Volume 10 Number 3 Article 10

1984

Beneath That Ancient Roof: The House as Symbol in Dorothy L. Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon

Nancy-Lou Patterson

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Recommended Citation Patterson, Nancy-Lou (1984) "Beneath That Ancient Roof: The House as Symbol in Dorothy L. Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 10 : No. 3 , Article 10. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol10/iss3/10

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Abstract Examines the symbolic significance of houses, especially alboT ys, the house in which Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane spend their honeymoon.

Additional Keywords Houses in Busman’s Honeymoon; Sayers, Dorothy L. Busman’s Honeymoon—Symbolism; Nancy-Lou Patterson

This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol10/iss3/10 MYTHLORE 37: Winter 1984 Page 39

Beneath That Ancient Roof The House as Symbol in Dorothy L. Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon Nancy-Lou Patterson

The New House is almost a major H. said her own childish ambition character in my story. had been to make enough money to C.S. Lewis, Suprised by Joy1 buy quaint old farmhouse called Talboys in the next vil­ Dorothy L. Sayers's last detective lage ...Elizabethan, very pretty. novel. Busman's Honeymoon, began as a play of (p. 32) the same name, and was se t in the conventional stage in t e r io r , with the murder Herts is the abbreviation of Hertfordshire, weapon in full view. It is not surprising, the easternmost of the "Western Home then, that the setting—an Elizabethan Counties," and lies to the immediate farmhouse in a country village—figures northwest of Greater London. Needless to largely in the novel. But it plays a role say, there is no Great Pagford there. The more s ig n ific a n t than th at of mere s e ttin g . area has been inhabited for centuries: a It is a symbol in its own right, structuring horse cut in white chalk in that county dates the action and giving a three-dimensional from the tenth century, and before that the order to the relationships of the major Romans b u ilt roads and settle m e n ts. Most of characters. the medieval villages were built of "grey or golden-tinted stone."3 The novel opens with an epistlatory Prothalamion which includes "Extracts from Harriet asks Peter to buy the house for the Diary of Honoria Lucasta, Dowager Duchess her: the Dowager Duchess reports that "she of Denver" as she records the preparations thought Peter 'liked giving people things'" for the marriage of her son Lord Peter Wimsey (p. 32) and remarks that Peter will at last (an amateur detective) and his bride Harriet be repaid for his "five-and-a-half years’ Deborah Vane (a d e te c tiv e n o v e lis t ) . The arrears of patience" in waiting for Harriet Dowager Duchess describes her efforts to to forgive him the gift of her life. This prepare a fine eighteenth century house for passage makes clea r the c e n tr a lity of Talboys the couple to use in London,- In between as a symbol of Peter and Harriet's relation­ mentions of bed-draperies, servants, and sh ip . chandeliers, we learn of another house: By August 24, Lord P e te r ’s agent has Harriet, who has been down to the been instructed to negotiate for Talboys with country to look at a water-mill its present owner, "man called Noakes." (p. (something to do with her new 33) By September 20 the price is settled. book), said she had motored back "Many alterations and repairs needed, but through H erts, and paid a v i s i t to fabric sound." (p. 36) Talboys is to be used her old home at Great Pagford.2 for the honeymoon, "nobody to know anything about it," (p. 37) and the furniture will be There follows the first mention of Talboys: lent for the use of the honeymooners: "own Page 40 MYTHLORE 37: Winter 1984 Peter calls the Rubicon,, suggesting that he, like the conqueror of Rome, is passing within the near limits of his goal) is the River Pagg, perhaps suggesting the Latin word pa- gus, or country (the Pagg is named on p. 246). Great Pagford gives way to Pagford Parva (Pagford minor or lessor). Paggleham is a hamlet or very small village, there, at la s t i s the house. Though the cou p le, e s ­ corted by Bunter, arrives in darkness, the house is described as Harriet remembers it:

Yes—the house—a huddle of black gables, with two piled chimney- stacks, blotting out the stars. One would open the door and step straight in through the sanded entry into the big kitchen with its wooden s e t t l e s and i t s great oak rafters, hung with home-cured hams. Only, Darby and Joan were dead by now...(p. 51)

But in f a c t , "There was no lig h t in any of the windows at Talboys."(p. 51) The arrival i s awkward: H arriet i s anxiou s, and Bunter silently reproachful. There is a gate, there are "flowerbeds, carefully tended and filled with chrysanthemums and dahlias." (p. 52) Nobody answers Lord P e te r ’s "brisk fa n ta sia upon the horn" (p . 52) of h is car. H arriet roof more suited to English gentleman" (p. blames herself. "Her idea in the first 37) than a h o te l, as the Dowager Duchess p la ce. Her house. Her honeymoon. Her— and quotes Lord Peter. Valet Bunter's plan to this was the incalculable factor in the make Talboys ready is aborted when reporters thing—her husband." (p. 52) Idea, house, begin to shadow him in hopes of discovering honeymoon, husband: these are equated in Harriet's mind. where the honeymoon i s to be: " better take Talboys (including drains) on trust." (p. 38) And, the payment made, the house is Peter, meanwhile, sensibly reflects his theirs. The concern with drains is a common­ country upbringing by suggesting they try the place in British life: C.S. Lewis wrote of rear door. In the end, the party is h is boyhood home: "the drains were wrong, admitted, albeit reluctantly, by Mrs. Ruddle, the chimneys were wrong, and there was a a neighbor. Noakes, who "Got some kind of draught in every room." (Lewis, loc. cit. squeeze on the old people and put the brokers in" (p. 59) is away, she says. Peter and As a result of the lack of an advance Harriet drive off to fetch the key from visit, Bunter prepares to depart still Noakes's niece, whose cottage is described as "anxious about the arrangements—or lack of being "like the uglier kind of doll's house." them—at Talboys." (p. 44) On the trip to (p . 60) The London house prepared by the great Pagford Harriet recalls the beginning Dowager Duchess has suggested Lord P e te r 's of her own and Lord P e te r 's d e lic a te m arital identity—"My dear lady, Peter is not the negotiations—their talk about "this question Ideal Man; he is an eighteenth-century Whig of children." (p. 47) Her recollections are gentleman, born a little out of his time^— interspersed with childhood memories: and "a very handsome block of flats with sunshine b a lco n ies and v it a - g la s s and things" This is Great Pagford, where we (p. 60) has pictured the urban side of his used to live. Look! that's our life. In the same way, Agnes Twitterton's ugly little house announces her even before old house with the three steps up she appears in person. to the door—there's a doctor there still, you can see the surgery With the key in hand, the newlyweds lamp... After two miles you take return to Talboys and, with Bunter lighting the r ig h t hand turn for Pagford the way with an electric torch: Parva, and then i t ' s another three miles to Paggleham, and sharp left The party entered into a wide stone by a big barn and straight on up passage strongly permeated by an the la n e . ( p . 50) odour of d ry-rot and b e e f. On the right, a door led into a vast, low- The progress to Talboys is from larger to ceilinged, stone-paved kitchen, its sm a ller— from London to the country. Great rafters black with tim e...(p. 65) Pagford is, as its name suggests, located on an old ford or river crossing: "A town, with This unpleasant reality contrasts with Har­ a wide stone bridge, and lights reflected in r i e t ' s warm memory, quoted above. The stone the r iv e r ." (p . 49) The River (which Lord entry and the kitchen rafters are seen, and MYTH LORE 37: Winter 1984 Page 41 in a moment "Two ancient oak-settles" (p.66) In the meantime, Harriet has discovered that appear in the sitting-room, moved there, we they are to lie on a goosefeather bed. The presume, from their earlier position in the reference is to a British folk ballad, but kitchen by the usurping Noakes. A settle is the goosefeather bed functions as a secondary a large high-backed bench which serves to symbol in this novel: The house represents reflect the heat of a fire-place or grate, the marriage relationship and the bed is the while protecting the back of a seated person place of its consummation. Goosefeathers from draughts, which we have seen already to were a feature of medieval rural life .5 Bun­ be a problem in British houses. Sayers lin­ ter adds the additional discovery that the gers over the rest of the furniture, which chimney "in her ladyship's room was clear," was Noakes's own—"auction-sale bargains"— because "nothing had been burned in it since reflecting his taste and life-style. Among the days of Queen Elizabeth." (p. 73) The "this collection of bric-a-brac" is "an un­ bedroom, then, is directly related to the naturally distorted cactus" which is impor­ medieval past, along with lordship and lady­ tant to the "detective interruptions" of the ship. In fact, Bunter has "succeeded in novel, but not to the "love story." kindling upon the hearthstone a small fire of wood" (p. 74)—a new fire for a new marriage. The house itself, however, is important. Supper ordered by Lord Peter and prepared by Another of its features, mentioned in Har­ Bunter proceeds in a jolly manner, with Bun­ riet's memory description, is its chimneys: ter included at the table. these too are a subject of concern in British households. Mrs. Ruddle reports that "these When H a r r i e t e n t e r s h e r room , she f in d s 'here great chimbleys ate up too much of the heated water, "two brass candlesticks which 'eat." (pp. 66-67) Noakes used oil-stoves bore their flaming ministers bravely," (p. instead. Two other features are also re­ 75) and the four poster bed with "its patch- ported, and we achieve a sense of the lower work quilt of faded blues and scarlets." (p. and upper extent of the house: Mrs. Ruddle 79) The candles increase the sense of a says "Bert—jest shet that cellar door as you spiritual element in the events: they refer goes by—sech a perishin' draught as it do to Psalm 104:4: "who maketh his angels spir­ send up," (p. 67) and "if your ladyship will its; his ministers a flaming fire." Patch- come this w ay...I'll show you the bedrooms." work, a British custom, makes its earliest She opens "a door in the panelling" and ad­ appearance in the Levens Hall bedcoverings of monishes, "Mind the stair, m'lady, but Cumberland, England, dated at the beginning there—I'm forgetting' you knows the house." of the eighteenth century6 "The sheets, worn ( p . 67) thin by age, were of fine linen, and some­ where in the room there was a scent of laven­ These chambers are to be made ready for der." (p. 80) In this room and in this bed, the wedding night: Mrs. Ruddle promises to redolent of traditional comforts and securi­ "jest pop the bed again the fire" (p. 67)— ties, Peter joins his lady. "the sheets is aired beautiful, though linen." (p. 68) Bunter takes a hand as Bunter's bed is less comfortable: he is well: he empties and relines drawers, sets wrapped in great-coats and a rug and lies on out new candles, and, in a beautiful passage that pays homage to his as well as Lord Peter's taste,

He took away Mr. Noakes's chunk of yellow soap, his towels and the ewer, and presently returned with fresh towels and water, a virgin tablet of soap in cellophane, a small kettle and a spirit lam p . . . ( p . 70)

Despite these preparations with their echoes of cleanliness, warmth and light (as well as of virginity and spirit), Harriet notes that "The room, though spacious and beautiful in its half-timbered style, was cold." (p. 70) She hopes "a good roaring fire" will cure the p ro b le m .

But the chimneys prove to be recalci­ trant. When Lord Peter comes in from the woodshed he finds "smoke billowing out into the passage." (p. 71) The chimneys are blocked. Peter, however, is undaunted.

"Send for the sweep to-morrow, Bunter. Heat up some of the turtle soup on the oil-stove and give us the foie gras, the quails in aspic and a bottle of hock in the kitch­ en." (p. 72) Page 42 MYTHLORE 37: Winter 1984

"a couple of arm-chairs." (p. 80) He is to murder weapon, is in sight all the time. be more satisfactorily settled later on: "Mrs. Ruddle had made up a bed for him in one The most obvious images of the honeymoon of the back rooms." (p. 227) But on this situation, the bedroom and the fourposter first night at Talboys, despairing of early goosefeather bed with its chintz hangings and sleep, he pens a letter to his mother. The lavender-scented sheets, its candle-fire, chapter closes with a prophetic sentence: warm water, virgin soap (Peter comes to bed "of the sleepers beneath that ancient roof, freshly washed in cold water—like a school­ he that had the hardest and coldest couch boy—from the scullery pump) and a fireplace enjoyed the quietest of slumbers." (p. 81) fire of wood, pile sensory signal upon sen­ The reader is to discover that Sayers is not sory signal of cozy comfort: fragrance, soft­ referring to the contrast between Bunter, ness, warmth, and delicate light. Here in sleeping alone on arm-chairs, and Peter and the height of the house, up a stair, the Harriet on a goosefeather bed in their nup­ lovers unite at last, while Bunter reposes on tial embraces, but between all these living the main floor, where the kitchen and sitting occupants and the corpse of Noakes in the room are located, and the corpse lies in the cellar, on the "hardest and coldest couch" of cellar belowstairs. The three-level struc­ a stone floor, whose "quietest slumbers" are ture of the house relates to the old three- those of death. story universe: the day-to-day affairs of middle-earth occur on the main floor. Sayers In these introductory chapters, the knew this universe well: it furnished the house has served to focus the action. The stage setting of medieval religious drama. plan to buy it is carried out, and the honey­ In the beginning of the York Pageant of the moon of the novel's title is to take place Creation, God's speech sets out the struc­ there. The entranceway of Talboys becomes t u r e : the entrance of the couple into their wedded state: Harriet, Lord Peter, and Bunter each Here underneath me now an isle I responding in their own way. The kitchen is n e v e n , presented both a Harriet remembers it from Which isle shall be earth. Now all her childhood and as it is at the time of the be at once: novel's action. Lord Peter's childhood is Earth, wholly, and hell; this represented by his sensible countryfied reac­ highest be heaven,7 tions to the physical problems. The Elizabe­ than setting presents a background of the and in the action of the York Cycle, "God the stable past, while the oil-stoves and motley Father, on the Heavenly level above, casts furniture provide a foreground of the tempo­ down Lucifer and his angels through a trap rary present. The reference to the cellar door into Hell, depicted on the lower level door and its perishing draught gives the of the pageant."8 At Talboys, Hell, or the first hint of the macabre discovery which cellar, occupied by a murdered sinner, yawns awaits, and the repeated mentions of the below, with a cold draught pouring from its recalcitrant chimneys prepare us for what door; hell is icy cold at its depth in The will prove to be a significant clue. The Divine Comedy: The Emperor of the Sorrowful realm was t h e r e , Out of the girding ice he stood breast high,9

It is Satan's wings which create the cold w ind :

...as they flapped and whipped Three winds went rushing over the icy f l a t And f r o z e up C o c y t u s . . . 10

The upper level of the medieval universe, Heaven, suggested by the "flaming ministers" of the candles, by the spirit lamp, by water, by fragrant herbs ana sweet-burning wood, offers a paradisal marriage bed out of the Song of Songs. Sayers is orthodox here too,- of course, in making marriage a celestial and supernal symbol. To assure the precision of the imagery, Sayers makes Peter call Harriet "my Shulamite" at the beginning of the next chapter when they awaken in bed together in the morning. The epithet "Shulamite" appears in the Song of Solomon 6:13, in the same chapter which contains the sentence, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." (S.S. 6 :3 )

Daylight thus introduced, the new day MYTHLORE 37: Winter 1984 Page 43 reveals more about the house. Peter's window is so located that he can sit in it and call out to the' people below, looking down upon his domain like a whimsical image of God looking down upon His Creation in the medie­ val mystery play. Meanwhile, the chimney sweep has been summoned. Harriet discovers a backstairs—which becomes nicknamed the "Privy Stair" and re-appears in the short story "Talboys"—leading to the "modern con­ venience" as well as "at length into the scullery and so to the back door." (p. 91) Outside, there is a well-kept garden: There were cabbages at the back, and celery trenches, also an asparagus bed well strawed up and a number of scientifically pruned apple-trees. There was also a small cold-house sheltering a hearty vine with half a dozen bunches of black grapes on it and a number of half-hardy plants in pots. (p. 91)

The front of the house (seen by electric torch the night before) gives in daylight "a good show of dahlias and chrysanthemums and a bed of scarlet salvias." (p. 92) The combi­ nation of vegetable, fruit, and flower is part of a tradition of Western literature concerning the locus amoenus or "pleasant place" which probably begins in European turmoil, with the sweep hard at work, and literature with the garden of Alcinous in The Peter, Harriet, and Miss Twitterton watching Odyssey: "Beyond the last row of vines were him from indoors, a new character appears. neat beds of all kinds of garden-stuff, ever He is Frank Crutchley, and he is, signifi­ f r e s h and g r e e n .Harriet 11 and Peter (who cantly, "peering in the window." (p. 101) looks down from the window above) engage in a That is, he is outside the house while more witty conversation full of garden quotations innocent characters are inside. Like Aggie to emphasize the paradisal scene. Twitterton with her ugly "doll's house," Frank Crutchley is given a domicile in the When the sweep arrives to clear the novel, but it is not a house. He works at a chimneys, Peter cries, "All my life I have garage and sleeps in a room above it which he waited to hear those exquisite words, Peter shares with the other garageman, Williams. darling, the sweep's come. We are married, The room has a small dormer but no other by Godl We are married." (p. 96) For him, a m e n itie s . ( p . 234) When he c o u r ts P o lly too, the house embodies the marriage. Noakes Mason he resorts to "a big old barn with a has sold the Tudor chimney pots and replaced tiled roof" (p. 355) and his ill-fated affair them with small, unsuitable contemporary with Aggie Twiterton has been pursued, signi­ pots. Since the Tudor setting symbolizes the ficantly, in the churchyard: that is, in the importance and role of time, we are not sur­ village cemetery, (p. 358) Otherwise Crutch- prised that the pots have been sold to make ley's environment, the garage, includes a sundials. The emphasis in the novel upon canal and a gas-works, all reinforcing the chimneys and hearths calls attention again industrial motif, the sense of something and again to the house and its symbolism. alien to countryside and Tudor period alike. Oliver Marc, in his study, The Psychology of All of this is expressed in advance by his the House, states that 'the hearth was placed glance through the window of Talboys. in the house as a symbol of the vital core of th e human being."12 He continues, "In Europe until the Renaissance, the hearth, like the Once inside the house, Crutchley chimney on the roof, was elaborately deco­ searches "over the room as though seeking rated by architects and artists, thus empha­ counsel." Like Adanf (who also fell) he is sizing its importance in the collective psy­ the gardener, and he is looking nervously for che of the times." (Marc, op.cit., p. 99) the former master of the garden. He is in­ Furthermore, and exactly apposite to the troduced to the new owners, and proceeds to novel: "Today we consider the fireplace the water the plants, whereupon Mr. Goodacre, the symbol of country life, which is indicative Vicar, arrives, and is also introduced: "You of the severance from nature which city life see, padre, we are old-fashioned country-bred has imposed." (Ibid.) This explains why the people." Lord Peter is not joking and nei­ bedroom fire was laid by Bunter of wood "upon ther is Sayers. She was an old-fashioned the hearthstone," rather than of coal in a country-bred person, and her villages in g r a t e . Busman's Honeymoon depict elements of her own childhood. In her sensitive biography of In the midst of this scene of domestic Sayers, Nancy M. Tischler has commented: Page 44 M YTH LORE 37: Winter 1984

An artist with Dorothy L. about the cellar—"there weren't rats..." (p. Sayers’ kind of imagination takes 141)—and he reassures her that it is "Just a the stuff of her life and perfectly good cellar." In the end they transforms it into art. She was decide to stay in their honeymoon house. four years old when her family "Country people are very m atter-of-fact about moved from their comfortable life life and death. They live so close to real­ in Oxford to Bluntisham Rectory in ity." (p. 142) The house is the house of the fen country. Here she came to country people: the house, then is reality. understand the town without the gown—the small English village.13 In support, as it were, of this concep­ tion, there follows a brief description of Sayers passed her later life in another its rooms and passages, filled with activity village, "Witham, just outside London." necessitated by the finding of a corpse with­ (Ibid.) Many commentators have remarked on in its walls. The sitting-room is cleared, a the sim ilarity of Harriet D. Vane to Dorothy fire kindled, a table set, the cellar door L. Sayers: they are both women, both shut, the kitchen used to make sandwiches, detective novelists, both reared in the the scullery cleared of its contents to ready country. Tischler comments on the a table on which to lay the body. Bunter "established roles and set patterns" of stands at the back door and Mr. McBride village life: Sayers's father was a vicar, a strolls the back-yard: "he had the air of role paralleled to that of H arriet's father: inventorying its contents." (p. 143) The "He [the vicar] works with his mind like the house is presented as a fully developed rep­ doctor, but he heals the spirit rather than resentative of its type. The sixteenth cen­ the body. Like the doctor, he may be one of tury, the period of the Tudors. "opened in the few educated men in the country." (Ibid.) the spirit of the Middle Ages."14 Writing of "the small informal house or cottage of Eventually the entire group, including brick, stone, cob or half timber" associated bunter and Mrs. Ruddle, watches as the sweep with the sixteenth century, A.H. Gardner fires a shotgun up the chimney, and, n full remarks: "There is no more charming sight view of them all, a second central piece of than this 'vernacular' architecture, pre­ evidence—a fragment, indeed, of the murder served in cottage and small house in many a weapon, drops upon the hearth. The house is country town and village." (Ibid, , p. 67) giving up its secrets, or at least coughing Writing in the same vein, Stephen Gardiner them forth. In traditional house symbolism describes "the familiar Tudor house period" in primitive cultures, the chimney or smoke- in which the "timber frame structure was hole was the rdute to the upper world, (Marc, revived; it was a peacetime theme."15 op. c it. , p. 100) so there is a certain deus Sayers is appealing to a widely-received ex machina element in this event. Into the convention in choosing the architecture and sooty scene comes a creditor, Mr. McBride, to style of the house. seek repayment of a loan: Noakes' possessions are threatened with being carried away, leav­ When Superintendent Kirk arrives to take ing the house closer to its primaeval state. up the case, all is in order. Peter, Har­ riet, and MacBride enjoy an amicable supper-- Finally, in Chapter VI, after a long Harriet reflects that he is their first din­ "financial" conversation between Lord Peter ner guest. They are joined by Kirk for an and the newcomer, the house gives up its after dinner conversation of shared quota­ deepest secret. tions. Then, Kirk begins his enquiries with a question about the house. "About them "Excuse me, my lord." Bunter stood doors, now. You're sure they were both lock­ on the threshold empty-handed. ed when you arrived?" The mystery is the "I'm afraid we have found Mr. classical locked-door puzzle, and the house Noakes." (p. 135) provides the doors. Many of the details which supplied elements of atmosphere when Wimsey is aghast. "Where? Down the cellar?" the couple arrived, now provide clues to the (p. 130) And so he proves to be. Within events of the murder. This is the beginning moments yet another character arrives: Con­ of the "detective interruptions," and the stable Joe Sellon. Most of the company are house plays a part in them as well as in the now onstage. "love story." Three chapters later, Bunter returns from his own investigations at the In the following chapter Harriet notes village pub, tidies the bedrooms, and the with entertainment that her husband, back at newlywed retire, this time to Peter's room. his detectival task, has changed his clothes: "Someone has died in our house, so we put on But the detectival interruption stretch­ a collar and tie." (p. 140) Death has found es on. At one point Harriet and Peter escape a place in the house, along with marriage. for a drive in the country, and there they Peter meditates on this theme—"You know, discover a sun-dial made from one of their that bed must be pretty nearly as old as the own Tudor pots. "I think the luck went out house—the Original bits of it anyhow. It of the house with the chimneypots, and it's could tell a good many tales of births and our job to bring it back," ( p. 291) Peter deaths and bridal nights." (p. 140-141) So opines, and his notion is echoed by a carter the house and its bed symbolize the full they meet: "The very man wot sold vicar the round of human life and of the generations in chimbley-pot, 'e was found dead in his own their endless repetition. Harriet asks him 'ouse only yesterday." (pp. 299-300) The MYTHLORE 37: Winter 1984 Page 45 dismantling of the house has brought about And diamonded with panes of quaint i t s own r e v e n g e . d e v ic e 16

Miss Twitterton suffers a little too at and the hands of the house, for she is trapped upstairs where she has been arguing with Full on this casement shone the wintry Crutchley when the couple return. The sounds moon of domestic comfort terrify her, as they once And threw warm gules [red] on M adeline's delighted Harriet: "Next door she heard the fair breast. crackle of a kindled fire, the rattle of curtain rings upon the rods, a subdued click, The lover sees her first at her prayers and the pouring of fresh water into the ewer." then, letting down her hair and slipping off (pp. 325-326) She flees down the stairs and her clothing, she takes to her bed. In That creeps past the door, where she sees "framed Hideous Strength, Jane, escorted by mating in the glowing circle of the lamplight, the elephants (instead of mating cats) goes two figures... bright and motionless as a through a night "unseasonably warm for the picture." She is discovered, and pours out time of year" to the cottage where her her heart-broken story of Frank Crutchley's husband awaits her: betrayal of her love for him. Then she noticed that the window, There follows an absolute confrontation the bedroom window, was open. between Lord Peter and his wife in which they Clothes were piled on a chair consider—and reject—the idea of running inside the room so carelessly that away. Peter proposes it, thinking it is her they lay over the sill: the sleeve wish, and she refuses: "Whatever marriage is, of a shirt—Mark's shirt—even hung it isn't that." (p. 343) In that moment, she over down the outside w a l l ." 17 gives him the freedom he has given her, and they are fully equals. In this passage, it is the male who has d is r o b e d . Harriet looked at the clock. It seemed to her that she had lived But the night is not peaceful. Lord through interminable ages of Peter is afflicted with a terrible nightmare. emotion. but the hands stood at a Something the house has shown him is teasing quarter past eight. Only an hour at his unconscious. He awakes to find Bunter and a half had gone by since they preparing for the "village funeral" of had entered the house, (p. 345) Noakes. (p. 365) The matter of Solomons and So the house is the place where the couple MacBride approaches completion too: the fur­ obtain the "Crown Imperial which entitles the niture is to be taken away, while the wedding c h a p t e r . couple absent themselves for the weekend. Harriet watches the departure of the furnish­ In the next chapter Peter is already in g s . planning "a workable hot-water system" and "a bathroom over the scullery." (p. 346) The Then, smitten by a sudden pang, she problem of drains has been addressed: he is hastened into the pantry. It was ready to take full possession. Harriet already stripped. With the furies suggests a new kitchen range (for Bunter's at her heels, she bounded down the sake and there is a discussion of dogs. At cellar steps, not even pausing to this pint a second creditor arrives—Mr. remember what had once lain at the Solomons—and proposes to take away the foot of them. (p. 373) furniture. He and MacBride are invited to supper and the matter approaches settlement. But all is well: his lordships's "two- Kirk arrives, and during his conversation and-a-half-dozen of port lay carefully ranged with the couple the murder moves close to its upon racks." (p. 374) H arriet's concern for solution. Night brings Peter and Harriet to her husband's port has exorcised any ghosts bed again. "The window was still open; for that might have lingered in the cellar. October, the air was strangely mild and still." (p. 362) A cat cries out but Peter As item after item is carried out of the stays his hand:. he "drew the casement to and house, little remains except the plants—the fastened it." Below, Bunter "flung a boot huge cactus among them—-which are to go to from the back bedroom" (p. 362) The the Vicar. He comments that this especially stillness and strange warmth as well as the ugly plant is "on a longer chain." Dream and casement contain echoes of Keats's "casement" reality come together, and "Peter's gasp was in The Eve of St. Agnes and of the closing like a sob." The house's final contents have image of C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength. made the secret known. After a few moments The rich sexuality of Keats's poem climaxes of investigation, Peter gives his orders. as Porphyro gazes on his love, Madeline, "Here are the housekeys. Make sure that w here Ruddle and Puffet and Crutchley are all in­ side." (p. 392) Harriet tiptoes about the A casement high and tripled arch'd there house on these orders: "She locked the front -was, door, and the house was fast, as it had been All garlanded with carven im ag'ries on the night of the murder." (p. 393) Of fruits, and flowers and bunches of In the locked house, Lord Peter shows k n o t- g r a s s how Noakes met his death by re-enacting the Page 46 M YTH LORE 37: Winter 1984 murder process, and the murderer, shouting in The reference is to Matthew 12:44 and Luke frenzy, is dragged "from the room." (p. 401) 1 1 :2 5 : Peter watches from within as the killer is "hauled past the window, still struggling in When an u n c le a n s p i r i t i s gone o u t the four men's hands." (p. 402) Again, being of a man, he walketh through dry Outside the house is a symbol of separation places, seeking rest, and findeth from others, of the guilty from the innocent. none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came The discovery of the killer is not quite out; and when he is come, he find­ the end of the novel; there is an Epithala- eth it empty, swept, and garnished. mion. Peter and Harriet plan to go "up to Then goeth he, and taketh with him­ Town," after leaving orders for the recovery self seven other spirits more of the displaced chimney pot, and a conversa­ wicked than himself, and they enter tion about "that bathroom extension." Peter in and dwell there: and the last proposes to hire Thipps, a character from the state of that man is worse than the first of Sayers's novels, Whose Body? Har­ f i r s t . 19 riet is glad to hear that her husband has not "taken...a misliking to Talboys." (p. 408) But the last state of Talboys is better than "While I live," Lord Peter declares, "no the first: Lord Peter returns. Harriet waits owner but ourselves shall ever set foot in for him to come to her: "She held her breath it." (p. 409) And indeed, though Busman's till she heard his footsteps mount slowly and Honeymoon is the last of Sayers's novels, the reluctantly and enter the next room." (p. last (and posthumously) published of her 442) At last he enters, coming into the short stories describes Peter and Harriet bedroom, the heart of the house and its living in Talboys with their three sons, meaning. "You're my corner and I've come to Bredon, Roger, and Paul, having left behind hide," (p. 443) he confesses. The corner is "the stately publicity of town life" for "a the house: Gaston Bachelard writes in his really small place in the country,"18 where meditation on The Poetics of Space: Harriet took her husband into her own room ...every corner in a house, every (the furthest of the two bedrooms from the angle in a room, every inch of main part of the house) and put the two older secluded space in which we like to boys in the dressing-room, making room for an hide, or withdraw ourselves, is a elderly house-guest, Miss Quirk. symbol of solitude for the imagination; that is to say, it is In the end, the couple does not go up to the germ of a room, or of a Town in Busman's Honeymoon; instead they h o u se . 20 drive to Duke's Denver, Lord Peter's Peter and Harriet spend the long night ancestral home. "At the far end of the together, waiting in torment for the morning. avenue, the great house loomed grey against Their bedroom window appears for the last the sunlight--a long Paladian front, its time: "Through the eastern side of the windows still asleep, and behind it the casement, the sky grew pale with the chimney and turrets of rambling wings and forerunners of the dawn." (p. 445) We last odd, fantastic sprouts of architechtural see Lord Peter in the novels, weeping upon fancy." (p. 417) In this house, which of the breast of his wife. Idea, house, course symbolizes Lord Peter's origins, the husband, wife: the images are complete. most fantastic moment of the fourteen novels occurs; Harriet sees the family ghost, Cousin Matthew. Here the house of Lord Peter's childhood both reveals his past and embodies NOTES his identity, the last of the series of 1 C.S. Lewis, Surprised b j Joy (London: . houses Sayers has used to personify a person Geoffrey Bles, 1955), p. 1 7 '. in this novel. 2 Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman1s Honeymoon Peter and Harriet complete their honey­ (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1976 moon in Spain while the Dowager Duchess ar­ [1937]), pp. 31-32. All additional page references to this source are included ranges to send furniture from the Hall up to Talboys, and sees to the painting and plas­ in the text. tering. The bathroom will be added when the 3 Book of British Villages (Basingstoke, frosts are over. Talboys has one last image Hants: Drive Publications Ltd., 1980), to offer in the novel. While the murderer p . 42 7 . awaits execution, Peter and Harriet return to 4 Dorothy L. Sayers, The Mind of the Maker their Tudor Parmhouse, "admiring the arrange­ (New York: Meridian Books, 1956 [1941]),- ment of the house and furniture," (p. 436) p. 128. and continuing to search for missing chimney 5 Dorothy Hartley, Lost Country Life (New pots. On the night before the hanging, Peter York: Pantheon Books, 1979), see pp. goes for a long desperate drive in his car, 234-237 for a description of goose- alone, while Bunter and Harriet await his feather beds. r e t u r n . 6 Patsy and Myron Orlofsky, Quilts in A m erica, (New Y ork: McGraw H i l l , 1 9 7 4 ), The old house was Harriet's companion in her vigil It waited pp . 6 -7 . with her, its evil spirit cast out, 7 A.C. Cawley, ed., Everyman and Medieval itself swept and garnished, ready Miracle Plays (London: J.M. Dent and Sons for the visit of devil or angel. Ltd. 1956), p. 4, 11. 24-27. (P . 441) Continued on page 48 Page 48 M YTH LORE 37: Winter 1984

Farmer Giles is set in England, in a Continued from page 46 time before the Saxon debacle, when various British kinglets were still playing at being 8 E. Martin Browne, Introdution, Religious Roman potentates... and of course when Drama 2, M ystery and M o ra lity P la y s (New dragons, giants, and all that were in full York: Meridian Books, 1958), p. 11. C.S. cry. It is specifically set in a portion of Lewis wrote wryly of Bishop J.A.T. the Thames valley east of Oxford. At the Robinson's attempts to topple this beginning this region is part of the "Middle ancient symbolic structure: "We have long Kingdom"; at the end it is an independent abandoned b e l i e f in a God who s i t s on a "L ittle Kingdom". throne in a localized heaven." C.S. Lewis, "Must Our Image of God Go?", God A number of places, all of them real, in the Dock (Grand Rapids, Mich: William are mentioned in Farmer Giles; and a cur­ B. Eerdmans, 1970), p. 184. sory tour of the area shows a few more points 9 The Comedy of Dante A lighieri, Cantica I , of interest. The towns or parishes of H ell, trans. Dorothy L. Sayers (Harmonds- Ham(mo), Oakley, Worminghall, Farthingho(e), w o rth : P e n g u in , 1 9 4 9 ), C anto XXXIV, 11. and Oxenford (now Oxford) are all mentioned, 28-29 as well as the Otmoor, an area west of Ox­ 10 I b i d . , C anto XXXIV, l l . 5 0 -5 2 . ford. It is interesting to note, since Giles 11 The O d y ssey , W.H.D. Rowse, t r a n s . , (New was known as Lord of Tame, that a river and York: Mentor, 1960), p. 78. town of Thame lie not too far to the west, 12 Oliver Marc, Psychology of the House, the Thame flowing into the Thames. In fact, trans. Jesie Wood, (London: Thames and in 1938 Tolkien made reference to "the L ittle Hudson, 1977), p. 98. Kingdom (with its capital at Thame)" (Let­ 13 Nancy M. Tischler, Dorothy L. Sayers, _A ters , p. 39), which leads one to wonder. Pilgrim Soul (Atlanta: John Knox Press, However, Farmer Giles itself refers to the 1980), p. 8. L ittle Kingdom as being in "the valley of the 14 A.H. Gardner, Outline of English Archi­ Thames^ (p. 66 of the combined edition with tecture (London: B.T. Basford, 1948), Smith of Wooton Major. emphasis mine). Third Edition, p. 62. A map of this region allows us to find 15 Stephen Gardiner, Evolution of the House Frogmore, St. Albans, Herts: Granada other places with literary associations as well. Southeast of Ham is the town of Buck- (Paladin), 1976), p. 153. land...and it's a good bet that a highly 16 John Keats, "The Eve of St. Agnes," v. detailed map would reveal more names from the x x iv , 11. 2 0 8 -2 1 1 . Shire in Oxenfordshire. To the south and 17 C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (Lon­ west of Buckland is the Vale of the White don: The Bodley Head, 1945), p. 476. Horse, recalling the emblem of Rohan. 18 Dorothy L. Sayers, "Talboys," Striding Folly (London: New English Library, 1973 In the same area lies Wantage, where [1972]), p. 108. Alfred the great was born. Its true 19 Mathew 12:43-45. The story is told in immortality, however, lies in the classic Luke in almost the same words. l i m e r i c k : 20 Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space., There was a young lady of Wantage trans. Maria Jolas, (Boston: Beacon Of whom th e Town C le rk to o k a d v a n ta g e . Press, 1969 [1958], p. 136. Said the County Surveyor, "Of course you must pay her; You've altered the line of her frontage."

Finally, between Ham and Oxford, lies the town of Wootton, presumably the site of Smith of Wooton Ma jor. There is also, further west, a town of Wooton Under Edge...and of course Tolkien speaks of two W o o tto n s.

Appended to this short article is a map, done in part from descriptions of where places are located, rather than seeing the actual dots on a printed page. In this re­ gard, I am indebted to Ben Urrutia for first calling my attention to the fact that such a map was possible. In addition, also used were (1) Humphrey Carpenter's Tolkien, (2) David Dettman's "A Glossary to Farmer Giles of Ham" (in Minas Tirith Evening-Star, 9.9), (3) Encyclopedia Britannica, XI Ed. (1910), Vol. IX, Map of England and Wales (part III), (4) in Gershon Legman's The Limerick (#987) PREVIEW OF THE NEXT ISSUE: Issue 38 will or in William S. Baring-Gould's The Lure of feature some of the best papers given at the 1983 the Limerick (p. 228); an interesting variant Mythopoeic Conference. Besides the wide spectrum can be found on p. 178 of Louis Untermeyer's of articles, there will be all the regular and new Lots of Limericks. features. Do not miss this very fine issue.