And now to the book, for which last week’s post was a sentimental preamble. What I bought for the Upper III A form prize, to add in the label, was Mistress Masham’s Repose by T H White of The Once and Future King fame. As with the Masefield, I associated this book with a better one by the same author which I also had, The Master. I remember the plot of that still, and its denouement, which is accomplished by a dog, whereas of this I remembered little save that it was about Lilliputians who had been brought to England.
That was the main focus of the novel, and their relations with the little girl who discovers them, living in a decaying folly (which gives the book its title) on an island in the extensive estate to which she is the heir. I knew there was some problem about this, but had forgotten that this arose from the viciousness of her guardian, the local vicar, and the awful governess he had appointed to look after her. Apart from keeping her deprived while he enjoys whatever money comes to the estate, they are plotting to find a deed which they plan to adjust to bring them the estate.
Their cupidity increases when they find out about the Lilliputians, whom they want to sell to circuses, but their efforts to capture them fail, through the ingenuity of Maria and her friends on the estate, the cook who is fiercely loyal to the family, and an aged Professor who has rented a cottage on the estate but has hardly any money for food. He is a caricature of the absent minded professor, and this is sometimes carried to excess.
Indeed the other characters are all caricatures, of types, including the Liliputian schoolmaster who speaks in 18th periods, and the cook’s dog who wonders whether humans have a heaven with dogs in it, and dogs a heaven with their own humans – and who tries to adopt the schoolmaster as a sort of puppy. Best of all these is the Lord Lieutenant to whom the professor goes for help, who lives for horses, models of which adorn his dining table to dispense cigars and coffee, with mechanisms that do not quite work so that the professor is bombarded with whatever shoots out of them.
He does not believe the professor about Maria being put in the dungeons by the vicar and the governess, but he thinks dogs are reliable, and when Captain comes in with a note from the cook he assumes that this is what the dog has written and therefore he acts at once. Unfortunately he cannot get through to the Prime Minister, so takes only the village policeman for support, the latter having to be pushed in a wheelbarrow by his wife since he has lumbago.
I cannot see how I could have forgotten all this, but I had, which meant that rereading the book was an enormous joy, and as it cavorted to its climax I laughed out loud.
The pictures exemplify White’s range, for after the cover of the book and one of Fritz Echtenburg’s glorious illustrations, this one showing the professor, I have Abigail Masham a cousin of the Duchess of Marlborough. Then there is a picture of Blenheim, a model for Malplaquet which Maria’s estate is called, that being the Duke of Marlborough’s last great battle while Blenheim was the first. The next picture is the map in the book which seems to be based on Stowe School where White taught, the seat of the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos previously, which is shown in the final picture here.