2012, first published 1967
Orphaned Christina moves from one relation to another. When she becomes twenty-one she will inherit
a fortune but until then she must be her own person. She is sent to run-down Flambards where her cousin
Mark and her uncle Russell are obsessed with horses and hunting and where her other
cousin William despises hunting and loves aeroplanes
Christina faces a disturbing complexity of life: the
unfairness shown to servants and members of the working class. This comes to a
head when the groom Dick is dismissed because he has helped Christina save her horse
that had gone lame and should have been served to the dogs. This escalates when
Dick’s sister Violet is made pregnant by Mark. Dick and Violet’s mother ends up
in the work house and Violet moves to London with the baby. Dick reappears briefly to fight with Mark.
Christina loves riding and hunting though remains in awe of
it and is also a little afraid.
She is torn between the three young men in her life. She shares
some tender moments with Dick yet that can never be as he is entirely the wrong
class for her. She supposes she will have to marry Mark and is resigned to this
if not enthusiastic. In any case they share
a love of horse-riding and there are despite his boorishness one or two affectionate
moments between them. It is clear by the
end of the novel, however, that she is in love with William.
There are many ingredients of the teen and young adult novel
here. The pace and tension towards the end had me turning the pages rapidly even
though I know the story already.
K M Peyton presents a world that will not be very familiar
to the twenty-first century reader. The ups and downs in Cristina’s emotional
life will be.
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