A few weeks ago I visited the Persephone Bookshop in Bath, on a visit to the Gwen John exhibition at the Holburne Museum. Some years ago the bookshop and I were based near each other in London. I would visit in my lunch hour, enjoy browsing among the republication of so many novels and memoirs by women from the last century. I had been missing this experience and was pleased to find that the relocated bookshop provides the same satisfaction. I bought one of the most recent Persephone publications.
Out of the Window
This novel was first published in 1930, between the wars. It reflects some social changes that were brought by the First World War, but also the conventions that still dominated social interactions between the wars. The author, Madeline Linton, was born in 1895, and brought up in Manchester. She worked for the Manchester Guardian and became the editor of the Women’s Pages. She wrote five novels and a biography of Mary Wollestonecraft between 1923 and 1930. It seems that criticism of Out of the Window led to her giving up that part of her writing career. What a shame! This novel shows signs of a competent and interesting writer. She died in 1975.
I don’t understand the title of this novel. Are we seeing the young heroine as someone looking ‘out of the window’ in her small council house, or is her life being thrown ‘out of the window’? It doesn’t seem to me to be a very effective title, that is it gives no clue to the author’s intentions or approach.
It is the story of the marriage of an upper-middle class young woman, Ursula, and a working-class man, Kenneth. Their marriage results from her boredom with her life in the comfortable countryside, with admirers and tennis clubs and parties. She is a bit of a rule breaker. She meets Kenneth when he is speaking about the hardship experienced by some the strikers at an event organised by one of her friends. He is very good looking and she is bright and brave.
After a brief period they decide that they are in love and they marry despite the disapproval of everyone who knows them, and each of them having a more suitable person ready to pair up with them They live on a new council housing estate where money is always tight, but he is too proud to accept any money from her family. She is hopeless at managing, cooking, cleaning and gardening. Ken’s mother, Mrs Gandy, thinks that she is a spoiled and lazy young woman. They have a row:
‘Mrs Gandy, I know you didn’t want me marrying Kenneth, but you might at least be fair to me now.’
‘And who’s to blame for me not wanting it. When there was a decent, hard-working girl who would have given her eyes for him and made as good wife, too?’
‘I don’t know what you mean, and in any case, there’s no point in saying that now. My mother didn’t want me to marry him either, but at least she always treats him civilly when we go to her house.’
‘I suppose she thought he wasn’t good enough for you?’
‘I didn’t say so, but that’s what you think of me, isn’t it?’
‘And good reason, the way things have turned out.’ (240)
Bitter words have been exchanged and Ursula leaves Mrs Gandy’s house, with Kenneth still eating his tea. We can see that there was a difference even in how the families argued.
The two Gandys were unused to abrupt decisions and to quarrels abandoned in the very heat of their fury. (240)
Ursula is hurt because her husband had not defended her. Ken feels a loyalty to his mother. The quarrel illustrates what the young couple are up against. It is never resolved, for events overtake the young people.
Much of this novel is about assumptions, expectations and conventions, mostly unexplored and undiscussed by the young couple. Ken is quick to take offence, and Ursula fears losing his affection and showing up her inadequacies in front of her family and friends. He sees no reason why Ursula should be dissatisfied with her home, and with motherhood. Ursula is used to having help in the home and sees motherhood as a further burden. The only person she can confide in is her ‘maiden aunt’, a ‘virtuous spinster and a member of the Church of England’.
‘You know, there ought to be some other solution for girls in love. It isn’t fair that they should be tied all their lives and have children, just because they once felt passionate about some man and were blind to everything else. The marriage service should be postponed until they had lived together for a while and the glamorous side of it got less interesting.’ (250-1)
For Ursula it is too late. Such solutions were transgressive even who I was growing up in the 1960s. Reliable contraception and a changing view of relationships and the role of women were needed before Ursula’s vision became possible.
The differences between the classes were difficult to manage. The parents who oppose their marriage, however, speak in terms of contrasts in education, money, circle of friends and occupations. The couple cannot see a way to make the contrasts work for them.
The wider social context does not help them either. While things are changing – better housing, job prospects, education and votes for women – the promise of more change does not seem to allow the couple to step out of the restricting expectations of their class and gender.
Out of the Window by Madeline Linford, first published in 1930. Reissued by Persephone in 2023 (#148). 284pp