Milicent's Book

There are some stories where the quality of the writing draws you into the characters’ world and does not let you out until the last page, and this is one of them. Milicent, (unusual spelling), becomes an orphan in 1883 when her elderly father dies, her mother Bella having died in mysterious circumstances some time before. The big house, Yotes, now belongs to her brother Harry who is up at Oxford and her older sister Mabel is now the lady of the house. There is a large extended family which cares for the girls including bachelor Uncle Ben, an Arctic explorer. Milicent has written a ‘diary’ but one to be opened in 1901, and confides to it her fears about Mabel marrying and therefore the uncertainty of her own future Early in the story Arthur Glover appears as a suitor for Mabel, seemingly very suitable although Milicent does not think him very clever and thinks he should have a job of some description rather than be a man of leisure, but  she does gradually warm to him. The engagement comes to an abrupt end when Harry’s death from a fever at sea on his way home from India shatters the girls’ happiness, and worse is to come as Mabel descends into a breakdown of some kind, which is what had happened to their mother and led to her suicide. Milicent is removed to her aunt’s and the decision is taken to send her to school which delights her greatly.

This is a true story, the result of the author finding Milicent’s letters at Hancox (about which Charlotte Moore has written an adult book). It is Milicent’s voice which comes strongly through the ‘diary’, giving a clear picture of the life of a Victorian girl from a well connected family, the class consciousness and the expectation that she will marry. Over it all is the ever present spectre of death. It is not clear how much of the text is  Milicent’s and how much Charlotte Moore’s so whether this is fiction or not is a moot point Either way this is an experience not to be missed – as a piece of literature and a spellbinding vignette of Victorian life.