An odd couple

Om denne boken

"An odd couple" by Mrs. Oliphant is a novel written in the late 19th century. It follows Charles and Ada Tremenheere, a cultivated but ill-matched pair whose constant clashes over principles and social ideals lead them to contemplate—and then enact—a decorous separation, splitting their children, lively Vera and sensitive Eddy, between them. The narrative probes marital incompatibility, reputation, and gendered ideas of education. Elinor Meadows, a blunt, progressive friend, and Miss Campbell, a severe governess, intensify the family’s battle between affection, pride, and principle.

The opening of the novel traces the cool, startling moment when Charles proposes parting and Ada, unshaken, agrees, turning a morning quarrel into a life-altering decision. Attempts at dinner-table conciliation fail; Elinor arrives as mediator; and the children reveal the rift in small ways—Vera’s bold chatter, Eddy’s quiet loyalty—before Ada departs with Eddy on Christmas Eve, leaving Vera with her father. Ada’s anxious over-mothering soon makes Eddy pale and timid until Elinor prods her to send him to a public school near a new home she rents; meanwhile Charles, alarmed by Vera’s unchecked freedom (even in the servants’ hall), installs the austere Miss Campbell. The section culminates at Lord’s: years have passed, Eddy is captain of the eleven, Vera—now sixteen—watches him with rapt pride, while, at a distance in the crowd, her mother gazes at her grown “child,” feeling the ache of their long separation.