

However, I think the point of the book is to contrast those coping with the aftermath of WWII by selling their homes and moving somewhere smaller where they can cope and the Marshalls, who have not given up on recapturing as much of their pre-war life as possible, even if the occasional dinner party benefits from the guests helping (inexpertly) with the washing up. Perhaps Laura will become worn out and more sofa-like if she has to go on managing the house without proper help (like the rest of us). Altogether, an enjoyable book despite or because of its meandering. I was unfamiliar with this author until recently but saw One Fine Day at a book sale two years ago and had been waiting for the right moment to enjoy it. It is my third book from my 20 Books of Summer 2023.

Source: Personal copy