I bought Turn Again Home (1951) by Ruby Ferguson when I was in Inverness a couple of years ago – largely on the strength of having enjoyed Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary about 20 years ago, but… I think I’d have bought a book with this cover regardless of who wrote it. This illustration sums up more or less everything I’m looking for in a novel. A big old house, clearly falling apart? Some people in period clothing who are clearly drawn to it? Yes pleeeease. I was prompted to put it closer to the top of my tbr pile when Gina reviewed it so glowingly.
As it turns out, the house plays a relatively minor role in the novel. But it is perhaps emblematic of what the characters are experiencing: Wright, Vida, Hope and Daphne are travelling back to the northern mill town where they grew up. The fictional town of Hockworth, in West Riding of Yorkshire, is dominated by the mill and its industry, and hints of modernity have done little to change that. But for these four siblings – technically three siblings, because Daphne is a sort-of-adopted-but-not-actually addition to the family – Hockworth is a distant memory. They have all left home behind, and only their brother Haigh remains in Hockworth.
Four of the people who stood waiting and shivering on this February afternoon, while the Bradford to Hockworth local train seemed as though it would never come, had a look of being out of place in their surroundings. It was difficult to say exactly how they were unlike their fellow-passengers, for the difference was subtle, and might be described as the look of metropolitans among provincials. On the man and the three women who paced the platform and occasionally glanced anxiously at wrist-watches, you could see overlaid, like the patina on old furniture, that something which was London and which Snebley Heights – never fear! – recognised and scorned. Their clipped voices, borne on the wind, were like the voices of foreigners.
The reason they’ve all travelled back is for an inheritance from their grandmother. The house on the cover, though I was sad by how little time we spent in its environs. But that is because there was so much else to pack into the story…
The four characters are drawn in slightly broad brushstrokes. Vida and Daphne are fashionable, smart women married to wealthy men, and who most openly look down on Hockworth. Vida is sharpest and most disdainful, and Daphne is something of a shadow of her – she reminded me of the way Kitty emulates Lydia in Pride and Prejudice, though what is being imitated is different. Wright is a bachelor too busy with London business to have time for family, and similarly considers his father’s mill-ownership to be rather provincial and very old-fashioned. Hope’s name is rather on the nose, because she is the optimistic, kind one. Working as a teacher, she is the only one with residual fondness for their home.
I’ll be honest – halfway through Turn Again Home, I was a bit disappointed. It was enjoyable enough, and the writing was good, but the characters were a bit one-note. I could see exactly where this sort of story was going. It seemed inevitable that, one by one, they’d be beguiled by nostalgia and the honest goodness of provincial folk, letting their London airs and graces fall away. It was particularly predictable to have all their old servants, and other working-class characters, be mindlessly delighted to see them again. Every working-class figure in Turn Again Home seemed to exist only to hero-worship the memory of the upper-class characters, without a streak of any negativity or individuality in them. I was enjoying the book, but wasn’t very impressed by it.
And yet… things changed. And I think that was largely the introduction of Jessie. For a chapter or so, we are fully back in the past – in the ardent, forceful courtship of Wright with Jessie, the daughter of a mill-hand. Wright’s parents are not snobs – the community seems to be far better integrated than would be possible in a larger town – but they don’t trust his youthful infatuation to last, and they know that Jessie will be the one to suffer. And they are right.
When Wright and Jessie meet again, in present day, we see a much more interesting character than any of the other working-class people. Or, indeed, than any of the upper-class ones. Her mix of regret, contentedness, dignity, and reproach is done extremely well. The strongest of the stories in Turn Again Home is about the ways Wright will or will not be able to reconnect with the woman he wronged.
Once I’d been hooked on that story, the others got me too. I was right in one respect – of course the honest charm of Hockworth would overcome these London cynics – but I was wrong in others. It wasn’t as clear-cut as that, and there were moments of surprise in the narrative. More than that, though, the characters filled out. Their one-note responses to Hockworth revealed hidden depths and complexities, and the plot became extremely compelling. I raced through the final 150 pages, keen to know what would happen to each member of the family, and unsure whether I wanted reality or fantasy to dominate. Ferguson ends up finding a combination of the two that was much more satisfactory than I’d anticipated.
As Gina said, it’s not an easy novel to track down. I was very fortunate to find it in the wild. But it is on Internet Archive, if that is your cup of tea! I’ll certainly be open to reading more by Ferguson, should I be lucky enough to stumble across them, and will make sure I don’t judge the book too quickly.