Jacqueline Winspear's THE WHITE LADY

 

By Margaret S. Hamilton

 

The fall of the Hohenzollern dynasty will be heralded by the appearance of a woman wearing white. Belgian tale, p.31-2.

 

The White Lady is an excellent stand-alone historic novel by Jacqueline Winspear, the author of the Maisie Dobbs series, shifting between three different time periods in its main character’s life. Elinor “Linni” DeWitt, age twelve, daughter of a Belgian father, Thomas DeWitt, and English mother, Charlotte White, lives in a village near Antwerp during the WWI Germany occupation. A British woman, Isabelle, recruits Elinor, her sister Cecily, and her mother, Charlotte, to log German train activity in the area for a British-bankrolled resistance group, La Dame Blanche. * The women of the DeWitt family, particularly Linni, become reliable enough to assume other resistance roles, including sabotaging several trains. After their final mission, risking retaliation and certain death by the Germans, Isabelle smuggles the DeWitt women from Belgium to England, where they join Charlotte’s mother in London.

Edith Cavell memorial, London

 

Elinor speaks fluent English, French, Flemish, German, and Italian. After her completing her British university education, she teaches in Paris until 1940, when she is forced to return to England. Her former WWI handler recruits her for Resistance work in Belgium, where she rides a bicycle from village to village, ostensibly selling French lipsticks and powder, as she facilitates the local Resistance operation. During the Allied invasion, something goes horribly wrong. Elinor is injured and evacuated to England for a succession of health treatments.

 

Finally, in 1947, Elinor lives in a “grace and favor” home owned by the Crown in the Kent countryside. Known locally as “the white lady,” Elinor is traumatized by her wartime experiences, isolated from her few friends, her mother and sister dead. Winspear reveals not only the post-war austerity measures (gas and food rationing), but the rise of a criminal element who are combat veterans. Elinor takes a special interest in a local farmworker, his wife, and young daughter. Elinor investigates the London relatives of the farmworker, which yields results of great interest to law enforcement.

 

Canterbury Cathedral, Kent

I like Elinor, both as a calm and capable twelve-year-old defying the German soldiers and later, as a brave Resistance leader in occupied Belgium. In her 1947 persona, Elinor bears a strong resemblance to the adult Maisie Dobbs, emerging from profound trauma, grief, and loneliness to defy a London crime family. She finally learns the truth of what happened to her in Belgium in 1944. In a quirky plot twist, the crime family underestimates not only Elinor’s investigative prowess and courage, but also the capabilities of one of its family members—a woman.

 

Winspear ably weaves three time periods, from 1914 to 1947, together to create a memorable portrait of remarkable woman, Elinor DeWitt, the white lady.

 

Readers and writers, do you prefer a historical novel set during one time period or one that spans thirty-odd years?

 

*La Dame Blanche was a British-funded resistance group that worked in German-occupied Belgium during WW1.