Florence L. Barclay (1862–1921)

David Rivers is a zealous, pure-of-heart missionary who is back in England to recover his health. He is tending a small country church for six weeks before he goes back to the mission field. One evening he is preaching when in walks a lady who is obviously not a country farm wife. David finally meets her when she invites him for Christmas dinner. Diana Rivers (no relation) has a problem – she is wealthy, but only for another month. Her uncle has left her all his money on the condition that show more she marry within the year. The year is almost up, but she has a very jaded view of marriage and had planned never to marry. David feels that marriage is incompatible with his missionary life, since the climate has proved deadly to so many people. David’s been told that if he goes back to Africa he is likely to live another two years before the climate kills him. Diana explains her situation and offers David a deal: marry her on the day he leaves for Africa and she will contribute a large sum to his mission. At first David absolutely refuses because of his beliefs about marriage. After “sleeping on it” (staying up all night thinking and praying) he agrees for reasons that he does not divulge to Diana. David and Diana spend time together during the two weeks before they wed, and start to fall in love with each other. However, both are strict with their personal codes and do not share this information with the other. During the almost two years that David is gone they write, and slowly, Diana begins to change. Among other things she opens her house to the children of missionaries for school breaks. Then David writes and tells her that he is dying, and. . . you’ll have to read it to find out.

The plot of this books sounds completely shallow and like something you’ve read a hundred times before, and yet – Barclay is very skilled in putting together her characters. Both David and Diana have depth, a personal code of ethics, an awareness of who they are. The plot also sounds like something that could fall into sappy sentimentality – and yet it doesn’t.

David is a minister and Barclay was the wife of a minister. The book has a very liberal amount of Bible quotations, both direct and indirect, as well as many other church-type references. I see a lot of what is probably her life experience and her opinions is this book. The descriptions of the dynamics of the small country church are quite amusing. Barclay also, through the voice of David, observes that many missionaries put their zeal into their missions and don’t raise their own children, sending them to boarding school in England from a very young age. David feels that if a couple has children they need to raise their own children. (One of my friends in real life, who as the daughter of missionaries was sent to boarding school, feels the same way, so this observation has a very authentic feel to me.)

If you have a dislike of Christianity, you probably won’t like this book. If you don’t have a Christian background the various Bible references and church references may not make much sense to you, or engage you very much.

I loved this book. show less

To the great confusion of Catholic readers over the past century and a bit, there is no actual rosary in this novel. The title is that of an oddly-named sentimental ballad which the female protagonist sings in a domestic concert, awakening her male counterpart to recognize her sterling qualities.

The characters are rather well-realized and the writing is very good. The plot would do for a Harlequin romance of the 1960s (Hero is blind! How can he be brought to realize that heroine loves -- show more not pities -- him! Cue plots and deceptions!) but it really is much better fleshed-out, and the author's viewpoint on religion and theology is correct (for an Anglican) and well-expressed.

I own this book because my grandmother gave a copy to my grandfather in 1939, being very young and apparently not realizing that her husband really wasn't a romance-reading kind of fellow. show less

Dick, raised by his vicar uncle and aunt, got away with breaking St. Peter's halo in the stained glass window of the church when he was a boy; it was the wickedest thing he could think to do, sitting on his mother's grave, in retaliation for an unjust punishment for something he didn't deserve to be punished for.

Before we know it, he is a promising young medical doctor who married his widow patient, the Little White Lady, for her money. He got away with that too. But for all his scheming, show more the Little White Lady out-schemed him to give him what he wanted, but with redemption in the bargain.

That's only one of many twists in this surprisingly engaging novel set in early 20th Century England. The sentences are full and flowing; sometimes long with words that a schoolboy would have to look up in the dictionary. They are the kind of sentences that are full of dignity and command willing attention. Contemporary authors don't write like that.

I'm committed to reading Barclay's more famous book, The Rosary; but after an interlude of something more modern. I don't want to risk the possibility of becoming weary of Barclay's authorial gracefulness. show less

Having richly enjoyed two of her novels, I was glad to find another Barclay title. This one deals with an issue that not many moderns subscribe to - giving of self unstintingly to one's spouse. There is a core truth to the book, but it's execution was too pat. Perhaps if this had been a full-length novel, there would have been luxury to make the point more subtly; but this was short story length. Also, Deryck is not one of her more sympathetic characters, and Flower still seems self-absorbed show more even after learning the lesson. show less