Brat Farrer

[sawyl]

And so to Brat Farrer, Josephine Tey's novel about twins, impostors, orphans, usurped inheritances and horse riding. Set in Latchetts, a small country house and stables, owned by the Ashby family, it follows the eponymous Brat as he uses his physical resemblance to the missing heir to insinuate himself into the family.

When louche actor Alec Loding bumps into Brat in the street and mistakes him for Simon Ashby, the heir presumptive of Latchetts, Loding concepts a scheme to pass off Brat as Simon's missing older twin Patrick. Brat, with nothing to lose, agrees to the scheme expecting to fail to pass inspection by the Ashby's lawyers but with Alec's training, he soon finds himself travelling down to Latchetts to meet his supposed family. The Ashbys quickly take Brat to their hearts; even Simon, who is initially furious when he hears of his twin's Lazarus-like return, changes his mind after their initial meeting and accepts Brat as his older brother.

Brat, in return, quickly comes to love everything about Latchetts, from its stables to its inhabitants and start to feel more than a little guilty about his role in a scheme to bilk them. He also finds himself identifying with the missing Patrick, the kind, serious child who felt it necessary, aged 13, to kill himself. So when someone starts trying to cause Brat a mischief, he feels as though he has become Patrick's agent of retribution.

Despite knowing Brat's status as an impostor from the outset, it's impossible not to like him. He has made the best of a difficult life — orphanage followed by time spent in France and the US — and may, given his physical resemblance to Simon, even be an Ashby with a legitimate claim on the estate. He is also rather moral, despite his involvement in the fraud. His feelings about the enterprise, which he initially views as a lark, quickly shift when he discovers how much work Aunt Bee has had to do to keep the estate out of debt and when he realises that he is starting to fall for Eleanor.

The rest of the cast are almost equally wonderful. Aunt Bee is particularly charming; a classic Tey heroine, competent, wise and believable but still reliant on the support of her family and friends when the going gets tough. Simon is charismatic and mercurial, able to put on a charming facade but selfish and conceited under the surface, just like his dangerous horse Timber. But unlike Timber, Simon's superficial appeal costs him his peace of mind and his increasingly flakiness as he starts drinking heavily feels suitably realistic. Even the minor characters, who add plausibility and detail to the world, are a delight. The local farmer, Roger Clint, who competes in the racing meet at Bures reminds me of Robert Martin, while the Rev George Peck seems to has the wisdom and kindly pragmatism of Adophus Irwine. Even the light relief, the outrageous Tony Torselli and the no-so-siren-like Sheila Parslow, both escaping from the boredom of a nearby Summerhill-like school, make a point, with their new money throwing the genteel yeomanry of the Ashbys and the aristocratic poverty of the Ledingham/Loding family into relief.

Although, as Jo Walton notes, there are some minor problems with the timeline, the book is almost complete delight from start to finish. The question of when and how Brat's deception will be exposed adds a great deal of tension to the plot and family scenes feel wonderfully real. The horse riding scenes, too, are quite wonderful. Full of the exuberance and joy of rushing through the countryside at a gallop, they're enough to covert anyone to the cause of equestrianism.