Dressing for Christmas Eve

An English Murder by Cyril Hare

published 1951

[excerpt] Briggs [the butler] paused at the door to say, ‘Your ladyship mentioned dressing for dinner. If I may venture to say so, a sleeveless dress is not recommended for this evening. The dining-room, I fear, will be somewhat chilly.’

 

[Mrs Carstairs, talking to Briggs later:] Dinner is at eight as usual, I suppose?’

‘Yes madam. The dressing gong will be sounded at half past seven.’

The difference between Briggs’s feelings for Mrs Carstairs and for Lady Camilla Prendergast might be gauged by the fact that he elected to let her go without any warning as to the probable temperature of the dining-room.

 

comments: I don’t for one moment think that either lady dressed as in the pictures above. This Christmas gathering is in a cold English country house around 1950, and it would be most unlikely that either of them was wearing a couture gown – but I took the chance to look for ‘slightly warmer evening dresses of the time’ which is a small category. Proper evening wear was usually sleeveless and often strapless.

The fact that the house is cold, but also short of both staff and (probably) fuel would not affect the fact of their changing for dinner of course.  Late on in the book, with the houseparty having been snowed in for some time, with three deaths, some of them murder, major revelations and changes in people’s fortunes, & the assignment of guilt – then someone says ‘Dinner will be ready in 20 minutes. It will only be cold scraps, so nobody need dress.’

Well!

I blame the Labour Government – voted in in 1945, and the new regime underpinning the book with their socialist ways.

Cyril Hare writes a good murder story – sometimes they verge on the enjoyably dull, but they are all nice and short. This one, sometimes known as The Christmas Murder, has a small cast and a lot of action. I’d read it before, a long time ago, but only remembered this because one of the characters is working in the Muniment Room of the stately home, and on first reading I assumed this was something to do with weapons and guns (ammunition?) and was surprised to find that it meant ancient documents – this useful fact had stayed in my mind ever since.

There is a disappointing lack of any clothes descriptions – Hare never tells us what the ladies do wear for their Christmas Eve dinner, and the only outfit described at all is a fishing rigout, including waders and hat, used for trying to get away in the snow.

One character says it’s a pity he didn’t bring his skis – maybe a light reference to an Agatha Christie book of 20 years earlier? The same person suggests at one point that they are all locked in together and maybe will be picked off one by one, perhaps thinking of another famous book by Christie…

This is Dr Bottwink, an East European outsider, who observes what is going on and solves the murder. He is a fine character and good fun. He is constantly trying to find out more about British life:

‘I had looked forward to meeting your Chancellor of the Exchequer because there were certain points of constitutional theory and history affecting his office on which I fancied he could enlighten me…’

‘Did you really expect a Cabinet Minister to know the first thing about constitutional history?’ Lady Camilla said. ‘It’s no good thinking you’ll make the party go by trying to cross-examine him about the constitution.’

(it is later revealed that the Chancellor cannot work out the bridge scores and consequent money owing correctly – again, no surprise to UK readers)

Dr Bottwink also reveals the secret to good dinner party conversation (apparently a theory first put forward by Sir Robert Walpole): bawdy talk.

And there is a discussion of the exact status of the phrases ‘we had some words’ ‘I had some words with her’ and ‘we had words’.

The book has a very traditional setting (old house, dying Lord, question of the heirs) but Hare is big on 1950 being a time of change. One of the posh characters is trying to revive fascism, and makes some very inappropriate remarks – he is shown as being wrong, and it is of his time. But still the nice butler Briggs wants to maintain social and class differences, tells his daughter she could never be the equal of Lady Camilla. It’s not clear where Hare stands on all this, and he seems to dip a toe into the idea of a serious discussion, and then decides to back off into old school mystery.

Anyway, an enjoyable seasonal story.

I looked at another Cyril Hare book in my pursuit of church  memorials last year, That Yew Tree’s Shade, and Hare also featured in my Guardian article about book titles coming from Hamlet (With a Bare Bodkin, also featured glancingly here amongst many random thoughts about Hamlet and others.)

Dresses from the Clover Vintage Tumbler.