Monday, March 8, 2010

A Gentle Awakening--1988

A Gentle Awakening is one of those Betty Neels' that never gets confused with any other. For instance, one never scratches one's head and asks if this is the one about the glass floor or not.

Florina Payne is not a mouse. On one hand she is a ginger-headed drudge of 27 with no marriage prospects. On the other, she is a cordon bleu trained chef, speaks fluent Dutch and is willing to go toe to toe if she feels herself getting walked all over. Clearly, she is Clark Kent and Superman--by day a mild-mannered and dutiful (if not loving--because her father is a piece of work) daughter, by night, a knife-wielding tempestuous cook. Florina is back and this time it's personal.
She is an outlier with ginger eyebrows and a ginger plait and as you can see, it has rather distracted me (FYI, you're welcome for the gratuitous Gilbert Blythe add-on):

Sir William Sedley is a famous paediatrician which immediately put me in mind of Doctor Spock because that is the only paediatrician who could ever be prefaced as 'famous' and I began to wander off the point as I pondered what could possibly have made him famous. Conjoined twin separations? Magic baby-vomit dodging skills?
He has a little daughter that he had the poor taste to name Pauline (this is from a woman whose husband and two siblings all have Paul derivatives as names--I know of what I speak). He also has a festering boil---Oh! You thought I meant the kind on his skin! No, no, her name is Wanda and she is his fiancee'.

Plot:
Florina is cycling along a road and in my head she's not wearing a helmet because though my emergency-room nurse neighbor has plenty to say on the subject of helmets and violent brain trauma it must be faced that helmets are not romantic so no matter how right they are in reality they are rubbish in romance novels. Sir William ("She wouldn't have a Willy or a Sam--no Sam!") drives up in the requisite Bentley with Pauline and asks about lodgings. No heat is exchanged.
Florina pops herself into a cottage where she faces her father (mentally I conjure Jabba the Hutt) who is so awful that when the book ends the only question is: Why didn't The Great Betty engineer a little Newtonian physics between his insufficiently small auto and an articulated lorry? If ever a parent deserved it...
Sir William spends one short afternoon the next day touring Wheel House with the owner. He decides to buy it on the strength of a thick glass panel in the living room floor where the mill wheel once was. Tres cool. Wanda is not consulted--an ill-omen that all is not well in the House of Sedley.
Florina, after discovering that her father isn't going to have a heart attack if she ups and offs, gets a job at the Wheel House which means the end of us fancying her on picturesque little bicycle trips in the countryside.
She begins her great-shades-of-Like Water For Chocolate cooking. The set-up is thus: Sir William's old nanny, Mrs. Frobisher ( a hatchet-faced woman with an indiscreet streak and a heart of gold), housekeeps, two ladies come in to do the rough, Florina whips together delicate meals with a masterly air and Pauline keeps herself busy helping (read: being underfoot) in the kitchen and going on excursions like mushrooming and raspberry picking. Sir William swings by on the weekends to raise his daughter but in the Land of Neels we are not to read this as off-hand or neglectful. So don't.
Enter Wanda. All you need know is that she jangles with surplus jewelery and a certain nouveau riche trashiness. "The air positively hummed with their mutual dislike, instantly recognized, even if silent." (Rubs hands. Yes!) She also likes to sleep late and play bridge. Obviously she must never be trusted with a child.
Measles. Pauline is down first but she's had her jab so it won't be too bad. Mrs. Frobisher, an old woman, goes down next and it's disastrous. There Florina is, her ginger plait becoming more and more untidy, unable to contact Sir William (because Wanda the Ice-Princess, like all nouveau riche, has bad phone etiquette) and fixing herself beans on toast. That's when you know the poop has really hit the fan: A cordon bleu chef is making herself beans on toast.
Sir William finally comes, is satisfyingly horrified that she's been single-handedly running the household with two invalids, and calls in his trusty right hand Jolly (who doesn't look it, of course) to come and help out. He shows his mettle as no Neels hero has, before or since. He makes coffee, brings morning tea, delivers trays of food, hoovers (!), scrapes potatoes and washes dishes. He's practically Betty Crocker. I'm going to need a moment to fan myself. Ahem!
Wanda makes a brief appearance only to order everybody about and then become terrified by the idea of breaking out in red spots.
After the Contretemps of the Communicable Disease has passed, Florina has a well-earned vacation. Happily she has been invited to a Dutch cousin's wedding in Zierikzee the same week that Sir William will be over in Leiden. A very green carpool is arranged. At Aunt Minna's house we learn:
  • Sir William's Dutch is merely adequate while Florina's is excellent. (Heroines rarely are given the opportunity to be totally awesome in something the hero is just okay in. Her cooking and Dutch are fun little ways that Neels shows us that Florina might be shy and awe-struck by Sir William but she certainly isn't out of her depth)
  • Luxury hotel Schudderbeurs is handily close to Aunt Minna's house. My wouldn't that make a convenient watering hole in the case of Florina's marriage to a fastidious famous paediatrician.
  • Felix. Florina's uncle has a young business partner whose eyes are too close together. He makes a move on Florina (who at 27 is rather ripe for one) and is rebuffed. He calls her a b@#!*--all the more shocking because of The Venerable Neels' notable forswearing of swearing. Felix should also discover some Newtonian physics in the guise of Sir William's fist but, alas, is allowed to keep his nose for the duration.
Felix is so angry that this plain-Jane doesn't want a little lay-by dalliance that he deliberately puts his arm around her waist when Sir William comes to pick her up. William doesn't see her deliver an indignant shove to the Craven Felix and he's shattered (read: cold, withdrawn, "like a young man in the throes of his first love affair") to discover that he doesn't like Felix one little bit.
Back at the Wheel House William begins dropping hints like hot bricks ("Oh, you disturb me...", "I forget you're my cook.", "You have such beautiful hair..."). He's clearly made his mind up about Florina but is undecided about whether or not she's made her mind up about him.
Wanda comes down to the country again in order to fulfill her contractual role as Wicked Fiancee. In the course of making herself disagreeable she engages Florina the Good in a cat fight--seeing in her ginger eyebrows and worshipful mien a goose ready for plucking. But a 'royally angry' Florina has that alter-ego that prompts her to dump a pitcher-full of fresh lemonade over Wanda the Wicked. See why I never get this book mixed up?
Jolly makes a mental note to stop calling Florina 'miss' and begin calling her "Miss Florina".
But Felix the Craven's idea of a good time is to spend his precious week of holiday, not in chatting up the to-be-pitied women of Holland, but in traversing the Channel and destroying the dreams of a earnest working girl. He shows up at the Wheel House and insinuates a close relationship with our plucky chef. Sir William (once again cold and aloof) and Wanda the Wicked push Florina into Felix's flaccid arms. Florina is so distraught that she finally burns something ("Dinner is ruined!") and orders everyone out of the kitchen in a rage.
She avoids him for the rest of the week.
A motor smash up (no, not involving Florina's father or Felix the Fink or the Pustule of Death--Wanda) serves a a vehicle for the rescue of Florina and Pauline by Sir William. A touching bit of hand-holding is described. Pauline's concussion (she should have been wearing a helmet!...while running through the woods) takes them to London. Wanda and Florina have it out and Wanda the Really Despicable tells William that Florina is in love with him--right in front of Florina's face!
Editorial Note: There is a code of womanhood being breached here. It is permissible to rip to shreds a woman's choices in wedding millinery. It is forgivable to give her an eating disorder with constant criticisms. It is even allowable to take her man (if he hasn't put a ring on it). It is never okay to knife her in the back in front of the other sex. That kind of thing will get you kicked out of the club.
William says, "I know" which is the only thing he can say since Florina has been "Yes, Sir William"-ing him with calf's eyes for 200 pages.
He suggests that she take a leave of absence and she is disrespectful and flippant (which is a nice change as she has been worshiping at the shrine of Our Lady of Sir William for long enough). She goes off to The Netherlands to be a nanny for a bit (which is nothing like being a chef but evidently they were really up a creek) and William takes Wanda down to the country. One ordinary meal and a Bataan-like Death March through fields and paddocks and over stiles in high-heeled shoes is enough to convince her that Larry the American is the man for her. She actually chucks the diamond ring at his head and demands to be taken back to London. As it was most likely garishly large and of a modern cut, it could really have done some damage if it had connected with his head. (He should have been wearing a helmet.) William smiles wickedly. He's practically Machiavelli incarnate.
He collects Florina who is puzzled to see him again and when she demands to know where they are going he pulls into the slow lane and declares his love. He should probably have taken some hints from Felix the Craven and pulled into a lay-by for a spot of thorough kissing but we have to be content with meaningful hand-holding as he pulls into the fast lane once more and speeds homeward.

The End.

Food: There was so much so here's a not-comprehensive list of things I hope Betty Debbie might make: pommes lyonnaises, duchesse potatoes, braised celery, rolls, tomato chutney, calabrese, petits fours, vol-au-vents, salmon in aspic (at the hotel), liver and bacon (for her father...the swine), bacon and eggs with mushrooms and fried bread and tomato (first meal she makes for Sir William), boeuf en croute, watercress soup, profiteroles and chocolate sauce, crepes de valaille Florentine, artichoke hearts, lobster cardinal, beans on toast (in the middle of the Measles epidemic), Ploughman's lunch, poulet au citron, creme caramel, poulet Normand, milk pudding, boeuf flamand with beer and onions, strawberry Pavlova, accidentally burnt croutons, congress tarts, avocado pears with hot cheese, Paulina-made cakes and scones, lemonade, bitterballen, and nasi goreng (?)

Fashion: cheap, hard-wearing dresses, (striped cotton and a large white apron), enormous hoop earrings and a great many gold bangles (our villainess), scarlet chiffon (again our villianess), a peach-pink (so as not to clash mentally with her ginger hair) skirt suit from Country Casuals with low-heeled court shoes and a handbag

Rating: Boeuf en croute with some parts earning a Queen of Puddings. Our hero deserves the highest rating as he is so helpful with chores, creatively dumps the bad girl, often smiles wickedly and drops hints all over the place that Florina is the gal for him. Florina would get a higher rating from me if she didn't call him Sir William quite so much and didn't invite scads of children into her kitchen at the least provocation. Perhaps when I am out of the phase where I have to cook meals while pivoting on one leg (because the toddler or the baby has attached himself to me) I will find this trait to be more believable and less tooth-achingly saccharine.


23 comments:

  1. A shout out to Betty Kylene for being my dawdling bicyclist.

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  2. Oh, this sounds fabulous! And a redheaded heroine - hooray!

    Nasi Goreng - Indonesian fried rice dish; I've only tried it once but I recall it had chili peppers hiding in there for the unwary. Either this or it was simply spiked with peppers so my Asian friends could laugh at me as I found them.

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  3. Sounds like Lashings of Whipped Cream to me!

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  4. The lemonade scene alone earns the whipped cream. Plus, the hero even manages a snide comment about Veronica's tinted hair as well as hoovers the carpets. I think Betty might have been dipping into her Madeira while writing this one.

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  5. One of the funniest scenes in Neelsdom is Florina the Meek helping her cousin get dressed for the wedding: "and had zipped the dress up, only after having urged her cousin to breathe in while she did so, for Marjke was a shade too plump for it. All the same, she looked delightful and her pinched waist had given her A MOST BECOMING COLOUR"! [emphasis added].

    I have visions of Mammy squeezing Scarlett into an 18-inch waist garment:
    "Miss Scarlett, I do believe that you have been sampling too many of Betty Debbie's profiteroles!"

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  6. The Betty sure had a thing about red faces. How many people really look good flushed? Not me.

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  7. Oh, I always picture the cousin turning various shades of purple (and probably needing a handsome Dutch doctor to administer oxygen).

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  8. I really enjoyed it the second time around. My one quibble is I can't picture Florina's hair -- sandy hair is usually matte or even a bit dry in texture, but Betty makes hers silky and with a sheen. I suspect she's really a strawberry blonde.

    Hey, here's a question for everyone -- we've tried to "cast" male actors in the role of the Neels hero, but what about heroines? Who is the classic Araminta, Olivia, etc.?

    Oh, and everyone be honest here: Were you pronouncing her name FLOR-eh-na or Flor-EE-na? I have a nasty feeling it's FLOR-eh-na, but am not sure.

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  9. Um...I'm Southern, so my mind is coming up with something more along the lines of FLO-ree-nuh. Rhymes with Purina!

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  10. I was saying Flor-EE-na. I have heard Betty give us some really great female Dutch names. This, sadly was not one of them.

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  11. She being English, it might just be Flor-eye-na

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  12. Must. Read. This. Book. A hero who hoovers ... I'm taking a moment too! Plus dumping lemonade, oh yum!

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  13. I didn't remember much about this book, but really enjoyed a reread. I liked that Florina (Flo-Ree-Na to me) didn't take Wanda laying down, love a girl with some spirit. Loved the lemonade episode, and that the other household help were staunchly on her side. Yes, Sir William is a rare RDD in the amount on household help he chips in with, but he should have dumped Wanda then and there! Love the review, Betty Keira!

    Betty Laurel

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  14. Great review as always! I liked this a lot. I will all the Sir Williams for that jug of lemonade!
    Retreading all Betty books along with the reviews. Makes the lockdown totally bearable.
    Betty Suniti

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  15. Love it, love it, love it!!!

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  16. This is one of my favorites. The lemonade, along with eavesdropping Pauline‘s gales of laughter, are unique and memorable. I do have a question for all you Betty’s: Wanda stays unchaperoned with Sir William, both in the city and the country, so much so that it is impossible to call him during the measles episode without getting her instead. Are we supposed to believe that there are no Brighton-ish activities going on? Also, while Wanda is getting put through a death March, Florina is getting shipped overseas and a trial by children—LOTS of children. Personally, I’d prefer the death March.

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    1. Yes, Betty Meredith,I am certain we are supposed to believe that there are no Brighton-ish activities going on. 🧐 There are the servants to observe the proprieties...

      That Wanda must have been sitting by the telephone for days to prevent Jolly from answering it before her. 😁

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  17. Hahaha! I love this bit: "He makes coffee, brings morning tea, delivers trays of food, hoovers (!), scrapes potatoes and washes dishes. He's practically Betty Crocker. I'm going to need a moment to fan myself. Ahem!"

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  18. We care very little for this one. Sir William is terribly passive aggressive and immature whose maternal figure is all too willing to condone this behaviour. Wanda made a lucky escape. He wishes to break the engagement but rather than having that conversation he engages in such petty behaviour-the muddy hike, serving appalling food and throwing her in the way of any male acquaintance he has. Let us not even begin with the purchasing of a house without consulting what in the normal course of events would be his significant other.

    The real victim of his behaviour is his daughter Pauline. We are told that he married too early...hello...judging from Pauline's age he married in his early 30s. This is the excuse proffered for being a neglectful father??? He effectively purchased Wheel House as a place to stow Pauline so she doesn't disrupt his London lifestyle. We are supposed to view Wanda as a wicked future stepmother as she wants to place Pauline in boarding school and live in London. What happens in the end? Pauline is dumped in boarding school while William and Florian will live principally in London. We all know that once the children arrive Pauline will be completely abandoned. A more cynical reader may construe that Florina outwitted, outplayed and outlasted Wanda.

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    1. The Silence - Pauline will not be dumped in boarding school, she will be and likes the ideal of being a weekly boarder, meaning she will spend the weekends with her family.

      Neelsian heroes have the rather old-fashioned, bothersome idea that it's dishonourable for the man to break the engagement. They consider the promise of marriage as binding. You know, a promise is a promise... So he tries to make Wanda break off. And since Wanda is not a nice person I think Sir William is the one who made a lucky escape. 😊

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  19. I have to agree with your opinion on the name Pauline, but she rocked it. That kid was a total Bad A**

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