Of course, the novels that we remember from 1920 probably aren’t the ones that most people were reading. Fitzgerald, Woolf and Mansfield’s stories, Wharton – all had their audience in their day, but they weren’t the bestsellers. That’s why I’m really pleased that Con read Ethel M. Dell and that’s why I decided to read The Master Man by Ruby M. Ayres.
Ayres is one of those names I came across a lot while researching popular fiction of the interwar period, but I hadn’t read any first hand (and had that in common with plenty of cultural commentators of the period). In a lovely little bookshop in St David’s, I picked up The Master Man – and it only took me a couple of hours to read.
From the off, let me say perhaps my favourite thing about this particular edition of the book. And that’s that the quote on the cover never happens. In case you can’t read it, it says ”You hate me? quite likely! it does not surprise me. Brute force? I confess it: but still – you were Kissed.” Besides a lamentable approach to capital letters, this quote also betrays the period’s fondness for sexual assault in literature, and brutes who are convinced to be more considerate by the sheer power of the woman’s English virtue. This was, after all, only a year after E. M. Hull’s tremendously successful novel The Sheik. But in The Master Man? Nothing even vaguely approaching this scene occurs. A section of the readership would certainly be disappointed.
The main character of The Master Man is Patricia – a spoilt, rich, unpleasant woman who has lived to the age of twenty-one with everything that money could buy. Except family and friendship. Her benefactor is Peter Rolf, the man who adopted her when she was seven, but has never shown her much affection. In the first of many rather unbelievable moments, Patricia can’t remember much at all from the first seven years of her life, including the family she came from.
As the novel opens, she is lounging about on the houseboat of Bernard Chesney, a man she thinks little of but might also marry, because he is rich and connected. Chesney’s servant is on to her, and gives her a few sharp words, at which she is very indignant. But she hasn’t got much time to be indignant, because, as the opening lines say…
When Peter Rolf died[,] Patricia was away from home staying with some people in a houseboat on the Thames.
It had been ideal weather for the river, hot and breathless, with wonderful starry nights, and it was an ideal evening when the telegram came summoning her home because Peter Rolf had inconsiderately died while she was away and spoilt a holiday which she had been thoroughly enjoying.
Patricia isn’t too bothered about the death of the only parent she’s ever known (because, again, she doesn’t remember anything about the first seven years of my life, though this is never directly acknowledged) – she’s just annoyed that her holiday is over. And even more annoyed when she realises… she’s been cut off without a penny. Peter Rolf has left all his money to the son that none of them have ever seen. And in a twist that would be quite clever if it hadn’t come so early in the novel… the son is Chesney’s servant! For no reason! This coincidence is never referred to again, but it was a fun surprise.
Having been brusque and masterly and rude when he first met her, Michael – for that is his name – immediately cares deeply about Patricia’s future. She continues to be petulant and unpleasant and refuses to take any of his money, insisting that she will support herself and/or stay with friends, neither of which prove to be true. And so they’re in a cat and mouse situation of him trying to help her and Patricia refusing to be helped from… pride? I guess?
It’s really unclear why Michael cares about her, because she is horrible, and it’s equally unclear why she won’t accept that help, having been very happy to live off other people for her whole life. There are one or two other twists that look a little like Ayres only thought of them as she was writing, and the ending is entirely predictable. The title has very little to do with the novel, which would have been more interesting if Michael had continued to treat Patricia a little rudely – as she deserves – rather than bending over backwards for her. He certainly wouldn’t dream of kissing her against her will, as per the cover.
So, yes, this novel was completely stupid and littered with stereotypical writing. Nobody ever laughs without ‘laughing mirthlessly’, for instance. But, you know what, I had a ball reading it. I imagine half of its 1920 audience took it deathly seriously, and the other half recognised it was total nonsense but easy to race through, and satisfyingly predictable in its ending. Ayres knew what she was doing, and did what was needed well – i.e. wrote something interesting enough to keep reading at break-neck speed, without ever letting logic, common sense, or human nature get in the way of a rattling story.