A Brush with Death by Sheila Pim
Another in this short series of mysteries – they are light
and gentle, might be considered cozies, but they are good-hearted and funny,
full of witty observations and unexpected turns. They have the
comedy-of-manners entertainment value of Angela Thirkell or EM Delafield, and a
slight mystery overlaid, and a wonderful picture of middle-class Irish life in
the years just after the War.
In this one, artist Fergus Gandon is taken ill with arsenic
poisoning. He goes to stay with the Fennellys – his sister Hester, her husband,
and grown up daughter Barbara. There is a half-hearted attempt to wonder what
is going on. An artist friend comes to call, and ends up painting a portrait of
Barbara – my vision of this above. (Actually by William Orpen, one of my great favourites, a
painting of Gladys Cooper.)
The Fennellys live near Dublin – the Gandons (he has a wife
and children and servants) much farther into the country, in the Dower House of
a big house owned by Lord Kilscour.
Well! I do like a Dower
House, and an Irish big house…
The book starts with an auction:
The contents of the old “big
houses” in which, as may be gathered from many novels and plays about Ireland,
everybody except the peasantry at one time use to live, are now being turned
out and transferred, by way of the salesrooms, to the modern labour-saving
villas in garden suburbs in which the whole population will be housed in a few
years’ time.
I have featured the exteriors (and house-parties) of many a
Big
House in past posts, so this time we have a drawing-room full of
pictures: similar to the one which has some importance in the book. (From the National
Library of Ireland).
Pim’s previous books dealt with a lot of gardens, and the gardening
content is diminished here, except for one coup de theatre – dahlias were not
introduced to Europe until 1789, so if a still life from an earlier date seems
to feature them…?
There is a splendid discussion of whether a beautiful
painting or a fur coat is more useful to a young woman. She has £50 to spend
from her 21st birthday: she eventually chooses to have her portrait
painted.
I learned an entirely new expression: ‘pompier’ as a French
insult in art. Pompier means fireman, and the term was used to describe big paintings of allegorical, classical or
Napoleonic subjects. The helmets on the warrior subjects were very similar to
those worn by firemen at the time. I strongly recommend the Wikipedia entry on
this, with pictures so you can compare those helmets.
Barbara helps host a teaparty ‘sheathed in a wool jersey
frock which had drawn from Fergus the epithet ‘snakehips’’
I liked the collection of items used in a modern still-life
(no dahlias): 'a wire egg whisk, an electric light bulb unscrewed from the
landing light, an unripe pear, the head square that went with Barbara’s country
tweeds, and two lemons that were wanted to flavour the pudding.'
Aesthetic considerations are unimportant: it is the
inconvenience to the household. Later the artist takes ice-cube trays, and a
gadget belonging to the vacuum cleaner – the final straw for the maid, who
gives in her notice.
I loved the description of Fergus’s wife when the policemen
are discussing her;
“Regular scarecrow… Goes about dressed in slacks and with her hair streeling. You couldn’t accuse her of laying herself out.”
This drew protests from [the others, who] had got an impression of a smartly dressed woman wearing bright red and lipstick to match. Silk stockings, too… or rather nylons”
The first description is so very typical of
Irishmen of a certain generation (who would be horrified by the idea that this
was objectionable) – it made me smile because I could just hear it.
And there is an excellent bit of art talk - no judgement from the author:
Gandon seems to be moving from abstraction towards realism, but without sacrificing his linear rhythms or his unique mastery of the whole keyboard of colour. The great question is, can he integrate this vital interior humanism with the syntax of his exterior composition.
The most shocking moment to modern eyes comes when the
police come to question the ailing artist in hospital: he says “Do smoke…Never
mind dropping ash on the floor; the nurse can sweep it up.”
Is everyone horrified? No: “In a short time the room began
to seem quite cosy.”
The climax of the book comes, excellently, at an art opening, where Nell is tremendously chic in her red tweed suit, matching lipstick and a lapel ornament, while Barbara wears ‘the spring’s first straw hat, a saucerful of spring flowers, looking as if Primavera had been taken in hand by Vogue'.
It is truly not the best crime story anyone has ever read, but I enjoyed it hugely as a comedy of manners and a picture of life.
Woman in slacks is probably much smarter than the Guards
think of her, but I wanted to give her a nice look – Toni Frissell at LOC, 1946
so very much on point.
Hat is by Lilly Dache, a frequent flyer on the blog, and is from a date later than the book, but was such a perfect fit for the description that I had to use it...
Might you consider a post on awful artists (which could include writers) starting with Fergus and his massive self-regard? There's also the father in I Capture The Castle ... Is it OK to be totally self-centred if you are a genius? Of course, it is even worse if you're not! Chrissie
ReplyDeleteThat's a great idea - I'm always fascinated by which literary works of art convince and which don't. I always liked the sound of Henrietta's sculptures in The Hollow, but Lucy Fisher (I think) wasn't impressed, I must question her more!
DeleteAnd Amyas Crale in Five Little Pigs, those pics sound good.
In Daniel Deronda, Gwendolen thinks she could make money by singing professionally, but is told very firmly that she's not good enough - a very painful moment.
Lots of possibilities...
I just finished was some of the Mapp & Lucia stories, and there's an artist Irene Coles (called "quaint Irene") who is shockingly bad-mannered and quite full of herself. Still, not as bad as some of the male artists I've read about!
DeleteThe Campion mystery Death of a Ghost has some awful artists. One of them is dead, and apparently revered although he doesn't sound like such a great guy.
DeleteMarty - I rather like quaint Irene, though whether I'd find her as appealing in real life is another question! She certainly stirs things up in Tilling.
DeleteThere are unsatisfactory artists in a couple of Michael Innes's less way-out mysteries - "Money from Holme" and "A Private View".
Sovay
This is such a fruitful topic - thanks Marty and Sovay.
DeleteI had a soft spot for Quaint Irene I must say, I loved her having a crush on Lucia.
and yes - Death of a Ghost - I loved the way the art world was portrayed there.
Michael Innes a good catch too, he was quite satirical about art IIRC
How wide should the net be cast - do art CRITICS count? If so there's a particularly ghastly one in "Money From Holme".
DeleteSovay
At least quaint Irene was up-front and earnest, as opposed to the more Machiavellian characters!
DeleteNothing subtle about Irene – as far as I recall, if you come round badmouthing her friends she’ll just ring a handbell right in your face until you shut up and go away.
DeleteSovay
Definitely art critics count Sovay!
DeleteAnd yes Irene was very straightforward, as opposed to everyone else in Tilling.
And don't forget the dreadful man in Sayers "Give Red Herrings."
Delete"FIVE" Red Herrings.
Delete(I'm in Toronto and posting on my cell phone, which never turns out well).
Yes indeed, and I think we all knew what you meant...
DeleteI love the idea of that look at life among the middle class at that time, Moira. And a comedy of manners approach is just right for that. I'm not sure why, but the whole arsenic thing just seems to fit into the overall plot and cultural/physical setting, too. I'm glad you enjoyed this.
ReplyDeleteThanks Margot, yes, there's something that really works about the arsenic, as with so many details in the book.
DeleteShades of Strong Poison? Boyes and his circle were pretty obnoxious, and there's a party scene with the artistic set
DeleteStrong Poison has obnoxious writers (Boyes and friends) plus a wild Bohemian party attended by Wimsey.
DeleteThere's also Five Red Herrings which is awash with artists, awful and otherwise.
DeleteSovay
Hundreds of them gathering! Thanks again both.
DeleteIn one of the Sayers books someone describes a important and meaningful novel which features a swimming instructor with a complex, it sounds memorably bad. I think it's a literary party in Gaudy Night.
Bad artists are the most common in books, but I think it's important to remember bad writers and musicians too!
A few writers come to mind – X Trapnel in Anthony Powell’s “Books Do Furnish a Room”, for one. A good writer but hard work on a personal level. Not sure whether to count Odo Stevens as well – he behaves badly in quite a number of ways and he’s a writer insofar as he has any occupation, but one thing you can say for him is that he’s not pretentious about his writing – he certainly wouldn’t claim it justified any bad behaviour on his part.
DeleteThere’s also TT Waring in Powell’s last pre-war novel, “What’s Become of Waring?” – a bad writer behaving very badly.
Augustus Fawnhope in Georgette Heyer’s “The Grand Sophy”, perhaps? Amiably indifferent to everything around him as he pursues his muse, though there’s nothing to suggest that the end result is worth the effort.
Sovay
And yet another Sayers artist - Harwood Lathom in “The Documents in the Case” – a good painter with a very wobbly moral compass.
DeleteSovay
Great collection, there's a lot of these people about! did Odo write 'Sad Majors'?
DeleteHe did! Then Gypsy Jones liquidated the manuscript on political grounds ...
DeleteSovay
Your memory is amazing! I always thought it was a great name for a book, Powell should have kept it for one of his...
DeleteWhat a lovely portrait - a glamorous Gladys for a change!
ReplyDeleteSovay
Yes true - maybe some of the sad maids were named after her!
DeleteGood heavens, how to be disgustingly offensive in at least four distinct ways, in a single efficient sentence:
ReplyDelete“Do smoke…Never mind dropping ash on the floor; the nurse can sweep it up.”
--Fill the air of this hospital with deadly carbon
--Make a mess on the floor
--Some woman will clean up after you
--And that woman will be an educated professional with an important job to perform
I thought pretty much the same thing! I wasn't shocked so much at the smoking, given the times, but "the nurse will clean it up" really got my goat.
DeleteI know - it truly was an astonishing moment, my mouth fell open.
DeleteManual labor of that sort was part of a nurse's job back in the day. In the US at least, nursing was not considered a genteel occupation, not the sort of thing nice girls took up.
DeleteWWII changed that, but I remember a bit from Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific," where he wrote about affairs between American military pilots, who tended to be young men of upper and upper middle-class families, and the nurses who came from a much lower social sphere (and which affairs usually ended badly).
I can see (obv through novel-reading...) that it was a long slow haul to respectability and status for nurses.
DeleteAnd there were definitely opportunities for the nurses to 'marry up' , though in the UK that was doctors rather than pilots! And sometimes it was just an affair. (Brand's Green for Danger)
I once talked to an older Irish lady - she came from one of those big families on a farm ie can't support all the children. She had quite decided that she would become a nun, that was her future. But then the next sister along said 'Oh, go on with you, let's the two of us go to London and become nurses and have some fun.' And they did, and one of them married a doctor...
Marrying up could also mean marrying your patient, especially if you were nursing people in their homes - isn't that how Mrs Percival Fortescue joins the family in Christie's "A Pocket Full of Rye"? She is rather looked down on by everyone, including Miss Marple - not quite quite. I'm sure I've read a number of other Golden Age mysteries (and non-mysteries) in which a genteel family worries that the nurse they've had to employ may set her cap at a member of the family.
ReplyDeleteSovay
Oh yes, a very good point! there was all that 'private nursing' where they went off to someone's house to help out - endess opportunities from genuine romance to undue influence. I feel there was an Anthony Gilbert with that theme?
DeleteI haven't read much Anthony Gilbert, though I have a couple on my list. There's a Patricia Wentworth though - The Watersplash - which features a nurse making a play for the male half of the inevitable young couple, to the disapproval of the local gentry. In this case "Take him and welcome" would be a more logical response, as you imply in your post on the book.
DeleteNurses are definitely a few rungs down the social ladder UNLESS, of course, there's a war on. Being a VAD is absolutely socially OK ... though preferably at a hospital for officers only, I suspect.
Sovay
Watersplash - She was a particularly blatant one, and Wentworth made her opinion clear. I very much enjoyed the character.
DeleteHow true about the VADs...
This is so sad. This book or any of the books in her series would be interesting to me but they are not easy to get here for a reasonable price. I will just have to keep checking for them now and then, you never know when I might be lucky.
ReplyDeleteOh that IS a shame - I thought they might be more easily available in the US, as these were Rue Morgue reprints. I am very grateful to Chrissie Poulson to sending them to me, and I have carefully returned them. How are you on reading them online? I could not find the final one, A Hive of Suspects, for any half-decent price, but eventually read it on the Digital Archive Library. It's not ideal for reading for me - on my laptop - but I so wanted to read it that I managed.
DeleteThanks for the hint on getting the books from the digital archive. I agree that is not easy reading, but at the very least I check out a sample. And I will keep checking Amazon and Abebooks.com. Availability sometimes changes in both places.
DeleteI am happy to tell you that I returned to Abebooks and found 3 of the four Sheila Pim books for reasonable prices. I don't know what my problem was two days earlier but there were many more options available. I look forward to reading one of them soonish.
Delete