The Nutmeg Tree

The Nutmeg Tree / Margery Sharp
NY: Open Road Media, 2018, c1937.
228 p.

I recently discovered that there were a few of Margery Sharp's classic works in audiobook format via my library. I like listening to audiobooks while I'm sewing, and found that I really enjoyed this one! The narrator is the same for all three that I've listened to so far, and she's just right for these stories. 

The Nutmeg Tree features Julia Packett, a free-spirited adventuress of sorts who lives on her wits and beauty. She had a daughter at a young age, to a soldier from a good family, and that family has raised Susan since infancy. But now Julia has been asked to come to France to give her opinion on the man that Susan would like to marry. Due to her own straitened circumstances she decides to go - besides, it's rather flattering to think that her daughter is interested in her opinion. 

Julia has her own adventures getting to France; she's extremely outgoing and friendly to everyone, and meets a family of acrobats on the boat over. One of them is particularly taken with her, and turns up again later at a rather inconvenient time. Julia makes it to the country house that her daughter and mother-in-law are staying at, and relaxes into the luxury. She meets Susan's intended, mistaking him for the gardener, and recognizes that he is very similar to her. 

After that awkwardness, she waits along with the rest of the household for the arrival of her Susan's legal guardian, Sir William Waring, a man who has some authority over the purse strings. But when he arrives, he's not really that old and isn't the stick in the mud she expected. 

This is a delight, full of characters who are complicated and simple at the same time; Julia's mother in law who is convinced against all evidence that Julia should start a cake shop, Susan, who asked her there but seems contrary to anything Julia said, the proposed fiancé who has a lot of work to do to convince them he's solid, and Sir Waring who isn't at all as Julia remembered.

And the setting of the French countryside in the 30s is still delightful, still full of vacationing rich people having lunches and touring about. Julia always seems to be able to land on her feet despite a variety of mostly monetary setbacks, and she ends up with everything she wanted - the one time she wasn't angling for it. 

This was a fun, light read in which things come out all right in the end for everyone, which was a restful experience. I found it amusing, with some pathos but not enough to darken the read. There is humour and sweetness among some of the more arch, realist occurrences. Really liked it! A great summer read.