“A large family should be a specially happy community, but it sometimes occurs that there is a boy or a girl who is nothing but a middle one, fitting in nowhere.
Henrietta Symons is such an one, being the third daughter in an upper middle class family with parents who are so indifferent towards their children, one wonders why they had them in the first place. Henrietta, known to her family as Etta, was a fifth child and a third daughter. Nobody was interested in her, her brothers and sisters treated her with indifference and it was not until another baby arrived that she found an outlet for her affection. Of course, babies grow up and find others to love and as the age gap between the two sisters was wide, and the younger daughter was sent off to school, this relationship also falters.
Etta has a forthright attitude and a very bad temper and never learns how to control it. She lacks social graces to an amazing degree and yet, and yet, she attracts the attentions of a young man. He pays her compliments, he appears to be very attracted to her, marriage seems to be on the cards, and then her elder sister comes home and decides to annexe him for herself. Not because she is particularly interested in him but just to show she can do it and poor Etta loses her one and only chance to be a married woman.
When reading The Third Miss Symons I thoughts of two titles by EM Delafield - Consequences and Thank Heaven Fasting - both a perfect illustration of a woman's place at the time they were written and the heroine in each knowing that her main role in life is to marry. In Consequences we see the dreadful results of a how a heroine, in many ways as gauche and unloved as Miss Symons, leads a pointless and sad existence because of this. In Thank Heaven Fasting the heroine finally manages to marry and Oh the relief when she does and she doesn't have to worry about it any more even if all she feels for her bridegroom is tepid affection.
Etta knows now that she will never marry and as she watches her brothers and sisters find their partners, her isolation becomes worse as she realises even more that though she may yearn for love and affection, it is never going to come her way. If she were a modern woman she would probably say 'well, sod them all' and get on with it and that is more or less what she does.
So what does she do? Well, nothing really.
She never marries, never gets a job and shows no interest in academia or music. She travels widely, but it seems to me that this is merely a form of wandering to fill in her time rather than interest in new places. Everywhere she goes she grouches and complains and is bad tempered as she is now under no pressure to conform to any kind of expected social life and, in the end, this is what made me rather admire this unlikeable character. She did what she wanted and if nobody liked it or her, as I said earlier 'sod them all'.
I read this book straight through and, as it is pretty short, took me just over an hour. I was on the flight home from Sydney and all the irritations of air travel and the fact I was uncomfortable and could not sleep, were kept at bay during my reading. The two illustrations in this post are the Green Virago edition which I am going to keep an eye out for, and the Kindle edition which I read and, while I am happy to keep certain books as e books, I simply have to physically own a copy of this Virago.
Miss Symons is not a lovable person, but as another famous author said 'I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will like' and still made us feel empathy for her, may I suggest that you give Miss Symons a chance..........
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Links to other reviews in the Blogsphere:
http://books-snob.blogspot.com/2009/08/third-miss-symons-by-f-m-mayor.html
http://www.cornflowerbooks.co.uk/2009/03/portrait-of-a-lady.html
http://desperatereader.blogspot.com/2009/08/third-miss-symons-f.html
