“I’m not a blooming suffragette.” – Mabel in Miss Browne’s Friend

No one knows how much I hate the cold. Proust may or may not have worn his fur-lined overcoat when he wrote in bed; I imitate his spirit if not his style. When it’s -2 degrees, I wear improvised ski gear, a puffy vest that leaks polyester over festive long underwear. I am ready at all hours to be dragged out of bed to view a full moon or meteor or whatever the gods send my spouse’s way.

But I much prefer to stay indoors and read. And during these very short cold days and long freezing nights, I have turned to long short stories and novellas that can be read in a single sitting.

And here’s what I’m recommending: F. M. Mayor’s Miss Browne’s Friend.

F. M. Mayor (1872-1931) is best-known for her novel The Rector’s Daughter, a favorite of Virago readers and collectors. But you may not know her classic long story, Miss Browne’s Friend, published by Zephyr Books, an imprint of Michael Walmer.

This is classic spinster lit, the story of a superfluous single woman. Mayor writes elegantly and is often tongue-in-cheek. She begins, “In almost every village in England a Miss Browne is to be found; in every town several Miss Brownes; in London they must be almost too many to count.”

This witty sentence establishes the tone. Miss Browne is a sympathetic character but a superfluous woman. Nobody at home needs her help; yet she is stuck at home. One day she reads an article about the need for women volunteers to be “friends” of girls at the Rescue Home. Miss Browne becomes the friend of Mabel, a charming, pretty girl who gave up her baby for adoption and only intermittently applies herself to the job training at the home. After the first visit, Mabel tells Miss Browne charmingly that she will try harder to learn now that she has a friend.

And then the supervisor writes Miss Browne a letter about Mabel’s rudeness and inappropriate behavior. She skips church, is “impertinent” about the dog, and “wears very thin stockings for this time of year, and goes out in house shoes with high heels!” Hovering around Mabel is Mabel’s friend, Florrie, a stable, devoted girl who tries to interpret Mabel’s moods to Miss Browne. Florrie comes to call and reports that Mabel is out of control. Mabel said that the boots Miss Browne gave her “do well enough for a freak like her… but I’m not a blooming suffragette.”

Needless to say, Mabel is unreliable, but Miss Browne helps her find jobs and continues to be her “friend” in the darkest days. Bad as Mabel is, and shocking as Miss Browne often finds her, we admire Miss Browne’s fidelity to charity and friendship.