We met again when Molly was seventeen, and her father sent her to visit the family of the local squire. I felt that we were friends, looking at the world together as the story unfolded. I loved Molly from the start, her love for her father, her openness, her honesty. until, of course, her father came and rescued her. She was found, of course, and looked after, but gown-ups don’t always understand childish concerns, and Molly didn’t know how she would ever escape. Molly had a lovely time, but there was just one oversight: she was left behind, napping on a big bed, when the carriages drove away. In a lovely prologue she was twelve years old and she had been taken The Towers, home of the Duke of Cumnor, for a day of grand entertainments. I stepped into the middle of the 1830s, into the English countryside that Mrs Gaskell knew so well, I met people who were so real, fallible, interesting, and I became caught up in their lives and their stories.Īt the centre of it all was Molly Gibson, the only child of a widowed doctor. Towards the end of last year I spent many happy hours visiting a world so perfectly realised that it still lifts my heart when I think of it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |