A Summer Wedding (2014 Edition)

College sweethearts, they nipped away and got married this winter, after about eight years of living in poky bedsits in Brighton, fresh flowers always on the marquetry drum table so the various places looked bright and homey.  They decided to gather the clans to celebrate at grandma's New England pond-side summer house, and gosh can the young folks throw a party.
 

The gift table, with its own little marquee in case the partly-cloudy sky got obstreperous.

The bride is a horticulturalist and artist; this wildflower arrangement is hers.

She also did the centerpieces, with help from friends.  The table runners are paper, decorated with the bride and groom's initials handwritten by anyone who was around to write them.  They made a great graphic design; I feel very smart that I managed to figure out they were letters.

The view from the buffet.

And we walked by the marriage vows to get to that buffet.

May there always be a shared adventure rich with moments of serenity, as well as excitement; vital with problems that test as well as successes that lift...

The feast included charcuterie and cheese plates, mezze and salads and sandwiches and really great breads.

On the groom's side, we got to meet Mum and a cousin or something.  On the bride's side, there were Mum and Dad, one and a half sisters, three aunts, two uncles, just one of several cousins, Mum's second ex-husband (effectively bride's stepfather for much of her childhood and adolescence), stepdad's mother, sister and wife and someone who may have been his mother's boyfriend, Dad's mother, sister, wife, two cousins and Dad's daughter by current marriage so that's another half-sister.  There may have been more.  The photo of the bride's mother, father's wife and stepfather's wife together is... let's call it interesting.

Dress varied widely.  One of the wedding gifts was the bride's gorgeous tiara of fresh roses.

Where do I come in?  Through the kitchen door, natch.  I made Mum and Dad's wedding cake more than thirty years ago, and the bride wanted someone to bring dessert.  They hadn't specified a wedding cake, but wedding cakes are fun!  And since they had way fewer than 150 guests, I didn't need to construct a three-tier cake, which I can only vaguely recall how to do.  So I decided to go with two tiers and a cheesecake on the side that would make her dad happy.

Cheesecake o' love.

So having made that first cake, 30-some years ago, I got called on twice more in the ensuing fifteen years.  That, for those of you challenged by the maths-totting, means I haven't made a tiered cake for more than fifteen years.  How hard could it be, I reasoned, and left everything to the last minute.  My wedding cakes have all been chocolate, with fruit filling between the layers and buttercream overall.  The two marriages celebrated with chocolate and raspberry ended in divorce; the one celebrated with chocolate and cherry filling is still going fairly strong.  So there you go.  One of the bride's friends whipped a gallon or two of cream to go with a few gallons of fresh strawberries, plus there were sorbets, so everyone got well-desserted.

Sugaring a cherry is akin to gilding a lily, but sometimes 'fancy' is the right way to go.

They both seem very down-to-earth, reasonably smart, and centered.  I'm betting on happy ever after.

Guests did a little swimming as the sun drew in.

Then there were lanterns.  The groom and bride took theirs out on the pond, lit it...

let it go...

and watched it fly.

 

Betty's World on BBC!

Probably many of you have, by now, read Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth, or seen the BBC series based on the book and two follow-ups.  Those of you who have not have the most marvelous summer treat in store!

Worth (1935-2011) wrote her memoirs in her 60s, and the first volume was published in 2002.  The BBC series began airing in early 2012.

The story is autobiographical, with most names changed to protect the privacy of people Worth hadn't kept in touch with in the 50 years since the story's setting.  And that setting?  It's Worth's foray into midwifery in the tough slums of London's East End in the 1950s and early 60s!  Yes!  This is Betty's world, replete with caps and cloaks, Cockney accents and bicycles.

The first book contains a lot less romance (the author fled a doomed love affair, in her mid-teens, to learn nursing in a West End hospital, and doesn't care to discuss it) and a whole lot more gynecological detail than a Betty novel.  There are also heartbreaking stories of poor people abandoned to horror by a system without safety nets.  Worth doesn't shrink from the sorrow and horror, but keeps a stiff upper lip and soldiers on, calling in the chiropodist to deal with toenails untrimmed for decades, befriending a young prostitute and trusting a mother of 25(!) to deal with a premature baby successfully.  There's also a skinnydipping interlude in literal Brighton, but other than constant babies, no mention of metaphorical Brighton.

I've only seen two episodes of the show, one from the middle and one toward the end, but I get the impression romance figures more largely in the film version than the printed.  And oh, the costumes!  The hairdos!  The meals!

Must dash to library and attempt to wrestle volumes two and three (Shadows of the Workhouse and Farewell to the East End) from what is most likely a long list of requestees.  So maybe the bookstore...

Enjoy!

The Doubtful Marriage--1987

Can we talk about the title for a minute? The Doubtful Marriage just doesn't scream, "Pick me up! Pay full price!" I think it's asking to be re-named. But that's another post, perhaps...

Matilda "Tilly" Groves, 26 and very pretty, is a nurse and works for her uncle, a doctor. They enjoy a brisk trade in a nice little village and she keeps house with Emma the Trusty at her side. She is neither particularly enjoying nor intensely suffering a pre-engagement to Leslie--he is a lawyer, son of the manor, and resides in London most of the week, coming home at the weekend to march her off her feet. For no reason whatsoever, I imagine he sports a thin, mustache and has the kind of shoulders that slope to such an alarming degree that any burden, no matter the weight, would slide off with the speed of an Olympic Luger. He also calls her 'old girl' but remarkably still has all of his teeth.
Uncle tells Tilly that his old houseman is coming for the weekend. Fine, fine, she thinks to herself. Instead of one elderly pea rattling around the pod, there will be two. Only he's not. He's a run-of-the-mill RDD whose faintly amused air is directed at her pre-semi-engagement to Leslie the Shoulderless, Leslie's mama's snobbish protectionism and all those 'old girls' landing in the air.
Rauwerd van Kempler, 34, doesn't let any faint antagonism put him off for long. He whisks her off to Oxford for the day where presumably the buildings steeped in history and the Oxford blues seem to call to her, "He is kind! He is trusty! He's an Oxford man." At the end of the weekend he leaves again.
And then Uncle dies.
Like a domino in a chain, his death sets off a myriad of consequences. Leslie suddenly wants to hurry and get married. His mama is practically measuring Uncle's house for new drapes before his body is cold in the ground. And then the will is read. Uncle, after rearing the orphaned Tilly from a wee chick, reveals himself to be a closet misogynist. Tilly gets 500 pounds and some vague assurances that she ought to be provided an allowance. Her oily male cousin gets the house and the money and the right to throw her out on her ear. Thanks, Uncle. Hard luck you don't have a Y chromosome and a five o'clock shadow, girlfriend...
If Leslie is suddenly quite cool, his mother is glacial. What a pity. "You would have been most suitable." She sighed so deeply that her corsets creaked..."It grieves us very much that this cannot be." Though Leslie is not much of a loss, surely finding out that one's chief attraction is a common boundary fence must be lowering.
So Tilly gets the first job going and takes off. I won't dwell on this episode but to say that the description of the inevitably Victorian hospital relies heavily on the terms: margarine-yellow, spinach-green, stern, dumpy, dreary, gloomy, grim and depressing. She catches the flu just in time for Doctor van Kempler to ride to her rescue.
She wakes up in his home with her faithful maidservant, Emma, at her side. Rauwerd is concerned with her health but somewhat aloof and polite. And then, when she is mostly well again, she is given a tour (not by him but with his seal of approval) of the house. Ah, beloved Bettys. A home tour. I smell a marriage of convenience in the offing, no?
She tells him that she really must be going and then, as sure as socking, great Bentley's eat up miles, he sits her down for a little confab about what he really wants. Actually, not what he really wants--only what he is prepared to admit that he really wants. Would she consider marrying him? No, no, how does he put it? I should like us to be married...
Hm. I should like us to be married. I'm trying to wring the romance out of that but it's like getting blood from a stone. To quote Gertrude Stein, 'There's no there there.' And then when he lists his assets, his reasons for marrying and the precise nature of his feelings (tepid yet well-disposed) you realize he's diving his bi-plane deep into the dreaded Mr. Collins territory. Surely he's about to be shot down.
Miraculously his proposal, nearly complete with bullet-points and pie charts, wins some deliberation. He finds her later to receive her answer. She intends to say no:
"There's really nothing to talk about," she managed. He chose to misunderstand her. "Oh good, I knew you'd be sensible."
I don't know about her but that's my dawning realization, right there.
Anxious not to appear anxious, he falls asleep (with the speed and abruptness of Betty Debbie--she is a jungle cat, my friends) while she weighs the pros and cons. 'Alright. I'll marry you!'
And you somehow feel as though she's not making a huge mistake--as though the doubtful marriage isn't so very doubtful. He 'likes her enormously' and needs a wife. Empires were forged on more slender threads than that.
She gets her G.I. (government issue) sapphire ring and quite a lovely wedding with in-laws and everything. Crossover character Sybren Werdmer ter Sane is the best man and his wife Rose (A Girl Named Rose) is also invited. You should be happy to know that they are still madly in love (whew) and their G.I. Pledge of Affection is back home with Granny and Grandad. But Rose, Gold Medallist of her year that she was, notices that something is amiss with Tilly and Rauwerd. They are too chummy.
Tilly and Rauwerd skip honeymooning in favor or heading straight to his--'our'--home in Leiden. She shops, tours the home, inspects the linen cupboard...
Interjection: I am seriously going to use the books of The Mighty Neels as a template for 'How to Go On: What to Do When Marrying Rich' as all it ever seems to entail is flower arranging, menu ordering, whisky pouring and having intimate knowledge of every scrap of fabric to cross the threshold.
They throw a dinner party and I love The Great Betty for dressing our heroine in a stunning green number with a low-cut bodice. If one is going to fight a war it always pays to come suited in armor. Rauwerd has invited Nikky who has earned my hostility already for having a made-up name. She's an old friend--the kind that can't balance a check book or drive a car or fill out even her microscopic slashed and slinky black outfits.
Tilly is surprised to find herself bothering to be catty. With good reason, as it turns out. Every time she settles by the fire with a restful spot of knitting her husband is rushing out the door to Amsterdam (22 miles away) to tutor Nikky (ugh, even her name looks like it's stabbing you in the back) about the intricacies of the international monetary fund. No, of course I kid. She's being dumb about her own stocks and bonds but in her defense Nikky is hitting her prime before Beyonce's Single Ladies so wouldn't know that a woman can be totally in charge of her business while wearing inappropriately high-cut black stretch leotards at the same time.
'I've been waiting for you to ask about Nikky.'
'...You said before we married me that we would get on well together--that's what you want, isn't it?'
'Yes. That's what I wanted, Matilda.'
What was that? Verb tenses? A little sit-down with a criminal prosecutor debating what the meaning of 'is' is and these crazy kids could get sorted out. Wanted. Past-tense. It's so tiny--such a slim thread to indicate a monster of a dawning realization in his rear-view mirror.
Interlude de Las Palmas: He has some lecturing to do in Las Palmas at some week-long convention which sounds like the awesomest waste of medical fees ever. Why doesn't she come and they could stay another week over? She doens't try and think very hard about why the thought of escaping Nikky and her rapacious 401K retirement plan pleases her so much.
In Las Palmas we have:

• Her wearing slacks which he thinks she looks H.O.T. in.
• Her wearing decorative swimwear which he thinks she looks H.O.T. in.
• Finding a wreck on a windy mountain road.
• Followed by a hard kiss!
• Followed by a dawning realization.
  

He's standing there holding her Gucci scarf (retrieved from a bush to warn oncoming traffic) and she's as mesmerized as some dratted bull. Shoot. Now she loves him and suddenly all this chummy hanging out isn't cutting it.
Matilda thinks some hard thoughts in her tepid bath. A new hair style (always a first on the Betty list of Captivating a Man) and maybe she should become more like Nikky--starved and sunken...She will try for him.
She does catch his eye the next morning in her skimpy bathing suit. What a pity she doesn't swim either competently or gracefully--either one would do for me but knowing she sinks like a rock after some unseemly thrashing about ruins it. The Founding Bettys come from a family that shamelessly abused the Willamalane Aquatic Center Family Pass in order to achieve both.
Back in Leiden she changes course with the suddenness of new driver at a traffic signal. Rauwerd shot off to visit Nikky the Nincompoop on the first night back and Matilda realizes that those two warm weeks of conviviality and looking at his abs (though never mentioned, I assume he doesn't swim in well-tailored tweeds) are over and done. If her husband wants to make himself ridiculous over a shallow-bosomed, middle-aged blonde tartlet then it's none of her lookout. She will be exactly what he asked of her: a social manager, a charity worker, a faithful daughter-in-law and when he wanted her company, [she would] comply willingly. Can you hear the furniture being smashed to bits in her mind?
But she hasn't sent up the white flag of surrender. She'll win him over if it's the last thing she does.
Only now, the women Rauwerd married is a slightly prickly automaton. She isn't by his fire when he comes home to tea. She isn't put out when he has to travel to Amsterdam. She's running on oiled rails. And the wonderful thing is that he can't quite catch her out. No rising blushes or guilty looks give her game away.
But she flies rather too high after the Spring Ball. Nikky has somehow managed to coax a ride from the dependable Rauwerd and Tilly, while outwardly the life and soul of bon homie, is angry enough to pay him back. She, in the most underhanded and subtle maneuver (truly worthy of Lucrezia Borgia), begs them to stay for coffee before he drives to Amsterdam and then makes pointless chit-chat for an hour or more. By the time her husband is on the road and back again it's pushing 5am.
Tears that she cried over doing it are invariably discovered and a small spat ensues. Sadly, this does not clear the air.
BOMB! (In Holland. In 1987. Did the Friesian people suddenly decide to mount a separatist movement that I didn't hear about?)
She is a first responder and when Rauwerd finds her there are some satisfying verbal exchanges as they stand over the groaning blast victim lying amongst tins of Vienna sausages at their feet and a longing look when her back is turned.
Since she's been smothered in oranges and crushed tomatoes, has a black eye and has flaked out, she's sent home to rest. Though she has to wear an eye patch, Rauwerd tells her that she got off 'lightly'. Dude. Rauwerd. Piece of advice. I don't care if you've been up to your shins in gore all day. If your wife has to wear an eye patch, make a fuss!
Nikky, wondering why her financial planner has been so difficult to contact, shows up at the house. She pours venom into Tilly's shocked ears but it is...wait for it...Gold Medallist Rose Comely with her baby carrycot to the rescue! To truly recognize the awesome bo-dacity of watching nice Rose Comely give the tart a trimming ala' Pam Grier and throw her out on her ear you have to go read her book.
Rauwerd, warned by Rose, is off to Amsterdam one last time but when he comes back to invite Tilly (who is in bed knitting feverishly) to London with him it is a case of 'too little too late'. Tilly's been stood up at her own dinner table one too many times and if Rauwerd wants to take Nikky to London he's more than welcome to!
If only Rauwerd had channeled Rock Hudson in Pillow Talk and yanked her out of bed and back to his bachelor pad, all of the remaining sturm and drang could be avoided...
He's off to London and Tilly decides to beard the enemy in her Amsterdam lair. With an implausability that destroys any consistent characterization of Nikky, the villainess admits to being pitiful ('I'm incapable of making and keeping friends so Rauwerd tosses me a bone now and then.') , manipulative, and not in love with Rauwerd one bit. She admits her motives and (angelically choosing not to gum up any more works) tells Tilly that he was never in love with her. Oh, yes, and she's going to America where she will contract some bedroom disease and die alone....well, actually to find an American husband but the upshot is the same so it amounts to the same thing. She also utters these words: American men are supposed to be good husbands.
Oh dear, Betty Neels. If only you meant it.
Tilly races to London, bursts in on Rauwerd in a hospital's consultant's room and the delight shatters him. Semi-public kissing, implied future-tense conjugal relations discussed and a promise that she can only ask about Nikky when they are very old and the grandchildren aren't around.
The End

Rating: I liked the second half of this much better than the first half. Until it is established that she is, in fact, in love with him, we don't get very much of them together outside the lines of 'we-spent-the-day-in-Oxford-laughing-about-the-same-things-but-here's-what-we-ate-in-minute-detail' and so forth. The fireworks begin as soon as she identifies her goal. He is totally weird about helping Nikky the Nincompoop with her finances as it seems like a better way to win his wife's affections would be to hand the business card of a CPA over, gift her a copy of Personal Accounting for Dummies and start spending his evenings staring at his wife's feverish knitting. And then he acts like some over-drawn cartoonish woman and wants her to read his mind about his intentions re the tartlet. So, I dunno. I liked it okay but it wasn't her best. Treacle Tart. The second half was better than that but the first act was just so-so for me. Still, there are some wonderful lines and it's well worth the read.

Food: scones, steak and kidney pudding, Calabrese and carrots, creamed potatoes, rhubarb pie and egg custard, sausages and mash, wintergreens, apple pie, poached egg on haddock, treacle tart, iced melon, hot souffle' with chocolate sauce, Italics food, wedding cake, lobster in one way or another like three times, champagne sorbets, lemon sorbet, toasted scones and wafer thin bread that sounds suspiciously like something my grandma used to make--Nurse/Grandma Hanna was not known for her cooking...

Fashion: chintzy paper nurse caps, tweed suit, pale pink crepe dress, pleated amber crepe, a silvery-green dress that is blessedly low-cut as she meets Nikky in it, 2 uncrushable crepe evening dresses, slacks, a delicious sounding satin clotted cream dress with a wide skirt and a marabou wrap for the Spring Ball, an eyepatch. Emma wears a majestic plum colored felt hat for the wedding. Nikky goes around in sheeths, slashed skirts, and slinky black numbers.

When May Follows--1981

When May Follows was chosen to be reviewed this week because it is May. That's the kind of judgment and wisdom it takes to be a Grand High Poobah Arbiter of Everything here at The Uncrushable Jersey Dress. That's why they pay us the big bucks.

Professor Baron Raf van Tellerinck, 38, is very lucky he has a short first name. That's what Alice Bennett must be thinking to herself as she meets him at her party. Like the skilled surgeon that she isn't, she wields a very blunt scalpel and hacks away at The Unnecessarys like a cancerous mole. ("I shall call you Raf.") Like another certain Mrs. Bennett, she flags down her three daughters to meet the dashing stranger. What a fine thing for our girls!
Two of them are short--cute, but short--but the third (and oldest) sister is an Amazon. "Five feet ten inches and what's known as a large lady, no one believes I'm one of the family..." I personally don't greet new people with my figures ("5'3", size 6 on a good day but 8 when I'm bloated.") but Katrina Bennett (27, Ward Sister on Men's Medical at Benedict's) can see Raf's faint surprise.
They chat for a bit about the weather and the seasons and he quotes a bit of poetry. Here is some of it:
O, To be in England Now that April 's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now! And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

It's a darling one of Browning's--stuffed with longing for spring in England--but actually not that relevant to the story. Bummer. Unless you read it as an allegory for all that is bright and wonderful about Kate getting even better when May follows in which case...Betty you magnificent genius!
Katrina returns to her hospital duties in London soon following. Here we see our splendid Amazon actually dress down a subordinate (quite rare in Neelsdom--but the girl deserved it), negotiate hospital beer rations (I will never get used to Betty allowing mythical patients to drink beer in hospital), and cope admirably with slipped ligatures. Well, not too admirably. She'd really like some help as the blood is pooling rather quickly out of the bandage...Enter Raf (rhymes with strafe or laugh?). He's a surgeon!
She meets him at Honorary Uncle Ben's and then (like our heroes always do) he asks her to attend The King and I in front of a benignly ignorant observer who takes her consent for granted and asks helpful questions like, "Going all tarted up?" (yes, he does!). She agrees--only to ask, with charming frankness, "Am I to come all tarted up?" (All this tarting tempts to say in a very Inigo Montoya fashion, "I do not think that means what you think it means.")
In the mean time, Katrina has accepted (in a moment she already bitterly regrets) a date with Jack "Brighton" Bentall. He's short (!), takes her to Chinese (!) food (if you can call it that!), and bores her into a stupor that she rouses out of like she's been splashed with cold water. Bettys, I give you the Jack "Brighton" Bentall: Anatomy of a Proposition:

• Everybody else does it these days...
• ...and getting married seems a bit silly...
• ...until I've reached the top...
• ...and you're not all that keen on it, are you?
• You can't be--you must have had plenty of chances, but after all, you are twenty-seven.

I think he hit all the high points, class. He first isolates his test subject as a freak of nature, devalues cherished institutions and aspirations, peacocks about his career prospects, follows with a flourish of understanding as to the short-term nature of her interest and then...reminds her of her advanced age! That'll get them every time.
Instead of insulting his age, bald spot, lack of inches, pretensions to sophistication, choice of eatery for the grand seduction (and I like Chinese food), etc. etc., she tells him that she's just accepted a job...in The Gulf...she's resigning tomorrow...so sorry.
He's predictably sulky and moody and punitive--just the sort of man for whom sexual harassment legislation was created. Still, she said The Gulf and she's got to quit her job or be plagued by this small (and I do not refer to his size) man indefinitely.
Raf corners her in an office. "Would you consider marrying me?" Hmm. Sand storms and heat stroke or...a lifetime supply of pannekoeken? Class? (Bounces on seat. Raises hand. "Me, me, pick me!")
She dithers the merest bit and capitulates without ever knowing why. He hasn't said he loves her. He's been quite frank about needing companionship but has been 'Neels-explicit' ("...take our time getting to know each other...") about conjugal relations.
The engagement, while short, has a few interesting moments.

• She gets the idea that he's not telling her something about his debt-to-asset ratio. If father were alive, he'd sit down with the RDD, ask some pointed questions about prospects and intentions and that would be that. Sure he runs a great, socking Bentley but what does that mean?
• She's teasing him about his 'girlfriends' and when he agrees that he has had plenty, she frowningly takes the comb she had been putting into her hair out and jabs it in again anyhow. "That comb looked very nice where it was before, why didn't you leave it there?" He took it gently out again and slid it expertly into its original place, then bent to kiss her cheek...He's tipped his hand. This intimate little interplay is the Rich Dutch Doctor equivalent of putting his proposal on the Jumbo-tron at a Knicks game. He's in love with her and she doesn't know it.
  
• He gives her her engagement (Government Issue Heirloom Sapphire/Diamond) ring in the hospital consultant's room and asks (with what I image to be very rehearsed casualness) if she'd like to seal the deal with a kiss. She flings her arms around his neck very spontaneously while he (the Kiss Solicitor!) is...terse and perfunctory. But don't judge the man. He was contracting a love-on-one-side marriage and was unprepared for the amount of self-control needed to persuade her that nobody loved anybody--especially when she kissed like that!

She is married in a leghorn hat (Foghorn Leghorn is in my head too) in a little chapel in the Abbey where her father worked. Jake (with Brittania of Brittania All At Sea) is the Best Man.
The honeymoon is when things start to go South (no North, as they are in Scotland) for Katrina. Raf is lecturing for the first week and she's a bit lonely and probably wondering why he wanted companionship so much when she never sees him. She asks if she might attend one of his lectures and he snubs her ("My dear girl, whatever for? You'll be bored to tears in half an hour."). And he's right. After all, it's not as though she has spent the bulk of her adult life in the medical field, treating those same conditions he would discuss..........erm. But give him a break. He is actually saying, "Darling, there is not a prayer that I could keep my mind on end-to-end anastomosis while you're in the room. I'd tell the fellows to use the wrong suture stitch and then hundreds would die all because of your legs."
She feels hurt out of all proportion and in a delightful bit of retaliation spends his money (she still doesn't know how much he has) on ugly shoes and the kind of trouser suit that women negotiate nuclear non-proliferation treaties in. Of course, real pay-back would have been to make him take her to dinner in them but she caves and tells him all about her revenge. Duly chastened, he promises to let her come to a lecture sometime. His eyes gleam.
They drive to Holland after spending the night in his London flat. (What? He has a London flat? Sheesh. Now you tell me.) He lives 'on the fringe' of a village. Surely that's specific enough. Well, actually, he probably owns half the village and lives in the baronial seat, past the high wrought iron gates and up the sanded drive.
"It can't be.."
"Yes, it is."
Dang it. He's probably stinking rich too...With time she adjusts herself admirably to this rather sudden reversal of fortune.
Nanny and Caspel (the butler) and his wife all belong to Raf's childhood escape from Nazis. He's an orphan, you see, and utterly without close relatives of any kind. (My maternal comfort-o-meter is off the charts.)
If things are a little distant between Raf and Katrina, they're still pleasant. She becomes accustomed to driving on the right because, if you'll forgive a little personal Betty Keira cultural imperialism, that's the way Providence intended people to drive.
He takes her out for the day by the sea when he spots a yacht heading dangerously for a channel. Nothing for it but to shuck the shoes and head into the drink. Thank heavens, Katrina can swim--not that she gets any thanks for it. His only response to her swimming hundreds of meters into choppy seas (in a gorgeous nautical number), providing traction while he splints a leg and comforting a wailing toddler is to say, "You're wet--it suits you." Let's not get into an argument about whether it was his job to thank her since they shared equally in the rescue (I am inclined to think that his opinion of women was quite high since he didn't automatically assume she would be useless in an emergency--gratitude might have been condescending about her abilities). But every general has to deal with troop morale and with some positive reinforcement she would happily have charged the hill again--especially as she has just had a dawning realization on the yacht deck!
Now Katrina has a goal--whereas before she was aimless about what constituted satisfactory happiness in her marriage.
But every Eden has its viper. Raf returns one day with Beyke (the Dutch equivalent of Tammy)--an old friend lately returned from the States (and quarantine, presumably, to get the America stink off her). Suddenly green-eyed jealousy makes for a very tempestuous home life. Faked headaches, real headaches, pettishness...Not Katrina's finest hour but Raf isn't helping out at all. On the night of her very first dinner party (in her new adopted country where she knows servants and only ONE other couple), he walks in barely on time with Beyke on his arm.
I know, I know, it's part of a grand plan he has to make her jealous but he's not really thought out how awful this is. First dinner party! Doesn't speak Dutch! Doesn't know anyone! Nerves stretched to infinity! Now is not the time to teach her that she loves you. And don't you dare laugh that she's getting tight on the whisky.
To top it off, he takes Beyke home (while Kate does the dishes and a horrified Caspel looks on), doesn't compliment her on her appearance and (when he shoos Caspel off and picks up a dishrag) tells her that there was no reason for the evening to be a failure since she's a 'capable girl and... had plenty of help'. Breathe deeply, my Bettys, while I compose a letter:

Dear Teacher of Social Mores to Dutch Young Men,
Sir, you have failed. There are few Commandments of Husbanding that are entirely unbreakable but the failure to bite when one's spouse is fishing for compliments is the foremost. This, and other rules such as Outfit Noticing, Wrinkle Non-noticing and Open-handedness, should be leading the curriculum. All else is gravy,
Sincerely,
Betty Keira
Grand High Poobah Arbiter of Everything

Happily, Raf responds with some pretty heated words of his own. Yes, I said happily.
When they go away for a weekend to his farm in Friesland (I tell you, getting a list of his properties is like wringing blood from a stone.) she is determined to have it out with him:
Why didn't you tell me about Beyke/Tammy!
Do you love me?
You probably have a tattoo of her on your chest!
No, seriously, do you love me even a little?
She doesn't stink like America too much anymore--we could divorce!
It would make all the difference in the world if you said you love me...
Well, I don't!
He actually is pretty persistent about getting her to be honest with him but she's afraid that if she is, he'll be a slave to duty and stick with her--even though his heart belongs to Tammy...er, Beyke.
Maybe his lectures in Austria will help him sort out...BAM!...a plane crash. (Don't mind the screams of the dead...) It's Raf's flight number and Katrina is frantic. She rushes to the airport and is nosed off the road by...his Bentley. This doesn't seem the time to bring up the obvious safety hazards of a great, socking Bentley pushing a teeny, tiny Mini off into the grass verge, but may I point out that airbags didn't become standard for luxury cars until 1987. A Mini is not a luxury car.
Raf you're not dead! I love you!
See, I told you that would fix everything!
The End


Rating: I can't say that the title rang a bell so I won't pretend that it's super memorable but I like it quite well (and, no, I am not damning with faint praise). It's not first tier material but a solid, solid boeuf en croute. It's got a plane crash and implied carnage, for pity's sake, that Betty doesn't let us dwell even a minute on. She wasn't the kind of author to waste precious ink on giving her gentle readers a brow pucker for the 100 or so strangers who have just perished on an Alpine pass just so that Raf and Kate could kiss in romantic dishevelment. And I love her for it.

Food: cheese sandwiches (not warmed over?), lots and lots of what I call 'Italics food' (wherein all potatoes are Pommes and all chicken is Poulet--for instance pommes de terre Berny and poulard Imperatrice) cavier, Welsh rarebit, apricot brulee

Fashion: Sapphire silk jersey dress, amber and brown organza with balloon sleeves (which only ever looks right on Amazons--us Aramintas had better watch how often we invite comparisons to balloons), a brown marabou stole (which seems fussy), Raynes shoes, a tawny cotton voile, her wedding outfit includes a leghorn hat and a thick slub silk dress (seeing slub silk before I die is now on my bucket list), and he wears a heavy signet ring just like pre-corpulent Marlon Brando!

Tabitha In Moonlight--Discussion Thread

Marius works in Rotterdam and goes to and from Veere most days which is 60 odd miles so it doesn't take him "much more than an hour". (Dr. van der Stevejinck lives about 18 miles from his workplace. It takes him about 30 minutes. Longer than that on the way home. Some days MUCH longer.) Was there a Dutch speed limit back in 1972? Traffic congestion would have had to have been non-existent. Is this at all realistic? Discuss. [Betty Keira] Mijneer Nathan van Voorheers has a fifty minute commute for a distance of 13 miles but since he goes via compact car-light rail-city bus he's probably lucky it isn't longer. No doubt a great socking Bentley could eat up the distance in no time.

Let's talk about wills-- Tabitha's father leaves no amended will so that Tabitha's stepmother inherits everything and though the father intended stepmother to receive all the money and Tabitha to get Chidlake, it was only an idea since he never changed his will. Perhaps Betty Magdalen, who knows something about the law and something about the British could address this? Do you have a will? Or will you let your child's stepparent take it all by default? I have trouble being in complete harmony with Tabitha on this one. Yes, she was hard done by but she has a flat (small), fine furnishings, an annuity and a longtime servant whose only retirement plan seems to be clinging like a limpet to Tabitha until she's worked into the ground. Seriously, Tabitha is quite well off for a nurse.

"She gave Mrs. Jeffs a speaking glance as she did so which that lady rightly interpreted as a request for her cuffs to be brought immediately. Ward sisters always wore their cuffs when they did a round with the consultant staff, in the same way as men took their hats off in lifts and everyone curtsied to royalty..." As sure as God made little green apples and Betty Neels mentions Ward Sisters, you can bet that somewhere along the line she will be fussing with her cuffs. Evidently the cuffs were not attached...were they to cover up wrinkled sleeves? Protection from spatter? The sartorial equivalent of a necktie? Why detachable cuffs on Ward Sisters??? Help us out here. Please.

There is a lot of swimming in Tabitha by Moonlight. I love that the characters change behind trees and rocks...but why not change in the boat? Trees and rocks are fine in a pinch - but sometimes they only screen you from one side, while the family picnicking on the other side of the rock have a birds eye view (which you don't realize because you are so busy peeking around the rock or tree to make sure no one in your group is peeking) and sometimes there are nasty little surprises like bugs, snakes or poison ivy. Of course no one in Neeldom would peek. And why don't people wear swim suits under their clothing?--that way, no need for a rock.

Swimming. Tabitha is a good swimmer. It's more common that heroines in Neels are poor or merely adequate swimmers - but there are other examples of good swimmers. The Hanna Bettys, one and all, fall under the "good swimmer" banner. We all "did time" on the high school swim team (don't you wish I had pictures of THAT!), and we all lettered in swimming...at least, I did, and if I did, any of the rest of them were entirely able to. The reason we were a swim team family was simple. Our dad was the high school swim coach adviser. He didn't do the main coaching - at least not while I was there - but he brought along his daughters (and some sons) to help bolster the number of swimmers. We may not be fast, but we are buoyant. I am convinced that because the Willamalane Pool family pass was the best deal for a fun time in provincial Oregon we all became expert.

CAST AWAY!! On one hand, I'm appalled that Lilith would strand Tabitha on the island...but c'mon Tabitha! How thick can you be? Besides that, and the fact that Tabitha is inadequately dressed for a night on a desert island, I adore the marooning of Tabitha. I was raised on Swiss Family Robinson, In Search of the Castaways, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, Gilligan's Island (Which is Tabitha? Mary Ann or Ginger? Remember, she is wearing a bikini.) and more recently, Cast Away and the TV series Lost. Love, love, love it. Love it.

Things that I couldn't possibly fit into the review:

• She is supposed to have grey hairs--at 25. Unjust Betty!
• CHIDLAKE is near Lyme Regis which plays an important role in Jane Austen's Persuasion. Tabitha walks out onto the Cobb and I think of that nit Louisa Wentworth's fateful leap. Lilith might be persuaded to take such a leap if properly propelled with a sharp slap betwixt the shoulder blades...
• Marius and Tabitha find a woman with a concussion in her kitchen. Instead of whisking her off to the hospital, they wash up and sew stitches into her scalp on the spot. While I appreciate their low-cost, low-fuss approach, the woman--a horrible landlady with a "flat, harsh Midlands accent" who should probably walk the gallows for it--is just the kind to sue if she gets the slightest infection or runs a low-grade fever.
• Marius breaks into the above-mentioned landlady's house using one of Tabitha's hair pins. Where did he learn such a skill, I wonder?
• [Betty Debbie] Betty Keira noted in the fashion section of Tabitha in Moonlight that Tabitha wore pink denim pants. She scoffed. I gently remonstrated. This book was written back in 1972. Before the Denim Revolution. This was only one year after the dress code in our school district in Provincial Oregon relaxed and allowed girls to wear pants. Prior to that it was dresses only for girls. Our mom bought Betty Marcy and I two pairs of "jeans". Lavender and lime green. You heard me. Lavender and lime green jeans. I'm just saying...pink denim was not way out there back then. Impractical, yes - unheard of? No.
  

Beach Blanket Betty

Whenever they get the chance, tall, lint-fair and handsome will drag his Araminta or Olivia off to the beach. Seldom is it sunny and warm. More than likely it will be "invigorating" which is code for: shiver me timbers, it's cold! Often it will be pouring rain. This is all well and good for our hero, but poor Araminta is wearing last year's suit (skirt and jacket), tights and sensible lace-ups. If she's lucky she also has a scarf and a threadbare but still serviceable coat. In Always and Forever, Oliver takes Amabel to the coast twice in November/December.

Details like that don't much bother the Founding Bettys. Nope. The unspoken motto for our family would go something like "If it's water, let's go swimming!" Never you mind about the weather - if it's cold outside, the water will feel warmer! (This is true...as we know by our experience). No swimsuit? No problem! Just swim in your clothes and ride home soaking wet. (again, true stories). Our family has been known to pile into the family vehicle and drive to the coast at any time of year. Yes, we have been swimming at the Oregon coast in January and June. Sometimes the weather is actually better in winter...summer is no guarantee of balminess in the Pacific Northwest. The regular temperature of the ocean off the Oregon Coast is such that when you first step in, your feet cramp. It's not so much getting used to the water as it is just getting numb enough to not feel the cold.

Yes, our parents raised them some hardy lasses.

Since this is at least the second time we here at The Uncrushable Jersey Dress have referred to it, we're giving you a handy link to Hulu - where you can watch the entire feature film The Pirates of Penzance for free. (The founding Bettys have worn out more than one VHS tape of this piratical gem - and yes, we know nearly all the words by heart).

Enjoy.