The Young Clementina (1935) by D.E. Stevenson

 

I've been splurging on two authors in the last couple of years. Mary Stewart is one and the other is D.E.Stevenson. Mary Stewart was a new author I was introduced to through a friend and although I'd read one of Stevenson's books a few years ago, her books weren't readily available here. If you like a bit of action, feisty heroines and a variety of settings, then I’d recommend Mary Stewart. D.E. Stevenson’s books are softer and more domestic but they are lovely to read, she has a focus on the natural world and her stories are often set in her homeland of Scotland.

There is a sameness in the individual plot structures of each of these authors. I’ve linked to reviews I’ve written about some of Mary Stewart’s books above that will give you an idea of her style. Stevenson’s plots, at least in the novels I’ve read so far, focus on quite young women who have often had difficult or disrupted childhoods. They are unworldly, vulnerable, and generally under confident.

The Young Clementina departs a little from this as the main protagonist is in her thirties, and the man she loved in her teens and expected to marry, married someone else. It is darker and sadder than some of her other books. with a gritty realism in parts and if I didn’t know at the beginning that it was published in 1935, I would have put it after WWII and not before.
The main protagonist is not Clementina and I wondered why the title is what it is, but she is a key person in this story even though we meet her later in the book and she isn’t in it for very long. 

Two roads are open to me, one lonely but well known, peaceful and uneventful; the other full of dangers and difficulties which I cannot foresee.

Charlotte had been living on her own in a bleak flat in London for twelve years. She had grown up with Garth, a close neighbour, and had expected they would be married but when WWI broke out he had gone with all the other young men to fight for his country. Unlike many of the others who went, he returned, but he was changed.

The boy that I had known so well was a gentle-natured creature, considerate to others and somewhat self-effacing. This man who had come back in his place was ruthless, almost brutal at times. I told myself that the war had changed Garth’s nature…

Charlotte realised one night that it was all over between them and that Garth had gone from her forever. It was then that she moved to London and settled into a lonely but peaceful existence working in a private library reviewing travel books.

Separation

THERE is a mountain and a wood between us,
Where the lone shepherd and late bird have seen us
Morning and noon and eventide repass.
Between us now the mountain and the wood
Seem standing darker than last year they stood,
And say we must not cross—alas! alas!

– Walter Savage Landor

This has been my favourite book by Stevenson so far. It is more layered than some of her others and there was a sense of mystery throughout. The characters were interesting, and as with the author’s other books her sense of humour was evident, but in The Young Clementina that only surfaced in one character:

Mrs. Cope – the straight talking, outspoken cleaning lady who was a good friend to the lonely Charlotte:

Mrs. Cope looked around the court and preened herself; she was not in the last frightened, nor dismayed. Is there another country in the world where a woman of Mrs. Cope’s class and upbringing could face a judge and jury in a crowded court with confidence in their integrity and in her own rectitude? Is there another country in the world that could produce a Mrs. Cope?

Kitty – another main character and Charlotte’s younger sister who was selfish, spoiled and devious:

Kitty had become an undisciplined woman…I realised, too, that Kitty had coarsened, not physically – for her body had been cared for with unremitting skill and attention – but coarsened mentally, or perhaps spiritually would be nearer the truth…The coarsening of her mental fibres dismayed me. It was more grief to realise her degeneration, than to contemplate the mess she had made of her life, for the one was an inner and the fundamental thing and the other was merely fortuitous…
I should have been more help to her in her hour of need if she had not shut me out of her life so completely for twelve years.

This was a poignant story that fully engaged my attention. Charlotte’s loneliness and confusion over the lost relationship with Garth was very touching and Stevenson balanced Charlotte’s sorrow at the lost relationship with the feeling of peace she felt in not being in a position to be hurt by the man she still loved.

When I had recovered sufficiently I went and sat in Kensington Gardens and watched the children playing. I felt weak and silly, and the happiness of the children, as they ran about and shouted at each other, touched a spring in my heart…I had missed all that in my life – all the joys of normal womanhood – I was a very lonely woman, on the way to a lonely old age.

Charlotte’s acceptance of her life in London shielded her heart and given her some contentment but she was sunk in a groove that made her shrink from any change. But now she had a decision to make – to risk further misery and pain and face a prospect that terrifies her or to stay in the old groove of her life in books, dreams and loneliness.

I loved this story of loss and new beginnings and a woman’s search for truth. A very satisfying and compassionate story!

According to Wikipedia this title was published as Divorced From Reality in 1935 (alternate title: Miss Dean’s Dilemma; and was republished in 1966 as The Young Clementina)