2019/97: The Frozen Lake -- Elizabeth Edmondson

‘Duplicitous. I love the way that rolls off your tongue, it isn’t a word you hear every day.’
‘You might if you came from Wyncrag. It’s how we all live.’ [p. 233]

The Frozen Lake opens just before Christmas of 1936, with several characters independently learning that a Cumbrian lake freezing over, and deciding to visit Westmoreland, which holds so many memories for each. Alix Richardson is finding the hectic whirl of London increasingly hollow; Hal Grindley sees newspapers when his ship calls at Gibraltar, and is overcome with homesickness; Michael Wrexham, invited for the skating by a friend, is haunted by nightmares that seem to stem from the time when he was ill with pneumonia, on a childhood visit to the lake.

The Richardsons and the Grindleys are prosperous families, neighbours whose lives are entwined and whose relations are usually cordial. Lady Richardson, matriarch of Wyncrag, rules her extended family with an iron fist, and has alienated most of the younger generation. Peter Grindley, ostensibly a man of reason, is keen to acquire his brother Hal's shares in the family company, since Hal has been out of touch for nearly twenty years.

But the cheerful facade of snow, skating, preparations for Christmas and amiable family reunions is paper-thin, threatened from within (there are some deadly secrets in the Richardson family) and without (the threat of war with Germany looms large, and Alix's brother Edwin's new lover is a Jewish refugee).

Edmondson writes the smooth-rubbed conflicts of family life, as well as the casual affection, so very well: this was what hooked me, years ago, on the Mountjoy books (written as Elizabeth Pewsey), and though it's not always a prominent theme, The Frozen Lake is full of family intrigue. The dialogue flows well, and is often very funny, and the strands of the story -- as seen from the viewpoints of multiple characters -- tie together to tell a dark and complex tale. It's not all gloom, though: there is a satisfactory, though quiet, romance, and happy endings for the deserving majority.

A delight to read this on one of the hottest days of the summer! It's as evocative of grand wintry landscapes and a lost way of life as Arthur Ransome's Winter Holiday, which I used to regularly reread in the summer holidays.