A House & Its Head
1935
Whenever she was asked which of her novels were her favourites, Ivy always referred to A House and Its Head as being one of them.
BRIEF PLOT SUMMARY
On Christmas morning 1885, Duncan Edgeworth, 66, wealthy and pathologically self-regarding, presides over his country manor house like a petty tyrant. Breakfast table talk is warfare by other means, as he bullies his meek wife Ellen, his sharp-witted daughter Nance (24), his more fragile daughter Sibyl (nearly 18), and his nephew Grant (25), who stands to inherit the entire estate since Duncan has no son.
Ellen, worn down by decades of marital despotism, falls ill and dies. Duncan hastily remarries the beautiful, much younger Alison, scarcely older than his own daughters, who soon becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son, Richard - who becomes his new heir and a threat to Grant's future. Tensions explode when a vindictive dismissed maid sends a damaging letter: Alison has been having an affair with Grant and the paternity of little Richard is thrown into doubt.
As village gossip spreads and family alliances fracture, the situation darkens further: the infant Richard is found dead, smothered in his cot. Suspicion falls on multiple members of the household. As scandals multiply, Grant fathers a child with Alison (the true parentage of Richard remains murky). Sibyl marries Grant for money and position, while Duncan proposes to the governess Cassie. Cassie later gives birth to a son, William, who once again shifts the line of inheritance. When Richard’s murder is finally exposed, it is revealed that Sibyl orchestrated the killing via the dismissed nurse.
The family absorbs this horror with their usual polite silence and moral compromise. Sibyl, now wealthy after inheriting from her aunt, returns to the house. Grant, financially broken, is forced to resume married life with her. The novel ends exactly as it began: Duncan Edgeworth once more seated at the head of the table, imperiously declaring to his fractured family, “Well, I am here to give you a word when you need it. You are all at my hand to be taught.” The house stands - the heads roll.
CRITICAL ACCLAIM
"It is as if one's next door neighbour leaned over the garden wall, and remarked, in the same breath and chatty tone, that he had mown the lawn in the morning and thrust the wife's head in the gas-oven after lunch."
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The Church Times on A House and Its Head
