China Court

I think China Court is the last of Rumer Godden's major works that I still had left unread, and I've been hoarding a copy for about three years until I finally crumbled (what if I went under a bus and I still hadn't got around to reading it?)

There is so much to love about this 1960 novel. It further expands and develops on her earlier book, A Fugue in Time, which also examined the history of a house and its family through several generations simultaneously, but China Court is a country house and the prosperous Quin family balances a precarious position between classes. The stories of a handful of outstanding characters and marriages are stranded together in Godden's infinitely skilful way (though the family tree at the front of the book is very helpful). The present day narrative centres on young Tracy, who has returned to the family home just too late for the death of her beloved grandmother, who holds much of the novel together both as the matriarch Mrs Quin, and the village orphan and interloper Ripsie.

The love triangle between bastard orphan Ripsie and the two Quin brothers is devastating; the history of thwarted spinster Eliza in the previous generation is tragic. And I thought I was going to love the present-day fairy tale pairing between Tracy and Mrs Quin's protege, Peter (running the farm but nobly born, natch), until the last few pages, when Peter hits Tracy -- okay, he 'slaps' her and he warns her first, so arguably, she 'provokes' him, but this sudden assertion of old-fashioned masculine domination left a sour taste in my mouth. It's such a shame, because China Court is a really magical Godden novel in so many ways, if not for this shocking ending I think it would have become almost my favourite of her novels (though nothing will ever beat This House of Brede for me).