More Hilda Lawrence

I posted on my favourite Hilda Lawrence book, Death of a Doll, earlier this week, and am now rounding up her remaining works. (Her two other books are also on the blog, see below for more.)

 

sad young women, sombrely dressed, but things may get better...

Duet of Death by Hilda Lawrence

published 1949

Two creepy stories: each very much contained in a house of mystery. The first one, Composition for Four Hands, is mostly seen from inside the mind of someone who can’t communicate: Mrs Nora Manson has had some medical catastrophe, and has to be cared for by servants and nurses. We are privy to her thoughts, and know she has something to say. She has a perky nurse, and an aged maid, both of whom seem trustworthy, but how can Mrs M let them know what she wants? Lawrence is very good at creating this situation, and making us feel the frustrations of the key character. It is a novella, Lawrence tried to keep it short and sharp, but I still felt that there was a section where nothing happened, it was all atmosphere and no movement.

The second story, The House again relies hugely on atmosphere. It’s seen through the eyes of a young woman whose father has died: the family lives in a strange and ornate house, and as more and more is revealed about her childhood and the father’s death, the stranger it all becomes. This is very Gothic indeed. There are next-door neighbours, a cheerful loving family, friends since childhood (kind of) and a young man of the right age. But Isobel apparently has no agency – she is stuck in the house of doom, mourning the father she truly loved. I liked the way this very odd story unfolded: there were times when I even thought ‘this sounds mad, but is it meant to be just a rich weird family?’ and the ending was unlikely but satisfying. The story taps into those dreams/nightmares (does everyone have them?) where  you don’t know your own house, people are appearing and disappearing, are there unknown rooms – and what IS that dog doing?

There is a good moment where Issy decides she will wear a yellow dress instead of the mourning her mother dictates – it’s her first step in the right direction.

There is a compelling visit to the squatters’ settlement, ‘the shacks’ on the edge of town, something that turns up in some US books of the era. Her father used to visit there – is there anything to be learned?

And – at the other end of the spectrum – there’s a weird discussion of games and old times: Carrie is one of Isobel’s creepy cousins, and this paragraph burned itself on my mind:

‘I’m a devotee of Fishpond myself,’ Carrie declared. ‘The cunning little hook, the anxious casting, the steady hand, the reeling in the fish! Properly played it can be a very graceful game. The turn of a slender wrist, a pretty bracelet. There’s nothing like a slender wrist and a pretty bracelet. I’ve been admiring yours, dear Mrs Barnaby. I had a friend who caught a fine husband with The Melody of Love on the piano. She couldn’t play, it was the wrist and her grandmother’s bracelet.’

And the secret message: ‘Always open doors when you hear music.’

Kate at Cross-Examining Crime reviewed Duet of Death a while back, and interestingly, unlike me, she preferred the first story to the second: which I see as a recommendation for the book – try it and you might like one of them!

 

The Pavilion aka The Deadly Pavilion by Hilda Lawrence 

published 1946

In the first of the Duet stories, the final answer is not truly spelled out, the suspense of which name is to blame is kept from us in in a stylistic trick. Lawrence does the same thing in this book: the final scene has the heroine Regan overhearing a confrontation. I would say most readers would know who must be the guilty party by then, but afterwards the other characters assemble one by one, and theoretically you have to work out who doesn’t turn up to find out who is the wrongun…

I find this simultaneously annoying – we are paying the writer to do the work, not expected to do it ourselves – and stimulating: Lawrence was experimenting, trying different things, expanding her boundaries. As Kate says in one of her reviews, if she’d written more she might have done a lot more exciting things.

These three are all very similar: the house of doom, the woman trying to survive, the Gothic atmosphere.

The Pavilion perhaps could have benefited from being more of a  novella, like the other two: the story – of all kinds of past crimes - takes a long time to emerge. Regan Carr turns up at a relative’s house after her mother dies: she finds herself in the middle of some very difficult situations, with some very odd relatives and servants. She has to examine her memories, and decide who she can trust. Along with most people who read it, I feel it’s a shame that Regan herself is a cipher, we would all have liked a tougher, more interesting heroine.. but the book keeps your attention and interest.

There is a very odd scene where Regan attends a funeral, and is forced to wear a luxurious but very old-fashioned coat – bought by yet another dead relation, but never worn before. Working backwards, it seems this must have been a 1920s coat, so I liked this for it (from the Library of Congress):

Regan looked at the coat and then at Katy. Somebody was playing a joke. It had to be a joke. She touched the braided scrolls and jet buttons with fascinated, incredulous fingers. ‘Katy! It came out of the Ark!... Do I have to wear it?’

‘It’ll only be for an hour or so, Miss… I told Mrs Herald you had a nice black hat in your suitcase.’

‘Thank you Katy. You can tell Mrs Herald it’s all right.’

 

Another excellent review from Kate over at Cross-Examining Crime here.

All the Lawrence books are now on the blog:  Deathof a Doll this week, then earlier Blood upon the Snow and A Time to Die. Those two are much less Gothic, though Snow is based in a sinister house and again full of atmosphere. They are funny, more entertaining, and feature a series detective, Mark East.

Her books cover a short period in the1940s: Lawrence was productive and trying different things. It seems a shame she stopped writing.