Death and the Maiden by Gladys Mitchell

Death and the Maiden by Gladys Mitchell

published 1947

 

Even by Gladys Mitchell’s normal standards, the plot of Death and Maiden is weird and inexplicable. But on the other hand  - the action takes place in my home town of Winchester (in Hampshire in the UK) and the setting is absolutely beautifully done. There is a mention in the book of a guidebook, and honestly Death and the Maiden would work as one. You can follow the characters as they walk around the town, and it is written with great love and appreciation, she must have known the city very well. Obviously Winchester has changed considerably between 1947 and 2023, but then that just makes it more interesting…

‘I should not have supposed that a child would have been particularly pleased with Winchester. I should have thought it was an adult person’s heaven,’ says Mrs Bradley.

The family at the centre of the story stay in an easily identifiable hotel which they reach by driving past a ‘long garden whose wall still carried stigmata in the form of a small Cross and the date 1872’ – as it turns out, in real life 1880:

Mrs B and her companions visit a tea-room

‘partly supported by the only remaining pillar of William the Conqueror’s Norman palace, a relic which Connie found romantic.’

The plot is set in motion with the absurdity of someone claiming to have seen a naiad or water nymph, and this is a key element of the book. Now, from the centre of Winchester it is no distance to the most beautiful water meadows, rivers and streams imaginable – easily walkable for the cast of characters in their central hotel, who can rush off there, rush back, commit crimes, establish alibis, do some fishing, go swimming, push people into the river, drown a random child. Not every town centre would offer this plot possibility. And Gladys Mitchell always likes rivers and she does the area justice:

Mrs Bradley…walked between streams in that fresh, cold, early morning air, and crossed a two-plank bridge above a six-foot pool, and lingered awhile to look southwards towards Saint Cross and then up at the grove of trees on St Catherine’s brow… it began to seem that the surprising thing might be, not the sight of the naiad, but the failure to be able to see her…

I am going to quote at length from the wonderful Stone House website devoted to Mitchell’s books, because this sums up exactly what I would like to say about this book:

Death and the Maiden is a definite -- maybe the definitive -- example of a Mitchell tale where storytelling imagination outdistances and ultimately defeats coherent plotting. Whether this book "succeeds" depends on the expectations of the reader. If you need clear, linear explanations of motive, alibi, and character provided by the author to come to a satisfying resolution (in other words, if you need a plot where everything "clicks" believably into place), then this book will be a very unrewarding experience. But if you're willing to ride the wave of incidents and accept the story's whimsical meanderings, then you're granted access to a rich, entertaining landscape full of wonderfully devious flora and fauna, a place where Mrs. Bradley, resembling a pterodactyl and capable of extreme strength and a vise-like grip, feels right at home…[then there is] the elusive water-nymph of the River Itchen. You can cite scientific facts and say that such a creature could never exist; I argue that it's more fun to surrender to the siren song and enjoy the enchanted journey upon which you're taken.

 

The book features Laura, Mrs B’s assistant – her great fan, the poet Philip Larkin (seemy post here for more on this), must have loved this one with its succession of real and imaginary women going skinny-dipping.

A splendid, naked figure, firm, buxom and rosy, had just dived over a great clump of flowering rushes and, entering the water like a spear-thrust, had left nothing but the widening ripples and the half-echo of a splash to convince the watchers that they had not been mistaken.

And it is in this book that Laura meets her future husband…

There are some good Mitchell moments – I liked the child whose friend has been murdered:

‘I’m going to the pictures after the funeral, if I can get the money.’

‘But do you think that is right?’ demanded Miss Carmody, shocked by this juxtaposition of entertainment.

‘It’s a sad picture,’ said the child defensively.

Mrs Bradley doesn’t disapprove and later says, when the subject of a ‘sensitive’ child comes up, ‘Lots of children are sensitive, particularly where their convenience is involved.’

The policeman says

‘This seems the place for naiads. It certainly isn’t the spot for two murders, is it? I do think Cathedral cities, and these water-meadows, ought to be immune from horrors, and policemen, and nasty little brutes.’

There’s a  lot about fishing in the book, calling to mind occasionally Ngaio Marsh’s Scales of Justice… though here the fishing has an element of distraction or decoy.

There are also secret passages, priests’ holes and climbable chimneys in the ancient hotel – one of the bedrooms seems to have more ways of accessing it than there are guests in the place, and I never really got to the bottom of who had broken in dressed in white. Then, the author seems to lose interest in all this promising activity and it is scarcely mentioned again. Mitchell, Bradley and the policeman all seem to be very optimistic about fingerprints – it seemed most unlikely they would all survive and be as helpful as expected.

I would say kudos to anyone who can wholly explain the plot – but…

…in the end, Gladys Mitchell makes it clear how much she loves Winchester and its surroundings and its waterways, and that gets her a long way with me:

The morning was pale, fair and misty, with the promise of heat to come. The water-meadows, faintly shrouded, were as beautiful as the fields of the cloths of heaven, and the sound of waters was everywhere. The waters themselves, blue-grey, full-flood, deep-pooled, clear, swirling and haunted with deep weed, furtive fish and the legendary freshness of cresses, divided yet held the landscape.

 

Top  picture of The Swimming Hole by Charles Courtney Curran, used for another Mitchell book featuring swimming and rivers, Sunset over Soho.