The Law’s Delay
A story of liaisons, love, and the law set in early 20th-century Lancashire, The Law’s Delay’s complicated characters and plot revolve around challenges to the prevailing moral, social, and legal expectations of the day. Life is becoming more convenient and pleasant, thanks to inventions such as the telephone, typewriter, and flushing toilets, and class distinctions are softening. Jane Stubbs doesn’t mention the dates of her story, but Queen Victoria has died and modernism is well under way.
The third-person narration shifts between characters, particularly Jenny Truesdale, Edward Carter, and Dorothea Woodward, all three unconventional, as are numerous vividly drawn minor characters. Jenny was a foundling, adopted as a child by John Truesdale. She now works as finance director for the Woodward mining and mill-owning company. Raised in poverty, Edward is an able young man who’s offered half of the financial empire of Dorothea Woodward’s father if he’ll marry his pregnant daughter. Dorothea gives birth, but prefers to pursue singing rather than marriage and motherhood. Edward and Jenny have loved each other since she was a schoolgirl, but now they must keep their distance. Mavis, Jenny’s best friend raised in even poorer circumstances than Edward, has ambitions beyond her origins.
The laws in question relate to marriage, as do the book’s gossip and scandals. Irony and humor abound. We expect that somehow, all will be resolved, but difficulties build for much of the book. Maintaining a fast pace, Stubbs intersperses scenes from each of the characters and weaves in significant details of the time, particularly the changing role of women. Staid Mrs. Woodward worries about keeping face in their small judgmental town, but the pressures of individual will and love defy convention. Even law must change with the times—however delayed. Recommended.
