Joan's handful

"Joan's handful" by Amy Le Feuvre is a novel written in the early 20th century. It follows Joan Adair, a warm-hearted, Girton-educated rector’s daughter in an English village, as she wrestles with the pull between a promising teaching career and the claims of home, faith, and parish duty. Around her orbit a gentle, aging father, an exacting, cosmopolitan mother, a fragile sister, old friend Derrick, the sporting Gascoignes, and a reclusive musician, Major Armitage, whose secrecy adds a quiet mystery. The opening of the novel sets Joan at Old Bellerton Rectory, briskly managing household tasks and parish work while sparring good‑naturedly with Derrick and longing for wider intellectual work. Her mother and sister return from the Continent unimpressed by the small rectory and anxious about money and health, unsettling the hopeful rector. As Joan shoulders Saturday chores, church music, and village calls, gossip stirs about Major Armitage’s withdrawn habits and haunting rituals, even as Joan briefly aids a stranger with an injured dog on the heath. Sunday brings a full church, the Gascoignes’ social whirl, and Armitage’s silent presence; a dinner at the Hall pairs Joan in lively talk with the erudite Wilmot Gascoigne, while Derrick needles her about it. Pressed by a deadline for a coveted teaching post, Joan realizes her mother plans fresh travels with Cecil, and she quietly renounces the career to keep the home and parish steady. The section closes with village rumors deepening around Armitage and Cecil’s cheeky attempt to “beard the hermit,” only to be coolly rebuffed.

Joan's handful, by Amy Le Feuvre. Republished by OpenStories from Project Gutenberg eBook #77651.