Company in the Evening

by Ursula Orange

Of all the unhappiness my divorce has brought upon me, loneliness has never been in the least a part. Lack of company in the evening is to me an absolute luxury.

Thus does Vicky, a young divorcée in London with a small daughter to support, reassure herself.

But as the plucky courage of the early days of World War II gives way to the fatigue and deprivations of its middle, company in the evening is just what she gets. To the chagrin of her housekeeper, Vicky agrees to take in a pregnant, widowed sister-in-law (“Talking to her is like walking through a bog—squash, squash, squash—never, just never do you really crunch on to anything solid”). As she is adapting to this change and the tensions it creates, and dealing with an impossible client at work at a literary agency, she happens to meet ex-husband Raymond one night…

Told in a first-person confessional style ahead of its time, and featuring Ursula Orange’s trademark humour, Company in the Evening is a charming evocation of wartime life, snobbishness in many forms, and the difficulties of being a woman on her own.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II, British Literature, Classics, Romance, Ebooks

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1944

Reviews

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this - such an entertaining, thoroughly delightful read.

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set during WW2, and told in first person narrative by Vicky. Vicky is a divorcee who is bringing up her daughter with the help of her faithful servant Blakey. She is pragmatic, independent and very clear-headed about her short-comings, so not necessarily a character that everyone will warm to, (I did; she explains herself so well that I found her easy to identify with).

At the start of the novel, she offers to take her widowed Sister-in-Law to live with her while her mother escapes to the country away from the blitz. She tells her mother that Rene will be 'company in the evenings' for her, but she does so because she feels it's her duty to do so and in fact she is very far from relishing the prosect,

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Company in the Evening is a classic comfort read for me - British women's middlebrow fiction, written in 1944. It has a delightfully modern feel with its breezy, confessional style and self-sufficient heroine. Of the three Ursula Orange novels recently brought back in to print (out of only six in her short writing career), Tom Tiddler's Ground remains my favorite. I'd love to read the other three some day.

[Squeak2017 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A competently written comfort read. The characters are true to life and the author does not shirk harsh realities but the story of how one woman copes with single parenthood, bereavement, bickering servants, wartime anxieties and finding a true and honest relationship in her second marriage is both entertaining and informative.

[Louise Culmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is narrated by Vicky, a divorcee who lives near London with her four year old daughter Antonia, and her devoted maid Blakey, who had previously been her grandmother’s devoted maid. Vicky has a job she enjoys with a literary agent in London, and works partly at home so she can spend plenty of time with Antonia. Her orderly life is disrupted when her brother Philip is killed at Dunkirk and she takes her widowed pregnant sister in law, Rene, to live with her. Vicky is highly intelligent and finds Rene a bit dim, and she is moreover not quite the same class, having been a mere typist in the office Philip worked in. Blakey doesn’t get on with Rene either. And then another problem arises when Vicky’s ex husband, Raymond, reappears in her life.
This is quite an interesting story though I didn’t altogether warm to Vicky, she seemed a very hard woman to me, apart from her fondness for Antonia, I think I would find her as intimidating as Rene does. I could imagine shrinking under her cool, critical gaze. Although set in 1940/1941 the war barely features in the story, it is barely even a background to Vicky’s personal life, which is quite interesting, despite her cool detachment.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

With this novel, I have sadly reached the last Ursula Orange novel readily available to me. I approached this novel expecting an intelligent protagonist, independent and not pressured by social mores. Vicki, divorced for almost five years, the mother of funny, precocious Antonia, employed by a demanding female publisher, is that protagonist. She has carved out a career and immersed herself in being a mother, supported by her live-in housekeeper, Blakey, whom she has known for many years. Although I liked Vicki from the beginning, I was aware of her faults - a bit of a snob, perhaps wanting her way too often, more than she might acknowledge. When she is asked by her mother to take in her very young, very pregnant widowed sister-in-law, Rene, Vicki is challenged. Her mother sells this as providing her with "company in the evening," which Vicki vigorously denies she needs. "Keeping company in the evening" was one of my mother's expressions, the antidote to loneliness, and probably originated for her during the long nights of WW II.

Rene (and soon baby Philip) join the household, and while Vicki does her best to ignore the differences and incompatibility of Rene, Blakey, and herself, quite a few disagreements dramas play out. Barry, a local headmaster and neighbor, a lovely, idealistic man but not a love interest, often serves as the sounding board. He is a character I cheered on from the sidelines.

The novel takes place in 1941; some of Vicki's friends "refused stoutly to be engulfed by the war-time no-nonsense-and-hard-work atmosphere," happily partying on a country estate. But then, Vicki identifies that even if she doesn't mention the war during her first person account, the war was a dark background to her life, always on her mind but not keeping her from worrying about trivial matters.

Vicki's moments of reflection lead her to deeper insights about herself, usually not surprising since she sees herself objectively. Once in a while, though, she has "a curious thought," opening her thinking to the unexpected and certain life changes.

Published in 1944, well before the "worst war in history," according to Vicki, was over, the novel offers the hope of normalcy, relationships launched and repaired, life marching on, very comforting for me during this COVID pandemic that has locked the world down. Thanks, Nancy Pearl, for the recommendation.

[Teri-K · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fascinating book from 1944, recently rereleased by Furrowed Middlebrow! It really doesn't matter about the plot or setting, because this first-person narrative is all about Vicky, a single divorced mother figuring out her life in London. It's very character driven and if you can't stand Vicky you won't like the book.

I was hesitant to read this, as other reviewers have called the MC selfish, thoughtless and unlikable, but I didn't see her that way. To me she had a lot of self-awareness coupled with some blind spots and faults that she freely admitted once she was confronted by them. I liked her struggle to understand and accept those different from herself even when she didn't like them. She seemed to me to be real and reflective of a young woman who is discovering she's not as smart or sophisticated as she believed herself to be. I do think she's immature for her age – I kept forgetting she's 33, not 23 – but to me she's well-rounded and quite human.

So if you're in the mood for a well-drawn characterization of an imperfect woman learning more about herself, I can recommend this book. Just don't expect anything about WWII, interesting side characters or much of a plot - this book is all Vicky.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure how to describe this book. The narrator, Vicky, was unlike any other person I've ever read about, especially given the time period in which the book was written. It seems like Vicky was ahead of her time. She was entirely self sufficient. Finding a man to raise her daughter and replace her ex wasn't at the forefront of her mind. Vicky was a forward thinking woman and her ideals certainly clashed with her younger sister-in-law, recently widowed Rene, who only wanted to be a good mother to her infant son and who never uttered a peep if her thoughts were going to oppose others'.

This was my first Ursula Orange book and her writing style immediately drew me in. As the book progressed, my enjoyment faded somewhat, as I found Vicky to be too prickly for my taste. However, the story was an original one, unlike any I've read before and it made me curious to pick up more works by Ursula Orange.

[Cynthia Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Lisa Brantly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful! I like her almost as much as Dorothy Whipple! I hope Furrowed Middlebrow publishes more of her works.

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am quite saddened that this is my last Ursula Orange Kindle novel, she has a couple other stories not available and I am hoping that will change in the future. I loved all three books though I think I liked "Company in the Evening" the best. This was published in 1944, the war is nearing the end but still present, though the story is set in 1940, England is being bombed and Dunkirk has already taken place. Having said all that Ursula rarely mentions the war, she mentions trouble finding help, war widows, blackout windows and the need of more income. She specifically tells the reader that there are many novels about the war, the story of Vicky and her sister in law is one of the main focuses. Vicky is so different than Rene, the change in society, Vicky is the modern working woman versus Rene, the more traditional dependent girl. I absolutely loved the ending and was afraid it would end differently, I was in suspense till the very end! It was especially funny how Ursula portrays a popular writer that Vicky has to deal with.

Story in short- Can Vicky enjoy her "Company in the Evening"?



➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
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War in the air over a countryside I had known all my life! (Yes, the nerve of shocked incredulity was evidently not quite dead.) I could not help remembering, with a further shiver at the sheer incongruity of it, that it was along part of this same pleasant meandering railway line that the troops rescued from Dunkirk had travelled back from Dover. At every little stop the inhabitants of the villages had gathered
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to cheer, to cry, to press cups of tea, glasses of beer, packets of chocolate on the returning soldiers. I had never been able to make up my mind whether it was a fine outburst of spontaneous emotion or a rather regrettable display of mass hysteria. Perhaps the latter possibility only occurred to me because my brother Philip was one of the ones who didn’t come back from Dunkirk. Philip’s death was really the reason why I was now travelling, only in the opposite direction, through these same villages that might once have welcomed him back as a returning hero. I was going to spend the week-end with my mother at Winterbury Green, and the object of my visit was to discuss the problem of Rene, Philip’s widow. Mother had written me a long letter about it.
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Poor Rene! “The last thing I want is to make her feel she’s
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not wanted.” I knew my mother’s tender heart well enough to know that this was absolutely sincere. I would even refrain from pointing out to her that the plain truth was that Rene was not wanted. Poor Rene! Newly widowed, expecting a baby, very little money, no relatives at all of her own. Could anything be more pathetic and more of a nuisance—the nuisance of it, of course, recoiling back on the pathos, and making that worse!
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As for the girl herself, I hardly knew her. I had only seen her about twice, and nineteen and thirty-three rarely immediately find each other in sympathy. We had not known her at all until Philip had suddenly produced her while he was on leave in February and announced that he was getting married to her the next week.

❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert ❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌


I can see why Vicky didn't want to tell Raymond about the baby, after he decided to be with Sandra. Did he really want to get a divorce? Vicky and Raymond never quarrelled with Vicky keeping her feelings to herself, that seemed to have an effect. Though I think Raymond had also changed five years after the divorce, having had TB and it is not clear if he broke up with Sandra or vice versa. I didn't like that he cheated but I see why Vicky wanted to give him another chance. They both had grown and with Antonia, they can remain centered. I like Vicky but I had a special liking for Rene, she was sweet and though Vicky could not like her as a friend, she saw that she was indeed kind. I was hoping Barry and in my mind Rene and him marry too. I think both women, independent and not so independent women have their advantages and one not being better, just that people are different. Both are good mothers and that is why I liked this story the best, being a mother for these two was something wonderful, the children were not just props that the parents could bring out when it fit their desires.

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I had only seen them for one short week-end just after Philip’s death, when an emotion common to all three of us had temporarily obscured any trivial difficulties of contact and relationship. Rene had just been obliged to give up her job (she was a shorthand typist) because of her pregnancy, and Mother had urged her to come and have the baby at Winterbury Green. She had settled in the following week.
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I could not help suspecting that everyday difficulties were already beginning to make themselves apparent. The habit of ordinary life is deeply engrained in most of us. Even with the sirens wailing and the whole country facing the blackest crisis
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I would not say myself, but I would allow
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Mother to say, that Rene would be “company for me in the evening.” I have never tried to make Mother understand that, of all the unhappiness my divorce has brought upon me, loneliness has never been in the least a part. A sense of failure—yes. A rather frightening feeling of being alone against the world—yes. Regret that Antonia should be brought up without a father—yes. Loneliness—no. Lack of “company in the evening” is to
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me an absolute luxury.
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One after another they all come up and ask me where Philip met her.” “Where did he?” I said, suddenly curious. “Oh, she was a typist in his office. Her parents have been dead for ages. She lived with an aunt or something— who’s now dead also.” “I wonder if she cried on Philip’s shoulder and told him she was so lonely,” I murmured.
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Ever since I had helped Mother after Father died I have thought the aftermath of death—the sorting, the clearing, the throwing away—most cruelly and unfairly poignant. Unfair, because why should inanimate objects, even though once handled and treasured by their owners, suddenly become imbued with such
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unbearable pathos, when, during their owner’s lifetime they held no sentiment whatsoever for one?

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It wouldn’t. Fond as I was of Philip, obviously one’s grief at the loss of a brother is on an entirely different plane from one’s feelings at the loss of a son. Moreover, Philip was five years my junior, so that we had not really shared our childhood together. To be quite honest, I doubt if we had ever known each other really well. Probably, had he lived, we should have discovered each other as real persons in the thirties when the distance in age would have dwindled to insignificance. He was a gentle unassuming person, the sort of man whom one imagined living a nice ordinary undistinguished life, adequate in the office (he was a solicitor like my father), happiest in his own home. He would have adored his children, had a few very faithful friends, and no enemies at all, lived to a ripe old age and died, mourned quietly by all who had ever known him. That was, I felt, how it ought to have been for him—so much more appropriate and fitting somehow than a soldier’s death on a foreign beach at the age of twenty-seven.

[Susan Kavanagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kudos once again to Furrowed Middlebrow Books and Dean Street Press for rescuing this interesting novel from obscurity. Written in 1944, this book is about the experiences of a divorcee raising a child and working in publishing during the blitz through the post-blitz era. The author illustrates the effect of the war on noncombatants, particularly the difficulties encountered when people from different classes and with very different personalities find themselves living together.

[Beka · Rating 1 out of 5]

Strong independent female lead spends almost the entire novel wishing that her housemate would grow a back bone and then she goes all weak in the knees and does a 180 in less than 12 hours to remarry her husband who she left 5 years ago for cheating on her! Nope nope I can't like this one. I need strong independent woman that know how to keep it and not go all googly eyed for the silly man that says he can't live without you. Puh lease! NEXT!

[Austen to Zafón · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable read, highlighting the modern values emerging during the 1940s regarding marriage and women in the workplace. While I enjoyed the writing, the clever dialogue, and the realistic portrayal of kids, I could see the ending a mile off. Also, so many typos! Line breaks in the wrong place, misspelled words. I think the publisher, Dean Street Press, must use OCR and have limited proofreading. It pulled me up short several times, taking me right out of the story.

[Gayle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Just before WWII, Vicky had divorced her husband Raymond after he had an affair. She rushed into it and didn’t even tell him she was pregnant with their daughter Antonia, who is now four, and admits to an indiscretion herself. She has since become happy in her own company and has found life after Raymond rather freeing. She employs Blakey to help with her daughter Antonia and she has gone back to work full time at a literary agency in London.

Into this scene comes Rene her pregnant and widowed sister in law. The pair do not get along all that well. Rene finds Vicky frightening and any attempts she makes to seem more friendly always go wrong. Rene also does not get on with Blakey and this leads Vicky to sack her and find a new Nannie Mrs Dabchick with whom Rene instantly strikes up a friendship.

Antonia's friend Barry proposes to her and she declines. He then spends more time with Rene and they seem to get along well, which does not make Antonia jealous, but does highlight that her and Rene really struggle to be at ease with each other. Antonia bumps into Raymond several times during the book and they enjoy each other's company and get on really well. He has been suffering since their divorce, he did not stay with Sandra with whom he had an affair and he has been very ill with TB.

Antonia is ill for a few days and it antagonises Antonia's boss, Mrs Hutchinson who is not very tolerant of time off for a child’s sake. On top of that, she takes her annual holiday. The book ends when Raymond comes down for the day on their holiday, they talk and make up and decide to remarry. Vicky asks Blakey back to work for them in their new house and Rene lives in the flat with Mrs Dabchick and Rene’s baby Philip.

Antonia is a very confident and often speaks her mind. She likes who she likes, and she does not have room in her life for people who don't say what they mean. She is like Rene would say, quite frightening! The parts about her job were interesting, her relationship with the agency's biggest author, Dorothy Harper was perhaps drawn from real life. I didn't think a huge amount happens but I was interested in whether or not Antonia and Raymond got back together.

[Gowri N. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ursula Orange is my new Barbara Pym! This is the second of her books I am reading (the first was Begin Again, a coming of age story of four recent Oxford grads through one glorious summer).

This one follows Vicky, head of the short story department at a literary agent's, divorcee and mother, during the last year of WW2. Vicky is snobbish, self-centred, unbending, and impatient. Yet, her self-awareness is refreshing and she's very likable.

What makes the book so good are the characters and pithy one-liners liberally peppered through the pages. Plot-wise, it's pretty gentle and meandering. Lots of soliloquy and reflections and commentary in brackets. If you like that sort of writing, you'll enjoy the read.

To see the world in the teacup you're washing up—that's the sort of thing Barbara Pym knew how to do incredibly well. I have to say, so does Orange.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was rather disappointed in this book. The heroine is an extremely selfish young woman and it was hard to admire her independent spirit when I found it impossible to like her. The episodes set in her place of work made her seem silly and thoughtless rather than vulnerable, and I couldn't understand why so many men seemed to find her irresistible - but perhaps that all has to do with the "set" in which she apparently moves. The ending was completely predictable from very early on. Also, this edition seemed to contain rather a lot of typos (mostly punctuation). The best I can really say for it is that I went on reading.

[Karen (Living Unabridged) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, well-drawn characters in a gentle plot with a traumatic time (WW2) as the backdrop. (Apparently some folks find the main character off putting but I did not. She was honest and real. YMMV) Felt very much like an L.M. Montgomery style story for a more modern age. (Yes, I know, Montgomery was writing almost up to this point in time. But you probably get what I mean anyway.)

[Maryam · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Adrienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t say I found the main character particularly likable or relatable, but I enjoyed the book nonetheless. A 4 star read!

[Kim BookGirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably 3.5.

[Kay Robart · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my review here:

https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2023...