Perfectly Pure and Good

The book I am reading now is "Perfectly Pure and Good" by Frances Fyfield, and it is generally quite a boring book. To me, anyway. That's because the author started the book by plunging into the description of Merton, the sea-town where most of the action happens and talking about people without mentioning names as if I will know who she is talking about.

The back of the book talks about Sarah Fortune, a lawyer by practice, who is sent to Merton to help wth inheritance problems of the Pardoe family. She agrees to go there readily even though that means giving up her metropolitan life for quite a long period of time because she wants to break away from a one-sided relationship with her employer's son (he is deeply in love with her but she doesn't love him).

However, the Pardoe family doesn't seem to accept her readily. Especially Edward, who resents her for teaching his sister, Joanna, to dress up for a party. Edward is sick in the mind. He is in love with his sister!! Or maybe I shouldn't call that "love". It's lust. Incest. Eeee.

You know what Edward does? He's a pervert okay. He plays with a doll's house he made by himself and of course, DOLLS. At his age? Eeee. I think he is near twenty. Anyway, before you get confused, Julian is the oldest, followed by Edward, then Joanna. I think. Their mother, Jennifer, is nicknamed "Mouse" becasue of her timid nature. But after reading almost three-quarters of the book, I don't think she may be as insane as the other people around her think...

Well anyway, if you tried to guess that the inheritance problems came about because of Mouse's supposed mental condition, you are right. The familyis so rich that they own almost the whole of Merton; yet because of Mouse, her children are worried that they may end up fighting about all that property should their mother pass on and so decided to hire a lawyer from their late father's good friend's lawyer firm, and he sends Sarah.

The book also talks about how Sarah resembles a woman called Elisabeth Tysall who once holidayed at Merton with her abusive husband, Charles Tysall, and ended her life there because of her husband. No idea how this really fits in with the whole story yet, but I will update when I have finished the book. Anyway, Charles had harassed Sarah before because of her resemblance to his late wife. And he later committed suicide in the same manner as his wife. However, he apparently survived and no one knew about it because someone else died and the villagers thought that was his body. Now, he allows himself to be used by Edward Pardoe for nasty practical jokes like stealing poor old Miss Gloomer's (his neighbour) walking stick. Mad right? Hmmm. Charles also hides from people because he doesn't want people to know he isn't dead. However, the villagers have seen him around befoere and think he is a ghost. Especially Stonewall, this boy who is a friend of Rick. And who is Rick?? He is some guy whom Joanna likes. And of course Edward detests him. That goes without saying. Sigh. Perverted book. Haha.