Why Not?

It’s funny how much text sources influence my reading. When I want to read Margaret Widdemer, I always go for The Rose-Garden Husband and The Wishing-Ring Man, and that’s mostly because they’re great, and a bit because each one makes me want to read the other, but it’s also a little bit because they’re on Project Gutenberg. If Why Not? was on Gutenberg instead of Google Books, it would go on my list of favorite Widdemer books.

The heroine is Anne Rosamond Gilbert. Her elderly uncle has just died and left her with a modest inheritance, and over the objections of her remaining relatives she decides that she might as well have some fun with it. So she sets out for a lakeside town called Wanalasset, and in short order acquires:

• a bungalow,
• an extremely obliging landlord,
• a niece,
• two dogs, and
• a tent to tell fortunes in.

Fortune-telling is half of her intended profession. The other half is helping people realize their dreams. (She’s been practicing on herself.) She accumulates several clients, but the important ones, plot-wise, are Sydney Browne, a woman who wishes she was a man, and Richard Jerrold, a young inventor. Sydney is a tomboy, fed up with Society, and Rosamond sends her off into the country disguised as a boy. This is fun, but the longer she stays, the more she finds herself turning towards traditional feminine concerns, and I can’t decide whether that’s more entertaining or annoying.

Dick Jerrold has just graduated from college, and expected an aunt to leave him money with which to manufacture a motor he’s invented, but instead she left him a hotel. He’s also extremely nice to look at. Rosamond offers to help him run his hotel, and confidently looks forward to falling in love with him, but she’s not really that interested in him or his hotel, because she’s already met John Squire.

Rosamond isn’t quite as good a heroine as rose-garden wife Phyllis Braithwaite or wishing-ring girl Joy Havenith — she’s a touch too confident, which ought not to be a fault, and I do enjoy her charmingly insisting on her own way in everything. She just would have needed to be a little more vulnerable inside for me to really love her. But Widdemer makes up for a not quite as excellent heroine with a more than usually excellent romance. Rosamond and Squire might be Widdemer’s most compelling couple. It’s a pretty standard setup: he’s smitten, she’s oblivious, and they’re very good friends underneath a slightly prickly surface. I don’t know what makes it so charming. It might be that you get a chance to feel like you know Squire pretty well. He has a personality and a backstory that give you a lot without much fanfare. It might be their practical behavior towards each other, especially once Squire has declared himself. It might be that, while there is a misunderstanding — I don’t know if Widdemer could write a book without one — it’s a totally reasonable one, not a secret one that could be cleared up if Rosamond and Squire had a conversation about it (actually they have several).

Anyway, whatever the reason is, I’m very happy with the result. My other favorites among Widdemer’s books might engage my emotions a little more, but this one is well done and satisfying and worth your while.

 

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