Fiancées Are Relatives

[From part of dust jacket(?) found clipped and tucked into book]

When Flight-Lieutenant James Courtenay-Wright, R.A.F., met the beautiful young nurse called Honey, it was a definite case of love at first sight. And a certain handsome, wealthy patient of hers reacted in precisely the same manner. Unfortunately for one of these men and fortunately for the other, Honey was devoted to her family and they were extremely poor. So romantic love, it seemed, could play no part in her life.

Then the member of the R.A.F. was interned in a German Prisoners-of-war Camp, which, strangely enough, altered the situation somewhat. What happened goes to make up one of Berta Ruck's most timely and exciting stories.

One of the most delightful things about reading someone like Berta Ruck, who published over such a long period of time, is opening up a new title and finding it narrated by a character you've already met, in a book written almost thirty years earlier. In this case, it's Elizabeth Lascelles (née Verdeley) from The Girls at His Billet (1914). Then, a funny, spirited, chatty (nickname, "Racket") eighteen, now Elizabeth's "face it! -- in my forties. And fat. Not that I care; Frank likes curves; men do if you ask me", with three grown sons serving and an entire local RAF base to mother (Frank's in Home Guard).

The romance between the young nurse and ace pilot is pretty standard fare (and Jim's persistence would be a bit of a red flag today) but it's so nice to catch up with Elizabeth, to see her busy and fulfilled and still managing to get in trouble with her letter-writing. She's a little subdued, and I would have loved to have had way more of a focus on her and her Billet Boy, but glimpses of the old Rattle sneak through -- "Immediately afterwards, though, I was All Boding Presentiment" (64) and even a dog walk comes within exclamation range "White caps on the Channel! Gulls beaten back!" (53)

There's interesting commentary on the differences in fashion and culture between "Nineteen-realistic-forty" and Elizabeth's "Nineteen-sentimental-fourteen" (142) -- for one thing, she reflects that she and her sisters wouldn't have "made a hit" in the present day: "too massive." (13) And, being Berta, there's an interesting side-character in young nurse's aunt, 80-something and thrice married -- once, to a man more than thirty years her junior. "Her drawing-room, piano, walls and whatnots are plastered with pictures of early admirers in uniform or obsolete rowing kit -- Heart-throbs of the Exciting Eighties!" (42) Ouch.

There's also a surprisingly nuanced take on the young men on both sides of the fight -- and views towards everyday Germans and the extent of German guilt that feel almost painfully innocent given the years and the revelations to come. (For instance, she speculates that there might be a German POW camp commandant who is helping prisoners escape because of an English wife or because he "had had his own girl insulted by Goebbels" (224)). And there's the sadness and uncertainty and chin-up home-front courage that you find in so much of popular culture from this time period, well-written for the genre, because Berta really can write.

I wouldn't say Fiancées ranks among the best of her war stuff, but worth a read for that and for the welcome reaquaintance with Miss, now Mrs., Rattle!

Flags: A few instances of that offensive "work like a" expression.