Turf or Stone

by Margiad Evans

On a frozen winter’s day, Mary Bicknor, the companion of a wealthy old woman, marries Easter Probert, whose child she is expecting. She cries bitterly throughout the service, which has been engineered by the vicar. Easter has no wedding ring for her, and though he lends her a silver ring of his own, he soon snatches it back—cursing her traitorous flesh—and boards a bus without her. Shocked, the vicar tries to tell himself he has done the right thing, but Mary, left to walk home alone, knows that misery lies ahead with the brutish Mr. Probert.

250 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1934

About the author

"Margiad Evans" was the pseudonym of Peggy Eileen Whistler, an English poet, novelist, and illustrator with a lifelong fascination with the Welsh border country

Reviews

[Lucienne Boyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bleak, brutal and beautiful book. It seems incredible that a novel centred on so revolting a character as the cruel and spiteful Easter Probert was such a moving read, but it was. The writing is stunning and the evocation of place and the people who both form and are formed by their landscape is brilliantly done. At times emotionally overwrought and grotesquely violent, there is yet a subtlety underlying its study of Probert and the theme of redemption.

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I've read of Margiad Evans' work all has elements of the gothic. The story here isn't that dissimilar to the story in Country Dance, although it's much less about the interplay of Welsh and English. Still, it's an unfortunate woman torn between two men, and one of the two is cruel to her.

Mary is a different sort of person to the protagonist of Country Dance, though: she brings her troubles on herself to a greater extent. Not that anyone deserves domestic abuse, etc, or that she seems to have had much choice about her marriage to begin with -- but she does choose to take a lover. We spent more of Turf or Stone focusing on the other characters, particularly the abusive husband, which was somewhat surprising.

There's also a surprising moment of hope at the end, which I wasn't expecting: Mary goes to court and the outcome is that she and her child are allowed to leave Easter, her husband.

[Ivan Monckton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another enjoyable Margiad Evans novel published in the Library of Wales series, though not quite up to the standard of Country Dance. The writing is excellent, as are the descriptions of the Welsh Border landscape and nature, but the plot is a little too disparate with a host of threads that don’t weave together closely enough.

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Margiad Evans' writing , but lord knows what was going on here. Loads of characters and most of them super unlikeable - this just kinda rambled on and on with no structure...