Latter End by Patricia Wentworth


published 1947



The beautiful Mrs Latter in her rose-garden, the late summer sunshine bright on her auburn hair and the cool, flawless skin which never tanned or freckled. Her dress of honey-coloured linen blended pleasantly with the flowers in their September bloom.


So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past

First quote is from Latter End, the second is the famous last line of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and says many things about life, but it also seems to describe my endless reading of the books of Patricia Wentworth, my comfort author of choice in lockdown.

Latter End has many elements in common with her other books in some ways, but is also an oddity. The villainous Lois, mistress of Latter End, is a spectacularly unpleasant person, and her depiction is very clever. She has turned getting her own way into an art form, and has also managed to virtually enslave two sad harmless women along the way. The predicament is more heart-rending than in some of her other books.

There is more of a lack of clarity than sometimes. The family involved was incredibly complex, and could have done with a family tree if the reader could be bothered to draw it up. ‘Julia and her sister Ellie Street were the daughters of Jimmy Latter’s stepmother by a second marriage. Antony and Jimmy were first cousins on the Latter side’ and on and on. There is an inheritance issue, but I’m not sure it had to be quite so complicated. Also, it wasn’t always clear how the generations fell out – there was one sad soul whom I had assumed was the poor aged spinster relation, but subsequent events meant I had to bring her age range right down. But I was never really clear of the relative ages of anyone. The family was clear in Wentworth’s head though, and there would be some line about Marcia and Lois (‘he pictured Marcia and Lois living happily side by side at Latter End’) and I hadn’t the faintest idea who Marcia (who never appears, she is long-ago dead) was. Thank goodness for Kindle, so you can check back.

The post-war setting is well done and full of detail – it’s hard to get servants (of course), the big house involves a lot of upkeep and work, everyone is trying to get back to normal but it isn’t easy, people are short of money.

There’s also a key scene in which two people can eavesdrop on a conversation in a bedroom. Now, the plot demands that they are separate from, and unaware of, each other, OK, but in a lovely old house like Latter End that shouldn’t be too much of a problem – how about ‘the room had two doors after some alterations in the 19th Century’? But oh no: this is the description:

Besides the ordinary door of this room there was another. It wasn’t one you would notice unless you happened to know it was there, because it was papered to match the rest of the room and there was no handle on this side. This room had once been a double room, and the slip beyond the papered door its attendant dressing-room, but ever since he could remember the dressing-room had been Marcia’s dress-cupboard. It was strictly forbidden to use it when they played hide-and-seek, but they always did. It was too tempting. The cupboard had its own door on to the main landing. It didn’t communicate with Marcia’s room, which lay on its farther side, but you could nip out of her door into the cupboard, and so into this room, and on to the back stair landing, with a choice of going either up or down, or through the swing-door back to the main landing again. Very strategic.

Seriously? No relevance to anything except the two separate listeners.

By 1947 Wentworth was a skilled and practised writer – these weird trip-ups are unexpected. Less surprising (she was always doing this) is the sudden mention of a character called Latimer (in a book about the Latter family) who is completely irrelevant and unnecessary, never actually appears, and has no role in the plot.

It was about a fortnight after this that Miss Maud Silver received a visitor…

On the plus side, there was a device that I like very much – after a long, harrowing description of the situation at Latter End, overwrought and ready to explode, there is a sudden change: time has passed and one of the main characters turns up at Miss Silver’s flat to try to enlist her help. I always find that particular setup satisfying, as you wait to be told what has happened in the hiatus, and start to see it through another’s eyes.

I was intrigued by this:

It reminded him of a picture which he had once seen and been unable to forget. The artist had painted a girl who was just about to be shot as a spy. Before his colours were dry she was dead. In the picture she scarcely looked alive. Every time he looked at Minnie the picture came into his mind. 

-Because I think I know the picture he means: I saw it last year in an exhibition of the works of William Orpen. Interestingly, there was something of a scandal about this very picture, because Orpen apparently didn’t bother with an actual spy, he painted his French mistress of the time. A very endearing story. I like Orpen’s pictures very much and have used them frequently on the blog. In this post I explain why I used him for some Agatha Christie characters. (One reason I like him so much is my conviction that you can tell from looking at his portraits that he really liked women.) I used the picture for the striking and memorable young woman in the book Portrait in Smoke by Bill S Ballinger.



I decided, when blogging on her Ladies’ Bane, that I should have a Patricia Wentworth checklist:

Names: Well! For the first time ever there are no weird names. ‘Min’ is the nearest we get to oddity.

Cough count: Miss Silver coughs 52 times, the highest number I have counted yet I think. This time it is ‘slight and arresting’, or gentle, or reproving, or dry and in one case ‘Miss Silver coughed in a manner which informed him that she had not come to the telephone to listen’ – which is quite a burden for one cough to bear.

Clothes: I love 1940s and 50s suits, and there’s a good outfit here

Here was Lois, as fresh as paint in a slim black suit which showed off her figure and flattered her skin, the white camellia of a blameless life at the newest, smartest angle, and the latest bit of nonsense adorning the auburn waves of her hair.

but feel I have rather overdone the black suits in my Wentworth reading/blogging, so was glad to find this linen dress for Lois to wear, from Kristine.

Occupations:  A magician features in a rather peripheral way (as one does in Ladies' Bane too), giving rise to this splendid sentence

Snubbing a magician would be a new experience – and what else does one live for?

It is a mystery to me why no-one has picked up the Miss Silver books for TV adaptations – there would be such wonderful opportunities for great settings and clothes. And any actress would be delighted to play Lois in this book – I actually pictured Michelle Visage in the role.

This is the book in which Miss Silver talks about the works of Charlotte M Yongesee my post here for the quote.

Comments

  1. OK, I have to say I love it that you tallied up the number of coughs, Moira! That's great! It's interesting that Wentworth would slipped up here in the ways that she did, but she was prolific; I suppose that happens when you write enough. At any rate, family dynamics are always interesting to explore, even if the relationships are a little complicated. Little wonder you see so much of that in crime ficiton.

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    1. Counting up is right up your street Margot! You could probably produce a fabulous graphic, a special pie cough chart.. Yes, there are some oddities in the books but I am very forgiving.

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  2. IWM lists two different portraits with the same story. Here is the other one: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/20793

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    1. Oh fascinating, thank you. It's plainly the same woman isn't it? The story (both versions, ie a real spy and a mistress) has the air of an urban myth but seems well-documented.

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  3. I'm also binge re-reading Miss Silver right now. I, too, find her books very comforting, along with Georgette Heyer and Angela Thirkell, both of whom I binged on last spring and summer. I think it's the young couples, the clothes and the tea. Thank goodness Wentworth wrote a lot of books and I can no longer remember most of the endings! I just finished Miss Silver Intervenes and, although I've read the book at least four times, I could not remember who the murderer was.

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    1. Yes to all! All of those authors very much comfort reads. And indeed, wait a few years and they can all come round again.

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  4. It does sound as if she could have done with a good editor for this one. I always enjoy that device where the narrative skips forward and you wonder what has happened inbetween. Love the cough tally . . .

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    1. Thanks Chrissie, yes I've been trying to analyze why I like that trope, and I have no idea. But it thrills and warms my heart!

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  5. Miss Silver is my "comfort read" too and I just re-read Latter End. Lois certainly was a piece of work. And the way that the baddie was brought to justice was unusual for Wentworth, I thought. I also remember thinking that Julia's sister was much older than she was, maybe because she just seemed so darn defeated. I've read a couple of Wentworth's stories that feature only the Scotland Yard men, Lamb & Abbott, but although I enjoyed them it just wasn't the same without Miss Silver!

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    1. Agreed with all. And yes, I've read a few standalones but it isn't the same without Miss S...

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  6. With regard to TV adaptations, maybe you should be careful what you wish for! I know I'd hate to see Miss Silver subjected to the indignities that Christie's books have suffered. (Even if you like the recent Christie adaptations, you can't claim they're faithful to the books.) And it would take a very, very good actress to play Miss S without making a caricature of it. Who would be your choice(s)?

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    1. If they were to make a TV-series I bet that she would become a nice old lady, tolerant of the moral shortcoming of others, when I am pretty sure that even Wentworth thought her extreme primness sligthly comical at times.

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    2. Excellent points, both of you. And actually I do have a good idea: Gemma Jones, who I think is a much under-ratted actress and could play either Silver or Marple. She is probably best-known for Bridget Jones's mother, but I was much struck by her when she played the governess in the TV adaptation of Five Little Pigs - she was excellent, very striking, a sharp older lady. I think she would be a good Miss Silver.

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  7. I am also a huge Patricia Wentworth fan and agree she is usually very deft, especially when describing complicated family relationships. I know I have read this one but don't remember it well so I feel a reread coming on. I know I would like to read the Benbow Smith books in order, as they were so hard to find years ago that I had to read them when I could.

    Constance

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    1. Thanks for the comment Constance - I am not familiar with the Benbow Smith books, I must look this one up. And, as we were saying above, re-reading is always a joy too.

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  8. I am reading She Came Back right now. I haven't read any of Wentworth's books for a while because I was concentrating on Poirot books. How good it is to get back to this series.

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    1. Great, Tracy, glad you are enjoying. They have really been the stars of my lockdown.

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  9. Lockdown has led me to many more Patricia Wentworth titles and I am really enjoying them -- and have also been wondering why nobody has jumped on these for tv adaptations. I rewatched the entire BBC Poirot as a lockdown habit as well, and these books would fit right into that style.

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    1. I know - they would be so great on TV, with those intricate plots and the opportunities for excellent settings, costumes, and opportunities for actors of all ages.

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