Ronald and Miss Manderleigh

A wartime weekend between an American airman and an English widow becomes luminous, sacrificial, and unforgettable.

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The Cotswold Invitation

The Cotswold Invitation Context Ronald Doctorow, a radioman on a B-17, is ordered to spend a weekend at a small English castle. His host is a frail general of Great War vintage, and the general's widowed daughter, Miss Manderleigh, makes her entrance in a modest blouse and skirt. Her hand is soft and warm, and her smile makes clear she understands his plight. Significance The invitation is a brief pastoral exception to the war. Miss Manderleigh has lost a husband to Rommel's forces and carries a widow's gravity. Ronald is a young American far from home, and her attention is a form of grace. Consequences The weekend will become one of the defining memories of his life, a memory that survives even the trauma of his later bailout.

Rainstorm in the Barn

Rainstorm in the Barn Context On the way to a picnic, Ronald and Miss Manderleigh are caught in a violent rainstorm and shelter in a barn. The portable radio begins playing a speech of Hitler, which she switches off. In the lantern light, her wet clothes cling to her, and they make love while it is still makeable. Significance The barn is a refuge from history, but the radio proves history cannot be escaped. Their lovemaking is a mutual act of defiance, a human yes in the face of the war's obscene no. The birds killed by the wind outside become part of the scene's elegiac texture. Consequences Ronald will remember the lantern, the wine, the horses, and the civilian darkness of the barn for the rest of his life.

Cribbage by the Fire

Cribbage by the Fire Context At dinner, the general presides in dress uniform. After he retires, Ronald and Miss Manderleigh drink brandy and play cribbage by the fire. When she is sure the house is quiet, she leads him to her room with its bed weighted by four posts carved like chess bishops. Significance The scene is a rehearsal of a normal life stained by death. Miss Manderleigh is a woman of the English race that does what has to be done; her passion is as much a duty as a pleasure. Ronald feels himself inside an achieved hallucination of peace. Consequences The affair will have no future; they do not even exchange addresses. The chess bishops watch over a night that will never be repeated.

Goodbye at the Bentley

Goodbye at the Bentley Context In cold gray light, the old Bentley waits. Miss Manderleigh stands with swollen lips and hastily combed hair, exhausted and badly needing sleep. Her smile is a terrible struggle. Ronald wants to say something about the barn, the fire, the bed, but she gives him no lingering intimacy. Significance Their goodbye is an education in English stoicism. She does what must be done, which now includes letting him go without a backward look. His last memory of her is the genderless sad soul in her eyes, erasing the color he once knew. Consequences Twenty-four hours later his wing is on alert, and he will carry this farewell into the sky over Germany.

The Only Memory in the Falling Dark

The Only Memory in the Falling Dark Context As Ronald plummets through the violent darkness after his B-17 breaks apart, he cannot remember Miss Manderleigh's words, cries, shape, or smile. He remembers only the genderless soul that stared from her love-dulled eyes. He shouts into the storm: Good-bye, Miss Manderleigh, good-bye. Significance The memory is stripped to its essence, a pure emotion without imagery. Their bond survives as a form of prayer, a human name spoken into annihilation. It is the last thing he carries into the boneyard where he will land. Consequences He survives, and the story is handed down to his brother Everett. The wartime romance becomes family memory, a relic of love inside the century's mass destruction.

during World War II, when Ronald receives a weekend pass from his squadron

the afternoon of the visit, during an un-English rainstorm

that evening at the manor

the morning of his departure

during his parachute descent into the storm