I’ve been enjoying re-reading my novels by Marcia Willett, but my favourites are the Chadwick Trilogy, which I re-read over the past few months. I remember being delighted when she wrote a sequel, ‘The Prodigal Wife’, set about ten years after the end of ‘Winning Through’. I first read it in 2010, and had pretty much forgotten what it was about. So it was a good time to re-read it.
There’s a useful family tree at the start of the book, showing the relationships between all the Chadwicks, and their dates. I studied it briefly before starting, and was sorry to see that a much-loved character had died in her late seventies, leaving just Prue, at 83, as the last of the oldest generation.
But the book opens with an entirely different person. Cordelia is a bit disturbed as she thinks someone is watching her - but maybe she’s wrong. We quickly learn that she has a lover called Angus, but they’re keeping their relationship a secret. It turns out that they go back a long way, but each has been married to someone else and they have only recently got back together again.
Cordelia has a daughter, Henrietta, who works as a children’s nanny. But her employer had a recent shock, and has gone away with her children and her parents, so Henrietta is looking after the parents’ cottage as well as their dogs and ponies. She meets Jolyon, son of Hal Chadwick, who comes to borrow some books. And she rather likes him…
If I hadn’t read the original Chadwick trilogy I would have found the sheer number of characters rather overwhelming, I think. As it was, it felt like getting back in touch with some much-loved friends. Most of the younger generation have grown up, and Jolyon, the only one remaining in the family mansion known as ‘The Keep’ is now running an organic garden centre. Sam, introduced as a toddler at the end of ‘Winning Through’, is away at boarding school and we only see him briefly a couple of times when he’s home for holidays.
The ‘Prodigal Wife’ of the title is Maria, Jolyon’s mother. She treated both Hal and Jolyon very badly in the earlier books, favouring her younger son Ed, and this - coupled with a man she had known and loved for years - led to the breakup of her marriage. However her second husband has just died, and Ed has gone off with his girlfriend… and she wants to reconnect with Hal and Jolyon. This is disturbing to Fliss, Hal’s second wife, and even more so to Jolyon who finds past resentment and anger building up inside him.
Maria is still quite self-centred but she did love Adam, and she is beginning to feel some regret for the way she treated her older son. But can the family forgive her wholeheartedly and rejoice, as if she were the Prodigal Son returning home… or are they going to behave like the older brother, full of resentment, unwilling to welcome her?
It’s a thoughtful novel, bringing some reconciliation as well as re-igniting some pain from the past as the characters interact. There are some scenes from the past, taken from the earlier books, which I found added nicely to the story even though I had re-read the other books recently. There’s the consciousness of the memory of Uncle Theo walking beside both Prue and Fliss, as they recall some of his advice and his wisdom. And there’s useful discussion about the nature of guilt, and what humility means.
I liked the book very much, and would highly recommend it if you like thoughtful character-based women’s fiction, particularly if you’ve read and enjoyed the three original Chadwick books: Looking Forward, Holding On, and Winning Through.
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