The Dower House by Patricia Wentworth, for the #1925Club

Amabel Grey, a young widow living on a tiny income, is anguished when her daughter Daphne demands £200 so she can travel with friends to Egypt. She simply doesn’t have it. But when she visits her lawyer, she overhears an old acquaintance, Mr. George Forsham, complaining that three sets of tenants have left the Dower House he owns, claiming it was haunted. He asks the lawyer to find a caretaker who will stay for six months and, after he storms out, Amabel takes on the assignment, securing payment in advance.

She dismisses the idea of ghosts until she and her maid start hearing terrifying noises in the night and her dog disappears. Twenty years earlier, Amabel fell in love with George’s brother Julian but she was engaged to someone else and honored her engagement. Now Julian is a famous archeologist and has come home to relax in the country. When he and Amabel renew their friendship and she refuses to leave the house, he is determined to help her find out who or what is behind the disruptive activities. But there is more than a simple ghost or prank at the Dower House - there are dangerous forces at play . . . .
Even Wentworth’s minor characters are well drawn in this story and it is just as enjoyable as the better known Miss Silver books. Amabel is a brave and loyal heroine, surrounded by women who are not selfless: her sister, Agatha, who has made an imprudent marriage, and Daphne, who cares only for herself. Long ago, Amabel gave up Julian when her much older fiancé was threatened with blindness. Julian has a flash of remembered pique when they meet again but gets over it when Amabel greets him with simple dignity, and they resume their old friendship easily despite the ominous situation at the Dower House. He tries to persuade her to leave:

"It’s not because I’m obstinate, it’s because I must,” said Amabel.

He put a considerable force on himself.

“Would Daphne let you say if she knew?’ he asked.

“No, no, of course not,” she said quickly. But because of the hurry in her voice and the flicker of fear in her eyes, Julian knew she was not sure about Daphne.

Personally, I am glad Daphne has departed the scene by chapter 5. Wentworth often contrasts her intrepid heroines with self-absorbed young women (sometimes the male characters can’t tell the difference, alas).  A true heroine accepts help but not funds.  Of course, the reader know there’s no ghost but there are several all-too-human possibilities for Julian and Amabel to withstand.

If you haven’t been brought up on Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen, you might wonder what a Dower House is. It is an upper class English tradition: a house intended as the residence of a widow, typically one near the main house on her late husband's estate. The idea was to prevent conflict between the former mistress of the house and her daughter-in-law by giving them both space.

I chose this book for the #1925Club, hosted by StuckinaBook and Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings for ten years, in which bloggers are invited to read and review books that were published in a chosen year. In addition, this was my twenty-eighth book for the Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge.

Wentworth also published The Black Cabinet in 1925 (see my review). Both of these are standalones that do not include her famous sleuth, Miss Silver. Fortunately, they were brought back into print by Dean Street Press.

Title: The Dower House Mystery
Author: Patricia Wentworth
Publication: Dean Street Press, paperback, originally published in 1925
Genre: Mystery/Series
Source: Personal copy