Book review by Kathryn Rangeley:Ruby Mildred Ayres (1881 – 1955) was a prolific writer of more than 135 romance novels. Her writing career started in 1912 and ended the year before her death. Some years she wrote three novels. Several of them were made into films. The only reference I have found apart from Wikipedia is a reference from ‘Reading Sheffield’ (www.readingSheffield.co.uk) where she is mentioned as a favorite author of one of the participants.
The Man from Ceylon is the story of a middle-class family) in the years following the Second World War and has references to bombings in London, rationing and the lack of availability of household help.
The family comprises a father, Kirby Mansfield, his wife Louise, their adult children Gordon, the elder son, Jessica aged 23 and the youngest child, Paddy who is 18. There is another son, Selby, who is, according to his father ‘the clever one’ and is at Cambridge and we never meet him.
Jessica appears to run the house. Paddy does nothing around the house and plays a lot of tennis. She is expected to find a job as there is no money to support her, but she is reluctant to do so. We learn early in the story that she has already rejected two proposals of marriage
‘Paddy was the belle of the family, and still the youngest but much more grown up in her ways and her knowledge of the world than Jessica who was more than three years her senior. Jessica was a home-bird and shy’ (p11)
They lived in a moderate-sized house in a small Hertfordshire town which Mrs Mansfield was not in the least ashamed to admit her husband had bought through a Building Society when he first began to ‘make a name’ as she called it and that it had taken him nearly nine years to pay off the borrowed money’.
Their house is called Kirlou – named by the family (and the author, presumably) without any not of irony.
‘‘Kilou, – the name proudly invented by her mother from the first syllable of her husband’s and her own name.’
The story opens with the maid bringing in a telegram from the eponymous ‘Man from Ceylon’ to Gordon Mansfield. Gordon announces that a friend, Monty Hallam, the Man from Ceylon whom he met during the war is hoping to return to England because he has inherited a significant amount of money. He would like the Mansfields to put him up for a while until he finds somewhere to settle.
Mr Mansfield explodes at the prospect of having a lodger, but Gordon has already promised to put him up without consulting his parents. He reluctantly agrees to go and meet the boat at Tilbury and tell the prospective guest that he can’t stay. Inevitably the boat arrives early and Monty arrives at Kirlou with all his belongings while Gordon is on his way to London. He does stay and is welcomed by most of the family because he brings good quality tea, nylons, shirts and socks.
The rest of the story concerns the interaction between the family and Monty. Jessica falls secretly in love with him but he keeps taking her sister out to the pub and for meals – mainly because Paddy jumps in as soon as an offer of an outing is made. She has her eyes on Monty’s fortune.
It appears that both father and son are gamblers – the father on the Stock Exchange the son on horses. Their behavior has a significant impact on the family which leads to an exciting end to the book.
Father loses all his money and the house will have to be sold, but only Jessica knows this and confides in Monty who bales the family out. Gordon and his parents subsequently emigrate to Australia, Paddy gets a job as a runner in a film studio and of course Jessica marries Monty and they live in Kirlou happily ever after.
There is an interesting aside to the life and opinions of Ruby M Ayres. When I was looking for more information about her, I came across an edition of Left Review of 1937.
‘Writers and Poets of England, Scotland Ireland and Wales’ Left Review June 1937(p2)’, Were asked by a group of left-wing political activists:
‘Are you for, or against, the legal Government and the People of Republican Spain? Are you for or against, Franco and Fascism? (op cit p2)
There were 148 responses of which the majority supported the Government – i. e were against Franco; 16, including Ruby M Ayres, were neutral and seven were pro Franco.
Ruby M Ayres’ response was an unequivocal:
‘Uninformed interference in international politics is more to be dreaded that any anticipated danger resulting from the conflict in Spain.
As a professional writer I dread amateurs’. (op cit p 17).