Description

Prudence -- fair, curvy, and placid -- and Gipsy -- small, dark, and clever -- Chick are poor orphan sisters, down from dreary clerical jobs in London housesitting for their wealthy cousin Melisande (also a Chick). Two miles from Cottage-on-the-End, Sussex, is a whole camp full of American soldiers, and wouldn't it be memories for a lifetime (or maybe even a husband?) if they could only meet some of them, go to the cinema and host cozy, homesick-curing teas? No sooner wished for than two excellent specimens land right on their doorstep. Captain Dann and Clay Weal are there on a commission from their friend Monty: deliver the ring to cement his secret engagement to Miss Chick. But here are two Misses and both lovely. Monty didn't specify and the girls, who scent an opportunity to prolong the fun, are maddeningly coy. Can Gipsy and Pru string along the mystery to an HEA? Or will the unexpected arrival of Monty's aunt gum up the works?

Notes

[photo from old Biblio listing] At the beginning of chapter 3 of Monty's Girl, Christine Jope-Slade* tells her readers straight up what to expect: "This is no story of racing action, gasping curtains, and tremendous emotions, it is just a little history of youth, and love, and laughter, and pleasant, joyous, happy little things of life. There are no sobs in it, and I don't know if a soul will let the tea get cold because they can't live it..." And, yeah, that about sums it up. I think it was originally serialized and, maybe for that reason, it's even lighter and more Eleanor Hallowell Abbottish than some of her other early work. If you can take a young couple "soul-shrimping shyly in each other's eyes", read on for fun slang ("I'll uncan the goods to-morrow on the route march and hand over the twinkles in the evening"), paeans to US dentistry ("hundreds of young American airmen -- with teeth like Colgate advertisements and simply topping smiles"), and a buoyant description of Armistice day (which I always love!). Def. no racing action, etc., but a pleasant, fairy floss hour.

*Christine Jope-Slade, per Publishers' Circular, Jul 8, 1922, is the pen name of Mrs. Leslie Clark. It's an unusually complex pseudonym and I'd love to know how she settled on it.

Tags

1910-1919, American, English, Europe, England, already taken, beautiful/handsome, calm/tranquil, clerk, clever, cozy, curvy/stocky, determined, f/m, female, hair, blond(e), hair, dark, hair, red, identity, mistaken, one wonderful day/week/month/year, plain, poor, principled, rancher/cowboy, romance, single, soldier, spirited, tall, third-person, young

Flags

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