THE HOUSEHOLD
STACEY HALLS
In a quiet house in the countryside outside London, the finishing touches are being made to welcome a group of young women. The house and its location are top secret, its residents unknown to one another, but the girls have one thing in they are fallen. Offering refuge for prostitutes, petty thieves and the destitute, Urania Cottage is a second chance at life – but how badly do they want it?
Meanwhile, a few miles away in a Piccadilly mansion, millionairess Angela Burdett-Coutts, one of the benefactors of Urania Cottage, makes a discovery that leaves her her stalker of 10 years has been released from prison . . .
As the women’s worlds collide in ways they could never have expected, they will discover that freedom always comes at a price . . .
review
The Household is the fourth book written by Stacey Halls and it focuses on Urania Cottage, a home set up to help equip fallen women for a new life abroad. Urania Cottage was a real place established by the author Charles Dickens and wealthy philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who has a prominent role in the novel. Urania Cottage, located in Shepherd’s Bush, Middlesex, opened in November 1847, providing its residents with food, education and the skills required to run a household.
We are introduced to Martha and Josephine who were both imprisoned for different reasons after falling on hard times. Martha is determined to do well at the cottage as she longs to start a new life in Australia but she is haunted by the disappearance of her younger sister, Emily, and is determined to find her before she leaves the country. In contrast, Josephine arrives with a broken heart as her cellmate and lover, Alice, who was supposed to be at the cottage with her, inexplicably changes her mind and disappears out of her life. Josephine, feeling betrayed, wants to know why Alice changed her mind and is ambivalent about starting a new life without her.
As well as Martha and Josephine, there is a revolving door of new arrivals with disparate backgrounds and while some embrace the opportunities they are given, there are also those who run away. The matron of the cottage is Mrs. Holdsworth who runs a tight ship but there is only so much she can do alone and her pleas for help fall on deaf ears. While Dickens is mentioned a lot, he never makes an appearance and the women talk about how he likes to hear their stories and it is obvious he is gathering material for his novels. On the other hand, Angela Burdett-Coutts becomes a regular visitor as she is keen to encourage the residents and she takes a particular shine to Martha.
Angela became one of the wealthiest women in England when she inherited her grandfather’s fortune and lives in the lap of luxury with fine clothes, furnishings and a beautiful house, however she comes across as lonely figure with her only friend being her old governess. Angela is also being stalked by an obsessive man who wants to marry her and she has become a virtual prisoner in her home as she is afraid to leave it without protection. The stalking plot line didn’t really work as it felt like it had been thrown in to show even wealthy women are vulnerable in a male dominated society, giving Angela something in common with the cottage residents. Yet, Angela has no real concept of how the working class live and her ideas about introducing the women to the finer skills taught to young society ladies is representative of how wealthy do-gooders don’t always do what is best.
As we explore the various character threads it never seems to weave into a cohesive story and I found it hard to really get into the story or care about the women which is unfortunate. I would have preferred the book’s sole focus to have been on Urania Cottage and the struggles of the residents within as there was plenty of scope there without including Angela and the stalker storyline.
