Published in 1925, this is by Elizabeth von Arnim (1866-1941), whose Enchanted April I so much enjoyed earlier this year. It seems to me that von Arnim's books are just MADE to be read aloud, and my audio-version was narrated quite brilliantly by Eleanor Bron.

Von Arnim seems to excel at setting up conundrums, and whereas I think she ducked out of really taking things to their logical conclusion in The Enchanted April, and half-rescued everyone in a very credulity-stretching way, this time she pulls no punches, and presents us with a bittersweet but very chilling ending.

The story, roughly, is this:

Christopher Monckton and Catherine Cumfrit become aware of each other during one of the umpteen performances of The Immortal Hour that they have both been attending. The young man, exuberant and puppyish, is very drawn to this neat, quiet, pretty little woman in a hat, and makes a determined effort to get to know her better.

Both are a little vulnerable. Christopher has grown up without a mother, and without sisters. He rooms with the kind but dull Lewes, and longs for feminine company. Catherine is a widow, and because of the rather odd terms of her much older husband's will, she now lives in quite straitened circumstances in London while the family home in the country has gone to her daughter, Virginia (also married to a much older man, Stephen, who is a cleric).

Christopher arranges little outings and treats, and Catherine finds herself enjoying them enormously -- until her young friend starts talking about love, a subject that brings their age difference right to the front of her mind. He seems to have no idea how old she is. If she appears in a bad light, he just assumes she's tired. But actually she's significantly his senior... And Virginia is pregnant, so she's about to become a grandmother.



Needing time to think, Catherine rushes off to her daughter's place. Here, the household conspires to make her feel her age... Stephen is slightly older than Catherine, but he's old old, rather than young old, and Virginia, though a young woman, is a very sober one, who seems to have become old before her time. So the atmosphere is far from jolly. Meanwhile, Stephen's mother lives nearby, and despite the generational gap, everyone seems determined to treat the two mothers as though they are on a par. It is assumed by everyone that they are both now past everything except sitting by the fire or taking a gentle turn in the garden. Oppressed by this (and contrasting it with the way Christopher treats her, and the youthfulness that treatment really does confer on her), and fretting that she is not entirely welcome (she isn't), Catherine decides to return to London.

Then up turns Christopher, having finally tracked her down. Not just Christopher, but his motorbike and sidecar. I'll take you back to London, he offers. And of course they run out of petrol, and have to spend the night in a field. It's a terribly innocent night, but when the ghastly Stephen finds out about it, he goes all medieval, and -- even though no-one need know anything about the night in the field if Stephen doesn't tell them -- he insists that his mother-in-law's respectability can be saved only if she marries young Christopher, outrageous though that proposition seems to him.

This is a plotting weakness, I feel. Surely not even Stephen -- whom we admittedly have been taught to regard as somewhat stuffy and ridiculous -- could be as stuffy and ridiculous as that.

Anyway, he gives both partners ultimatums. Marry, or Catherine will never see her daughter again. Christopher is not at all displeased by this. Marry Catherine was exactly what he wanted to do. And despite her misgivings, Catherine concedes. At the ceremony, we learn their exact ages. He is 25, and she is 47. Lewes, the novel's Cassandra, tut-tuts.

Now, anyone with half a brain will KNOW there should be no difference: If it's OK for Stephen to marry Virginia (and everyone thinks it is), then it should be equally OK for Catherine to marry Christopher. (Personally, I think it's inadvisable either way round. In my opinion, which no-one ever asks for on these matters, age differences that amount to a whole generation -- age differences such that one could be the parent of the other -- are sooner or later going to cause problems, whichever one is the senior.)

But SOCIETY has traditionally blessed one type of unequal relationship, and condemned the other. This was the case then, in the 1920s, and frankly I think it's still the case now -- unless you're in the entertainment world, or otherwise very famous.



Sure enough, as soon as they marry, societal disapproval is what Catherine constantly encounters. She winces when people seem embarrassed by the relationship; she is mortified to be taken for Christopher's mother; and she becomes obsessed with her looks, ruthlessly damping down every sign of aging, and even resorting to some quack rejuvenation scheme, which of course does no good.

The ending is a little melodramatic. Stephen goes slightly barmy when Virginia starts her labour. And the poor young woman dies in childbirth... All of which tragedy makes Catherine take a really good hard look at herself, and conclude that she has been on a hiding to nothing by trying to stop the clock, and be what she is not. She will pretend no more.

Christopher rolls up, and is horrified by how haggard she looks. Reality has finally dawned. The whole foundation of their relationship has tilted -- and yet they still love each other.

Catherine offers him divorce, but he is horrified. Too loyal to take up such an option, he is overwhelmed by a desire to protect her:

"We're going to be happy," he tells her. "And if you can't see that we are, I'll see for you till your own eyes are opened again."
"But I do see," she replies. "Every time I look in the glass."

She is determined not to exploit his generous impulses, but decides she must wait. She will love him selflessly, she tells herself, and then -- when he finds out for himself how impossible the situation is -- she will set him free.

Here's that icy little ending I was talking about:

"I'm going to take care of you, Catherine."...
"Are you, Chris? I was thinking that that's what I'm going to do to you."
"All right. We'll do it to each other then."
And they both tried to laugh. But it was a shaky, uncertain laughter, for they were both afraid.

Shivers...



You know from the very beginning that this is going to be a sad story. But there's also plenty of humour (Christopher is laugh-out-loud funny in his descriptions of obstacles that might slow him down, but more generally von Arnim has a genius for sardonically revealing conversation).

I learnt from Gemma Betros that the author at one point had a relationship with publisher Alexander Frere (30 years younger than she), so she had plenty of first-hand experience to build on.

Betros also speculates on von Arnim's decline in popularity, wondering whether the answer "lies in the honesty with which she writes about women, the double standards to which they are habitually subjected, and the men whose unthinking or appalling behaviour so often shapes their life trajectories. Von Arnim said the unsayable with a wit so acidic that only the wilfully unobservant could miss the outrage beneath. The honeyed charm that seemed to characterise so much of her prose could not disguise its bitter aftertaste, an aftertaste that perhaps sat uneasily with readers yearning for a return to structure and predictability after the turmoil of the Second World War, and one at odds with a world unprepared to acknowledge women’s anger with it... The reasons Elizabeth von Arnim’s novels have been neglected are the very reasons they should be remembered."

I for one am happy to remember.