Charlotte M. Yonge (1823–1901)

The Carbonels (1895) by Charlotte M. Yonge was based on and inspired by her parents’ early years in the Hampshire village of Otterbourne and what an entertaining novel she produced from such source material.

In the summer of 1822 Captain Edmund Carbonel, who ‘had been in the army just in time for the final battles of the Peninsular war’, comes to live at Greenhow Farm ‘an estate bringing in about £500 a year.’ It is the local ‘big house’ in the village of Uphill. He is accompanied by his young wife Mary and her sister Dorothea; another younger sister Sophia is still at school in London. The Uphill people are described as ‘a thoroughly bad lot … no one will do anything with them.’ Astonished at their poverty and crudity, the Carbonels decide to reform Uphill.

While dealing with serious societal shifts of the early nineteenth century, CMY’s gentle humour illuminates young people slightly out of their depth in dealing with their cunning rural neighbours. There is the involved saga of the upside-down length of wallpaper in their drawing-room, ‘very delicate white, on which were traced in tender colouring – baskets of vine leaves and laburnhams.’ But as Dora exclaims, ‘see, the laburnhams and grapes are hanging upward.’ The origin of this interior design disagreement sets up a dangerous antipathy between one of the workmen, Dan Hewlett and Captain Carbonel. Its denouement takes place in the thrilling final chapters of the novel with the Captain Swing riots of 1830.

Before that there is the old-fashioned (and to the Carbonels) ugly church with its enormous pews and the three-decker pulpit they find peculiar. They are shocked by Dame Verdon’s school, only kept in order by her young but energetic granddaughter. Villagers are differentiated with their many and overlapping stories: the mischievous but fascinating Tirzah Todd (with her ‘gypsy connections’ ) who disposes of her poacher husband’s game; the hypocritical Nanny Barton who always puts on ‘a white apron and brought out a big Bible when she saw the ladies’ about to visit and the gentle invalid Judith Grey and her poor sister Molly, wife of Dan who ‘had been going deeper into the mire ever since.’

To modern readers the Carbonels approach to improving the villagers’ lives and prospects can often be both crass and patronising. There is a shocking scene where Dora and Sophia cut off the dirty, ragged and pungent hair of the schoolgirls in triumphant delight. ‘Lend me your scissors, Mrs Thorpe’ is Dora’s battle cry before being carried away despite the shock and weeping of the children. Captain Carbonel, with the assent of Mary, reprimands Dora, ‘but the children were not your slaves … You have done more harm than you will undo in a hurry.’ Tirzah Todd warns her neighbours against the ‘gentlefolk, with their soft words and such’ who will treat them all, ‘just like the blackamoors.’

This is a slight Charlotte M. Yonge novel in comparison with many of her earlier and best works, one more of her many publications for the National Society. Nonetheless The Carobonels is full of argument, memorable characters and there was a sequel too.

This book was part of the November 2023 CMY Fellowship book group read.… (mere)

In Founded on paper or Uphill and downhill between the two Jubilees (1898), the sequel to something of her parents’ story in The Carbonels (1895), Charlotte M. Yonge moves closer to her own experience of village life and the changes and improvements that can be wrought by a good family in residence.

This novel was published by the National Society for Promoting Religious Education. According to Ellen Jordan, this was ‘one of the books Yonge wrote with the specific audience of the "weary hardworked women" who belonged to Mothers' Unions in mind.’

Miss Yonge returned to the Carbonels, but this time there is only the unmarried Miss Sophia Carbonel in residence at Greenhow Farm. She ‘was still lady of all work to Uphill and something between a mother and a companion to Estrid and Malvina’, her grandnieces and patroness to the residents of Uphill who lives have reflected the social changes of Victorian England. The young hero of The Carbonels Johnnie Hewlett has become ‘Mr. Hewlett … churchwarden and head of the firm, hale and hearty as any man near upon seventy could wish to be’.

The daughter of the good schoolmistress of The Carbonels is the widowed Jane Truman. Her large family ‘she contrived to bring up in a somewhat superior way, between the boys' work and her own, as a good laundress and charwoman, with the proceeds also of a large garden and orchard.’

As the novel opens Mrs Truman has her ambitious son Wilfred at home with his crosspatch invalid sister Laura, terribly injured in an accident leaving her blind in one eye, scarred and dependent. Laura was a clever and talented child but increasingly introspective, making a little money with her needlework but preferring her awkward poetry. Charlotte Yonge is fascinated by the effect her accident has on Laura.

‘She had always been used to notice, and to be sympathised with was almost as good as to be admired. She loved and entered into religious poetry and good books, and could really believe that it was a wise and thankworthy dispensation that had cut her off from vanity in her good looks.’

While Laura is the most interesting female character, the one who causes a certain havoc is the nursery maid Lucy Darling. She is Wilfred’s beloved but unwittingly pursued by a gentleman artist who wishes her to model for his painting of St Elizabeth of Hungary and Thuringia. Wilfred Truman and Lucy Darling are shadowed in the narrative by the hopeless ne’er-do-wells from Birmingham, Alf Greylark and his bedraggled wife Eva.

Charlotte Yonge wrote in What Books to Lend and What to Give, that the female readers of this kind of novel wanted ‘incident, pathos and sentiment to attract them’. My goodness, whatever ‘class of woman’ reader you are, Miss Yonge packs incident after incident into the last third of this novel, and swipes at grieving, hypocritical relations, and the gutter press as well as a satisfying (and of course sentimental) ending for Lucy Darling.

This book was part of the November 2023 CMY Fellowship book group and read in conjunction with The Carbonels.… (mere)

3.5 stars- rounded down.

Set in the 15th century, this medieval tale reminded me of reading Ivanhoe in both language and style. A young girl, Christina, is taken from the shelter of her Uncle and Aunt who have raised her by a father she literally does not know. He takes her to a baronetcy perched in the Austrian alps to be a companion and nurse to an even younger girl who is the baron’s daughter. The place is so high and removed that it resembles an eagle’s aerie and Christina, a devout Christian, becomes a symbolic dove in the eagle’s nest.

Christina comes into this violent and coarse environment and, through her faith and goodness, affects changes that transform both the people and the system. This is a time of change generally in society as the independent barons are giving way to being governed by a Kaiser. The Adlersteins are among the last small group of what one wishes to call “ronin” rulers. The historical elements of the novel fascinate me, especially the role of women in Germanic society during this time. The religious elements are important but do not overshadow the progress of the story.

The story is multi-generational, following Christina’s story with that of her sons, Eberhard and Friedel. Considering the sometimes stilted language, the characters are amazingly absorbing. And, while the plot is sometimes a bit predictable, that is primarily because it is the kind of story people have found worthwhile to tell more than once.

One of the nice things about participating in the challenges in the Catching Up on Classics group is that I find myself reading books that would otherwise never make my list. This wasn’t anything like a favorite, but it was interesting and enjoyable, so I am glad to have read it.
… (mere)