AND when they came out of the lace shop there was their own driver and the cab they called their own cab waiting for them under a plane tree. What luck! Wasn't it luck ? Fanny pressed her husband's arm. These things seemed always to be happening to them ever since they—came abroad. Didn't he think so too ? But George stood on the pavement edge, lifted his stick, and gave a loud " Hi! " Fanny sometimes felt a little uncomfortable about the way George summoned cabs, but the drivers didn't seem to mind, so it must have been all right. Fat, good-natured, and smiling, they stuffed away the little newspaper they were reading, whipped the cotton cover off the horse, and were ready to obey.
" I say," George said as he helped Fanny in, " suppose we go and have tea at the place where the lobsters grow. Would you like to ? "
" Most awfully," said Fanny, fervently, as she leaned back wondering why the way George put things made them sound so very nice.
]
" R-right, bien." He was beside her. " Allay" he cried gaily, and off they went.
Off they went, spanking along lightly, under the green and gold shade of the plane trees, through the small streets that smelled of lemons and fresh coffee, past the fountain square where women, with water-pots lifted, stopped talking to gaze after them, round the corner past the café, with its pink and white umbrellas, green tables, and blue siphons, and so to the sea front. There a wind, light, warm, came flowing over the boundless sea. It touched George, and Fanny it seemed to linger over while they gazed at the dazzling water. And George said, " Jolly, isn't it ? " And Fanny, looking dreamy, said, as she said at least twenty times a day since they—came abroad : " Isn't it extraordinary to think that here we are quite alone, away from everybody, with nobody to tell us to go home, or to—to order us about except ourselves ? "
George had long since given up answering " Extraordinary ! " As a rule he merely kissed her. But now he caught hold of her hand, stuffed it into his pocket, pressed her fingers, and said, " I used to keep a white mouse in my pocket when I was a kid."
" Did you ? " said Fanny, who was intensely interested in everything George had ever done. " Were you very fond of white mice ? "
" Fairly," said George, without conviction. He was looking at something, bobbing out there by the bathing steps. Suddenly he almost jumped in his seat. " Fanny! " he cried. ".There's a chap out there bathing. Do you see ? I'd no idea people had begun. I've been missing it all these days." George glared at the reddened face, the reddened arm, as though he could not look away. " At any rate," he muttered, " wild horses won't keep me from going in to-morrow morning."
Fanny's heart sank. She had heard for years of the frightful dangers of the Mediterranean. It was an absolute death-trap. Beautiful, treacherous Mediterranean. There it lay curled before them, its white, silky paws touching the stones and gone again ... But she'd made up her mind long before she was married that never would she be the kind of woman who interfered with her husband's pleasures, so all she said was, airily, " I suppose one has to be very up in the currents, doesn't one ? "
" Oh, I don't know," said George. " People talk an awful lot of rot about the danger."
But now they were passing a high wall on the land side, covered with flowering heliotrope, and Fanny's little nose lifted. " Oh George," she breathed. " The smell! The most divine..."
" Topping villa," said George. " Look, you can see it through the palms."
" Isn't it rather large ? " said Fanny, who somehow could not look at any villa except as a possible habitation for herself and George.
" Well, you'd need a crowd of people if you stayed there long," replied George. " Deadly, otherwise. I say, it is ripping. I wonder who it belongs to." And he prodded the driver in the back.
The lazy, smiling driver, who had no idea, replied, as he always did on these occasions, that it was the property of a wealthy Spanish family.
" Masses of Spaniards on this coast," commented George, leaning back again, and they were silent until, as they rounded a bend, the big, bone-white hotel-restaurant came into view. Before it there was a small terrace built up against the sea, planted with umbrella palms, set out with tables, and at their approach, from the terrace, from the hotel, waiters came running to receive, to welcome Fanny and George, to cut them off from any possible kind of escape.
" Outside ? "
Oh, but of course they would sit outside. The sleek manager, who was marvellously like a fish in a frock coat, skimmed forward.
" Dis way, sir. Dis way, sir. I have a very nice little table," he gasped. " Just the little table for you, sir, over in de corner. Dis way."
So George, looking most dreadfully bored, and Fanny, trying to look as though she'd spent years of life threading her way through strangers, followed after.
" Here you are, sir. Here you will be very nice," coaxed the manager, taking the vase off the table, and putting it down again as if it were a fresh little bouquet out of the air. But George refused to sit down immediately. He saw through these fellows ; he wasn't going to be done. These chaps were always out to rush you. So he put his hands in his pockets, and said to Fanny, very calmly, " This all right for you ? Anywhere else you'd prefer ? How about over there ? " And he nodded to a table right over the other side.
What it was to be a man of the world! Fanny admired him deeply, but all she wanted to do was to sit down and look like everybody else.
" I—I like this," said she.
" Right," said George, hastily, and he sat down almost before Fanny, and said quickly, " Tea for two and chocolate éclairs."
" Very good, sir," said the manager, and his mouth opened and shut as though he was ready for another dive under the water. " You will not 'ave toasts to start with ? We 'ave very nice toasts, sir."
" No," said George, shortly. " You don't want toast, do you, Fanny ? "
" Oh, no, thank you, George," said Fanny, praying the manager would go.
" Or perhaps de lady might like to look at de live lobsters in de tank while de tea is coming ? " And he grimaced and smirked and flicked his serviette like a fin.
George's face grew stony. He said " No " again, and Fanny bent over the table, unbuttoning her gloves. When she looked up the man was gone. George took off his hat, tossed it on to a chair, and pressed back his hair.
" Thank God," said he, " that chap's gone. These foreign fellows bore me stiff. The only way to get rid of them is simply to shut up as you saw I did. Thank Heaven ! " sighed George again, with so much emotion that if it hadn't been ridiculous Fanny might have imagined that he had been as frightened of the manager as she. As it was she felt a rush of love for George. His hands were on the table, brown, large hands that she knew so well. She longed to take one of them and squeeze it hard. But, to her astonishment, George did just that thing. Leaning across the table, he put his hand over hers, and said, without looking at her, " Fanny, darling Fanny ! "
" Oh, George ! " It was in that heavenly moment that Fanny heard a twing-twing-tootle-tootle, and a light strumming. There's going to be music, she thought, but the music didn't matter just then. Nothing mattered except love. Faintly smiling she gazed into that faintly smiling face, and the feeling was so blissful that she felt inclined to say to George, " Let us stay here—where we are—at this little table. It's perfect, and the sea is perfect. Let us stay." But instead her eyes grew serious.
" Darling," said Fanny. '* I want to ask you something fearfully important. Promise me you'll answer. Promise."
" I promise," said George, too solemn to be quite as serious as she.
" It's this." Fanny paused a moment, looked down, looked up again. "Do you feel," she said, softly, " that you really know me now ? But really, really know me ? "
It was too much for George. Know his Fanny ? He gave a broad, childish grin. " I should jolly well think I do," he said, emphatically. " Why, what's up ? "
Fanny felt he hadn't quite understood. She went on quickly : " What I mean is this. So often people, even when they love each other, don't seem to—to—it's so hard to say—know each other perfectly. They don't seem to want to. And I think that's awful. They misunderstand each other about the most important things of all." Fanny looked horrified. " George, we couldn't do that, could we ? We never could."
" Couldn't be done," laughed George, and he was just going to tell her how much he liked her little nose, when the waiter arrived with the tea and the band struck up. It was a flute, a guitar, and a violin, and it played so gaily that Fanny felt if she wasn't careful even the cups and saucers might grow little wings and fly away. George absorbed three chocolate éclairs, Fanny two. The funny-tasting tea—" Lobster in the kettle," shouted George above the music —was nice all the same, and when the tray was pushed aside and George was smoking, Fanny felt bold enough to look at the other people. But it was the band grouped under one of the dark trees that fascinated her most. The fat man stroking the guitar was like a picture. The dark man playing the flute kept raising his eyebrows as though he was astonished at the sounds that came from it. The fiddler was in shadow.
The music stopped as suddenly as it had begun. It was then she noticed a tall old man with white hair standing beside the musicians. Strange she hadn't noticed him before. He wore a very high, glazed collar, a coat green at the seams, and shamefully shabby button boots. Was he another manager ? He did not look like a manager, and yet he stood there gazing over the tables as though thinking of something different and far away from all this. Who could he be ?
Presently, as Fanny watched him, he touched the points of his collar with his fingers, coughed slightly, and half-turned to the band. It began to play again. Something boisterous, reckless, full of fire, full of passion, was tossed into the air, was tossed to that quiet figure, which clasped its hands, and still with that far-away look, began to sing.
" Good Lord ! " said George. It seemed that everybody was equally astonished. Even the little children eating ices stared, with their spoons in the air... Nothing was heard except a thin, faint voice, the memory of a voice singing something in Spanish. It wavered, beat on, touched the high notes, fell again, seemed to implore, to entreat, to beg for something, and then the tune changed, and it was resigned, it bowed down, it knew it was denied.
Almost before the end a little child gave a squeak of laughter, but everybody was smiling— except Fanny and George. Is life like this too ? thought Fanny. There are people like this. There is suffering. And she looked at that gorgeous sea, lapping the land as though it loved it, and the sky, bright with the brightness before evening. Had she and George the right to be so happy ? Wasn't it cruel ? There must be something else in life which made all these things possible. What was it ? She turned to George.
But George had been feeling differently from Fanny. The poor old boy's voice was funny in a way, but, God, how it made you realise what a terrific thing it was to be at the beginning of everything, as they were, he and Fanny ! George, too, gazed at the bright, breathing water, and his lips opened as if he could drink it. How fine it was! There was nothing like the sea for making a chap feel fit. And there sat Fanny, his Fanny, leaning forward, breathing so gently.
" Fanny! " George called to her.
As she turned to him something in her soft, wondering look made George feel that for two pins he would jump over the table and carry her off.
" I say," said George, rapidly, " let's go, shall we ? Let's go back to the hotel. Come. Do, Fanny darling. Let's go now."
The band began to play. "Oh, God!" almost groaned George. " Let's go before the old codger begins squawking again."
And a moment later they were gone.
The Reply
George crossed the hallway, walking
like a somnambulist through its chilly, marbled space. In his right hand he
held a teacup by the handle; it was brim-full, though this was not apparent for
he had placed a saucer precariously on top, its faded willow pattern partly
obscured by two arrowroot biscuits and one of Mrs Pewitt’s shortbreads -
freshly baked. In his left hand George carried an unopened, hand-addressed
envelope. He twiddled it distractedly as he approached the billiard room door.
It was closed. He glanced around seeking a surface to solve his predicament,
but finding none, placed the letter in his mouth between lightly gritted teeth,
passed the cup from right to left, then squatted slightly to turn the brass
handle. He opened the door with care, removed the envelope from his mouth and
entered the room without having spilled a drop.
“That’s the ticket!” George
exclaimed triumphantly, like a man well used to overcoming life’s little
vicissitudes with verve and ingenuity.
His words echoed through the empty
room. The billiard table was shrouded by
a beige calico cover. As soon as George flung back the thread-bare chintz
curtains, the pallid winter sunshine sliced the room with blades of grey,
dust-speckled light; it was obvious the place had not been used for months.
George placed the cup and saucer on his grandfather’s old desk and devoured
both arrowroot biscuits before even taking a sip. All the while he glared, as
if affronted, at the small cream envelope which lay unopened before him.
It was cold, he pulled at the
collar of the old dressing gown he had borrowed, but still he shivered. Rising,
he crossed to the ornate marble fireplace and pressed a small brass button just
to the left; nearby, a bell tinkled. A large gilded clock, in belle époque
style dominated the mantelpiece. He reached behind the bronze ‘Three Graces’
which surmounted the ghastly timepiece and retrieved a bunch of keys. Returning
to the desk, situated by the window, he unlocked the central drawer, removed an
old writing box and a paper knife. He unfolded the letter slowly and began to
read. Hardly had he finished one sentence before the door opened; a girl
entered and stood stiffly on the threshold.
“Sir?” she said.
“ ‘bout time, Molly, ‘bout time,”
George blustered, “a chap might catch his death - set the fire would you? An’ while you’re at it, fetch a fresh pot of
tea, this un’s stone cold.”
Molly bobbed, “Sorry sir, right
‘way sir,” bobbed again, beating a hasty retreat.
George raised his eyes
heavenwards, and returned to the letter. The bottom of the first page found
George staring out of the window, unexpectedly intrigued by the antics of a few
rabbits grazing on the edge of the east lawn. A young doe, with a distinctive
white stripe running the length of her spine, halted opposite the window. She
sat upright sniffing the frosty air, looked directly at George, then scampered
off. “La donna e mobile, dum-di-de-da-da-de,”
George hummed in an unpractised baritone.
Halfway down page two George jumped
up, and circled the billiard table twice, halting momentarily part way through
the second circumnavigation to peer into the large, gilt framed mirror. He blew
his nose loudly; as he brushed his cheek with the back of his hand he sensed
his recently deceased grandfather’s gaze behind him. He turned towards the
portrait and muttered, “it’s a rum do, old boy,” with a familiarity he would not
have risked in real life.
Molly re-entered, carrying a tray
of fresh tea, followed by a scrawny youth humping a copper coal scuttle. “Tom,
put it by the hearth, an’ wait a tick while I clears Sir’s cup,” she ordered.
Molly placed the teapot and crockery on an occasional table beneath the mirror,
retrieved the cold cup of tea from the desk, placed it carefully on the empty
tray and handed it to Tom, whom she dismissed with as much imperiousness as her
tender years could muster, ‘”That will be all now, Tom.”
“Always a pleasure, Miss Pewitt.”
Tom retorted, flashing Molly a wicked grin. She gave him a hard look, nodding
her head imperceptibly towards George. Tom took the hint and fled.
“Would sir like ‘is tea pourin’?”
“No, no, just light the damn fire,
I’ll pour it myself.” George barked. Settling once more at the desk he trawled
through the letter again, as if it were a contract, peace treaty or declaration of war. To the
left of the desk hung a large, hand drawn map of Nyasaland, a memento of
grandpa’s stint as Assistant Governor. The contours had faded, the parchment
darkened with age; set behind glass the map reflected the billiard room rather
better than the African territory it purported to display. George looked up,
watching Molly’s reflection as she knelt before the hearth under the looming
portrait of the old Governor. She set the fire with swift, well-practiced
movements as if performing come arcane, pagan ritual.
A match flared, momentarily
illuminating Molly’s round face. She lit the knotted paper in three or four
places, then using brass tongs, carefully placed the coals within the flames,
fanning them with a small bellows. In moments the fire was roaring away. Molly
arose, leaned back, hands on her hips to admire her handiwork. Fascinated,
George stared at her reflection; Molly, in the dark glass, half lit by
flickering firelight took on a voluptuous, Rubenesque air. He turned towards her,
his chair creaked. By the time he caught her eye she had reverted to a
perfectly demure pose, hands clasped in front, resting on her apron.
“
If you please I’ll leave scuttle,
will there be anything else sir?”
“No, Molly, thank you,” George exclaimed,
“thank you, that was…” He trailed-off, and gave a little cough.
A quizzical expression brushed
Molly’s brow, she reddened slightly, and sidled swiftly from George’s sight.
George opened the grandpa’s battered
writing box, removed two sheets of fine vellum, blotting paper, a bottle of
Swan ink and a tortoiseshell fountain pen. He filled it carefully, tested the
nib on the back of an envelope - G F
Delahey-Firkin – executing his looping signature with a flourish. He raised
the pen, tilted his head and struck a pose reminiscent of St Matthew awaiting
divine inspiration. Two uninspired minutes passed, George re-screwed the
pen-top, sighed, ran his fingers though his hair, and stalked out of the room.
*****
A little later George, fortified by
breakfast, stood in the gun room before a small arsenal of sporting guns. He
chose a light .22 Winchester, weighed it in his hand, then raising it, peered
down the sight, ‘Spot-on, old chap,’ again addressing his grandfather’s picture,
this time photographed as a young man, scarcely older than himself, standing
stiffly, with his wife, a group of turbaned guides, and a heap of dead tigers. Lord and Lady Delahey with native guides,
Gilgit, 1875, the caption beneath announced. George slung a knapsack over
one shoulder, the gun over the other, stuffed three clips of ammunition into
his coat pocket, and strode out towards the main hall. “Just orf to pot a few bunnies,” he called to
his grandmother, who was descending the grand staircase.
She laughed, “Good show George!
Keep the blighters down.” She watched
him fondly as he crossed the columned hall, a dapper figure in brogues, Harris
tweeds, and a deerstalker. Good to have a man about the place again, grandma’
mused, even if it was just George.
The mighty hunter reached the edge
of Yeld Wood and stood motionless in the shadow of the trees. Four of five
rabbits hopped about; as a large male came within range George raised the rifle
slowly to his shoulder, aimed at the beast’s head and took a shot. At that
instant, sensing human presence, the rabbit bolted. The bullet missed, in a
flash of white tails all but one rabbit disappeared. The fugitive cowered
beneath the parterre, out of range.
George had potted enough bunnies as a boy to know that eventually, if he
stayed still, it would make a dash for the warren.
As it broke cover George again raised
the rifle; instead of pointing it directly at the rabbit he hovered the barrel
around a nearby patch of grass. As the
rabbit entered his field of vision he recognised the white markings of the doe.
George breathed-in deeply, then held his breath as he kept the fleeing rabbit’s
head centred in the sights; as he squeezed the trigger he nudged the gun a
notch in front of the doe’s nose. The shot hit home just below her ear; she
tumbled over twice before hitting the ground with a quiet thump. “Yes, yes!
Good shot, by George…” then chuckled, astonished at his inadvertent wit.
*****
“Mrs Pewitt! a bunny for the pot.”
George hailed the cook across the kitchen.
“Just leave ‘im on the table,
Master George, I’ll sort it in a jiffy.” Mrs Pewitt put down the rolling pin,
brushed her hands on her apron and approached George with a beaming smile, “So,
young George, pie or stew? Your choice.”
“
No, contest, Mrs P. you know fine
well I’m a pie man. I say, your Molly has blossomed into quite the young lady,”
George observed, pinching a scone.
Mrs Pewitt resumed rolling pastry,
“Indeed she ‘as, ‘er good looks are dear Bertie’s, God rest ‘is soul; so proud
‘e would’ve been, an’ a good girl she is, not one for gallivantin’”
“Well she’s a proper credit to you,
I must say.”
Mrs P. glanced away, “Every week I
put something aside. Before she gets all grown-up an’ married off, we is goin’
to Picardy to pays our respects to where Bertie’s laid to rest, so ‘elp me
God.”
“Good show! noble thought, Mrs
P.,” George enthused. He left the
kitchen, marched straight down to the
billiard room, sat down at the desk and commenced writing:
My
Dear Toby,
Good
of you to send a note directly telling me Edith had heard from Fanny. As you
might imagine since Clinique Crissier cabled last week reporting F’s
disappearance I have been beside myself, fearing the worst. At the moment only
you, Edith and our parents know of the situation, we must think of our reputations,
so, mum’s the word.
I
should be furious, but I know Fanny is hardly in her right mind, nor has been
for these past two years since we lost little Isobel. My wife is no longer the
carefree women I married. Let us all hope she recovers soon, for I still love
her dearly.
I
have not spoken of this before, but after Isobel was taken from us, I was all
for trying again immediately and Fanny did not disagree. I blame that German
doctor she was seeing about her nerves. He advised us to let time be a healer.
If you ask me he filled her head full of nonsense, saying the source of her
excessive grief concerned her dead brother,
mourning for a lost generation and all , not just the loss of our child.
Tommy rot, I say! If I had insisted, now
we would have been a happy family, like you and Edith. Instead I have watched my
dear Fanny slipping away.
So
Edith believes that Fanny is in Bandol staying with Hutchinson and that
peculiar French, so called artist - Monique Latour. I got dragged along to her studio last year.
I remember one painting of a stark naked girl with a teapot instead of a head
– le mademoiselle is completely mad.
Goodness knows what stuff and nonsense Fanny is being subjected to by these
damned bohemians.
You
say that Fanny spoke to Edith about seeking a divorce - on what grounds dammit?
I can assure you I have never strayed off the straight and narrow. I have
always allowed Fanny to be independent and want for nothing. She has
been seeing a lot of young Hutchinson, but he is no ladies’ man, quite the
contrary we are led to believe. Enquiries have been made; there is no evidence
of indiscretion on my wife’s part.
Enough of this, I drive myself mad with too much thinking – time will
out - old chap.
I’m
not one for writing screeds. You must all visit one weekend soon. We can have a
good chin-wag and do a bit of shooting. Potted a couple of bunnies this
morning, it’s a funny thing how a chap’s spirits lift soon as he’s shot a dumb
beast or two!
Regards
to Edith and the children.
Your
loving Brother,
George.
*****
George entered the Drawing Room,
where grandmother, enthroned on a chesterfield, was reading in the light of the
tall, Regency windows. “Just poppin’ to the village, with luck I’ll catch the
noon collection.”
Grandmother did not reply, but
removed her spectacles, laid down her book, and languorously extended her hand
towards George, who crossed the room to kiss it.
“Good book?” he enquired.
“
Oh, Francis loaned it to me months
ago, but it’s only in the last few days I’ve felt up to reading. It’s very
modern, quite improper.” Grandmother smiled, “but then dear Fanny always did
see through the façade you know. She said to me once, ‘everyone treats you like
a Victorian fuddy-duddy, but I just see the belle-of-the-ball.’ such a sweet
girl!”
George picked the book up, glanced at the cover – Bliss and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield – then on the
frontispiece he noted a dedication in elegant, unfamiliar italics, ‘To my darling Fanny, thinking of sunnier
climes, your loving friend, Monique’.
Grandmother continued, “The world
changes, George, and we must change with it, don’t you think? Otherwise we’ll
die embittered and be quite…” she looked wistfully across the rolling parkland,
over the dull grey lake, towards the crumbling gothic folly, settling at last
on ‘le mot juste’, “disregarded George, quite disregarded.”
“The world,” George mused, “I’m dashed if I
can make head or tail of it, goin’ to the dogs if you ask me.”
Grandmother squeezed his forearm;
her papery, sepulchral touch appalled him. “Poor George,” she whispered, “poor
George.”
Critical Commentary
- Responses to the source
In Lady Chattersley’s
Lover written by Katherine Mansfield’s friend, D. H. Lawrence around the
same time as Honeymoon, the relationship between the main
character – Connie – and her husband is
described as follows:
Clifford Chatterley was more upper-class than Connie. Connie
was well-to-do intelligentsia, but he was aristocracy. Not the big sort, but
still it. His father was a baronet, and his mother had been a viscount’s
daughter.[1]
I see Fanny and George’s backgrounds as similar: Fanny is
sensitive, observant, vivacious and nervous; George, more hidebound by
convention, distrustful of foreigners, uncultured, but able to hide insecurity
and boorishness behind the façade of ‘the man in charge’. How these differences
in education and class might ‘play out’ in future is the starting point of my
response to Honeymoon.
- The story ‘arc’
I decided to write the piece from George’s point of view
because his character in the story is less formed and Mansfield creates Fanny
as more immediately appealing. George is less articulate and prone to being
dismissive and ‘short’. This does create a challenge in relation to the assignment
since George is not someone who would write long, heartfelt letters.
Furthermore, epistolary fiction is primarily a first person ‘internal
narrative’. This creates a difficulty in framing what is said within a wider
social or psychological context. My solution is to describe George’s
prevarication at penning a reply, as
well as the letter itself. Only his reply ‘explains’ his situation or reveals
George’s feelings directly. Everything else is pictured indirectly through a
‘filmic’ presentation of detail, place and behaviour. I used this previously in a sonnet sequence, Nighthawks – a short screenplay for radio.[2]
I see Fanny and George as representing the intersection of
two arcs. Fanny is modern, observant and open to new experience – women of her
generation are in the ascendency, freer than their predecessors, recently
enfranchised. Conversely, ‘the upper crust’ masculine world of Empire, King and
Country is beginning to decline, confidence in past certainties shaken by the
Great War.
- Situation and mise en scene
(influence/theft)
The situation five years on is the opposite of Fanny’s
assertion ‘that I never want to be the kind of woman that interfered with her
husband’s pleasures’. Instead it is her ‘pleasures’ that George inhibits and
she finds the anxiety hinted at in her question, ‘do you feel […] you really,
really know me?’ to be the reality of her marriage. Depressed by the death of
her first-born, Fanny ‘absconds’ from a Swiss clinic to join bohemian friends
on the Riviera. Meanwhile George is preoccupied looking after the estate of his
recently deceased grandfather and is drawn towards ‘country house’ culture.
Fanny’s situation is derived partly from Mansfield’s journals
where she describes her experience convalescing in Bandol and writes of her
brother Leslie, who had been killed in the war, in impassioned terms. Like
Fanny, Mansfield lost a child as a young woman. Also she was known to have had affairs
with both men and women.
George is more of an invention - though a variety of ‘country
house’ fictions from E. M. Forster to P. G, Wodehouse, as well as ‘Downton Abbey’ style costume drama
undoubtedly influenced his depiction.
Details of the house and park were taken from a ‘Zoopla’ entry
for Brockhampton House, Worcestershire, a country estate currently for sale.
Objects such as the writing box, fountain pen, ink and the ormolu clock were
found through ‘Ebay’ and the Winchester rifle identified through
www.collectorsfirearms.com. The detail of George carrying a tea-cup with the
saucer perched on top and the final, repeated phrase ‘poor George’ were
purloined from the opening and closing scenes of the television adaptation of
le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.[3]
- Additional Characters
George’s relationship with the characters in the house is the
primary way his background and attitudes are revealed. His grandparents
represent the ‘noblesse oblige’ of a generation brought up to serve the British
Empire. The ‘mock heroics’ of the rabbit hunt is contrasted with the photograph
‘Lord and Lady Delahey with native
guides’. Hierarchy is depicted
through the treatment of servants. George treats Molly as an object; in turn
Molly asserts authority over Tom. Mrs. Pewitt is on more informal terms with
George – it is inferred she has known him since he was a boy.
Monique Latour represents the avante garde, which is
incomprehensible to George. Her character is based loosely on Man Ray’s ‘muse’
Kiki de Montparnasse. Toby and Edith have the kind of conventional marriage
denied to George.
- Voice and dialogue
It is a convention of ‘country house’ fiction that the gentry
speak without an accent and the servants in dialect. I decided to use dialect
for each to asserting tribalism rather than hierarchy. George speaks a ‘toff’ dialect where ‘off’
becomes ‘orf’. I imagine he bumbles like
Boris Johnson and blurts like Terry Thomas.
- Unanswered Questions – unreliable
narrative:
·
Are George’s assertions concerning his fidelity
and continued love for Fanny believable given his reaction to Molly?
·
What is the meaning of Monique’s dedication to
Fanny and what does George make of it?
·
Is George’s desire to keep the situation
confidential deluded, does his grandmother already know – is the whole affair
common knowledge, except to George?
[1]
Lawrence, D. H., Lady Chatterley’s Lover,
chapter 1, a public domain book,
Kindle e-books. [downloaded 24 December 2013]
[2]
Alan Wickes, ‘Nighthawks – a short screenplay for radio, The Raintown Review, Volume 10, Series 2, (February 2012) 77 – 81.
[3]
‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’, BBC Television, first broadcast 10 September –
22 October 1979.
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