The Proper Place by O. Douglas (Pseudonym of Anna Buchan) ~ 1926. This edition: Nelson, no date, circa 1940s. Hardcover. 378 pages.
My rating: 9.5/10
This has been a week for seeking out “comfort reads”, and who better to provide such than the low-key Scottish writer, Anna Buchan. She wrote under the pseudonym O. Douglas, in order to modestly distance herself from her more prominent brother, the renowned thriller writer (and Governor-General of Canada from 1935 to 1940, when he died in office) John Buchan, a.k.a. Lord Tweedsmuir.
I am therefore dusting off and slightly editing this old post from July of 2012, in which I talk about one of my favourite O. Douglas novels, The Proper Place.
This is my favourite of Anna Buchan’s books which I’ve read to date. The first time I read this, I had already read the sequel, The Day of Small Things, so I knew what had happened to a great extent before the characters did, if that makes sense. But I think it enhanced rather than detracted from my reading experience, for I came to the story with a pre-existing knowledge of and fondness for the characters and greatly enjoyed expanding my acquaintance with them.
As the story opens, the sole surviving offspring of the aristocratic Scottish Rutherfurd family, Nicole, is showing the family home to a prospective buyer. Of its twenty bedrooms, “twelve quite large, and eight small”, only three are now occupied, for with Nicole’s two brothers perished in the Great War and her father dead soon after, the family now consists only of Nicole, her mother, Lady Jane, and a orphaned cousin, Barbara Burt, who was raised by Lady Jane from childhood.
The three women are finding it impossible to carry on financially, and have reluctantly but sensibly decided that their only option is to sell the Rutherfurd estate and establish themselves in more modest accommodations. Lady Jane has retreated into a gently passive acceptance of her fate, Barbara is resentful but more or less compliant, and Nicole is very much making the best of things and looking hard for a silver lining in their cloud of sorrow and difficult circumstances.
The prospective buyers, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson of Glasgow, having attained great wealth after many years of striving, are ready for the next step in their social advancement, and hope with their purchase of Rutherfurd Hall to establish their son Andy as a “county” gentleman.
This is where the story departs a bit from the expected norm. One would expect the nouveau riche Jacksons to be portrayed as interlopers and figures of mild scorn, but instead we find that the author takes us into their world for a bit and gives an insight into their motivations and intentions that puts us fully on their side. Nicole herself, after her initial, well-hidden resentment, finds herself viewing out-spoken Mrs. Jackson first with quiet humour and soon after with sincere affection, with interesting repercussions further along in the story.
The Rutherfurds find a new home in the seaside town of Kirmeikle, and rent the old and stately but much more reasonably sized Harbour House for a year to see if they will adapt to the life of the town dweller, and to give themselves a bit of breathing space to ponder their futures. They are still very well-off, with sizeable incomes coming from their investments, and they enter easily into the upper strata of Kirkmeikle society.
For a story in which not much really happens, the author packs it full of likeable, amusing characters, and quietly intriguing situations. Though the tone is continually optimistic, somehow this tale escapes being “too sweet” by the pervasive presence of loss, grief and hardship resulting from the war, and by the occasionally pithy observations of some of the more astringent characters.
Nicole and Lady Jane are most obviously our heroines throughout, while Barbara plays a slightly secondary role. She is perhaps the least likeable character due to her deep-seated snobbishness and condescending attitude, but we get to know her well enough to understand the basis of her sometimes negative outlook. O. Douglas is a very fair-minded author, and she generally allows her characters the grace of a deep enough glimpse into their lives and thoughts to allow us to place their words and actions in full context, which was something I fully appreciated in this story.
A gentle, genuinely moving, small-in-scope novel with a stalwart strength to it; a very Scottish sort of vintage story, in the best possible sense.
A more detailed, equally favourable review is here, from the I Prefer Reading blog of Lyn, from Melbourne, Australia.
http://preferreading.blogspot.ca/2010/09/proper-place-o-douglas.html
Leaves & Pages 
Thanks for this revisit.
I have nearly all of O Douglas’s books (recalling now I left some for you to buy in Russell’s old book annexe :^)) and I enjoy them all. Some more than others. The Day of Small Things in particular; like you I read it before The Proper Place. Nicole is a very likable character, somehow avoiding the danger of coming across as TOO good. (As you say, by reading DoST first, you know Nicole’s history, and how events have affected her.)
I think I still need to find Ann & Her Mother and Eliza for Common, while Taken By the Hand (recently acquired) waits on my shelf for the right time to read it.
Yes, you did leave me a few, and I bought them all! That was an excellent bookish road trip. 🙂 I think I now only need Unforgettable, Unforgotten to round out my Anna Buchan collection. Am just now partway through Day of Small Things (for the 2nd time) and enjoying it greatly. Such a soothing writer this is, I think because she is so sensible, and her characters have such realistic so-human setbacks and relatable small triumphs.
We’ve been cutting down & cutting up trees all day and burning huge bonfires of branches – we are putting in a new plant nursery sales area on the farm and sadly must take out a goodish number of tall fir trees before we can proceed with the project – we are trying to get this done before the wild birds start nesting – and I am ready to put the kettle on and put my feet up for the rest of the evening. So nice to have a peaceful book to relax with!
I have exactly that copy of the book. When I read the book a while ago I was trying to figure out which Fife harbour house Douglas used for the one in the book. From the description I guessed it must be the one in Dysart near Kirkcaldy where the Buchan’s used to live. I lived in Kirkcaldy too until a year ago. In her book Unforgettable, Unforgotten she wrote that it was indeed the Dysart Harbour house she based it on. It’s now a tearoom and museum and sadly the inside has been gutted and modernised, but the outside hasn’t changed much. http://piningforthewest.co.uk/2013/03/31/the-harbourmasters-house-dysart-fife-scotland/
Thank you, Katrina! That is almost as I had envisioned it. I wonder…is/was there a small, private garden behind the house, as there is in the book? And I wonder if it has had the roofline changed since Anna Buchan’s time – she mentions numerous times in The Proper Place and The Day of Small Things the “crow step” gables, which mystified me so much that I had to look the term up. I’m not seeing those on the house as it is today. And I count 8 windows, so am thinking that the 9th was once where the 2nd door now is. So lovely to see the “real” Harbour House!
There probably was a small garden at the back but now it has been paved over and it’s just a few steps to the quayside where boats are tied up. I think she must have been using artistic licence, about the crow steps, lots of buildings in Fife have them as you can see in this photo.http://piningforthewest.co.uk/2011/07/28/dysart-fife-scotland/
Further down the post you can see the back of the harbour house and what could be a small garden at the left hand side but I think it’s mainly used for storage.
Oh thank you, Pining. I remember using Google maps to try and identify the village and then the house, which I think I did to my satsfaction, but now I can’t remember either. So this is very helpful.
This sounds lovely. I loved Pink sugar, and wasn’t so keen on Penny Plain, and I have Olivia in India. I’d love to read more of her work, but she’s not easy to find – such a shame none of her books seem to be published these days.
Just finished Taken By the Hand – and was surprised and pleased when my husband immersed himself in The Proper Place – he has never read any of the O. Douglas books I’ve painstakingly collected, being very cynically minded to anything even remotely similar to the “Miss Read” school of gentle domestic fiction. O. Douglas gets his mildly approving nod. (Though he turned down my offer of The Day of Small Things to Follow. “One is fine for now, don’t want to overdo this sort of thing!” was his response.) 🙂 I do wish she were easier to find – though I do believe there were some republished by Greyladies a few years ago.