Good Evening, Mrs. Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes

Source of book: Borrowed from my wife.

My wife discovered the small British book publisher, Persephone Books, a few years back, when she was looking for her own copy of The Home-Maker, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, if my memory serves. Although it could have been Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson. In any event, the publisher describes its goal as:

Persephone Books reprints forgotten twentieth century novels, short stories, cookery books and memoirs by (mostly) women writers. They appeal to the discerning reader who prefers books that are neither too literary nor too commercial, and are guaranteed to be readable, thought-provoking and impossible to forget. 

From the three I have read so far, I would say this is accurate. These books aren’t in the pantheon of classics, but aren’t exactly fluff either. They are interesting, and represent a different kind of literature than either genre boilerplates or the heavy and turgid literary novels which characterized much of the 20th Century. One might say that they fall in a traditionally disrespected category: women’s literature. For much of history, women were given little shot at literacy - that was for men only. This wasn’t universal, of course, and it started to crack in a serious way with the Feminist movement, which insisted that women were the equals of men - and should be educated accordingly. That said, with the explosion of literate women, the fusty old men who had controlled social standards felt they had to denigrate “novels” as less worthy than the old Greek and Roman “classics” (which, conveniently, were taught only to men.) This prejudice against the things women read - and write - continues into our own time, with “chick lit” incurring particular dismissal, even as male-oriented boilerplate books feature the same (or worse) imaginative and formulaic writing. 

Of the three I have read, I think that this one, a collection of short stories written by Mollie Panter-Downes during World War Two, features the best writing.

Mollie Panter-Downes, despite being British, is actually most associated with American institutions. For decades, Panter-Downes wrote for The New Yorker, in a variety of genres. Much of her writing was regular investigative journalism, reporting from Britain to an upper-middle-class American audience. Other pieces would fall into the category of non-fiction, but not exactly journalism, such as her “Letters from London” series. In addition to this, she occasionally contributed short stories. This particular book collects the 21 stories she wrote during the war, along with one of the Letters from London that serves as an introduction, more or less, to the themes and setting of the stories. (The author didn’t specifically intend that - the letter was written right after Britain declared war on Germany, and before any of the stories were written.) 

The stories are fairly short, and are self-contained. For the most part, they take place in a short period of time, in a single location, and involve a small number of characters - sometimes only one. The stories all focus on the Homefront - the people left behind as the soldiers left to fight in Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, and eventually Europe. The characters are, naturally, mostly women - the men went off to fight. There are two exceptions: the retired Major Marriott, desperate to return to battle; and Mark Goring, stuck in a desk job in London. 

For the most part, these are middle to upper-middle-class Brits - the kind that, before the war, had a few servants, but not necessarily a title or an estate. They are kind of the forgotten middle as far as the literature of the time went. The working poor had recently become a trendy topic in literature, while the upper crust retained its fascination. (Escapism has been a goal of literature for a long time - possibly since the dawn of language.) It seems plausible that Panter-Downes picked this slice of British society both because it was her own class, and because it was likely to appeal to the typical New Yorker reader of the time. 

As Panter-Downes notes in a few stories, however, this particular way of life was rapidly changing. After the war, the petit-bourgeoisie largely faded away, with only the wealthy being able to retain servants. 

In general, I found the writing to be good, the human portraits to be well drawn, and the psychological profiles of the effects of war and change and stress to be perceptive. I am an aficionado of the short story, and these were good ones. 

I won’t try to describe all the stories in this post, but figured it would be good to hit a few highlights. 

The first was in the preface, written by Gregory LeStage, and it was a fact I either didn’t know or had forgotten somehow: in the years 1939 through 1941, more British civilians were killed than were soldiers. The Battle of Britain took a heavy toll in lives as well as infrastructure. The homefront was in essence the warfront. It is difficult for an American in the 21st Century to really grasp this. There has been no war on our own soil (excluding Pearl Harbor) in a century and a half - and the mainland of the US hasn’t been under legitimate threat since, well, probably the War of 1812, more than 200 years ago. 

The collection starts off with a bank, with “Date With Romance,” featuring Mrs. Ramsay, a recurring character. Widowed, she meets an old friend for dinner - he apparently was interested in her back in the day. However, he seems to think of her as old now, and we find out eventually that he hopes to marry a far younger woman. Mrs. Ramsay’s poisonous thoughts are rapier sharp during and after the encounter, and make for a witty contrast to the mansplaining guy. 

Also razor sharp is the opening of “In Clover,” about a rather clueless and classist woman who takes in a lower-class family during the Blitz. The woman in charge of farming out the evacuees from London is described thus:

She had smiled as she spoke, the flashing and more than necessarily kind smile that she reserved for the lower orders, who hadn’t, don’t you know, had quite the advantages that we have. 

I also found “As the Fruitful Vine” intriguing. It is essentially a story of two sisters, the elder of which seems to have upstaged the younger. This becomes even more apparent when, with the war raging, the younger sister gets pregnant on her honeymoon, and everyone disapproves. The sibling dynamics are certainly interesting, but it is this passage that really caught my eye:

After a few days’ honeymoon, Philip had to rejoin his ship, and it was with the greatest astonishment that Lucy discovered in due course that she was going to have a baby. It seemed less like a marital than a botanical incident, the result of a chance brush between a bee and a flower: this discovery of motherhood ought to have been stirring, but again a big moment didn’t quite come off. Paternity would catch up with Philip somewhere in the West Indies or the Mediterranean or wherever Lucy’s startled letter reached him; his reply would reach her long after any emotions which she might have been feeling at the moment of writing his letter had passed. To be truthful, those emotions were not overpowering. It was difficult to work up emotion over a tender secret which had to be shouted to a bee who was now winging his way God knows where. Once more, Lucy felt, life had treated her cruelly.

There are several stories featuring the ladies’ sewing circles, all of which are amusing. Panter-Downes pokes gentle fun at the casual prejudices of the members. In one section, a discussion on what sort of pajamas the Greeks might wear, unexpectedly results in some bigotry being aired. 

Mrs. Twistle coughed gently again and remarked with implacable softness that the Greeks were very marvelous, no doubt, but in her opinion it was a pity that England had to have foreign allies monkeying about with her war. 

After it is pointed out to her that allies are, well, by definition, foreign, Mrs. Twistle kind of doubles down. 

“There’s no doubt, Mrs. Peters, that they’re a fine lot of men. It’s only that if I had my way, we’d have nothing to do with foreigners. We’re better off without them, though there are those in high places, I’m well aware, as don’t see eye to eye.” 

Hmm, this sounds more than a little bit like a lot of white Boomers I know. “I’m sure all those [immigrants, foreigners, African Americans, etc.] are fine people, but why can’t they just stay where they are?” For what it is worth, Mrs. Twistle considers Americans to be suspicious foreigners too. As with Americans - and Brits - today, the delusional dream of Empire casts a rosy glow and paints an illusion that things would be better if we could just go back to a day when foreigners knew their place in the hierarchy.

Mrs. Ramsay’s sewing circle reappears in later stories, in one of which, “Mrs. Ramsay felt that she was sitting in at a sewing bee of the Fates, all busy with shears and thread, snipping at a life here, twinning two strands with a knowing cackle there.” That’s a good line right there. 

Perhaps the most poignant story in the bunch is “Good-bye, My Love,” about a young couple. He is on brief leave, but then must leave her again. 

Language was inadequate, after all. One used the same words for a parting which might be fore years, which might end in death, as one did for an overnight business trip. She put her arms tightly round him and said, “Good-bye, my love.” 

The title story is rather interesting. “Mrs. Craven” is never given an actual name, for reasons which appear as the story progresses. The “she” from whose perspective the story is told, is the mistress of Mr. Craven, who is married with children. They go out to shows together, and always eat at Porters, where she is greeted with “Good evening, Mrs. Craven.” 

At first, this amuses them, but eventually, when the war starts, and he is given deployment orders, she realizes that she is, legally speaking, nobody. (Hence why she never gets a name.) He could be killed in battle, and she would have to wait for the official casualty list to find out. And what if he was just injured?

“Don’t think I’m being stupid and morbid,” she said, “but supposing anything happens. I’ve been worrying about that. You might be wounded or ill and I wouldn’t know.” She tried to laugh. “The War Office doesn’t have a service for sending telegrams to mistresses, does it?” 

It is a bit of a haunting story too, because there is no good ending to this relationship, no matter what happens. 

There are two stories that involve an elderly lady and her elderly servant. (Different characters in each.) In one, “This Flower, Safety,” the lady is terrified by any signs of the war, and keeps moving around to try to escape it. (And probably never does.) In the other, “Cut Down the Trees,” the roles are reversed. Mrs. Walsingham adjusts to the changes with aplomb, even hosting a Canadian regiment on her grounds. (The title comes because they cut a couple of trees down to fit their equipment.) Old Dossie, on the other hand, rages and fights against all change, trying to keep her employer from eating in casual clothes, and in the kitchen no less! When Mrs. Walsingham’s son visits, he is struck by both the changes, and the reactions to them. His mother explains:

“She’s an invaluable creature in lots of ways. Her trouble is that she hates adjusting to the war and she doesn’t like me to adjust, either. She has always refused to adjust to anything. I sometimes think that if there’s ever a social revolution in England, they’ll string Dossie up first before they bother about me.”

Speaking of social revolutions, in “Year of Decision,” one of the stories with a male protagonist, the wealthy couple each have difficulty adjusting. With no servants, they both have to learn how to keep a house themselves. The wife works herself into complete exhaustion, while the husband fantasizes about being able to fight in a real war, not just make important plans for it from behind a desk. 

War had differed from peace only in that one worked harder, smoked more, and was progressively more and more uncomfortable at home. But discomfort was hardly danger; except for dodging a few bombs in the blitz, his had been a remarkably safe war. It had taught him none of the stinging, salutary lessons that he had expected. Instead, he had picked up all sorts of curious, unlikely bits of information, such as how to make a bed, scour a greasy saucepan, and lay a breakfast table so that it did not too greatly resemble the haphazard design of the March Hare’s tea party. 

Times have indeed changed more than a bit. But that is part of the fun of this book. By turns humorous and poignant, it captures the ways that war and stress and trauma change us, and shines a light on the fact that those on the homefront experience war too. I rather enjoyed this book, and would like to seek out some of Panter-Downes’ other writings.