April 8

The Scent of Water

By Elizabeth Goudge

When I first starting keeping a reading diary 25 years ago, this title (published in 1960) was its first entry.  Rereading the entry enticed me to pick up the book again and, while it feels a little dated in its post-war time frame, the story is beautifully written and heart-warming.

Fifty-year-old Mary Lindsay is retiring from a successful business career in London, somewhat abruptly, when she unexpectedly inherits the country home from a maiden aunt, her namesake, and a woman she'd met only once, at the age of eight.  Yet her memories are vivid of a visit to a gracious old cottage among apple trees, where her aunt had shown young Mary some beloved objects: her "little things" like a tiny child's tea set and a fairy coach.  Mary had hoped to experience rural England before it disappeared, and is disappointed in neither the house nor its setting.  She discovers, however, that the house needs not only major repairs but lacks electricity and indoor plumbing.  In securing the help she needs, Mary is introduced to many of the locals: Col and Mrs Adams who lost three sons in the war and whose 4th son Charles always has some new business venture to drain his parents' meagre savings, Mr and Mrs Hepplewhite of the beautiful manor house but harboring some secret, wounded vet Paul Randall and his wife Valerie who fancies herself a "martyr wife" and secretly meets ne'er-do-well Charles, Vicar James Anderson and his mousy sister Jean, and next-door neighbors Joanna and Roger Talbot and their three children Rose, Jeremy and Edith; the latter adopted after her birth parents' death.

The setting is lushly depicted: a country lane is "ancient and bird-haunted".  Of an old stone cottage, "moss and lichen patched the roof and where the walls were free of ivy, ferns grew in the crevices of the stones".

Where cousin Mary had alienated many neighbors by her "crazy" behavior (probably some kind of mental illness or maybe depression), Mary Lindsay reaches out to befriend and comfort.  She tutors young Edith, makes weekly "coffee dates" with the cowering Jean, and edits Paul's writings. As she hopelessly falls in love with Paul, she thinks back on her own relationship with a man who was killed in an accident, and sees in herself her failure to be the woman he needed; she rejoices with Paul when his first writings are published and his marriage is restored.  Along the way, she looks for the best in people; her faith (both in others and in God) grows richer.