Fear by Night by Patricia Wentworth

 Fear by Night by Patricia Wentworth

published 1934

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We recently enjoyed ourselves in Scotland, where Gladys Mitchell had sent Mrs Bradley and Laura in

Gladys Mitchell: My Father Sleeps

There was much discussion of the country, and blogfriend (and Mitchell memory woman) Marty said this:

I'm reminded of a Patricia Wentworth standalone which also included a loch said to harbor a monster--one of her thriller types with an ending that surprised me!

Obviously I had to get the name of it from Marty and read it, and here it is. It is – of course – reprinted by my friends at Dean St Press and has a very useful introduction and biographical note from my friend Curtis Evans. So, surrounded by friends.  

And I suppose it could be considered a slight spoiler to reveal that there might be a sea-monster involved in the plot. But I think you can live with that. I will not say more about it, except that at the end there is a note from Patricia Wentworth which ends:

P.P.S.—This book was written in the autumn of 1932, before I had heard so much as a whisper about the Loch Ness Monster.

[reports of a monster in that Loch have existed for around 1500 years, but there was a major surge of interest from 1933]

The story itself is about a penniless young woman who doesn’t know she is heiress to a fortune. We know, and we are privy to the thoughts of the wrong’uns who have a variety of plans to get the money away from her. She is doing the best she can:

Ann Vernon came up the steps of the Luxe with her chin in the air. If Charles Anstruther had been waiting for her, he would have reflected with a little stab of amused admiration that it was just like Ann to look as if she had bought the earth, in a dress which even to the male eye was tolerably out of date, and to cock her hat at an extravagant angle just because it had obviously borne the heat and burden of the summer.

She, the innocent, has this Charles, a potential suitor, but also a determination to get herself a job. She goes as companion to a sweet old lady, but is she landing herself in more trouble?

Old lady, her son, and Ann carry themselves off to a house on a remote Scottish island in a Loch, one that can only be reached with great difficulty.

Various characters try to either kill her (inheritance) or marry her (gold-digging would-be husband). The Good Suitor (we are never in much doubt) chases her up to Scotland but has tremendous difficulty crossing the Loch.

This resembles somewhat the setup in Anthony Gilbert’s The Woman in Red from a few years later, an innocent woman who cannot be tracked down.

The reader knows most of what is going on, so really the plot could do with a few surprises, but there are a couple of things that are not predictable, and it is an easy read.

Ann is a feisty young thing, not constrained by the Miss Silver Etiquette Book of Nice Behaviour, she has a certain freedom of manner which is charming. She writes to Charles:

‘Isn’t it simply too thrilling? I adore sailing. I’ll send you an address when I’ve got one. If I don’t, you’ll know I’ve eloped with the rum-runner to wherever he keeps his secret still’.

Though, we need to give her the benefit of the doubt in this para:

“You’re wasting time. It’s such a lovely, perfect, heavenly dream of a night. Wouldn’t you like to make love to me?”

Charles made love to her.

The phrase was changing its meaning even then, but I’m guessing PW meant the less sexy version.

There is a cousin for Ann: Hilda Paulett. In my post on The Spoils of Poynton, I wrote about minxy girls in Wentworth, who should be called Fleda Vetch, and Hilda is definitely one of them. No sisterly solidarity here.

Hilda Paulett looked a little blank, and when she looked blank she looked sulky. She was dressed in the bright green which had been the fashion of a few months ago and was now dead. It could never have been becoming to her dark skin. Charles thought her gone off, and remembered with surprise that she was considered handsome.

Ann’s new employer has a mourning brooch, always a subject of interest round here, and this sounds like a particularly hideous one:

“That’s a piece of her ’air in my brooch. The sprig of white heather, that’s ’ers. Her ’air went a beautiful white afore she died. Seems like mine’s going to ’ang on grey to the end.”

Ann gazed enchanted at the brooch with its bunch of flowers. “Are they all relations?” she asked. “I mean relations’ hair. How thrilling!”

“Some of ’ems in-laws,” said Mrs. Halliday. She unpinned the brooch and leaned forward with it. “That there buttercup, that was a bit of my mother’s ’air when she was a young girl. So bright’s a marigold—isn’t it? Prettiest girl anywhere within fifty mile, so they did say. I don’t remember ’er. And the little tiddy flower aside of ’er’s, that’s my sister Annie Jane what she died with.

 

Ann’s outfit (top pic) is from a few years later than the book, but I thought had the look of something perky and not high fashion.

During her adventures, Ann falls off a cliff, gets caught in a rock/cleft/bush and considers as follows:

If it hadn’t been foggy to-day, she would have been dead by now, because if it had been fine like yesterday, she would have had on her blue cotton frock, and it would have torn like paper. It couldn’t have held her weight for a moment. It wouldn’t even have broken her fall. This old tweed skirt was strong. It would hold her here till somebody came.

Scottish weather to the rescue! You must always take a stout tweed skirt, a pullover and a waterproof to Scotland, even when it seems very warm.

I will always probably prefer Miss Silver, but as I come to the end of the books it is good to know there’s plenty of these flapper adventures to keep me going.

Hat fashions at the Roney Plaza Hotel | Local call number: P… | Flickr

I don’t think this green outfit is awful at all:

Canton crepe green print dress - NYPL Digital Collections   

Hill Walking | Title: Hill Walking Creator:Arthur Cambell - … | Flickr