Embedded Files
Barbara Willard
"Truly all daughters, all sisters, are pawns in the game played by their menfolk. Only, Cecily, there was once a move made in this particular game that has not been revoked..." so says Cecily's Aunt Elizabeth. Cecily has had her world turned upside down by the ascent to the throne of Henry VII. Cecily's father changed sides in the War of the Roses for political advantage, something that stands against him now. He has to flee to France and leave Cecily with her aunt at Mantlemass in Ashdown Forest. At first Cecily is distraught to leave the comforts and familiarity of her home but she grows to realise how much her life was controlled and limited by her father and grows to love the freedom that Mantlemass gives.
She does this under the down to earth care of Dame Elizabeth who is a formidable woman and a wonderful character. It is great to see an older female character with great agency, authority and forthrightness. While lots of historical children's fiction gives that to girls, often making them a bit rebellious, their role models are often more demure. This was needed in this case to break Cecily out of her conditioned subservience but would be good to see more often.
The theme of the pervasive influence of controlling men is really well done, with her aunt's attempts to undo that conditioning coming up first against Cecily's lack of awareness of the problem with how she was raised and later her lack of confidence to move beyond the social proprieties as she was taught them. I liked that Dame Elizabeth is a flawed character too, the damage done to her life at Cecily's father's hands impacting throughout in how she acts with others.
For most of the book the attempt to escape the machinations of her father cast a shadow over Cecily rather than driving the plot. This allows the book to focus on her character development and her growing attachment to Lewis Mallory, their neighbour, only coming back to the wider plot late in the book. The description of Cecily's growing independence are very satisfying as is the sense of a somewhat egalitarian community where everyone depends on everyone else. Cecily is accutely aware of how far she has come, thinking of he old life that, "she had lived like a painted, tottering image of a girl, while here she might one day become herself." However, this sense of self also gives her a sense of how much she has to lose and gives a sense of tension behind the story.
The romance between Cecily and Lewis is well done, you can see why she falls for him. It is partially a certain similarity of their positions but he also represents an opening up of doors to new thoughts, knowledge and experiences. He does this much more sympathetically than Cecily's aunt, who tends towards brusque directness, ushering her into new experiences. I particularly enjoyed their ride to the sea where we both see their friendship develop and find more about the mystery of how he came to live in the forest. He also provides her a sense of protection but, satisfyingly, in the end much of the actual thwarting of plans is done by the female characters.
The ending has a number of good twists, satisfying resolutions and makes good use of the forest setting to create confusion and chaos with characters ending up all over the place trying to find one-another. Gareth Floyd's illustrations capture the wildness of the forest and slight separation of this kind of community from the rest of the world. I look forward to exploring it more in the rest of the series.
The Ring
Directions?
Riding to the Sea
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