The Scent of Water: Week 2

The Deepening Life of Appleshaw & the Root of Obedience

My Goudge paperback and my tea in my potting shed this week at Havenwood.

“John's photograph was on the mantelpiece and a volume of Jane Austen was by her bed. She liked Jane. She liked her cheerful sanity. She had expected no very great things of human nature, yet she had loved it, and in Mr. Knightley and Jane Bennett she had portrayed a quiet steady goodness that had been as lasting in literature as it would have been in life. And she had lived in a house much like this, in a village hidden in a quiet fold of green and rural England, and found her existence entirely satisfying.

That's why I've come, thought Mary. To have a look at the few last fragments of her England before it is too late; that and to keep faith with Cousin Mary.”

The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge, ch 4

Getting to know Appleshaw

This week for our reading discussion of The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge, we are talking about chapters 5-8, which end up being a very crucial part of the book! Here we begin to learn more about all the characters in Appleshaw, especially those who are a bit more complex. We also have one of the most compelling tellings of the Incarnation in all of Goudge’s stories—where God walks right into the press and strain of darkness.

First visitor

As I looked back over the chapters, I noticed that, except for Mrs. & Mr. Baker, who are practically furniture because of their loyalty, Mary’s first visitor at The Laurels is Jean Anderson. Before Edith, before Paul, or even the pushy Mrs. Hepplewhite, Jean comes awkwardly and obediently pulling the bell and stumbling about in the hall. Jean, who was terrified of the house, comes first to greet Mary, to help her reset her priorities, and eventually to set up the recovery of the spiritual center of The Laurels, though it will cost Jean even more mortification.

One interesting fact is that Elizabeth Goudge said that Jean was the character closest to her own personality and experience. As the only daughter of her father (a canon and regis professor in the Church of England), she often had to pay similar social calls in Oxford because her mother was not able to. She would have known just what it felt like to stand sweating on the doorstep, nervous about all the things that could go wrong and wishing for a quick release.

It is after Jean’s visit that the story begins to open up also the story of Cousin Mary, and indeed all of the life of Appleshaw. Just after Jean leaves, Mary goes to the pub and meets Paul, then meets Edith under the willow, Mrs. Hepplewhite after church, and finally spends an evening with Cousin Mary’s journals. We also go on in these chapters to read more about Valerie, Charles, and Mr. & Mrs. Adams. But Goudge starts with Jean.

Let’s look a bit deeper into Jean’s visit to The Laurels:

Mary and Jean on the rootedness of obedience. The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge