Review: The Adventurous Lady

The Adventurous Lady by J.C. Snaith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Just after the Armistice is signed for the end of World War I, two young women, about the same age (twenty), about the same size (smallish), happen to take the same train to the same country village. One is the imperious Lady Elfreda Catkin, the daughter of an Irish marquis, being sent to a country manor to act in a play, but also, her mother hopes, to attract a (specific) wealthy husband. She is not on board with this plan. The other is the timid Miss Cass, the orphaned daughter of a suburban solicitor, going to a different house to take up a position as a governess, since she has no financial resources.

The badly written play Lady Elfreda is cast in, as it happens, follows the general premise of The Prince and the Pauper (or the much later movie Trading Places): it's about an aristocrat and a governess who, meeting on the train, decide to swap places. This gives Elfreda an obvious idea, and between force of personality and getting Miss Cass a little drunk on the fine bottle of wine Elfreda's father has sent her, she manages to sell her travel companion on making a similar switch. She overcomes her maid's inevitable objections in a broadly similar manner, and shenanigans ensue.

I was hoping that hilarity would ensue, but (for me, at least) it didn't. P.G. Wodehouse could, and several times did, take this kind of premise and turn it into a sparkling farce, but this book is neither sparkling nor a farce. It's very aware that Miss Cass has got the raw end of the deal, since when the scheme is inevitably exposed she will have no job, no home, no money and no "character" (reputation). Lady Elfreda airily assures her that she will take care of all that, but she isn't exactly the most trustworthy character, and poor Miss Cass, already timid and nervous, is practically prostrated with fear, and unable to even speak loudly enough to be heard when she attempts her (or rather, Lady Elfreda's) part in the play.

Not playing it simply for laughs, but making a commentary on the very different levels of opportunity and forgiveness available to the two women of two different classes, is a valid choice to make, and that's not what gets it a three-star rating from me. The rating was because the characters don't change. Miss Cass starts out spineless, and she remains spineless. Lady Elfreda starts out arrogant and careless, and remains arrogant and careless. (view spoiler)[Two men who have fallen in love with them while they were playing each other's parts (despite knowing them only a few days, and not knowing much about them at that), and who have been exposed to a certain amount of ridicule as a result when all is revealed, see this and decide to marry them anyway, which I think was a poor choice on their parts. Both of the women, in fact, end up as winners, despite acting badly (particularly Lady Elfreda), and the author outright says that sometimes in life people don't get what they deserve and the story has no moral. (hide spoiler)]

I picked this up from Project Gutenberg's feed knowing almost nothing beyond the title, what I call a "pig-in-a-poke book." Sometimes that works out for me, and I discover a forgotten gem. More often, as happened this time, I'm disappointed. What I hoped early on was a comedy is more in what I think of as a literary novel mode, where people don't act to change their circumstances or learn from their experiences or change for the better as a result of them. At least it wasn't a literary downer ending, but I'm almost more annoyed because of the lack of bad consequences than I would have been with something more realistic. On top of that, the writing is only average.

It isn't terrible, but it disappointed my expectations.

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