The Princess Passes

I suppose this 1931 novel by Ruby M. Ayres would be classified as a "romance", but frankly it's a long time since I read anything that struck me as so thoroughly anti-romantic. Priscilla Marsh is the only daughter of a blue-blooded family come to the brink of poverty and ruin (mostly because of the father's gambling habits, yet apparently we're supposed to be grieved and sympathetic, not critical); Jonathan Corbie is the only son of a self-made millionaire, whose family is utterly and rigidly "cut" by all their snobbish neighbours. So although Jonathan has long worshipped Priscilla from afar, they have never met until he stops her runaway horse. Priscilla is grateful, and friendly in response; but she hardly expects the proposal of show more marriage that comes at their second meeting. Priscilla knows that is only a matter of time before the Marshes will be forced to sell their family estate; moreover, her wastrel brother, Hugh, has just revealed that he is in danger of a prison sentence due to an act of forgery. Warning Jonathan outright that if she does marry him, it will only be for his money, she accepts his proposal... Wow. I've read horror stories, serial-killer stories, with less hateful characters than those that populated this "love story". There are only two sympathetic people in this book: one is Jonathan's mother, an annoyance to her husband and an embarrassment to her son, who - because she's working-class and uneducated - is basically just here to be mocked and sneered at; the other is the poor man who loves Priscilla, and who---well, let's just say that narrative isn't very nice to him, either. As for our young lovers, she's a whiny, entitled attention-whore; he, when provoked, reveals a personality that toggles between alpha-male-obnoxious and stalker-creepy. When he's nice to her, she feels nothing but contempt; when he gives her a dose of "treat 'em mean", she gets interested. After their engagement ends in an ugly bust-up, Priscilla is forced to get a job - GASP!!SHOCK!!HORROR!!TRAGEDY!! - and naturally lands one where the perks include free holidays in Switzerland, besides never having to do any actual work, because, you know, God forbid. Of course the first person she runs into at the ski-lodge where she is luxuriating at her employers' expense is Jonathan. The "romance" that subsequently unfolds is more like a slow-motion car crash than two people falling in love. Apparently Ms Ayres thought she was delivering a happy ending; me, I just felt like I needed a hot shower.

    Priscilla covered her ears with her hands. "Oh, stop, please stop...don't laugh like that. I've said I'm sorry...I am sorry---I'd do anything to wipe out what's happened, but I can't marry you. I can't..."
    And suddenly she was weeping, for herself, for him, and for the tragedy she herself had made.
    But now her tears did not touch him; perhaps there was nothing in the world just then that could have melted the hardness around his heart; he was only conscious of a fierce longing to hurt her, to make her suffer as he himself was suffering.
    His hands were clenched by his sides so that the knuckles stood out white, and when he spoke there was something brutal in his voice that made her shrink back almost as if she was afraid he would strike her... show less