Late and Soon

by E.M. Delafield

It's 1943 and Valentine Arbell, middle-aged and widowed, lives in a big country house with her vivacious and delightful younger brother, General Levallois. Her daughter, Primrose, spends most of her time in London where she attracts endless admirers. When some soldiers are billeted at the house, Valentine's memory is triggered by a Colonel Lonergan due to be staying. In her youth in France, Valentine enjoyed a brief love affair -- ended by her parents -- with a young Irish artist names Rory Lonergan. On meeting Colonel Lonergan, she is pleasantly surprised to find that he is her lost lover from so many years before.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1943

About the author

Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, née de la Pasture (9 June 1890 – 2 December 1943), commonly known as E. M. Delafield, was a prolific English author who is best-known for her largely autobiographical Diary of a Provincial Lady, which took the form of a journal of the life of an upper-middle class Englishwoman living mostly in a Devon village of the 1930s, and its sequels in which the Provincial Lady buys a flat in London and travels to America. Other sequels of note are her experiences looking for war-work during the Phoney War in 1939, and her experiences as a tourist in the Soviet Union.

Daughter of the novelist Mrs. Henry De La Pasture.

Reviews

[Gareth Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Far from the lightly humorous provincial lady, Dellafield's final novel is more similar to Gay Life published 12 years earlier in 1931. However, Late and Soon seems darker and more claustrophobic than the waspish Gay Life.

It's very much a period piece, a novel about class and morals. It's stylishly delivered in clean, crisp prose. It has something of the Brief Encounter about it, and is no worse for that. For some reason (and I report this as a genuine reflection and not simply to get brownie points for obscure references into a review), it reminded my a Samuel Barber's opera Vanessa. There are loose parallels in the plot and the setting is not wholly dissimilar. However it that stoicism of the main character that brings it to mind most.

An odd fact is that Dellafield is one of the few writers, certainly the only one known to me, who wrote books set in both of the world wars that were published during the war. The War Workers was published towards the end of the First World War.

Overall it's a super novel if you are fan of 1930s fiction with class distinction, stiff upper lips and suppressed emotion.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

The life of Valentine Arbell, a longtime widow, is turned upside down when she encounters again a man with whom she had a passionate love affair as a young woman. This was an unusual Delafield, I thought. She does show, as usual, the constrictedness of the lives of her female characters (though there are hints of something better in the war work longed for by Valentine's younger daughter), but in spite of the bittersweet tone, the ending is oddly, unexpectedly (at least to me) hopeful.

[Fiona Compton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this unusual novel set in wartime Britain. It must have been one of E.M. Delafield's last novels as she died at the end of 1943 and the book was published earlier that year. I first discovered E.M. Delafield's "Diary of a Provincial Lady" when I was at school. At the time I was writing a diary myself, so consciously imitated her style of writing events in the present.

This novel is quite different from her humorous diary, and tells a story which might not have a very happy ending unless great allowances are made on the part of Valentine Arbell, her daughter Primrose, and Valentine's Irish first love, now a Colonel in the army about to embark on a tour of duty. Since E.M. Delafield herself did not survive to see the full course of the war, one is left to imagine how things would work out for her characters in the long term.

I recommend this charming book and I look forward to finding other novels by this author in the future.

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

EMD's last novel, and the one in which the romantic interest of our emotionally-suppressed heroine doesn't turn out to be Terribly Poor Stuff and leave her desolate. In spite of huge emotional complications, family dynamics, the pressures of wartime, and the fact that they had had a romantic interlude when very young and her family considered him absolutely Not the Thing and they now come to one another in middle life with personal baggage, it ends on a hopeful note. A certain amount of reflection on how war has changed things and that things will be different afterwards.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book

A gentle exploration of the destruction of the upper class in the early days of World war ii as told through the late-flowering love of an aristocratic British widow and her Irish lover. Manages to be both hilarious and heart breaking. I loved it.

[Elizabeth Licata · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an enthralling read with fascinating characters, especially the heartless oldest daughter.
A truly dysfunctional family in the British style. Great ending.