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Lovely Faith Yardley's betrothal to a man from the north is abruptly followed by murder - and more murder. Transformed by terror, quaint and beautiful Williamsburg, Virginia waits for the killer to strike again, and wonders: This time, will it be Faith Yardley herself?
The Town Cried Murder is one of Leslie Ford's stand alone novels. Originally published in 1939, it's set in Williamsburg, Virginia, some years after the restoration began. We have a first-person narrator, 60-year-old Miss Lucy Randolph, a life-long resident.
From a line in the first chapter it seems that Miss Lucy lost her man to malaria in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War in 1898 and that's why she's never married. Her young cousin, Faith Yardley, who was only three when her mother died in the great flu pandemic of 1918, has been like a daughter to Miss Lucy.
It's a good thing that Faith had Miss Lucy. Her father, Dr. Peyton Yardley, withdrew into himself when his wife died. He didn't have the money to travel the way The Secret Garden's Mr. Craven did, but he might as well have for all the notice he takes of his adoring little girl. The acting mistress of Yardley Hall is Peyton's younger sister, Melusina.
Right on page one Miss Lucy lets us know often Melusina objects to things (though I have my doubts that Melusina is going to make it through the Pearly Gates). Melusina is bitter, unscrupulous, and eaten up with pride. Her favorite person in the world isn't her niece, it's Marshall Yardley, whom she brought into the house, and even he takes second place to Yardley Hall. Marshall is a lawyer. Melusina sold a family heirloom out from under her brother's nose to pay for Marshall's education. If you're thinking Marshall must be horribly spoiled, he's not. He's a good man in spite of Melusina.
Like the Yardleys, Miss Lucy has spent years living in genteel poverty in her ancestral home, watching it falling apart. Her home is in fine shape now because Miss Lucy sold it to the Restoration Company with lifetime residency guaranteed. The Yardleys could have done the same, but Melusina is against it. Now that young Faith has grown up to be the beauty her mother was, Melusina plans to use that beauty to restore the family's fortunes.
Enter Mason Seymour, a rich bachelor old enough to be Faith's father. Faith doesn't want to marry him, but Melusina is going to use the same lie she's used to make Faith do what she doesn't want to do since she was little: tell Faith it's what her father wants. In chapter two we find out that Melusina is willing to break a promise to get her way. Miss Lucy is nearly beside herself wondering how to keep Faith from being a sacrifice to Melusina's obsession.
Miss Lucy gets an unexpected helper in the person of Bill Haines, who becomes her boarder. Bill knows Summers Baldwin, the man Melusina turned down when he was just a poor stableboy. Baldwin didn't stay a poor stableboy. He moved away and became a rich automobile man. Since Melusina found that out she's been claiming that turning down Summers Baldwin was the Great Sacrifice she made to care for her family. Even the description of Mr. Baldwin's recently-deceased wife that Bill gives Miss Lucy in chapter four wasn't enough to change my mind about how lucky Mr. Baldwin was that Melusina didn't accept his proposal.
If you're thinking that I was hoping that Melusina would be the murder victim, you're right. No, someone else gets murdered. This being a Leslie Ford mystery, there's plenty of reasons for Miss Lucy to worry about Faith and Bill being trapped by circumstantial evidence. Along the way we learn some interesting facts about the suspects. The end of the book left me with an evil grin. In fact, just typing that made me chortle.
The descriptions of Williamsburg before and during the restoration were interesting. It sounds as if it's very pretty in May. So were the tidbits of family history, such as why the portrait of Anne Yardley had its hands cut out (see chapter three). You will have to endure the racism of the period. Of the African-American characters, the one we learn the most about is Community, Miss Lucy's maid. Their relationship is similar to that of Grace Latham and Lilac in Ms. Ford's Primrose-Latham mystery series. The one time Miss Lucy uses the 'n-word', it's to give her opinion of Community's husband.
I did like the touch of having the official investigators be men whom Dr. Yardley brought into the world and former Sunday School pupils of Miss Lucy. What Miss Lucy remembered about a prank they pulled when they were boys was fun (see chapter seven). So was what Bill called Melusina in chapter 27. I'm sure he would have called her something else if there hadn't been genuine ladies present.
If you're keeping track of Ms. Ford's heroines' hair and eyes, Faith has gray eyes and hair like burnished gold.
My copy is the paperback with a man's arm and hand on the cover. The hand has a checkbook under it, a fountain pen lying against it, and some blood spattered on the check and around the pen. That's the 1963 Popular Library edition.
If you like classic mysteries with plenty of atmosphere, get yourself a copy of The Town Cried Murder( )
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
The first I Knew of Faith Yardley was actually going to marry Mason Seymour was the afternoon her aunt Melusina Yardley stopped me going into the Powder Horn in Market Square to a meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.
Citaten
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
[Lucy] I know it's possible to complete a whole extraordinary pattern of events and have no memory of the individual steps that composed it. All I know now is that I reached the hedge and started back through it, and all of a sudden my knees turned to water and my heart gave a nauseating lurch as something reached out, catching at me. The soft warm leaves of the box closed in around my face, suffocating me, so that I struggled, like a drowning person, my breath strangling in my throat. It was so silent and horrible! I wrenched and fought my way through out into the air, staggered through the tall wet grass behind the old spring house, through the overgrown garden, past the deserted tumble-down house into Scotland Street, too terrified to look back. (chapter six) [The hedge is made of an evergreen called 'box'.]
I'm afraid I looked more shocked than I was, really, having heard what he'd said to Luton. And, after all, living off one's relatives is in the gentleman's tradition, and Virginians have always been gentlemen. (Chapter 16)
That's the worst of Williamsburg -- you scratch the grocer's boy and you find a cousin. (chapter 18)
I didn't know whether I should run after her, when she'd darted down my path, and stop her and make her tell me what all this insane nonsense was about, or just let her go and jump in the river, if she wanted to -- she was a very capable swimmer and a cold douse would probably do her a lot of good. (chapter 22)
Captain Callowhill's face had all the best features, I thought, of a brace of working ferrets. (chapter 25)
Laatste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Don't run away from me this time, Lucy, he was saying, very gently.
Lovely Faith Yardley's betrothal to a man from the north is abruptly followed by murder - and more murder. Transformed by terror, quaint and beautiful Williamsburg, Virginia waits for the killer to strike again, and wonders: This time, will it be Faith Yardley herself?
Google Books — Bezig met laden...
(4.5)
1
From a line in the first chapter it seems that Miss Lucy lost her man to malaria in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War in 1898 and that's why she's never married. Her young cousin, Faith Yardley, who was only three when her mother died in the great flu pandemic of 1918, has been like a daughter to Miss Lucy.
It's a good thing that Faith had Miss Lucy. Her father, Dr. Peyton Yardley, withdrew into himself when his wife died. He didn't have the money to travel the way The Secret Garden's Mr. Craven did, but he might as well have for all the notice he takes of his adoring little girl. The acting mistress of Yardley Hall is Peyton's younger sister, Melusina.
Right on page one Miss Lucy lets us know often Melusina objects to things (though I have my doubts that Melusina is going to make it through the Pearly Gates). Melusina is bitter, unscrupulous, and eaten up with pride. Her favorite person in the world isn't her niece, it's Marshall Yardley, whom she brought into the house, and even he takes second place to Yardley Hall. Marshall is a lawyer. Melusina sold a family heirloom out from under her brother's nose to pay for Marshall's education. If you're thinking Marshall must be horribly spoiled, he's not. He's a good man in spite of Melusina.
Like the Yardleys, Miss Lucy has spent years living in genteel poverty in her ancestral home, watching it falling apart. Her home is in fine shape now because Miss Lucy sold it to the Restoration Company with lifetime residency guaranteed. The Yardleys could have done the same, but Melusina is against it. Now that young Faith has grown up to be the beauty her mother was, Melusina plans to use that beauty to restore the family's fortunes.
Enter Mason Seymour, a rich bachelor old enough to be Faith's father. Faith doesn't want to marry him, but Melusina is going to use the same lie she's used to make Faith do what she doesn't want to do since she was little: tell Faith it's what her father wants. In chapter two we find out that Melusina is willing to break a promise to get her way. Miss Lucy is nearly beside herself wondering how to keep Faith from being a sacrifice to Melusina's obsession.
Miss Lucy gets an unexpected helper in the person of Bill Haines, who becomes her boarder. Bill knows Summers Baldwin, the man Melusina turned down when he was just a poor stableboy. Baldwin didn't stay a poor stableboy. He moved away and became a rich automobile man. Since Melusina found that out she's been claiming that turning down Summers Baldwin was the Great Sacrifice she made to care for her family. Even the description of Mr. Baldwin's recently-deceased wife that Bill gives Miss Lucy in chapter four wasn't enough to change my mind about how lucky Mr. Baldwin was that Melusina didn't accept his proposal.
If you're thinking that I was hoping that Melusina would be the murder victim, you're right. No, someone else gets murdered. This being a Leslie Ford mystery, there's plenty of reasons for Miss Lucy to worry about Faith and Bill being trapped by circumstantial evidence. Along the way we learn some interesting facts about the suspects. The end of the book left me with an evil grin. In fact, just typing that made me chortle.
The descriptions of Williamsburg before and during the restoration were interesting. It sounds as if it's very pretty in May. So were the tidbits of family history, such as why the portrait of Anne Yardley had its hands cut out (see chapter three). You will have to endure the racism of the period. Of the African-American characters, the one we learn the most about is Community, Miss Lucy's maid. Their relationship is similar to that of Grace Latham and Lilac in Ms. Ford's Primrose-Latham mystery series. The one time Miss Lucy uses the 'n-word', it's to give her opinion of Community's husband.
I did like the touch of having the official investigators be men whom Dr. Yardley brought into the world and former Sunday School pupils of Miss Lucy. What Miss Lucy remembered about a prank they pulled when they were boys was fun (see chapter seven). So was what Bill called Melusina in chapter 27. I'm sure he would have called her something else if there hadn't been genuine ladies present.
If you're keeping track of Ms. Ford's heroines' hair and eyes, Faith has gray eyes and hair like burnished gold.
My copy is the paperback with a man's arm and hand on the cover. The hand has a checkbook under it, a fountain pen lying against it, and some blood spattered on the check and around the pen. That's the 1963 Popular Library edition.
If you like classic mysteries with plenty of atmosphere, get yourself a copy of The Town Cried Murder (