The Cuckoo in Spring

Elizabeth Cadell, as I think I have mentioned before, is high on my list of most rereadable authors. Her romantic comedies, now out of print but standard at most civic libraries, hark to a simpler day when writers, reluctant to exploit sex and bad language, had to resort to plot and dialog to move the story along.

The Cuckoo in Spring is one of which I wish to make particular note, because I vaguely recollected the plot but couldn't find it anywhere. There was, of course, a handsome young man and a girl, but there were also missing paintings and the girl turned up at the end right under his nose. Try as I might, I couldn't locate it, until I browsed around Saratoga Library and found it in the Large Type section. Something in the synopsis caught at my memory and I checked it out, discovering, to my delight, that this was the missing half-remembered story.

As I said, there is a handsome young man, an art dealer and man-about-town named Julian. He goes to the end of nowhere to evaluate some paintings which may or may not have value, and discovers a gorgeous cook named Alexandra. They fall in love in a matter of days, and he proposes to meet up with her in London, as soon as he completes a social engagement in Scotland. When he returns, he discovers Alexandra has disappeared, along with the four valuable paintings she brought back for him. After a frantic search, he discovers his lost love, and the rest of the story, right under his nose (as I said before). The tale is light-hearted and fun from beginning to end and I'm glad I found it, poetically enough, right under my nose.

But no, I don't know why it's called The Cuckoo in Spring.