Mother
& Son
1955
The exacting Miranda's search for a suitable companion brings her family into contact with a very different kind of household, raising a plenitude of questions about the ability to manage alone, the difficulties of living with strangers and, indeed, some strange discoveries about intimates.
BRIEF PLOT SUMMARY
In a suffocating Victorian household, the bedridden but tyrannical Miranda Hume rules over her husband Julius, her unnaturally devoted adult son Rosebery, and the three children of Julius’s late brother. When Miss Burke, applies for the post of Miranda’s paid companion, she finds her so rude and overbearing that she walks out mid-interview. Instead, she blunders into the neighbouring house and accepts a position as housekeeper to Emma Greatheart, who lives with her cat, Plautus, and her old schoolfriend, Hester Wolsey, a sharp, independent woman.
Hester feels forced by economic necessity to get a job, and despite her friend’s willingness to provide support, she applies for the still-available position as Miranda’s companion and is given the position immediately. As Miranda’s health declines, she continues to bully the household, doting only on Rosebery while alienating everyone else. One day, Julius confesses he is not merely the guardian of the three younger children, he is their biological father from a past affair.
The shock proves fatal to Miranda. But the revelations don’t stop there. When a hidden letter comes to light, Rosebery discovers an even more shattering blow: Julius is not his real father - he is the product of Miranda’s own earlier illicit affair. In one swift sequence, both parents stand exposed as adulterers, their façade of Victorian respectability reduced to rubble. Miranda dies. Rosebery nobly renounces his claim to the estate in favour of his half-siblings.
Hester soon finds herself pursued by both Rosebery and Julius. When Julius proposes to Hester’s friend Emma instead, and Rosebery proposes to the fleeing Miss Burke, the furious Hester spitefully reveals all the family’s shameful secrets. Hester and Emma retreat to their peaceful home with Miss Burke and the cat, wiser but deeply disillusioned about human nature.
Back at the Hume house, Rosebery, having failed to break free, quietly assumes his mother’s tyrannical role, teaching the younger children her old games while still vaguely hoping to meet his real father.
CRITICAL ACCLAIM
"Miss Compton-Burnett is totally unlike any other novelist. Wit and melodrama have never been so combined before, and the combination is a brilliant success.... She is a unique figure in modern English literature."
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Philip Toynbee
