Harriet Devine's Blog

On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons by Laura Cumming

The story starts with every parent's nightmare. A mother takes her three-year-old daughter to a nearby beach. They bring biscuits, and a bucket and spade. The mother's attention wanders for a minute to gaze at the sea - just a minute - and when she turns back, the child is gone.

How could she have disappeared? The beach, to begin with, is completely flat. A broad sheet of spotless sands, sprinkled with angel-wing shells, it seems to stretch forever in both directions. There are no coves, dunes or rocks where an adult could hide a child; everything stands in open view.

This three-year-old child was Laura Cummings' mother. Growing up, she was always called Betty, though she changed it to Elizabeth as an adult. And indeed, though she did not find this out for decades, she had begun life with a different name: Grace. The history of her early years, of which she had no memory, was painstakingly investigated by her daughter, and it would reveal an amazing story, with as many twists and turns as any crime novel.

Three days after her disappearance, which must have been agonising for Veda, her mother, and George, her father, hastily recalled from wherever his job as a travelling salesman had taken him, Betty was found and taken home. The story of where she had been, and why she had been kidnapped, when it was finally uncovered, would reveal an extraordinary web of secrecy and hidden feelings, discovered only in increments by her daughter.

The childhood Elizabeth could remember was one of extreme restrictions:

She was not allowed to play with village children, or travel the half mile to that mecca of forbidden shops....Betty must stay in the garden, behind a hedge as high (in my mind) as the forest in 'Rapunzel', or remain glumly indoors with Veda.

George kept her on a tight leash at home too. It was a household which seemed to the child to have very little love in it, at least on her father's part. Meanwhile there were mysteries that seemed strange and insoluble to the young girl: why did the local baker deliver bread to all the families in the area but leave out their house? And what should she make of the woman who approached her on the school bus and whispered 'Your grandmother wants to see you?', when the only grandmother she knew was dead? This puzzling episode precipitated one revelation for Betty - George explained she had been adopted, though nothing was said about her other family. 

George, with his harsh rules and inexplicable decisions - the worst of which for Betty was when he removed her from the grammar school where she was excelling and sent her to work in a dark, airless cubicle in the local post office - seems for most of the book to be the villain of the piece. Elizabeth left home at eighteen, became an artist, never visited her home and refused to go to his funeral. But over the years, through Cummings research and some fortuitous discoveries, a rather different picture emerges. 

This beautifully written book has multiple layers, one of which is made up of long extracts from a memoir Elizabeth wrote for her daughter when Laura turned twenty-one. At this point her mother knew nothing of the kidnap, but the life she recounts reveals much about her early years in her home, and about village life. And then there are the family photos, black and white shots of a growing child. Cumming is a distinguished art historian and art critic for the Observer, and it shows in the sensitive way she reads the photos. One of these made its appearance very late on in Cummings's investigation, and proved in many ways to be the final piece of the jigsaw. 

This is a truly exceptional memoir, written with great love and empathy. I enjoyed it more than I can say, and can't recommend it highly enough.

 

 

 

Woman Reading in the Garden

This is 'Drinking Coffee and Reading in the Garden' (c.1880s) by Edward Killingworth Johnson (1825-1896). For some reason his only Wikipedia entry is a very brief one in French. The link will take you to a very antiquated biography which says among other things that he was self taught. Thanks to Rob for sending me this charming image.

Young Girl Reading

This charming painting, by the Victorian English artist Thomas Baker (1809-1864), is actually called The Sonnet. So she's reading poetry and looks as if she's enjoying it. I wonder how many children of her age would do so now?

Wikipedia tells me that Baker's relatively early death (he was 55) was suspected of being murder, 'which led to the suicide of his housekeeper Hannah Hewitt'. There looks like being a good story in there.

Cheri by Colette: The 1920 Club

Yes here we are again with another of the very welcome clubs hosted by Simon and Kaggsy. They've provided me with some great discoveries in the past and this one is no exception.

I'm not quite sure why I've read so little of Colette, but I suspect it may have something to do with the fact that when I first bought the house in France where I now live, more than twenty years ago, I decided to plunge into reading French literature in the original language. My first choices were Proust and Colette, both of which proved to be far too ambitious. My French is probably better now, and I rather wish I had a copy of Cheri in that language because I always find myself, when reading translations, trying to guess what the original French actually said. Anyway since then the only novels of hers I've read have been The Cat and La Ble en Herbe (1923), translated as Ripening Seed - reviewed here in 2011. But I digress.

Cheri is possibly Colette's most famous novel, so maybe I don't need to tell you what it's about. But I will anyway. This is the story of a mis-matched love affair.  Young Fred Peloux, known to everyone as Cheri, an impossibly beautiful young man aged 25 when the novel begins, is the son of a celebrated and rich courtesan, Charlotte Peloux. Wealthy, petulant and spoiled, he has been involved for the past six years with Lea, a courtesan who is a contemporary of his mother, and thus 24 years his senior. Their relationship, though primarily sexual, is often teasing and playful - she has moulded him from an uncertain, unhealthy boy into the confident handsome young man he is now, and he treats her partly as a mistress, partly as a mother figure - his pet name for her is Nounoune. But as the novel starts, Fred has succumbed to pressure from his mother and one of her friends, Marie Laure, to agree to marry Marie's daughter, an innocent, convent-educated young girl  called Edmée. When he tells Lea this news, she appears to take it in her stride. She's been expecting this to happen eventually and shows no particular reaction. But when he leaves her and embarks on his marriage, she finds herself unexpectedly heartbroken. Determined to regain her former enjoyment of life, she sets off for the South of France, hoping to find some more lovers to continue her successful career.

Cheri, meanwhile, soon finds himself completely dissatisfied with his marriage. Edmée can in no way measure up to the delights of his relationship with Lea, and he is increasingly absent from home, at one time spending three months in a hotel with his best friend. He tortures himself with imagining what Lea is up to, and lurks around her house waiting to see if she has returned. Eventually after six months she does, not in a happy state of mind. She has fully realised how much she is ageing, and how lonely she is - the men she met in the south were no substitute for Cheri. Eventually one evening he bursts into her room and they share a passionate night. Lea hopes that perhaps they can now disappear somewhere together, but in the morning she realises this cannot happen. Cheri has become too much aware of her ageing body. As the novel ends she watches him out of the window as he leaves her front garden, and sees him fling his head into the air and take a deep breath, as if celebrating his freedom.

This is a beautiful, sad novel. These people are inhabitants of a world we are not usually called upon to admire but even Cheri with all his arrogance and selfishness cannot help being a sympathetic character, As for Lea, she could easily be a tragic figure but she emerges in the end as someone who will survive. The writing (even in translation!) is superb and the sensuality of this relationship is conveyed with great delicacy and empathy. When Lea, lying next to her sleeping lover and with her arm and leg crushed by his weight, imagines a life together for the two of them, this is how she thinks:

'He is here!' she whispered, immersed in a feeling of blind security. 'He is here forever!' her senses re-echoed. The well-ordered prudence, the happy common sense that had been her guide throughout life, the humiliating vagaries of her riper years and the subsequent renunciations, all beat a retreat and vanished into this air before the presumptuous brutality of love.

 

 

Woman Reading in Solitude

Yes, this painting by the English artist Frank Bramley (1857-1915) is actually called Delicious Solitude. 

Those of us with a beautiful outside space to enjoy our own solitude are very fortunate indeed. For everyone, including the many who are trapped in cities, here's wishing you the happiest Easter possible under the strange circumstances. 

She-Merchants on Shiny

My most recent review on Shiny, which appeared a couple of days ago, was a book I knew I had to have as soon as I saw the title announced. I've been visiting India on a fairly regular basis for many years and have always been fascinated (and generally appalled) by the history of the British there. But this book promised to break new ground and indeed it does.

I learned the history of a great number of amazing women, who travelled over there between the 17th and 19th centuries. Many of them were with, or on their way to join, their husbands, but others went independently, and not just husband hunting either. There were maids, teachers, nurses, shopkeepers and many others. Katie Hickman has rummaged in the archives and quotes many diaries and other personal accounts. Although it's a non-fiction book I found it absolutely unputdownable. You can read my full review here.

Death of a Ghost by Margery Allingham

I've got a review book on the go - I usually do have at least one I am more or less committed to review for Shiny - but though this one is good, it's not setting me on fire. So I've been prowling the bookshelves. Unlike most or maybe even all my fellow bloggers, I have no system whatsoever in my shelving. I used, once upon a time, to colour coordinate my books, which for some reason drove a lot of people mad when I shared pictures on the blog, though I really loved it and used to be able to find books pretty easily. But that all went out of the window when I moved to France. Now I just shove things in wherever there's a space, and buy new bookcases from time to time. Thus it is that exploring the shelves is quite an adventure, with unread books side by side with read ones. And a few days ago I found this one.

I've said before that I am a huge fan of Margery Allingham, and have probably also said that I believed I had read every one of her entertaining, slightly quirky crime novels. So it seems impossible that I had never read this one, but if I had, it had faded completely from my memory. First published in 1934, it's a mystery set in the art world, and revolves around the posthumous work of a famous painter named John Lafcadio. Before his death, he had lodged a collection of twelve paintings with his dealer, Max Fustian. These were intended as a legacy for his widow Belle, and the plan was that they would be unpacked and displayed one by one, once a year, on a specially selected day and in front of an invited audience of friends and prospective purchasers. Banking on the fact that his work, already sought after, would increase in value after his death, he saw this as a way of providing for his beloved wife.

As the book opens, it is the eighth year and the unveiling is about to take, place. The audience has gathered. Many celebrated people are present, as are also the inhabitants of the house, several of whom are Lafcadio's former models. One such is the eccentric Donna Beatrice, who dresses in flowing mediaeval robes and claims to be able to see auras, and another is the Italian cook and housekeeper, the once beautiful but now ancient Lisa. And in a studio in the garden lives a third, the hardworking and put-upon Mrs Potter, whose husband produces singularly untalented prints which never sell. Then there's Lafcadio's granddaughter Linda with her artist fiance Tommy Dacre, and the dealer Max Fustian himself. And of course there's Albert Campion, the celebrated though retiring private detective and an old friend of Belle's.

As the speeches before the unveiling starts, there's a sudden power cut and the studio is plunged into total darkness. Belle remembers that she had forgotten to put a shilling in the meter, and Campion quickly finds the meter and remedies matters. But when the lights go on, a horrific discovery is made - Tommy Dacre has been stabbed to death with a pair of ornate scissors. Who could have done this, and what on earth could the motive have been? No fingerprints are available as the handles of the scissors are completely studded with imitation gems. The police are baffled and Campion is naturally drawn in to try to solve the mystery.

And here's where this novel takes a direction which I think is an unusual one in Allingham's work. Campion works out quite soon who the perpetrator is, even though at this stage the motive is unclear, and shares his knowledge with his friend Detective Inspector Oates. But the two realises that no arrest can be made as the person has made sure of an alibi for this and a second murder which takes place soon afterwards. So the whole of the second half of the novel is concerned with the attempt to get this person to betray themselves. Can this be done before more deaths occur? Well, yes, naturally. But the fun is in seeing the process in action.

I wouldn't say this is one of my favourite Allingham novels, but I've been half in love with Campion since my mother introduced me to him when I was about twelve, so it's a great joy to meet him again. And this passed several happy hours of lockdown time (during which for some reason I seem to be just as busy as ever).