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The Scent of Water
The Scent of Water is a novel of love—love in its many aspects and love in its final, finest essence. It tells the story of Mary Lindsay, one of Miss Goudge's most absorbing and memorable characters, a mature, attractive woman who, after a distinguished career in the city, returns to the village of her childhood memories in quest of the personal fulfillments that have been denied her.
In the beautiful village of Appleshaw, deep in the English countryside, each person Mary meets seems to be landlocked in the sea of life—torn by conflict, searching for self-realization and love. Like herself. Though loved, Mary feels that she has never experienced the giving of love, for her fiancé had been killed in the war and she had never married. Yet here, in the natural beauty of the country, surrounded by the gift of love from her Cousin Mary, who had willed to her the wonderful cottage called The Laurels, and in her relationships with the villagers, Mary learns in turn to give—and her selfless devotion to the young war veteran Paul Randall nourishes his broken spirit back to health, and his marriage back to happiness.
As the modern story of Mary Lindsay unfolds, another story is spun with the haunting threads of nostalgia—the story of the beloved Cousin Mary whose posthumous gift of The Laurels had brought Mary to Appleshaw. Mortally ill, Cousin Mary had created this magnificent home for the fulfillment of someone other than herself, sustained through her long struggle by the conviction expressed in The Book of Job: "For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease...through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant."
As the living branch of the fallen tree, Mary Lindsay reaches out to the residents of Appleshaw, and their lives blossom under the warmth of her compassion and the wisdom of love she has learned from Cousin Mary: "Nothing is ever over. You thread things on your life and think you've finished with them but you haven't because it's like beads on a string and they come around again. When it comes round again then if it is possible you give what you failed to give before to someone else. You will have made reparation for we are all one person."
In the beautiful village of Appleshaw, deep in the English countryside, each person Mary meets seems to be landlocked in the sea of life—torn by conflict, searching for self-realization and love. Like herself. Though loved, Mary feels that she has never experienced the giving of love, for her fiancé had been killed in the war and she had never married. Yet here, in the natural beauty of the country, surrounded by the gift of love from her Cousin Mary, who had willed to her the wonderful cottage called The Laurels, and in her relationships with the villagers, Mary learns in turn to give—and her selfless devotion to the young war veteran Paul Randall nourishes his broken spirit back to health, and his marriage back to happiness.
As the modern story of Mary Lindsay unfolds, another story is spun with the haunting threads of nostalgia—the story of the beloved Cousin Mary whose posthumous gift of The Laurels had brought Mary to Appleshaw. Mortally ill, Cousin Mary had created this magnificent home for the fulfillment of someone other than herself, sustained through her long struggle by the conviction expressed in The Book of Job: "For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease...through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant."
As the living branch of the fallen tree, Mary Lindsay reaches out to the residents of Appleshaw, and their lives blossom under the warmth of her compassion and the wisdom of love she has learned from Cousin Mary: "Nothing is ever over. You thread things on your life and think you've finished with them but you haven't because it's like beads on a string and they come around again. When it comes round again then if it is possible you give what you failed to give before to someone else. You will have made reparation for we are all one person."
349 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1963
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4783 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Goudge
64 books892 followersElizabeth Goudge was an English author of novels, short stories and children's books.
Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge was born on 24 April 1900 in Wells, Somerset, in Tower House close by the cathedral in an area known as The Liberty, Her father, the Reverend Henry Leighton Goudge, taught in the cathedral school. Her mother was Miss Ida Collenette from the Channel Isles. Elizabeth was an only child. The family moved to Ely for a Canonry as Principal of the theological college. Later, when her father was made Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, they moved to Christ Church, Oxford.
She went to boarding school during WWI and later to Arts College, presumably at Reading College. She made a small living as teacher, and continued to live with her parents. During this time, she wrote a few plays, and was encouraged to write novels by a publisher. As her writing career took off, she began to travel to other nations. Unfortunately, she suffered from depression for much of her life. She had great empathy for people and a talent for finding the comic side of things, displayed to great effect in her writing.
Goudge's first book, The Fairies' Baby and Other Stories (1919), was a failure and it was several years before she authored Island Magic (1934), which is based on Channel Island stories, many of which she had learned from her mother, who was from Guernsey. After the death of her father, Goudge and her mother went to Devon, and eventually wound up living there in a small cottage. There, she wrote prolifically and was happy.
After the death of her mother, and at the wishes of Goudge's family who wished her to live closer to them, she found a companion who moved with her to Rose Cottage in Reading. She lived out her life there, and had many dogs in her life. Goudge loved dogs, and much preferred their company to that of humans. She continued to write until shortly before her death, when ill health, successive falls, and cataracts hindered her ability to write. She was much loved.
Goudge was awarded the Carnegie Medal for The Little White Horse (1946), the book which J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter stories, has said was her favorite as a child. The television mini-series Moonacre was based on The Little White Horse. Her Green Dolphin Country (1944) was made into a film (under its American title, Green Dolphin Street) which won the Academy Award for Special Effects in 1948.
A Diary of Prayer (1966) was one of Goudge's last works. She spent her last years in her cottage on Peppard Common, just outside Henley-on-Thames, where a blue plaque was unveiled in 2008.
Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge was born on 24 April 1900 in Wells, Somerset, in Tower House close by the cathedral in an area known as The Liberty, Her father, the Reverend Henry Leighton Goudge, taught in the cathedral school. Her mother was Miss Ida Collenette from the Channel Isles. Elizabeth was an only child. The family moved to Ely for a Canonry as Principal of the theological college. Later, when her father was made Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, they moved to Christ Church, Oxford.
She went to boarding school during WWI and later to Arts College, presumably at Reading College. She made a small living as teacher, and continued to live with her parents. During this time, she wrote a few plays, and was encouraged to write novels by a publisher. As her writing career took off, she began to travel to other nations. Unfortunately, she suffered from depression for much of her life. She had great empathy for people and a talent for finding the comic side of things, displayed to great effect in her writing.
Goudge's first book, The Fairies' Baby and Other Stories (1919), was a failure and it was several years before she authored Island Magic (1934), which is based on Channel Island stories, many of which she had learned from her mother, who was from Guernsey. After the death of her father, Goudge and her mother went to Devon, and eventually wound up living there in a small cottage. There, she wrote prolifically and was happy.
After the death of her mother, and at the wishes of Goudge's family who wished her to live closer to them, she found a companion who moved with her to Rose Cottage in Reading. She lived out her life there, and had many dogs in her life. Goudge loved dogs, and much preferred their company to that of humans. She continued to write until shortly before her death, when ill health, successive falls, and cataracts hindered her ability to write. She was much loved.
Goudge was awarded the Carnegie Medal for The Little White Horse (1946), the book which J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter stories, has said was her favorite as a child. The television mini-series Moonacre was based on The Little White Horse. Her Green Dolphin Country (1944) was made into a film (under its American title, Green Dolphin Street) which won the Academy Award for Special Effects in 1948.
A Diary of Prayer (1966) was one of Goudge's last works. She spent her last years in her cottage on Peppard Common, just outside Henley-on-Thames, where a blue plaque was unveiled in 2008.
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October 17, 2019
This quiet story of a woman who moves to a small English village around 1960 is such a lovely, insightful, and inspirational novel. Elizabeth Goudge (who also wrote The Dean's Watch), is an author who deserves to be remembered.
Mary Lindsay, a fiftyish Londoner who never married (her fiancé was killed in WWII), unexpectedly inherits a country house from her father's cousin, an older woman (also named Mary Lindsay) who the younger Mary had met only once, as an eight year old child. But that brief visit made an indelible impression on both Marys. Initially Mary thinks to sell the home she’s inherited, but she soon changes her mind and decides to begin a new phase of her life in small town England. So she moves to the town of Appleshaw, in the Chilterns area of southeast England, not far from London.
Chilterns village
Mary's life in her new village home soon becomes interwoven with many of her neighbors. There are several memorable characters: Paul, an aspiring author and poet who was blinded in WWII; Valerie, Paul's attractive but resentful wife who views herself as a martyr; Squire Hepplewhite, a business tycoon who's focused on making money, hiding his humble beginnings; his lonely wife Hermione (who was once a chorus dancer named Dolly); three neighborhood children who view Mary's garden and back yard as their own and resent her moving in; and more, all well-drawn and interesting characters. Though we never meet her except in a flashback and through her diary entries, the older cousin Mary Lindsay, who died at the beginning of the novel, remains a real presence throughout the novel, as we read about her lifelong struggles with debilitating depression and mental illness. She quietly perseveres through all her trials, with help from friends and from God.
The Scent of Water is heavier on atmosphere and character development than plot. It's fairly slow-paced: it kind of meanders through the months and the lives of the people of Appleshaw, but it's written so well that I was happy to meander along with it, charmed by Goudge's wonderful writing and her love for people of all stripes. Goudge combines delightful descriptions of settings with her warmhearted analysis of people's characters, and all of their wonderful potential and human failings.
Grace and mercy infuse every page, in a way that's inspiring and uplifting rather than cloying and saccharine. I'm a spiritual person, but a lot of fictional books that include a strong religious element annoy me because they're preachy or sappy. Goudge's spiritual insights, though, went straight to my heart. The "scent of water" (from verses 7-9 in chapter 14 of the Book of Job) is a recurring theme, symbolic of spiritual renewal, and personal courage and integrity are key, though they show up in different ways in different characters.
Mary Lindsay, a fiftyish Londoner who never married (her fiancé was killed in WWII), unexpectedly inherits a country house from her father's cousin, an older woman (also named Mary Lindsay) who the younger Mary had met only once, as an eight year old child. But that brief visit made an indelible impression on both Marys. Initially Mary thinks to sell the home she’s inherited, but she soon changes her mind and decides to begin a new phase of her life in small town England. So she moves to the town of Appleshaw, in the Chilterns area of southeast England, not far from London.
Chilterns village
Mary's life in her new village home soon becomes interwoven with many of her neighbors. There are several memorable characters: Paul, an aspiring author and poet who was blinded in WWII; Valerie, Paul's attractive but resentful wife who views herself as a martyr; Squire Hepplewhite, a business tycoon who's focused on making money, hiding his humble beginnings; his lonely wife Hermione (who was once a chorus dancer named Dolly); three neighborhood children who view Mary's garden and back yard as their own and resent her moving in; and more, all well-drawn and interesting characters. Though we never meet her except in a flashback and through her diary entries, the older cousin Mary Lindsay, who died at the beginning of the novel, remains a real presence throughout the novel, as we read about her lifelong struggles with debilitating depression and mental illness. She quietly perseveres through all her trials, with help from friends and from God.
The Scent of Water is heavier on atmosphere and character development than plot. It's fairly slow-paced: it kind of meanders through the months and the lives of the people of Appleshaw, but it's written so well that I was happy to meander along with it, charmed by Goudge's wonderful writing and her love for people of all stripes. Goudge combines delightful descriptions of settings with her warmhearted analysis of people's characters, and all of their wonderful potential and human failings.
Grace and mercy infuse every page, in a way that's inspiring and uplifting rather than cloying and saccharine. I'm a spiritual person, but a lot of fictional books that include a strong religious element annoy me because they're preachy or sappy. Goudge's spiritual insights, though, went straight to my heart. The "scent of water" (from verses 7-9 in chapter 14 of the Book of Job) is a recurring theme, symbolic of spiritual renewal, and personal courage and integrity are key, though they show up in different ways in different characters.
She realized with deep respect that this woman had always done what she had to do and faced what she had to face. If many of her fears and burdens would have seemed unreal to another woman, there was nothing unreal about her courage.Highly recommended! June 2017 buddy read with the Retro Reads group.
For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.- Job 14:7-9 (KJV)
Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;
Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.
July 18, 2018
I remember my mother guiding me when I made the transition from junior to senior member of the library. I remember four authors she steered me towards: Agatha Christie, Daphne Du Maurier, Mary Stewart and Elizabeth Goudge.
The first two I read then, loved then and still love now. The third I didn’t read until more recently, when her books were reissued, and I found that I loved her too.
That just left Elizabeth Goudge. She didn’t appeal to me at all back in the day, and I must confess that when she fell out of fashion and her books disappeared from the shelves I forgot all about her. I can’t remember where I found her again, but I’m sure it’s either a book blogger or a LibraryThing member I should be thanking.
The library offered a range of titles – not on the shelves but tucked away in the fiction reserve – and ‘The Scent of Water’ caught my eye.
It tells the story of Mary Lambert, a middle-aged teacher, who quite unexpectedly inherited a country house from a distant cousin.
Though the two had shared a name they met only once. Mary’s father took her on a visit when she was still very young.
“An ivory coach, you see, Mary,” whispered her cousin. “it’s no bigger than a hazelnut but it’s all there, the horses and the coachmen and Queen Mab herself inside. Do you see her inside?”
Mary nodded speechlessly. She could see the fairy figure with the star in her hair, and the tiny delicate features of the child-like face. It did not occur to her that human hands could possibly have made the queen and her coach for she seemed as timeless as Cousin Mary herself. They had always lived her in this world inside the picture and they always would.”
Mary saw her inheritance as a sign that she should change her life. She moved to the country, and her cousin’s home became hers. She found a new way of life, a new place in the world, and she found time to think.
That allowed her to come to terms with memories of her wartime romance with a naval officer who had been killed just days before they would have been married.
Her story opens out to catch the stories of her new neighbours. A contented elderly couple whose peace was disturbed by their beloved son. An author who was coping with the loss of his sight rather better than his wife. A couple whose way of life was threatened. Children accustomed to having possession of the old woman’s garden and wary of the new arrival…
Mary found her cousin’s diaries and she learned her story too. Why she had chosen to live alone, why she had become distant from her family and her neighbours, what she had coped with, and how she had coped.
This is a quiet story but it is so well drawn, the people, the places, the situations all utterly real. And it is a story enriched by lovely descriptions, and by true emotional and spiritual understanding.
A book to read slowly so that you can be drawn into that world, so that you can appreciate everything that is there, and so that you can appreciate that understanding.
I wouldn’t have appreciated this in my early days in the adult library, but I do appreciate it now.
The right book at the right time.
And that’s four out of four to my mother!
Though she is fallible. She told me that Barbara Pym was dull, and that she had only kept her copy of I Capture The Castle because it had been a gift, it wasn’t very good …
The first two I read then, loved then and still love now. The third I didn’t read until more recently, when her books were reissued, and I found that I loved her too.
That just left Elizabeth Goudge. She didn’t appeal to me at all back in the day, and I must confess that when she fell out of fashion and her books disappeared from the shelves I forgot all about her. I can’t remember where I found her again, but I’m sure it’s either a book blogger or a LibraryThing member I should be thanking.
The library offered a range of titles – not on the shelves but tucked away in the fiction reserve – and ‘The Scent of Water’ caught my eye.
It tells the story of Mary Lambert, a middle-aged teacher, who quite unexpectedly inherited a country house from a distant cousin.
Though the two had shared a name they met only once. Mary’s father took her on a visit when she was still very young.
“An ivory coach, you see, Mary,” whispered her cousin. “it’s no bigger than a hazelnut but it’s all there, the horses and the coachmen and Queen Mab herself inside. Do you see her inside?”
Mary nodded speechlessly. She could see the fairy figure with the star in her hair, and the tiny delicate features of the child-like face. It did not occur to her that human hands could possibly have made the queen and her coach for she seemed as timeless as Cousin Mary herself. They had always lived her in this world inside the picture and they always would.”
Mary saw her inheritance as a sign that she should change her life. She moved to the country, and her cousin’s home became hers. She found a new way of life, a new place in the world, and she found time to think.
That allowed her to come to terms with memories of her wartime romance with a naval officer who had been killed just days before they would have been married.
Her story opens out to catch the stories of her new neighbours. A contented elderly couple whose peace was disturbed by their beloved son. An author who was coping with the loss of his sight rather better than his wife. A couple whose way of life was threatened. Children accustomed to having possession of the old woman’s garden and wary of the new arrival…
Mary found her cousin’s diaries and she learned her story too. Why she had chosen to live alone, why she had become distant from her family and her neighbours, what she had coped with, and how she had coped.
This is a quiet story but it is so well drawn, the people, the places, the situations all utterly real. And it is a story enriched by lovely descriptions, and by true emotional and spiritual understanding.
A book to read slowly so that you can be drawn into that world, so that you can appreciate everything that is there, and so that you can appreciate that understanding.
I wouldn’t have appreciated this in my early days in the adult library, but I do appreciate it now.
The right book at the right time.
And that’s four out of four to my mother!
Though she is fallible. She told me that Barbara Pym was dull, and that she had only kept her copy of I Capture The Castle because it had been a gift, it wasn’t very good …
July 27, 2021
2.5★
Yes I know. I'm surprised I'm marking a Goudge book so low.
But it looks like she is a hit or a miss author for me & this title is a definite miss.
My copy quotes from a review from The Scotsman.
I'm assuming this quote was about Goudge's books in general, as the main character, the second Mary Lindsay, was a complete Mary Sue (first time I have ever used this expression - thank you Goodreads!) and I found her original motivation baffling. I did like that just for once we have a heroine in her fifties.
Mary impulsively upended her comfortable and successful life in London, because the relative she was named for left her what turned out to be a run down house in a small village. Gradually she becomes part of the fabric of village life, falls in love and finds her faith (and the symbolism for that was that was very heavy handed) Two of the children disappear from the story part way through - which is a shame as I found The Scotsman is correct about Goudge writing wonderfully complex children - an ability she shares with Rumer Godden.
But when a 255 page novel starts to feel very long (and takes two weeks to read), I know this isn't the book for me.
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...
Yes I know. I'm surprised I'm marking a Goudge book so low.
But it looks like she is a hit or a miss author for me & this title is a definite miss.
My copy quotes from a review from The Scotsman.
Miss Goudge has the art of presenting men and women, to say nothing of children, as genuinely convincing persons, too human to be either wholly good or wholly bad.
I'm assuming this quote was about Goudge's books in general, as the main character, the second Mary Lindsay, was a complete Mary Sue (first time I have ever used this expression - thank you Goodreads!) and I found her original motivation baffling. I did like that just for once we have a heroine in her fifties.
Mary impulsively upended her comfortable and successful life in London, because the relative she was named for left her what turned out to be a run down house in a small village. Gradually she becomes part of the fabric of village life, falls in love and finds her faith (and the symbolism for that was that was very heavy handed) Two of the children disappear from the story part way through - which is a shame as I found The Scotsman is correct about Goudge writing wonderfully complex children - an ability she shares with Rumer Godden.
But when a 255 page novel starts to feel very long (and takes two weeks to read), I know this isn't the book for me.
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...
August 7, 2017
This book was such a joy. It filled my mind with clarity and quiet pleasure, like a spring bubbling up in a still wood.
While resonant with life, the story begins with a death and one that is something of a mercy, as many deaths in old age are. With her last breaths the dying woman "...said something about sailing out on living water," and with her passing the room is full of "the quietness of the deep country and the light of a marvelous sunset...a tide of gold."
There are two Mary Lindsays in this gentle yet powerful story: the woman whose death we witness in the opening pages and a second Mary Lindsay, her cousin, a thoroughly competent Londoner who capped a successful academic career with service in the war years and then an executive post at the Admiralty. The elder Mary Lindsay has just left a house and a small inheritance to her namesake. Impulsively, Mary Lindsay--a quintessential urbanite--takes early retirement and, based solely on a single childhood memory of that house and her cousin and one magical day, decides to make the old house her home.
She remembers that day, forty years ago...a long drive lined with tremendous lime trees, 'august and unearthly', a garden wall topped with lilacs grown so tall that they made a thicket of purple and white blossom above the wall, and then a door in the wall. An odd old woman, Cousin Mary, leads Mary and her father into a house weighted down with wisteria vines. In the entry hall is an old oak chest where a silver tankard with lilies stood. "The flowers and the polished silver gathered all the light to themselves and Mary gazed at them entranced, noticing that a bird with spread wings was carved upon the top of the chest....and suddenly she was no longer an intruder in this world inside the picture. It was her own world." And most magical of all, Cousin Mary shows her a collection of tiny treasures, tea sets, birds, animals, a coach with a queen inside: "fairy things of silver and gold, jade, pinchbeck, glass, ebony and ivory, all so small that only the eyes of a child could fully perceive their glory."
This is the dream-memory Mary Lindsay has inherited and which she embraces much to the astonishment (and skepticism) of her London friends. But Mary is heir to more than just a house. She is now part of a village and for one who has spent her existence in private, "landlocked in the sea of life", that is something quite new and astonishing. Mary finds herself opening to the waters of life and the worlds of others in ways she would never have expected.
The village of Appleshaw is peopled by marvelous characters: a small shy girl, Edith, adopted daughter of the artist and architect who live next door; Rose and Jeremy, her sister and brother; Valerie Randall, the long and not silently suffering wife of a war-blinded veteran; Paul Randall himself, who writes and dreams in darkness, his spirit and health broken; the erudite Vicar and his painfully timid sister Jean; and Mrs Hermione Hepplewhite, self-appointed grand mistress of Appleshaw and an inescapable whirlwind of good deeds and unchecked advice. Elizabeth Goudge weaves the lives of these, and many more characters through Mary's story with effortless grace and gentle humor.
At the center of the story are the intersecting lives of Mary Lindsay and her Cousin Mary whose long struggle for faith, purpose and sanity are gradually told in diaries left along with the house. The mysteries of the house, too, are slowly revealed. The house and its treasures, and the two Marys, become catalysts for the healing of many lives.
Content rating G: Some hinted past adultery, nothing shown. A clean read.
While resonant with life, the story begins with a death and one that is something of a mercy, as many deaths in old age are. With her last breaths the dying woman "...said something about sailing out on living water," and with her passing the room is full of "the quietness of the deep country and the light of a marvelous sunset...a tide of gold."
There are two Mary Lindsays in this gentle yet powerful story: the woman whose death we witness in the opening pages and a second Mary Lindsay, her cousin, a thoroughly competent Londoner who capped a successful academic career with service in the war years and then an executive post at the Admiralty. The elder Mary Lindsay has just left a house and a small inheritance to her namesake. Impulsively, Mary Lindsay--a quintessential urbanite--takes early retirement and, based solely on a single childhood memory of that house and her cousin and one magical day, decides to make the old house her home.
She remembers that day, forty years ago...a long drive lined with tremendous lime trees, 'august and unearthly', a garden wall topped with lilacs grown so tall that they made a thicket of purple and white blossom above the wall, and then a door in the wall. An odd old woman, Cousin Mary, leads Mary and her father into a house weighted down with wisteria vines. In the entry hall is an old oak chest where a silver tankard with lilies stood. "The flowers and the polished silver gathered all the light to themselves and Mary gazed at them entranced, noticing that a bird with spread wings was carved upon the top of the chest....and suddenly she was no longer an intruder in this world inside the picture. It was her own world." And most magical of all, Cousin Mary shows her a collection of tiny treasures, tea sets, birds, animals, a coach with a queen inside: "fairy things of silver and gold, jade, pinchbeck, glass, ebony and ivory, all so small that only the eyes of a child could fully perceive their glory."
This is the dream-memory Mary Lindsay has inherited and which she embraces much to the astonishment (and skepticism) of her London friends. But Mary is heir to more than just a house. She is now part of a village and for one who has spent her existence in private, "landlocked in the sea of life", that is something quite new and astonishing. Mary finds herself opening to the waters of life and the worlds of others in ways she would never have expected.
The village of Appleshaw is peopled by marvelous characters: a small shy girl, Edith, adopted daughter of the artist and architect who live next door; Rose and Jeremy, her sister and brother; Valerie Randall, the long and not silently suffering wife of a war-blinded veteran; Paul Randall himself, who writes and dreams in darkness, his spirit and health broken; the erudite Vicar and his painfully timid sister Jean; and Mrs Hermione Hepplewhite, self-appointed grand mistress of Appleshaw and an inescapable whirlwind of good deeds and unchecked advice. Elizabeth Goudge weaves the lives of these, and many more characters through Mary's story with effortless grace and gentle humor.
At the center of the story are the intersecting lives of Mary Lindsay and her Cousin Mary whose long struggle for faith, purpose and sanity are gradually told in diaries left along with the house. The mysteries of the house, too, are slowly revealed. The house and its treasures, and the two Marys, become catalysts for the healing of many lives.
Content rating G: Some hinted past adultery, nothing shown. A clean read.
July 30, 2008
Re-read. I love this book with my whole heart. It's not at all the sort of thing you'd think I'd adore, inasmuch as it's not only steeped in Christianity, it's actually a proselytizing vehicle. Still, it's one of my all-time favorites.
The writing is stellar, the characters are compelling, the setting (a small English village) is my dream home. Even the religion is tolerable as it's not the Christianity with which I'm familiar, rather it's a luminous love that transforms everything into a distillation of joy.
The story unfolds as Mary Lindsay is left a cottage by her aunt, moves to the cottage and reads her aunt's diaries while becoming part and parcel of the village. Involving studies of various inhabitants and their conflicts ensue. There's redemption and love infusing every paragraph. A delight.
The writing is stellar, the characters are compelling, the setting (a small English village) is my dream home. Even the religion is tolerable as it's not the Christianity with which I'm familiar, rather it's a luminous love that transforms everything into a distillation of joy.
The story unfolds as Mary Lindsay is left a cottage by her aunt, moves to the cottage and reads her aunt's diaries while becoming part and parcel of the village. Involving studies of various inhabitants and their conflicts ensue. There's redemption and love infusing every paragraph. A delight.
April 19, 2025
Having read and only liked a few of Goudge's novels, I held out hope for finding "my" Goudge, and I finally found it. The Scent of Water, drawing its name from Job 14:9, is one of those slow, character-driven novels that considers the human condition through memorable characters in a delightful setting. There is just so much in this book, I know I will return to it again and again. I just...really loved it. Reading it felt like a spiritual retreat, and even though I read it slowly, often returning to re-read paragraphs and even pages to savor it (which I never do!), it passed all too quickly.
I love how Goudge writes women in this novel. I love how she writes children. I love how she writes men. Everyone, even the small dignified hamster Martha, is a whole being with an interior life and observations and truth. The Scent of Water is very much about the inner depth of people beneath the façade. While not everyone got a tidy resolution (and I wish there'd been more of Jean), the picture of the community healing as a whole as individuals worked through their lives was so cathartic. Those English rectors' daughters...they know how to write characters. Austen, Eliot, Goudge (who else am I missing?), they must have seen and observed so much in childhood that simply had to come out fictionally. The disclaimer about no resemblance to persons living or dead is for legal purposes, but in cases like these it simply can't be true. I also forgive Goudge-via-Mary for her slander about Fanny Price. I do not stand for poor readings of Queen Fanny, but I'll forgive it this time.
The Scent of Water also has lovely, compassionate portrayals of people suffering severe mental illness, without a hint of villainy and with full recognition of humanity and hope in each case. And it's not even a portrayal that (I think) would be hard to read for someone still in the throes of suicidal ideation or depression or anxiety. Mostly via a diary, Goudge doesn't go into much detail, but for those of us who have been there, the context is immediately clear in the evasiveness of the language. It's the coming out of it--often through a story--that makes it so hopeful and refreshing. The problem doesn't vanish, but the pain eases.
All this to say: if you Vibed™ with that scene in Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Lucy glimpsed the mer-girl and felt an eternal connection, you will Vibe™ with The Scent of Water.
Finally picking up The Scent of Water seemed at first to be a random pick from my shelves, but I realized as I was reading it that the daily office has had me in Job lately, so perhaps it was subconscious influence. Come to think of it, I have a book about Job with nearly the same title...
I love how Goudge writes women in this novel. I love how she writes children. I love how she writes men. Everyone, even the small dignified hamster Martha, is a whole being with an interior life and observations and truth. The Scent of Water is very much about the inner depth of people beneath the façade. While not everyone got a tidy resolution (and I wish there'd been more of Jean), the picture of the community healing as a whole as individuals worked through their lives was so cathartic. Those English rectors' daughters...they know how to write characters. Austen, Eliot, Goudge (who else am I missing?), they must have seen and observed so much in childhood that simply had to come out fictionally. The disclaimer about no resemblance to persons living or dead is for legal purposes, but in cases like these it simply can't be true. I also forgive Goudge-via-Mary for her slander about Fanny Price. I do not stand for poor readings of Queen Fanny, but I'll forgive it this time.
The Scent of Water also has lovely, compassionate portrayals of people suffering severe mental illness, without a hint of villainy and with full recognition of humanity and hope in each case. And it's not even a portrayal that (I think) would be hard to read for someone still in the throes of suicidal ideation or depression or anxiety. Mostly via a diary, Goudge doesn't go into much detail, but for those of us who have been there, the context is immediately clear in the evasiveness of the language. It's the coming out of it--often through a story--that makes it so hopeful and refreshing. The problem doesn't vanish, but the pain eases.
All this to say: if you Vibed™ with that scene in Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Lucy glimpsed the mer-girl and felt an eternal connection, you will Vibe™ with The Scent of Water.
Finally picking up The Scent of Water seemed at first to be a random pick from my shelves, but I realized as I was reading it that the daily office has had me in Job lately, so perhaps it was subconscious influence. Come to think of it, I have a book about Job with nearly the same title...
May 18, 2025
2025: A reread – one that I’ve done in community before, so that was lovely to have that background on this read. I spent most of the time this read really contemplating the honesty about depression and mental illness that was brought out in the characters – drawn from Goudge’s own life. Read for the Elizabeth Goudge book club
2023:This was done as an Advent Read-Along – it’s been about ten years since I first read this one. Goudge is someone who I came to later in life, having not really heard about her previously (though I know that I read a children’s book of hers when young.) I loved the picture of the quiet awakening of faith of the main character as a companion to a mid-century English village tale. Just lovely, quiet, reflective. I loved the comments by others who participate in the read-along with me, it always adds to my enjoyment and understanding.
2012:Given to me by a dear friend who said, "it's my favorite of her books, I think you'll enjoy." I did very much. A quiet story, and as my lovely friend Deb said, it's not action packed, just covers Mary Lindsay settling into the house she inherited from her elderly cousin, and learning to know those around her in the village. Faith, love, and beauty were woven into the story in surprising and beautiful ways. Just delightful.
2023:This was done as an Advent Read-Along – it’s been about ten years since I first read this one. Goudge is someone who I came to later in life, having not really heard about her previously (though I know that I read a children’s book of hers when young.) I loved the picture of the quiet awakening of faith of the main character as a companion to a mid-century English village tale. Just lovely, quiet, reflective. I loved the comments by others who participate in the read-along with me, it always adds to my enjoyment and understanding.
2012:Given to me by a dear friend who said, "it's my favorite of her books, I think you'll enjoy." I did very much. A quiet story, and as my lovely friend Deb said, it's not action packed, just covers Mary Lindsay settling into the house she inherited from her elderly cousin, and learning to know those around her in the village. Faith, love, and beauty were woven into the story in surprising and beautiful ways. Just delightful.
July 12, 2022
Beautiful, poetic, deeply spiritual. This seemingly simple old-fashioned story is brimming with insight and wisdom, and numerous wonderful soul-touching quotes. Easily the most moving, profound book of fiction I have ever read. This is one to cherish and revisit. A true masterpiece.
"What is the scent of water?"
"Renewal. The goodness of God coming down like dew."
"What is the scent of water?"
"Renewal. The goodness of God coming down like dew."
July 16, 2017
I love this author, and this book was a lovely re-read. The central figures, the village life, the children, it all filled my heart and was a blessing each day that I read it. I think it is a book that speaks more deeply and eloquently to me in age than it did in youth. I read it more and more slowly as I did not want it to end. Very highly recommended, especially for those who can appreciate books from the earlier 20th century. Ms Goudge has a magical touch in the most every day settings which has been a gift to me down through the years. Her children's book, The Little White Horse, was a favorite of mine and my best friend, and, it turns out, J.K. Rowling.
November 14, 2012
Recommended by my friend Deborah.
I liked this book for several reasons. It was set in England and felt like something I might see on PBS starring Judi Dench. But more than that, the book was very contemplative. It was filled with scenes where the characters--especially the main character but others too-- stopped in the midst of everyday life and really paid attention to the moment—the light, smells, colors of their natural surroundings, etc. It reminded me of “haiku mind”—a frame of mind that is open to the beauty and mystery that is always there. I don’t normally read “Christian” or “Inspirational” fiction and although this was classified in that way, it wasn’t heavy-handed. The “Inspirational” part simply comes from being in the moment—which is where God is. Here is an example of a passage that I liked:
I also want to remember and ponder the three prayers that the funny little man (who looked at the butterflies) described to Mary (the writer of the diary). He told her,
Her handling of the theme, which was also the title “the scent of water” was also good. Goudge weaves it throughout the book, relating it to the situation of each of the characters. One of the characters, a troubled business man remembers hanging over the edge of the well and breathing in the cool scent of the water when he was a child: “The scent of water. He had forgotten there was such a thing. Perhaps only children were aware of it.” 136
I liked this book for several reasons. It was set in England and felt like something I might see on PBS starring Judi Dench. But more than that, the book was very contemplative. It was filled with scenes where the characters--especially the main character but others too-- stopped in the midst of everyday life and really paid attention to the moment—the light, smells, colors of their natural surroundings, etc. It reminded me of “haiku mind”—a frame of mind that is open to the beauty and mystery that is always there. I don’t normally read “Christian” or “Inspirational” fiction and although this was classified in that way, it wasn’t heavy-handed. The “Inspirational” part simply comes from being in the moment—which is where God is. Here is an example of a passage that I liked:
They are more than themselves and when the wonder grows in me I am more than myself. Whenever I am conscious of this more than ourselves I remember the old man in the garden at home, looking at the butterflies in the buddleia tree, and how the butterflies seemed to shine on his face, or something in him shone on the butterflies, I didn’t know which.p. 213
I also want to remember and ponder the three prayers that the funny little man (who looked at the butterflies) described to Mary (the writer of the diary). He told her,
My dear, love, your God, is a trinity. There are three necessary prayers and they have three words each. They are these, ‘Lord have mercy. Thee I adore. Into thy hands.’ Not difficult to remember. If in times of distress you hold to these you will do well.p. 94
Her handling of the theme, which was also the title “the scent of water” was also good. Goudge weaves it throughout the book, relating it to the situation of each of the characters. One of the characters, a troubled business man remembers hanging over the edge of the well and breathing in the cool scent of the water when he was a child: “The scent of water. He had forgotten there was such a thing. Perhaps only children were aware of it.” 136
May 26, 2024
5/2023- This re-read confirmed again that this is a lifetime favorite for me.
2/2021 - I love the way mental illness is portrayed in this book—gentle and honoring.
2/2021 - I love the way mental illness is portrayed in this book—gentle and honoring.
April 25, 2020
So, many reviews, and from people I follow, have upped this book - one of my favorite people picked it for book club (without having read it first).
This is a book that would be loved by members of the Tea Party. It starts out in charming fashion. 50 pages, nice characters, nice nature writing. All the lovely little people (the carvers and housekeepers and mothers and wood trampers who enjoy nature) - all just so understanding of mental illness and the odds/ins of little life. And people are so kind ...
Then the sanctimony begins. Something starts to go wrong when the main character (the saintly Mary who can fix anything - not named Mary for nothing) decides to take on the gamine next door neighbor magical child. And then there is God, and more God. In fact this book is all about God.
Of course Mary is converted after experiences with understanding blind men, saintly hunchbacks (I did not make this up) and a miracle baby (! - really I am not making this up). The baby is a beacon for the rest of the cast who hadn't quite made it back to Nature/God/saintly-white-people.
Meanwhile, there are evil Jews (the British antisemitism always surprises me, should be used to it by now), and dirty gypsies - not to worry, they get their comeuppance.
A more sanctimonious book I have never read. It's an insult that the main character dotes on Jane Austen - who never was religious or sanctimonious. I also thought of Rumer Godden's wonderful This House of Brede - it's about a lady who becomes a NUN and still isn't sanctimonious!
But this? This book for me was a horror of a little package.
This is a book that would be loved by members of the Tea Party. It starts out in charming fashion. 50 pages, nice characters, nice nature writing. All the lovely little people (the carvers and housekeepers and mothers and wood trampers who enjoy nature) - all just so understanding of mental illness and the odds/ins of little life. And people are so kind ...
Then the sanctimony begins. Something starts to go wrong when the main character (the saintly Mary who can fix anything - not named Mary for nothing) decides to take on the gamine next door neighbor magical child. And then there is God, and more God. In fact this book is all about God.
Of course Mary is converted after experiences with understanding blind men, saintly hunchbacks (I did not make this up) and a miracle baby (! - really I am not making this up). The baby is a beacon for the rest of the cast who hadn't quite made it back to Nature/God/saintly-white-people.
Meanwhile, there are evil Jews (the British antisemitism always surprises me, should be used to it by now), and dirty gypsies - not to worry, they get their comeuppance.
A more sanctimonious book I have never read. It's an insult that the main character dotes on Jane Austen - who never was religious or sanctimonious. I also thought of Rumer Godden's wonderful This House of Brede - it's about a lady who becomes a NUN and still isn't sanctimonious!
But this? This book for me was a horror of a little package.
March 31, 2024
Re-read Lent 2024: This was my first Elizabeth Goudge novel almost exactly seven years ago and now I can’t imagine my reading life (and my life generally) without her writing. I believe this is my favorite of her novels. As I was reading, I felt a refreshment of spirit. Goudge’s characters give hope for one’s own life: God is making all things new. The scent of water that speaks of new life and renewal is always running below the surface. As Hopkins writes: “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things”. I was struck on this re-read by the courage Goudge gives her characters. One of my favorite characters is the highly sensitive, easily scared Jean Anderson. Her courage is immense. I start crying almost immediately when Jean is on the page. This is a novel to read and savor at any time of year.
First Read: A beautiful story of new life even amidst hardship and personal suffering. I really really like Mary and her growth through the novel is lovely.
First Read: A beautiful story of new life even amidst hardship and personal suffering. I really really like Mary and her growth through the novel is lovely.
November 25, 2025
October 2025 — Reread for book group. Why oh why has no one audioed Goudge??? 😭
*****
March 2017 — It's probably been well over two decades since I read this book, and I remembered absolutely nothing about it except the feel of it. The more woo-woo, mystical aspects of Goudge's spirituality probably impressed me more back then than they do now, but the overall sense of peace and security and comfort in the book still appeal to me. And while the woo-woo stuff may be a catalyst, it is solid grace and quiet obedience that cause the shalom. "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength...." Characters learn to trust and obey in the face of having to endure hard providences, having to love difficult people, and having to forsake relationships they may not lawfully pursue. In putting self to death, they find that "there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant." The theme of obedience is most typified in Bess, the guide dog who "trembled to [her master's] will as a compass needle to the north." "Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, So our eyes look to the Lord our God, Until He has mercy on us."
There's a character named Valerie who is self-centered and discontented. Too close to the mark!
I think the author's belief in singular transformative moments isn't terribly well-founded. Change takes a more relentless, in-for-the-long-haul love for most people.
A few favorite quotes:
"She could wield the pruning knife mercilessly yet at the same time she watered the roots." #EditorIdeals
"'My dear,' he said, 'love, your God, is a Trinity. There are three necessary prayers and they have three words each. They are these, "Lord have mercy. Thee I adore. Into thy hands." Not difficult to remember. If in times of distress you hold to these you will do well.'" I take it back. I remember the three prayers (or at least that there were three prayers). And I remember sketching a calligraphy of the them at some point. Wonder if I still have it somewhere.
"Mrs. Hepplewhite's conversation when she was in movement, dragged one in her wake with a species of suction." Mrs. H was Lewis's "woman who lived for others, and you could always tell the others by their hunted expression."
Words I had to look up (if I weren't on my phone and getting tired of one-fingered typing, I'd add the definitions; might later): lychgate, pinchbeck, mast, bodger, tippet, Twiglets, stock, governess cart, Adam fireplace, chimney breast, riddling, chantry, vie manquée, pinnace, copse, wainscot, candle slide, distemper, corbel, daemon, shooting brake, lambent
*****
March 2017 — It's probably been well over two decades since I read this book, and I remembered absolutely nothing about it except the feel of it. The more woo-woo, mystical aspects of Goudge's spirituality probably impressed me more back then than they do now, but the overall sense of peace and security and comfort in the book still appeal to me. And while the woo-woo stuff may be a catalyst, it is solid grace and quiet obedience that cause the shalom. "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength...." Characters learn to trust and obey in the face of having to endure hard providences, having to love difficult people, and having to forsake relationships they may not lawfully pursue. In putting self to death, they find that "there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant." The theme of obedience is most typified in Bess, the guide dog who "trembled to [her master's] will as a compass needle to the north." "Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, So our eyes look to the Lord our God, Until He has mercy on us."
There's a character named Valerie who is self-centered and discontented. Too close to the mark!
I think the author's belief in singular transformative moments isn't terribly well-founded. Change takes a more relentless, in-for-the-long-haul love for most people.
A few favorite quotes:
"She could wield the pruning knife mercilessly yet at the same time she watered the roots." #EditorIdeals
"'My dear,' he said, 'love, your God, is a Trinity. There are three necessary prayers and they have three words each. They are these, "Lord have mercy. Thee I adore. Into thy hands." Not difficult to remember. If in times of distress you hold to these you will do well.'" I take it back. I remember the three prayers (or at least that there were three prayers). And I remember sketching a calligraphy of the them at some point. Wonder if I still have it somewhere.
"Mrs. Hepplewhite's conversation when she was in movement, dragged one in her wake with a species of suction." Mrs. H was Lewis's "woman who lived for others, and you could always tell the others by their hunted expression."
Words I had to look up (if I weren't on my phone and getting tired of one-fingered typing, I'd add the definitions; might later): lychgate, pinchbeck, mast, bodger, tippet, Twiglets, stock, governess cart, Adam fireplace, chimney breast, riddling, chantry, vie manquée, pinnace, copse, wainscot, candle slide, distemper, corbel, daemon, shooting brake, lambent
August 8, 2013
Apparently The Scent of Water is one of Goudges' best known works. Delving into it, I see why. It’s simply wonderful.
On the surface, it’s about a woman who inherits an old little cottage in a village in rural England, and goes to live there. Her coming sends ripples through the whole community and everyones’ lives wind up enriched. It also has the most touching, gentle treatment of mental illness I've ever read.
But it’s about more than that. It’s about the Scent of Water, which comes from a passage in Job:
"For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant."
And that alone tells you more of what the book is about than I could.
Among the many lovely, thoughtful passages, this one stood out to me.
"I had not known before that love is obedience. You want to love, and you can’t, and you hate yourself because you can’t, and all the time love is not some marvelous thing that you feel but some hard thing that you do. And this in a way is easier because with God’s help you can command your will when you can’t command your feelings. With us, feelings seem to be important, but He doesn’t appear to agree with us."
On the surface, it’s about a woman who inherits an old little cottage in a village in rural England, and goes to live there. Her coming sends ripples through the whole community and everyones’ lives wind up enriched. It also has the most touching, gentle treatment of mental illness I've ever read.
But it’s about more than that. It’s about the Scent of Water, which comes from a passage in Job:
"For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant."
And that alone tells you more of what the book is about than I could.
Among the many lovely, thoughtful passages, this one stood out to me.
"I had not known before that love is obedience. You want to love, and you can’t, and you hate yourself because you can’t, and all the time love is not some marvelous thing that you feel but some hard thing that you do. And this in a way is easier because with God’s help you can command your will when you can’t command your feelings. With us, feelings seem to be important, but He doesn’t appear to agree with us."
March 9, 2024
Exquisite. Achingly beautiful. In places, reminiscent of Godden's An Episode of Sparrows. Very little plot to carry the action forward, but all the human, flawed, stumbling, stellar characters kept it lively.
There were times I found myself grinning as I read, and other times I stopped breathing and cried. The protagonist is not unlike the lady in Lewis's The Great Divorce who was so clear-eyed and beautiful that she made men who met her want to be better men. The many shades of love and friendship will stay with me. I kept wanting to ask the book where it's been all my life.
Edited to add:
I'm slightly allergic to stories that conveniently use dreams to bring about the change that needs to happen to characters, so that was disappointing in places, but very minor. The theme of the scent of water throughout made the story poetic and concrete.
There were times I found myself grinning as I read, and other times I stopped breathing and cried. The protagonist is not unlike the lady in Lewis's The Great Divorce who was so clear-eyed and beautiful that she made men who met her want to be better men. The many shades of love and friendship will stay with me. I kept wanting to ask the book where it's been all my life.
Edited to add:
I'm slightly allergic to stories that conveniently use dreams to bring about the change that needs to happen to characters, so that was disappointing in places, but very minor. The theme of the scent of water throughout made the story poetic and concrete.
November 22, 2015
A sweet, old-fashioned, and very British novel with all the right elements. The main character, Mary, was a mature woman moving into her retirement years. Alone. She took a huge risk when she quit her lucrative city career and moved to a country cottage, one that she inherited from an elderly relative. Mary quickly became intertwined with the lives of the people in the small village and because of her perceptive nature was able to glean wisdom even from the most broken among them. Having lost the love of her life in the war, Mary herself had experienced brokenness and had never really resolved the issues. As she became acquainted with the other villagers, she very accurately assessed and empathized with their oddities. Not only did she open her heart to them, but she gleaned wisdom from each encounter.
Each of the characters--- the blind writer, the maladjusted child, the odd spinster---had been thwarted from the usual channels of love. Like water cutting new channels, that love found other avenues of release that were beautiful to behold.
"Beauty not so much vanished as dissolved and itself reshaped, as she had seen the reflected clouds reshaping themselves behind her when she had leaned over the well." pg. 144
This novel was intrinsically spiritual and there was a depth to it that required contemplation. Suffering can create irreversible changes in life. Sometimes in our pain, love is extended from people who are not within our usual sphere. They are drawn to us because they, too, have suffered. A one-time encounter with such a person can leave a lifetime impact. We are forever changed by these interactions at our tenderest moments.
". . .what I seek is the goodness of God that waters the dry places. And water overflows from one dry patch to another and so you cannot be selfish in digging for it." pg 80
"What is the scent of water? Renewal. The goodness of God coming down like dew." pg 225
Each of the characters--- the blind writer, the maladjusted child, the odd spinster---had been thwarted from the usual channels of love. Like water cutting new channels, that love found other avenues of release that were beautiful to behold.
"Beauty not so much vanished as dissolved and itself reshaped, as she had seen the reflected clouds reshaping themselves behind her when she had leaned over the well." pg. 144
This novel was intrinsically spiritual and there was a depth to it that required contemplation. Suffering can create irreversible changes in life. Sometimes in our pain, love is extended from people who are not within our usual sphere. They are drawn to us because they, too, have suffered. A one-time encounter with such a person can leave a lifetime impact. We are forever changed by these interactions at our tenderest moments.
". . .what I seek is the goodness of God that waters the dry places. And water overflows from one dry patch to another and so you cannot be selfish in digging for it." pg 80
"What is the scent of water? Renewal. The goodness of God coming down like dew." pg 225
March 28, 2021
I really thought I'd give this book at least 4 stars...but by the end, I could only give it 3.
It was a beautiful story, and I did enjoy it, but I did not care for the romantic aspect of it. When two people are married, they need to be devoted to one another and not be falling in love with other people's wives/husbands. I realize this is something that happens in life, but that does not mean I wish to read about it. So that was very disappointing to me. It didn't go too deep into it, and it ended well, but I still wish that could've been left out.
I also for some odd reason struggled to like any of the characters...🤨 Which is very strange, because I always love Goudge's characters, she always writes them so you can't help but love at least most of them! But even the main character, Mary...I just never really cared for her. The only character's I really enjoyed at all were Edith and Jeremy, and they weren't even in it much. 😂
My favorite part about it was the journal entries of Mary's aunt Mary...she went through a lot in life, struggled with illness, but she really fought through it, and I really appreciated her devotion to God. She was very encouraging to me, and many different things she'd say, I'd just stop and think about.
So overall, it was an enjoyable book, just a little disappointing at parts, but I'm still very glad I read it! 😊
"...And because they live so does God, for without Him what would be the point of life beyond death? Life is a reaching out for something or someone. That is its definition. We choose one thing and then another to reach for, climbing to a new rung on the ladder as awareness grows, but they are only symbols, even human love at its highest and most redemptive."
It was a beautiful story, and I did enjoy it, but I did not care for the romantic aspect of it. When two people are married, they need to be devoted to one another and not be falling in love with other people's wives/husbands. I realize this is something that happens in life, but that does not mean I wish to read about it. So that was very disappointing to me. It didn't go too deep into it, and it ended well, but I still wish that could've been left out.
I also for some odd reason struggled to like any of the characters...🤨 Which is very strange, because I always love Goudge's characters, she always writes them so you can't help but love at least most of them! But even the main character, Mary...I just never really cared for her. The only character's I really enjoyed at all were Edith and Jeremy, and they weren't even in it much. 😂
My favorite part about it was the journal entries of Mary's aunt Mary...she went through a lot in life, struggled with illness, but she really fought through it, and I really appreciated her devotion to God. She was very encouraging to me, and many different things she'd say, I'd just stop and think about.
So overall, it was an enjoyable book, just a little disappointing at parts, but I'm still very glad I read it! 😊
"...And because they live so does God, for without Him what would be the point of life beyond death? Life is a reaching out for something or someone. That is its definition. We choose one thing and then another to reach for, climbing to a new rung on the ladder as awareness grows, but they are only symbols, even human love at its highest and most redemptive."
Read
October 27, 2023As someone else said--it won't ever be my favourite of Goudge's novels (I preferred The Dean's Watch and Pilgrim's Inn), but it had its moments.
July 12, 2023
I think I have a new favorite Elizabeth Goudge book. It's a photo finish between this and The Dean's Watch. But oh, my what a beautiful story.
Goudge, with her signature, delicate writing, tells the story of two women who live similar yet distinct lives in a small village and how those lives develop a rich sense of community, a deep faith, and a sincere affection for others, even in the midst of adversity.
Her sensitive handling of the difficulties of depression makes this a perfect choice for sharing with people who long to understand and support those who are in dark times.
If you love D.E. Stevenson, I suspect you will love this book. In fact, certain aspects remind me of Miss Buncle Married.
Note: I distinctly recall twice where I didn't appreciate a certain word used. 99.9% clean? Yes. At least two foul words? Unfortunately.
Goudge, with her signature, delicate writing, tells the story of two women who live similar yet distinct lives in a small village and how those lives develop a rich sense of community, a deep faith, and a sincere affection for others, even in the midst of adversity.
Her sensitive handling of the difficulties of depression makes this a perfect choice for sharing with people who long to understand and support those who are in dark times.
If you love D.E. Stevenson, I suspect you will love this book. In fact, certain aspects remind me of Miss Buncle Married.
Note: I distinctly recall twice where I didn't appreciate a certain word used. 99.9% clean? Yes. At least two foul words? Unfortunately.
June 24, 2017
Elizabeth Goudge is an often-overlooked midcentury British author who deserves more respect than she gets, beyond the adulation of the stray fan. I find her writing richer and meatier fare than Barbara Pym, who had her moment of renown a decade or two later. For those who love British fiction of a certain age—that age encompassing everyone from P. G. Wodehouse and Dorothy Sayers to Angela Thirkell—Goudge is a must-read.
The Scent of Water is a quiet novel, but it is full of upheaval and disruption and is ultimately very wise. Mary Lindsay, an unmarried woman of fifty, unexpectedly inherits a house in a small rural village and decides to go live there. Her stated idea is that she wants to experience British country life before it disappears (this is in the 1960s). She imagines quiet and solitude and gets neither, as she is swiftly drawn into the lives of many of the villagers.
Mary is a quick observer who sees pretty accurately into the hearts of all she meets. She is also empathetic and compassionate, making her a quick favorite among the residents, many of whom have major sorrows or challenges in their lives. Mary helps when she can and notices when she can’t. The characters are all individuals, not types; they are interesting and unique. But the novel is about more than just the people: the place itself—her house and the neighborhood—is every bit as important a character.
The novel, despite its easy-reading surfaces, is profoundly moral without moralizing. It drags the reader forcefully into spiritual (not religious) depths, compelling us to see profound truths lying behind the façades of daily life. In that sense it is a true humanist work—which makes it sound like a chore, but in fact it is lots of fun to read.
The writing is beautiful, full of sharp observation, vivid description, and unexpected outbreaks of the poetic. You feel and hear and smell every inch of Mary’s surroundings. I read slowly, savoring each gorgeous bit of language and insight. Ultimately this is a novel about connection—our connections to place, to people living and dead, to everything that gives our lives meaning and purpose. It is about what we owe to others, to ourselves, and to the world we inhabit. Do please read it!
The Scent of Water is a quiet novel, but it is full of upheaval and disruption and is ultimately very wise. Mary Lindsay, an unmarried woman of fifty, unexpectedly inherits a house in a small rural village and decides to go live there. Her stated idea is that she wants to experience British country life before it disappears (this is in the 1960s). She imagines quiet and solitude and gets neither, as she is swiftly drawn into the lives of many of the villagers.
Mary is a quick observer who sees pretty accurately into the hearts of all she meets. She is also empathetic and compassionate, making her a quick favorite among the residents, many of whom have major sorrows or challenges in their lives. Mary helps when she can and notices when she can’t. The characters are all individuals, not types; they are interesting and unique. But the novel is about more than just the people: the place itself—her house and the neighborhood—is every bit as important a character.
The novel, despite its easy-reading surfaces, is profoundly moral without moralizing. It drags the reader forcefully into spiritual (not religious) depths, compelling us to see profound truths lying behind the façades of daily life. In that sense it is a true humanist work—which makes it sound like a chore, but in fact it is lots of fun to read.
The writing is beautiful, full of sharp observation, vivid description, and unexpected outbreaks of the poetic. You feel and hear and smell every inch of Mary’s surroundings. I read slowly, savoring each gorgeous bit of language and insight. Ultimately this is a novel about connection—our connections to place, to people living and dead, to everything that gives our lives meaning and purpose. It is about what we owe to others, to ourselves, and to the world we inhabit. Do please read it!
April 12, 2021
How does one begin the review for this book? It may sound a bit as if I have never ever read a more wonderful book than this one, but I have, and I cannot say that I loved everything about this one (those things are about the darker, nastier part of life and it's hard to read about them) but the scent of water permeates the lives of the characters, infuses every life story and leaves no one unchanged. This is the story of Mary, a newly-made country woman, otherwise a London career woman, after accepting an inheritance from a cousin she had only met once in her life, but that once was the engine that started it all (I think somehow her acceptance was the flake that started the avalanche, changing the lives of all the people she met, like a chain reaction). She has come to find healing, to find the love for her dead lover, to find God and know her cousin; she does that and more. This is the story of a quaint little girl starving for beauty, wonderment, understanding and finding it in Mary's compassionate heart. This is the story of a blind man, broken in body but finding healing too and a sense of stability, of purpose through his writing and his keen (and somewhat disturbing, for some) understanding of humans. This is the story of cousin Mary as we learn about her through her diaries, poor, deficient, loving, wanting to share her wonder with the people around her. This is the story of many broken, deluded, selfish, kind, sensitive, lost and found people and how their lives are connected to each other's, and how much light, and grace and love, and obedience, and acceptance are woven into each of their stories. It is exactly what it says on the cover, 'a captivating story filled with English charm, luminous wisdom, and astonishing spiritual insight.'
September 26, 2022
This book was ... absolutely delightful. I didn't want it to end; it flowed along gently, like a stream, and it seemed like a faithful companion I could read and gain and drink from every day. I think I've discovered a new favorite author, right up there with Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, L.M. Montgomery, and Louisa May Alcott. Her writing is poetic and she uncovers insights that make you think about spiritual and other truths in a new way. She ties the mundane and the eternal together effortlessly, which is how I view life. In this book, she writes from many characters' perspectives, and they are all such fascinating and well-drawn people that it never seemed like I heard from them enough. And her descriptions! I am a sucker for descriptions, of scenery, houses, people, objects ... she painted pictures with her words, and I had the same sorts of feelings about them as I would if I were gazing at real paintings. I want to write more or less like Elizabeth Goudge when I grow up. :)
The Scent of Water is about people finding God, learning to love and connect with others, and to be obedient to God's ways. It's set in the late 1950s or early 1960s in a serene rural village as the deep country parts of England were becoming fewer and fewer. It's adult in theme (mostly because a married couple must work through certain issues), but never inappropriate.
Fortunately, Ms. Goudge has written many other novels, so I'll be able to get to know her better and see if my already deep appreciation for her holds out!
The Scent of Water is about people finding God, learning to love and connect with others, and to be obedient to God's ways. It's set in the late 1950s or early 1960s in a serene rural village as the deep country parts of England were becoming fewer and fewer. It's adult in theme (mostly because a married couple must work through certain issues), but never inappropriate.
Fortunately, Ms. Goudge has written many other novels, so I'll be able to get to know her better and see if my already deep appreciation for her holds out!
December 23, 2015
It’s Christmas time and I needed a Christmas read. With recent family events and illnesses that bordered on serious, I was looking for something I could pick up when I needed a distraction and a relaxation.
Well, I chose “The Scent of Water”. Again.
“I am sitting in front of the parlor fire after tea and the curtains are drawn. There is the smell of burning wood and the scent of the chrysanthemums Ambrose brought me for Christmas. They are gold and cream and deep crimson, and he must have despoiled the greenhouse and infuriated the gardener.”
I have read this book so many times, and it never disappoints me! I am so happy to see a resurgence of interest in Elizabeth Goudge’s writing and her books being re-published. Not all of them have the quality of writing that this one, and others of hers, have. A few, (very few) of them border on sentimental fare (and, unfortunately, that is probably why she is labelled a sentimental writer and dismissed as such). But as I have said before, her books like “The White Witch”, “The Rosemary Tree”, and this one, are a treat to read and I am never bored re-reading them!
I chose it actually because I remembered the way the author had written about snow and country Christmases of long ago.
“Next day the snow began to fall, large slow flakes drifting on a light wind. The sky was leaden and the earth crouched beneath it drained of beauty. All the light and glimmer of the flakes large as wild white roses, in the tide of whiteness flowing slowly over the dark earth, like moonlight or the surf of a soundless sea.
Mary moved through her day entranced, for this was not only her first snow at Appleshaw but her first country snow. After she had rescued her six snowdrops from the garden she stayed indoors and gazed out of first one window and then another, watching how the whiteness outlined the church windows and the ledges of the tower, how it lay on the shoulders of her cupid in the garden and crept along the branches of the apple tree outside the parlor window…
When Mary at last reluctantly drew the curtains she shut herself in with a silence so living that she moved about the house or sat by the fire as attentive to it as though she were listening… there was expectancy in her listening but no impatience.”
Even though familiar with the story, I found a freshness in Goudge’s characters and some insights that add to their motivations and personalities that somehow, in all of my previous readings, I had missed before. “The Scent of Water” once again amused, comforted, and entertained, while giving food for thought.
Mary Lindsay’s elderly and ill cousin has passed on and left her home to Mary. Coming as a huge surprise (Mary had only met her cousin, also named Mary, once during her childhood), she found herself deciding to actually leave London, retire, and go live in the village of Appleshaw. She finds a diary that her cousin had left and begins to understand not only who her cousin was, but her struggles, the past, and how to cope with her own life.
And here is where Goudge once again excels. She illustrates life in a small country village through its characters and their own personal triumphs and sorrows. Edith, the young adopted child who resents Mary’s coming because it means that she can no longer play in solitude in Mary’s garden. Mr. Hepplewhite, who seeks financial success and isn’t afraid to use questionable means to get it, and his poor wife Dolly who has changed her name to Hermione merely to add to her husband’s status (after all, “Dolly” is too plain a name for a successful businessman!) And, the tormented and unhappily married Valerie and her husband, left blind from a plane crash during the war.
“Valerie had been an enchanting and pretty girl. He was perfectly well aware of the change in her. Whenever he tried to visualize her the thin hard face slipped like a mask over the face that he remembered, and wanted to remember, and repulsed him as she herself repulsed him whenever he tried to restore again some measure of the love that had once been between them. Yet he believed it was still only a mask, not the reality as yet. If he could only get through he would find his girl still alive behind it. Would it have been all right if he had not been blinded, or if he had done what she had wanted and let himself be trained in one of the skills that blind men could practice so lucratively?”
And there is also Colonel and Mrs. Adams, a sweet and contentedly humble elderly couple who have lost two conscientious and esteemed sons, also war casualties, and are now left solely with one son; a ‘rotten’ son whom they have somehow failed to raise with a sense of responsibility.
Each has their own personal dragons to slay. The author turns these characters inside out, showing the reader how they make choices, why they do what they do, and weaves their story into Mary’s life to bring resolution, hope, or failure. Even Mary herself is shocked to find herself, at age fifty, susceptible to having her heart carried away.
There are several references to Christmas and the ending of the story is also set during this lovely holiday.
“It was carol singers not far from my window. There was the bass rumble of a few men’s voices and the piping of small boys. It was the choir. They were singing one of the oldest of the carols, “The Holly and the Ivy,” the old folk tune that has been part of the English Christmas for so many centuries. I listened to it and I was at peace, and knew I would soon be well again.”
Well, I chose “The Scent of Water”. Again.
“I am sitting in front of the parlor fire after tea and the curtains are drawn. There is the smell of burning wood and the scent of the chrysanthemums Ambrose brought me for Christmas. They are gold and cream and deep crimson, and he must have despoiled the greenhouse and infuriated the gardener.”
I have read this book so many times, and it never disappoints me! I am so happy to see a resurgence of interest in Elizabeth Goudge’s writing and her books being re-published. Not all of them have the quality of writing that this one, and others of hers, have. A few, (very few) of them border on sentimental fare (and, unfortunately, that is probably why she is labelled a sentimental writer and dismissed as such). But as I have said before, her books like “The White Witch”, “The Rosemary Tree”, and this one, are a treat to read and I am never bored re-reading them!
I chose it actually because I remembered the way the author had written about snow and country Christmases of long ago.
“Next day the snow began to fall, large slow flakes drifting on a light wind. The sky was leaden and the earth crouched beneath it drained of beauty. All the light and glimmer of the flakes large as wild white roses, in the tide of whiteness flowing slowly over the dark earth, like moonlight or the surf of a soundless sea.
Mary moved through her day entranced, for this was not only her first snow at Appleshaw but her first country snow. After she had rescued her six snowdrops from the garden she stayed indoors and gazed out of first one window and then another, watching how the whiteness outlined the church windows and the ledges of the tower, how it lay on the shoulders of her cupid in the garden and crept along the branches of the apple tree outside the parlor window…
When Mary at last reluctantly drew the curtains she shut herself in with a silence so living that she moved about the house or sat by the fire as attentive to it as though she were listening… there was expectancy in her listening but no impatience.”
Even though familiar with the story, I found a freshness in Goudge’s characters and some insights that add to their motivations and personalities that somehow, in all of my previous readings, I had missed before. “The Scent of Water” once again amused, comforted, and entertained, while giving food for thought.
Mary Lindsay’s elderly and ill cousin has passed on and left her home to Mary. Coming as a huge surprise (Mary had only met her cousin, also named Mary, once during her childhood), she found herself deciding to actually leave London, retire, and go live in the village of Appleshaw. She finds a diary that her cousin had left and begins to understand not only who her cousin was, but her struggles, the past, and how to cope with her own life.
And here is where Goudge once again excels. She illustrates life in a small country village through its characters and their own personal triumphs and sorrows. Edith, the young adopted child who resents Mary’s coming because it means that she can no longer play in solitude in Mary’s garden. Mr. Hepplewhite, who seeks financial success and isn’t afraid to use questionable means to get it, and his poor wife Dolly who has changed her name to Hermione merely to add to her husband’s status (after all, “Dolly” is too plain a name for a successful businessman!) And, the tormented and unhappily married Valerie and her husband, left blind from a plane crash during the war.
“Valerie had been an enchanting and pretty girl. He was perfectly well aware of the change in her. Whenever he tried to visualize her the thin hard face slipped like a mask over the face that he remembered, and wanted to remember, and repulsed him as she herself repulsed him whenever he tried to restore again some measure of the love that had once been between them. Yet he believed it was still only a mask, not the reality as yet. If he could only get through he would find his girl still alive behind it. Would it have been all right if he had not been blinded, or if he had done what she had wanted and let himself be trained in one of the skills that blind men could practice so lucratively?”
And there is also Colonel and Mrs. Adams, a sweet and contentedly humble elderly couple who have lost two conscientious and esteemed sons, also war casualties, and are now left solely with one son; a ‘rotten’ son whom they have somehow failed to raise with a sense of responsibility.
Each has their own personal dragons to slay. The author turns these characters inside out, showing the reader how they make choices, why they do what they do, and weaves their story into Mary’s life to bring resolution, hope, or failure. Even Mary herself is shocked to find herself, at age fifty, susceptible to having her heart carried away.
There are several references to Christmas and the ending of the story is also set during this lovely holiday.
“It was carol singers not far from my window. There was the bass rumble of a few men’s voices and the piping of small boys. It was the choir. They were singing one of the oldest of the carols, “The Holly and the Ivy,” the old folk tune that has been part of the English Christmas for so many centuries. I listened to it and I was at peace, and knew I would soon be well again.”
May 25, 2021
"Appleshaw even more than most country places has the scent of water in its air."
"The scent of water?" asked Mary.
"I don't mean that literally. 'For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.' . . .
"What is the scent of water?"
"Renewal. The goodness of God coming down like dew. . . ."
Written in 1963, this book, written by Elizabeth Goudge, is a gentle observation on a community tucked in English gardens, and a folded countryside. It is peopled with quirky types deeply invested in their own lives and relationships, and who seem they are irrevocably cast in their paths, some sad, some hopeless, some stubborn and haughty. But the English mornings, sparkling sunshine, breakfasts and hearty tea times, and the odd domestic pet here and there work their magic. It is a sweet book. There are a lot of changes and progress, but it is slow and gentle, full of meaning. This can be a very sleepy book, like many books can be. But if the story is followed like a walk in the woods, you'll be well rewarded.
In some ways it reminds me quite a bit of Miss Read and all her Village People, only this writer doesn't have the sly humor of Miss Read. This writer is serious and sober, but somehow very dear.
"The scent of water?" asked Mary.
"I don't mean that literally. 'For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.' . . .
"What is the scent of water?"
"Renewal. The goodness of God coming down like dew. . . ."
Written in 1963, this book, written by Elizabeth Goudge, is a gentle observation on a community tucked in English gardens, and a folded countryside. It is peopled with quirky types deeply invested in their own lives and relationships, and who seem they are irrevocably cast in their paths, some sad, some hopeless, some stubborn and haughty. But the English mornings, sparkling sunshine, breakfasts and hearty tea times, and the odd domestic pet here and there work their magic. It is a sweet book. There are a lot of changes and progress, but it is slow and gentle, full of meaning. This can be a very sleepy book, like many books can be. But if the story is followed like a walk in the woods, you'll be well rewarded.
In some ways it reminds me quite a bit of Miss Read and all her Village People, only this writer doesn't have the sly humor of Miss Read. This writer is serious and sober, but somehow very dear.
July 10, 2024
The most luminous novel I’ve maybe ever read, full of tenderness and the complexity of human nature and mental illness- all woven into a marvelous story. There were so many moments where I caught my breath as Goudge painted scene after beautiful scene on page upon page, which drew me to tears and to laughter. Her words evoke images I’ve never grasped or seen elsewhere.
July 25, 2022
Another book that really requires several readings to explore the depths of truth below the story. Such beautiful writing, and thoughts that transcend into the spiritual realm. I will look forward to reading it again in the future.
One of my favorite quotes: "So this blessing of loneliness was not really loneliness. Real loneliness was something unendurable. What one wanted when exhausted by the noise and impact of physical bodies was not NO people, but disembodied people; all those denizens of beloved books who could be taken to one's heart and put away again, in silence, and with no hurt feelings."
"Just another baby, she kept reminding herself...But he was not just another baby. He was the future. She had come here to recapture the past and in so doing she found the future shining on her face."
One of my favorite quotes: "So this blessing of loneliness was not really loneliness. Real loneliness was something unendurable. What one wanted when exhausted by the noise and impact of physical bodies was not NO people, but disembodied people; all those denizens of beloved books who could be taken to one's heart and put away again, in silence, and with no hurt feelings."
"Just another baby, she kept reminding herself...But he was not just another baby. He was the future. She had come here to recapture the past and in so doing she found the future shining on her face."
June 11, 2021
I don't need even a moment to ruminate over what I should say about this book. It was perfect from start to finish. In my first Goudge, I've learned that she has this beautiful ability to touch your soul and spirit like no other. I can't express what I felt while reading this and I don't feel the need to, because I alone get to know the repose and peace those feelings brought to me. Time after time while reading this I couldn't help but do that thing I do when I've discovered a new friend in a book: I close the book, scrunch up my shoulders and face, and then just wrap my arms around this new gift that I've discovered.
July 30, 2015
This book is beautiful, a truly gentle, wistful and poetic and healing story filled with moments of joy and sadness, that will leave its sweet fragrance, after you turn the last page, and read the last words.
I am so glad I found Goudge. She's a wonderful author!
I am so glad I found Goudge. She's a wonderful author!
May 28, 2019
‘The scent of water’ is a phrase, and a motif, that is repeated throughout this novel. One of the characters defines it as ‘renewal’ - which works on many levels, including the spiritual and emotional, but can also be understood in terms of the natural world which is constantly renewing itself, and connecting the past, present and future.
This book, like so many of Goudge’s, takes place in the shadow of World War II. Several of the characters have been physically and/or emotionally damaged by the war, but one senses that Goudge’s greater concern is for the larger damage to society - to what might be described as the ‘social fabric’ of the UK. There is great yearning for the past in this book - for its quietness, its slowness, and its certainties - and that expresses itself in the plot, which is using the present to heal the past, and vice versa.
The protagonist of the novel is a 50 year old former teacher and administrator named Mary Lindsay. Although she was once engaged, Mary has never married or had children - and she feels that the experience of deeply felt love has never touched her. She is a highly competent ‘career woman’, but when she receives an unexpected inheritance from an elderly cousin she barely knew, she decides to take early retirement and move to the countryside. As a child, Mary had only once visited her cousin (also called Mary Lindsay), but the encounter had left an enduring impression on her. Something about the atmosphere of the old house and the beauty of its tiny treasures had left its mark, as had the strange but loving nature of its owner. The elder Mary Lindsay had suffered from a lifetime of mental health problems, and often experienced isolation and bitter unhappiness because of them. As her longtime housekeeper says, to the new mistress of the house: ”She knew what she was doing. Such as poor Miss Lindsay, they’ve their own wisdom. Often they’ll know what’s right when a normal person would only know what was expedient.”
When Mary Lindsay comes to the ‘The Laurels’ to live, she also becomes part of the small village and its inhabitants. Most of them are unhappy in some way, and several of them are suffering from the pain of isolation in the same that older Mary had done. Instead of being a stranger in their midst, Mary somehow becomes the crucial sympathetic person that each of them needs. An orphaned child, a blind writer, the lonely wife of a rich man, and a highly nervous middle-aged spinster are all transformed through their friendship with Mary - just as she is transformed by her loving friendship with them. But the plot is also very much about the past, and the way that the younger Mary comes to know the older Mary - who has left her this inheritance, and who craves love and a sense of connection.
There is a great sense of hopefulness in this book, and even those readers who are not drawn to its Christian overtones will be able to appreciate the message that love can be both redemptive and transformational. Yes, it is old-fashioned - but I think that many readers crave that, just as Goudge��s own audience did nearly 60 years ago.
This book, like so many of Goudge’s, takes place in the shadow of World War II. Several of the characters have been physically and/or emotionally damaged by the war, but one senses that Goudge’s greater concern is for the larger damage to society - to what might be described as the ‘social fabric’ of the UK. There is great yearning for the past in this book - for its quietness, its slowness, and its certainties - and that expresses itself in the plot, which is using the present to heal the past, and vice versa.
The protagonist of the novel is a 50 year old former teacher and administrator named Mary Lindsay. Although she was once engaged, Mary has never married or had children - and she feels that the experience of deeply felt love has never touched her. She is a highly competent ‘career woman’, but when she receives an unexpected inheritance from an elderly cousin she barely knew, she decides to take early retirement and move to the countryside. As a child, Mary had only once visited her cousin (also called Mary Lindsay), but the encounter had left an enduring impression on her. Something about the atmosphere of the old house and the beauty of its tiny treasures had left its mark, as had the strange but loving nature of its owner. The elder Mary Lindsay had suffered from a lifetime of mental health problems, and often experienced isolation and bitter unhappiness because of them. As her longtime housekeeper says, to the new mistress of the house: ”She knew what she was doing. Such as poor Miss Lindsay, they’ve their own wisdom. Often they’ll know what’s right when a normal person would only know what was expedient.”
When Mary Lindsay comes to the ‘The Laurels’ to live, she also becomes part of the small village and its inhabitants. Most of them are unhappy in some way, and several of them are suffering from the pain of isolation in the same that older Mary had done. Instead of being a stranger in their midst, Mary somehow becomes the crucial sympathetic person that each of them needs. An orphaned child, a blind writer, the lonely wife of a rich man, and a highly nervous middle-aged spinster are all transformed through their friendship with Mary - just as she is transformed by her loving friendship with them. But the plot is also very much about the past, and the way that the younger Mary comes to know the older Mary - who has left her this inheritance, and who craves love and a sense of connection.
There is a great sense of hopefulness in this book, and even those readers who are not drawn to its Christian overtones will be able to appreciate the message that love can be both redemptive and transformational. Yes, it is old-fashioned - but I think that many readers crave that, just as Goudge��s own audience did nearly 60 years ago.
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