REVIEW: The Sherwood Ring
May. 5th, 2024 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllThe Sherwood Ring: Elizabeth Marie Pope. Houghton Mifflin Company. Reprint.
This is an unusual book, with two timelines, three love stories and four kindly ghosts. In the present (the middle of the twentieth century, the book was first published in 1958), we meet Peggy Grahame, who is actually undergoing the sort of crisis you might expect in an older Gothic romance. Her artist father is dying of the sort of condition that allowed him to have enough energy and warning to write a letter making plans to a relative he’d broken off contact with and to have a long conversation with his daughter, the likes of which he’s never had before. It’s striking that Peggy has internalised his rather selfish views to the extent that she feels sorry for him as he was the kind of man who should never had a wife or children. My reaction was that he was a grown man when he chose to marry. After his wife died in childbirth, he arranged for other people, nurses and schools, to bring his daughter up until he couldn’t afford it. He trained her to keep quiet and out of his way. He now suggests that this will stand her in good stead at the family home, under the care of his brother, her eccentric uncle Enos, of whom she heard little before.
That home is Rest-and-be-thankful in New York state, a house that goes back to before the American War of Independence, and has many historical claims. Enos Grahame pretends it’s still the eighteenth century. Peggy’s father tells her that Enos is unhappy about the fact that he, like his soon-to-expire brother, lacked the family ability to see the family ghosts, but Peggy may yet have it.
Orphaned Peggy has to make her own way to her new abode, and it’s not going well, for nobody was there to meet her at the train station until a mysterious girl on horseback gives her directions. They lead to a young man doing battle with an old car called Betsy. He’s English, introduces himself as Pat, an aspiring historian who was hoping to visit Rest-and-be-thankful and talk to its owner about a possible family connection and research he’s doing into the War of Independence. Pat gives Peggy a lift for the last few miles, where Enos reacts extraordinarily, all but throwing Pat out of the house after he introduces himslef.
He treats Peggy much as her father predicted, urging her to keep out of his way, but giving her a roof over her head. The house, although lovely, is dull, and her uncle’s eccentricities don’t help. Peggy is also a little depressed because Pat had said that he might keep away from the house, as ordered by Enos, but not from her, and he’d rather attracted her.
Fortunately, Peggy is soon to meet some more ghosts – for she saw a portrait of the girl on horseback at Rest-and-be-thankful and realises she was one Barbara Grahame, who lived through the War of Independence. The ghosts are all connected to her and start telling her the story of their parts in the War of Independence in and around Rest-and-be-thankful.
Dick Grahame, an American colonel, had been ordered to come back to his home turf to tackle an English opponent with the remarkable name of Peaceable Sherwood Drummond, who was the redcoat leader of guerrilla Tories doing remarkably well there. Dick wanted to prove his worth, especially around the pretty daughter at Shipley’s Farm where he was billeted, but this Peaceable Drummond was wily and capable. Indeed, as if the reference to Sherwood hadn’t got you thinking of Robin Hood, he’s quite the Scarlet Pimpernel, coming across as a languid, slender young man, he had a keen brain, leadership skills and a tendency to do the most unexpected, outrageous thing. In fact, it would not be Dick, for all his own intelligence and competence, who would bring him down.
The book is aimed at young adult readers, or older girls, more than children, for the ghosts who come to tell their tale to Peggy are all around the age they were around the days of Drummond’s campaign, and the girls, certainly, are not much older than her. Eleanor Shipley soon confesses that she was only so disdainful of Dick because she was desperate to get his attention. Dick shows that he has the good grace to learn from his failures and comes to admire his adversary and learn to avoid his feints.
The ghost who comes most often to Peggy, comforting her as she gets to know Pat a little better, puzzles over her uncle’s behaviour and learns more about her house, is Barbara Grahame, Dick’s sister, who would also cross paths with Peaceable and feel the magnetism of his personality. Hearteningly, he seemed to find the fact that she outwitted him quite the turn-on, and although they’re on opposing sides, as Dick says, the war will come to an end. Barbara’s romance with Peaceable is echoed by Peggy’s interaction with Pat, with both young men soon announcing they’re going to marry these young ladies with their readiness to face crises, and that they generally have their own way (for a reason that the reader can see coming a mile off.)
With the help of Pat and the clues the ghosts have given her, Peggy can solve the mystery at the heart of Uncle Enos’s faltering health, and the book ends with her facing a far happier future. The author makes it quite clear that the family ghosts have been ‘sent’ to comfort her specifically because her living relatives were so neglectful of her. I kept thinking that if it had been written for younger readers and been less of a romance, we might have had a greater variety of ghosts, which is not to say that the six main young people aren’t likeable. But there’s little tension, and because, apart from giving clues about the origin of family traditions etc, the ghosts are mainly there to recount to Peggy and us their witty tales. They do bring the period to life – Washington and other historical figures make cameos – but the unusual narrative choices blunted some of my interest.
This is an unusual book, with two timelines, three love stories and four kindly ghosts. In the present (the middle of the twentieth century, the book was first published in 1958), we meet Peggy Grahame, who is actually undergoing the sort of crisis you might expect in an older Gothic romance. Her artist father is dying of the sort of condition that allowed him to have enough energy and warning to write a letter making plans to a relative he’d broken off contact with and to have a long conversation with his daughter, the likes of which he’s never had before. It’s striking that Peggy has internalised his rather selfish views to the extent that she feels sorry for him as he was the kind of man who should never had a wife or children. My reaction was that he was a grown man when he chose to marry. After his wife died in childbirth, he arranged for other people, nurses and schools, to bring his daughter up until he couldn’t afford it. He trained her to keep quiet and out of his way. He now suggests that this will stand her in good stead at the family home, under the care of his brother, her eccentric uncle Enos, of whom she heard little before.
That home is Rest-and-be-thankful in New York state, a house that goes back to before the American War of Independence, and has many historical claims. Enos Grahame pretends it’s still the eighteenth century. Peggy’s father tells her that Enos is unhappy about the fact that he, like his soon-to-expire brother, lacked the family ability to see the family ghosts, but Peggy may yet have it.
Orphaned Peggy has to make her own way to her new abode, and it’s not going well, for nobody was there to meet her at the train station until a mysterious girl on horseback gives her directions. They lead to a young man doing battle with an old car called Betsy. He’s English, introduces himself as Pat, an aspiring historian who was hoping to visit Rest-and-be-thankful and talk to its owner about a possible family connection and research he’s doing into the War of Independence. Pat gives Peggy a lift for the last few miles, where Enos reacts extraordinarily, all but throwing Pat out of the house after he introduces himslef.
He treats Peggy much as her father predicted, urging her to keep out of his way, but giving her a roof over her head. The house, although lovely, is dull, and her uncle’s eccentricities don’t help. Peggy is also a little depressed because Pat had said that he might keep away from the house, as ordered by Enos, but not from her, and he’d rather attracted her.
Fortunately, Peggy is soon to meet some more ghosts – for she saw a portrait of the girl on horseback at Rest-and-be-thankful and realises she was one Barbara Grahame, who lived through the War of Independence. The ghosts are all connected to her and start telling her the story of their parts in the War of Independence in and around Rest-and-be-thankful.
Dick Grahame, an American colonel, had been ordered to come back to his home turf to tackle an English opponent with the remarkable name of Peaceable Sherwood Drummond, who was the redcoat leader of guerrilla Tories doing remarkably well there. Dick wanted to prove his worth, especially around the pretty daughter at Shipley’s Farm where he was billeted, but this Peaceable Drummond was wily and capable. Indeed, as if the reference to Sherwood hadn’t got you thinking of Robin Hood, he’s quite the Scarlet Pimpernel, coming across as a languid, slender young man, he had a keen brain, leadership skills and a tendency to do the most unexpected, outrageous thing. In fact, it would not be Dick, for all his own intelligence and competence, who would bring him down.
The book is aimed at young adult readers, or older girls, more than children, for the ghosts who come to tell their tale to Peggy are all around the age they were around the days of Drummond’s campaign, and the girls, certainly, are not much older than her. Eleanor Shipley soon confesses that she was only so disdainful of Dick because she was desperate to get his attention. Dick shows that he has the good grace to learn from his failures and comes to admire his adversary and learn to avoid his feints.
The ghost who comes most often to Peggy, comforting her as she gets to know Pat a little better, puzzles over her uncle’s behaviour and learns more about her house, is Barbara Grahame, Dick’s sister, who would also cross paths with Peaceable and feel the magnetism of his personality. Hearteningly, he seemed to find the fact that she outwitted him quite the turn-on, and although they’re on opposing sides, as Dick says, the war will come to an end. Barbara’s romance with Peaceable is echoed by Peggy’s interaction with Pat, with both young men soon announcing they’re going to marry these young ladies with their readiness to face crises, and that they generally have their own way (for a reason that the reader can see coming a mile off.)
With the help of Pat and the clues the ghosts have given her, Peggy can solve the mystery at the heart of Uncle Enos’s faltering health, and the book ends with her facing a far happier future. The author makes it quite clear that the family ghosts have been ‘sent’ to comfort her specifically because her living relatives were so neglectful of her. I kept thinking that if it had been written for younger readers and been less of a romance, we might have had a greater variety of ghosts, which is not to say that the six main young people aren’t likeable. But there’s little tension, and because, apart from giving clues about the origin of family traditions etc, the ghosts are mainly there to recount to Peggy and us their witty tales. They do bring the period to life – Washington and other historical figures make cameos – but the unusual narrative choices blunted some of my interest.
