Love in a Cold Climate

Synopsis: 'How lovely - green velvet and silver. I call that a dream, so soft and delicious, too.' She rubbed a fold of the skirt against her cheek. 'Mine's silver lame, it smells like a bird cage when it gets hot but I do love it. Aren't you thankful evening skirts are long again?' Ah, the dresses! But oh, the monotony of the Season, with its endless run of glittering balls. Even fabulously fashionable Polly Hampton - with her startling good looks and excellent social connections - is beginning to wilt under the glare. Groomed for the perfect marriage by her mother, fearsome Lady Montdore, Polly instead scandalises society by making a very shocking choice.

Review: This is the sequel to The Pursuit of Love but it actually follows the same timescale and has the same narrator, Fanny Logan, but here we see what she was up to when she wasn't staying with her cousin Linda Radlett (and all the events that took place in The Pursuit of Love murmur along in the background here.) In particular it focuses on Fanny's visits to Hampton where she stays with the terrifying Lady Montdore, Lord Montdore and their lovely daughter Polly who is the same age as Fanny and, apart from Linda, her closest friend. Polly is the beauty of her age and her parents have the highest hopes of her making a good match, but there's something wrong. Polly is not one bit interested in any of the young men they have so far thrown at her. Lady Montdore in particular is simmering with ill concealed rage and disappointment, she cannot understand why Polly is so cold. Polly is perhaps one of the few people not intimidated by her mother, she knows her own mind and she's determined not to be brow beaten. They are only lately returned from India where they have governed for the last five years and it's Lady Montdore's idea to have Fanny to stay in the hope that she might have influence with Polly but Fanny is at a loss to put her finger on exactly what lies behind Polly's disinterestedness.

'.... No, but what I really want to know about coming-out here is what about love? Are they always having love affairs the whole time? Is it their one and only topic of conversation?' I was obliged to admit that this was the case. 'Oh, bother, I felt sure, really, you would say that - it was so in India, of course, but I thought perhaps in a cold climate ....'

After the death of her aunt, Polly makes a surprise announcement which sends shockwaves through Hampton and puts her mother and father in a spin. I can't say too much more without spoiling the plot (and indeed I had to edit the synopsis as it gave away the main twist of the story and whatever you do don't read the book blurb) but not only does it have far reaching consequences for Polly herself it leads to events that completely transform the life of Lady Montdore and, at the same time, introduces us to the wonderful Cedric Hampton (who, though they've never seen him, is heir to Hampton, it being entailed away from the female line.) Cedric is summoned to come and stay at Hampton and as he hails from Canada they are expecting a rather hale and hearty lumberjack type rustic but what they find is something quite different ... 'a glitter of blue and gold crossed the parquet, and a human dragon-fly was kneeling on the fur rug in front of the Montdores, one long white hand extended towards each. He was a tall thin young man, supple as a girl, dressed in a rather bright blue suit; his hair was the gold of a brass bed knob, and his insect appearance came from the fact that the upper part of the face was concealed by blue goggles set in gold rims quite an inch thick.'

Although I love it nearly as much as I do The Pursuit of Love it has a very slow start (with the introduction of the new characters and their genealogy etc) and there is also a slight absence of Radlett's which to my mind is shameful (though they are still there sporadically.) Nevertheless the character of Lady Montdore is a triumph, she's hilariously awful (one of literature's great comic creations) whilst pretending to be benevolence itself ... 'Ever since she was born, you know, I've worried and fussed over that child, and thought of the awful things that might happen to her - that Montdore might die before she was settled and we should have no proper home, that her looks would go (too beautiful at fourteen I feared), or that she would have an accident and spend the rest of her days in a spinal chair - all sorts of things, I used to wake up in the night and imagine them, but the one thing that never even crossed my mind was that she might end up an old maid.' but rather like Uncle Matthew in The Pursuit of Love you can't hate her ... not entirely.

A lovely gossipy, bitter-sweet read.