The Village by Marghanita Laski

‘…they lingered, unwilling finally to end this night and the years behind it….There was no point in her saying it could go on now, the friendliness and companionship and the simple human liking of one woman for another. Both knew that this breaking down of social barriers was just one of the things you got out of the war, but it couldn’t go on.’

Mrs Wendy Trevor and Mrs Edith Wilson have been sharing the same duty at the Priory Dean Red Cross post since 1939. The Village opens on the very last day (in Europe at least) of World War II. Both women have both turned up for their shift, even though they know there is no point, and although, as Mrs Wilson says,‘”with those Germans you can never be quite sure”’, they both know that they will miss their weekly meetings. For Wendy belongs to the upper middle classes of Priory Hill, whilst Edith used to be Wendy’s cleaner and lives with her family in Station Road. They both assume that they will now return to their pre-war positions.

The women’s last night together is a perfectly written vignette, as they discuss their families and the changes the village has seen over the years.  Edith’s children, Edie, Roy and Maureen, are all doing well, but Wendy is worried about her elder daughter Margaret, who is neither clever nor beautiful – Wendy’s only hope is to get her married off, but there are no suitable young men in the area. For the plain fact is that whilst Edith’s family has prospered during the war, Wendy’s is now on its uppers. Her husband is an invalid, their various business enterprises have failed, and Wendy is scandalised to learn that Edith’s Roy – now about to complete his printing apprenticeship – earns £10 per week – 'more than we’ve got to live on put together' thought Wendy, hopelessly.’

Wendy is further shaken when Edith tells her that the result of the forthcoming election is not quite as predictable as she (along with all of the village gentry) has assumed;

‘”You don’t mean you’d vote Socialist, do you Edith?”, said Wendy, shocked’

Before the night is over, Wendy and Edith have exchanged the deepest and most personal confidences – yet as Wendy hangs the key on its ‘not very secret place inside the porch’, those barriers rise, and they both return to their respective social circles.

In The Village Marghanita Laski shows, through small details closely observed, the social effects of six years of wartime. Priory Dean still has a few of its original residents – Miss Evadne at the Hall, old Dr Gregory, with whose unwilling son Wendy tries in vain to pair Margaret off – but now the big houses are changing hands, industrialist Alan Thatcher, has bought Bentworth Park;

‘(They) were simultaneously admired for their wealth and position, (and) despised for being of the new urban aristocracy who kept themselves to themselves.’

Even the clergy are Not What They Were; the old rector has retired and been replaced by the Reverend Robinson;

‘the sound of (whose) faintly Cockney voice aroused, as usual, a contemptuous distaste in everyone present.’

When it becomes known that the Thatchers’ friend Ralph Weatherall has acquired Green Lawns, the smart house next door to the Trevors, everyone is agog to see him – and more importantly, his American wife Martha.  Martha has no time for the English class system, does not know the etiquette of paying afternoon calls or the appropriate time for an invitation to after dinner drinks, and makes suggestions at the Parish Council meeting without channelling them through her husband – but she is wealthy, stylish, and everyone has to agree that;

‘She really seems very nice, not a bit like an American.’

Or, as retired schoolteacher and cultural snob Miss Porteous puts it (‘with kindly contempt’);

‘Of course he’s clearly a self-made man..but she’s a lady, as far as anyone can tell with Americans…besides these days one must be broadminded about people.’

The story focuses particularly on Wendy and Margaret. At first we despise Wendy for her snobbery, her furious outbursts, and her treatment of well-meaning, homely Margaret, but Laski’s characters are never two-dimensional, and we come to see that Wendy is as much a victim of the class system as anyone else. She has to hold the family together (her husband, the Major, being pretty hopeless), keep up the all-important appearances, manage on little money, and do the chores that, throughout her earlier life, have always been the work of the servants she can no longer afford;

‘To hear of a good maid going begging (Edith’s daughter Edie) and be unable to do anything about it was real mental distress, If I cut down smoking, she thought wildly, if – but there was nothing else left to cut down on.’

Wendy hates housework and cooking – she is frustrated and miserable, and if she can’t get Margaret married off, she fears for the girl’s future.  When, however, Margaret suggests that, as the one thing she is good at is cooking, she would like to take a job as a cook-housekeeper, Wendy simply cannot countenance the idea;

‘Wendy said in icy anger, “Do you realise what you’re proposing? You’re suggesting that you – my daughter – go and live in somebody else’s house as a servant…sleeping in a maid’s room, walking out with the butcher’s boy, mixing with low common…”’

Margaret is a lovely, gentle soul who only wants to have a quiet, happy life. She is totally oblivious to class and position, friends with everyone from Martha Weatherall (who teaches her to cook sausages with peaches) to fiery, militant, schoolgirl Maureen Wilson;

‘”Everyone I like is vulgar” she thought “Vulgar people seem to stand up to things better than refined people.”’

When Wendy finally has a breakdown and Dr Ferguson orders her to stay in bed and have food sent down from Fortnum’s, it is Margaret who looks after her and bears her endless criticisms without complaint.

When Margaret coincidentally meets up with Roy outside the cinema, she finds that she can enjoy his company without all the shyness and fear she feels when forced into the company of ‘suitable’  men. Their friendship grows, but they are both aware that they need to keep it from their parents. The slow, hesitant, development of their relationship is a joy to see – the cycle rides, picnics, clandestine walks in their lunch hours. Roy has a good job and excellent prospects, but they both know that even his family might be taken aback, and Margaret’s will definitely be aghast, if they find out about their meetings.

Every character in The Village is interesting and well drawn. There is no simple division between the old-fashioned, snobbish, stick-in-the-mud gentry and the Salt of the Earth working classes – they all have their prejudices. Although the tradesmen and their wives despise the airs and graces of the Priory Hill residents (‘"there isn’t one of them we couldn’t buy up with one hand tied behind our backs"’), they still disapprove of the new vicar’s wife for going out without stockings, are horrified at the influx of Irish labourers, coming to build the new housing that the village needs, and remain staunchly conservative in both their attitudes and their politics. 

Wendy and her neighbour Daisy Bruce are fiercely disapproving of Margaret’s friend Jill Morton because she is Jewish, but Jill is equally appalled when she discovers that Margaret is seeing Roy, whom she can only see as acceptable if he is ‘exciting’ – ie unconventional, preferably a Communist. When she realises that he is simply working class;

‘”Well, if you can’t see what that’s got to do with it, I don’t suppose anyone can explain it to you.”

Of course there could be no question of her being a bridesmaid now.’

Even the broadminded Martha has her sticking point – when squatters occupy the big old house that she has earmarked for her wealthy friends to purchase, many villagers, fed up with the dire post-war housing situation, are secretly glad, but Martha is outraged;

‘”You English must be blind,” she said angrily, “to let the Communists get away with a thing like that.”’

McCarthyism is alive and well and living in Priory Dean. 

And as Ralph Weatherall reminds his wife;

‘”Plenty of your old Boston families are nearly as poor as the Trevors but they still look down their noses at everyone else.”’

Meanwhile Margaret and Roy plan their future together, sharing their ideas about the little house they will have, the décor, the way they will pass their days. Both want a very traditional life – but whereas for Wendy, domesticity is drudgery, Margaret will be happy as a housewife, and Roy as her loyal and appreciative husband.

When Roy decides to take the bull by the horns and speak to Margaret’s father, even he reveals prejudice;

‘”It isn’t as if I was a black man or something.”’

In the end, compromises are made on all sides, the Rector comes into his own, the residents of Priory Hill begin to realise that not all change is bad, and even Wendy reaches some sort of peace.

The Village is a wonderful study of post war life in a small English community, told through characters so well written that we care about every one of them (even Wendy). In Laski’s hands, Margaret’s essential goodness and innocence are charming rather than cloying, Wendy’s bitterness sad when it might otherwise have been grotesque, and as young love finally wins through against the odds, we come away satisfied that there can indeed be a bright future for those who are willing to embrace it.

The Village by Marghanita Laski was first published in 1952. Persephone Books republished it in 2004, and it is available here: http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/the-village.html

Marghanita Laski