WEBVTT

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<v Speaker 1>Everybody dies, isn't that sort? You've tried to get into

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<v Speaker 1>the long drow today?

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<v Speaker 2>Didn't you?

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<v Speaker 1>How do that they'd come back? What a secret?

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<v Speaker 2>The death Mask by H. D. Everett. Yes, that is

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<v Speaker 2>a portrait of my wife. It is considered to be

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<v Speaker 2>a good likeness, but of course she was older looking

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<v Speaker 2>towards the last. Enderby and I were on our way

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<v Speaker 2>to the smoking room after dinner, and the picture hung

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<v Speaker 2>on the staircase. We had been chums at school a

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<v Speaker 2>quarter of a century ago, and later on at college,

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<v Speaker 2>but I had spent the last decade out of England.

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<v Speaker 2>I returned to find my friend a widower of four

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<v Speaker 2>year standing, and a good job too, I thought to

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<v Speaker 2>myself when I heard of it, For I had no

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<v Speaker 2>great liking for the late Gloriana, but probably the sentiment

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<v Speaker 2>or want of sentiment, had been mutual. She did not

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<v Speaker 2>smile on me, but I doubt if she smiled on

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<v Speaker 2>any of poor Tom Enderby's bachelor cronies. The picture was

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<v Speaker 2>certainly like her. She was a fine woman who with

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<v Speaker 2>aquiline features and a cold eye. The artist had done

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<v Speaker 2>the features justice, and the eye, which seemed to keep

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<v Speaker 2>a steely watch on all the comings and goings of

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<v Speaker 2>the house out of which she had died. We had

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<v Speaker 2>made only a brief pause before the portrait, and then

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<v Speaker 2>went on. The smoking room was an apartment built out

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<v Speaker 2>at the back of the house by a former owner

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<v Speaker 2>and shut off by double doors to serve as a nursery.

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<v Speaker 2>Missus Enderby had no family, and she disliked the smell

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<v Speaker 2>of tobacco, so the big room was made over to

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<v Speaker 2>Tom's pipes and cigars. And if Tom's friends wanted to smoke,

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<v Speaker 2>there must smoke there, or not at all. I remembered

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<v Speaker 2>the room and the rule, but I was not prepared

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<v Speaker 2>to find it still exist. I had expected to light

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<v Speaker 2>my after dinner cigar over the dessert dishes. Now there

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<v Speaker 2>was no presiding lady to consider. We were soon installed

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<v Speaker 2>in a couple of deep cushioned chairs before a good fire.

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<v Speaker 2>I thought. Enderby breathed more freely when he closed the

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<v Speaker 2>double doors behind us, shutting off the dull formal house

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<v Speaker 2>at the staircase and the picture. But he was not

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<v Speaker 2>looking well. There hung about him an unmistakable air of depression.

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<v Speaker 2>Could he be fretting after Gloriana? Perhaps during their married

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<v Speaker 2>years he had fallen into the way of depending on

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<v Speaker 2>a woman to care for him. It is pleasant enough

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<v Speaker 2>when the woman is the right sort. But I shouldn't

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<v Speaker 2>myself have fancied being cared for by the late missus Enderby.

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<v Speaker 2>And if the fretting was a fact, it would be

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<v Speaker 2>easy to find a remedy. Evelyn has a couple of

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<v Speaker 2>pretty sisters, and we would have him over to stair

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<v Speaker 2>at our place. You must run down and see us,

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<v Speaker 2>I said, presently, pursuing this idea. I want to introduce

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<v Speaker 2>you to my wife. Can you come next week? His

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<v Speaker 2>face lit up with real pleasure. I should like it,

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<v Speaker 2>of all things, he said heartily. But a qualification came

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<v Speaker 2>after the cloud settled back over him, and he sighed,

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<v Speaker 2>that is, if I can get away, why what is

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<v Speaker 2>there to hinder you. It may not seem much to

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<v Speaker 2>stay for, but I've got into the way of stopping

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<v Speaker 2>here to keep things together. He didn't look at me,

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<v Speaker 2>but leaned over to the fender to knock the ash

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<v Speaker 2>off his cigar. Tell you what, Tom, you are getting

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<v Speaker 2>hipped living by yourself. Why don't you sell the house

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<v Speaker 2>or let it off just as it is and try

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<v Speaker 2>a complete change. I can't sell it I'm only the

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<v Speaker 2>tenant for life. It was my wife's. Well, I suppose

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<v Speaker 2>there's nothing to prevent you letting it, or if you

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<v Speaker 2>can't let it, you might shut it up. There's nothing

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<v Speaker 2>legal to prevent me. The emphasis was too fine to

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<v Speaker 2>track notice, but I remembered it after. Then, my dear fellow,

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<v Speaker 2>why not knock about a bit and see the world.

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<v Speaker 2>But to my thinking, the best thing you could do

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<v Speaker 2>would be to marry again. He shook his head drearily.

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<v Speaker 2>Of course, it is a delicate matter to urge upon

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<v Speaker 2>a widower. But you have paid the utmost ceremonial respect.

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<v Speaker 2>But four years, you know, the greatest stickler for propriety

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<v Speaker 2>would deem it ample. It isn't that, Dick. I've a

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<v Speaker 2>great mind to tell you a rather queer story. He

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<v Speaker 2>puffed hard at his smoke and stared into the red

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<v Speaker 2>coals in the pauses. But I don't know what you

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<v Speaker 2>think of it, or think of me. Try me, I said,

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<v Speaker 2>I'll give you my opinion after, and you know I'm

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<v Speaker 2>safe to confide in. I sometimes think I should feel

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<v Speaker 2>better if I told it. It's it's queer enough to

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<v Speaker 2>be laughable, But it hasn't been any laughing matter to me.

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<v Speaker 2>He threw the stump of his cigar into the fire

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<v Speaker 2>and turned to me, and then I saw how pale

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<v Speaker 2>he was, and that adieu of perspiration was breaking out

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<v Speaker 2>on his white face. I was very much of your opinion, Dick.

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<v Speaker 2>I thought I should be happier if I married again,

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<v Speaker 2>and I went so far as to get engaged. But

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<v Speaker 2>the engagement was broken off. And I'm going to tell

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<v Speaker 2>you why. My wife was sometime ailing before she died,

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<v Speaker 2>and the doctors were in consultation, but I didn't know

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<v Speaker 2>how serious a complaint was till the last. Then they

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<v Speaker 2>told me there was no hope, as coma had set in,

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<v Speaker 2>but it was possible, even probable, that there would be

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<v Speaker 2>revival of consciousness before death. And for this I was

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<v Speaker 2>to hold myself ready. I dare say, you'll write me

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<v Speaker 2>down a coward, but I dreaded the revival. I was

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<v Speaker 2>ready to pray that she might pass away in her sleep.

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<v Speaker 2>I knew she held exalted views about the marriage tie,

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<v Speaker 2>and I felt sure if there were any last words,

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<v Speaker 2>she would exact a pledge. I could not at such

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<v Speaker 2>a moment refuse to promise, and I didn't want to

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<v Speaker 2>be tied Hi. You will recollect that she was my senior.

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<v Speaker 2>I was about to be left a widower in middle life,

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<v Speaker 2>and in the natural course of things, I had a

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<v Speaker 2>good many years before me. You see, my dear fellow,

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<v Speaker 2>I don't think a promise so exhorted or to bind you.

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<v Speaker 2>It isn't fair. Wait and hear me. I was sitting

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<v Speaker 2>here miserable enough, as you may suppose, when the doctor

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<v Speaker 2>came to fetch me to her room. Missus Enderby was

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<v Speaker 2>conscious and had asked for me, but he particularly begged

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<v Speaker 2>me not to agitate her in any way lest pain

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<v Speaker 2>should return. She was lying stretched out in the bed,

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<v Speaker 2>looking already like a corpse. Tom He said, they tell

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<v Speaker 2>me I'm dying and there is something I want you

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<v Speaker 2>to promise. I groaned in spirit. It was all up

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<v Speaker 2>with my eye, thought, But she went on. But when

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<v Speaker 2>I am dead and in my coffin, I want you

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<v Speaker 2>to cover my face with your own hands. Promise me this.

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<v Speaker 2>It was not in the very least what I expected,

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<v Speaker 2>of course, I promised. I want you to cover my

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<v Speaker 2>face with a particular handkerchief on which I set a value.

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<v Speaker 2>When the time comes, open the cabinet to the right

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<v Speaker 2>of the window, and you will find it in the

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<v Speaker 2>third drawer from the top. You cannot mistake it, for

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<v Speaker 2>it is the only thing in the drawer. That was

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<v Speaker 2>every word she said, if you believe me, Dick. She

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<v Speaker 2>just sighed and shut her eyes as if she were

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<v Speaker 2>going to sleep, and she never spoke again. Three or

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<v Speaker 2>four days later they came again to ask me if

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<v Speaker 2>I wished to take a last look, as the Undertaker's

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<v Speaker 2>men were about to close the coffin. I felt a

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<v Speaker 2>great reluctance, but it was necessary I should go. She

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<v Speaker 2>looked as if made of wax, and was colder than

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<v Speaker 2>ice to the touch. I opened the cabinet, and there,

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<v Speaker 2>just as she had said, was a large handkerchief for

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<v Speaker 2>very fine cambric, lying by itself. It was embroidered with

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<v Speaker 2>a monogram device in all four corners, and was not

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<v Speaker 2>of a sort I had ever seen her used. I

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<v Speaker 2>spread it out and laid it over the dead face,

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<v Speaker 2>and then what happened was rather curious. It seemed to

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<v Speaker 2>draw down over the features and cling to them, to

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<v Speaker 2>nose and mouths and forehead and the shut eyes, till

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<v Speaker 2>it became a perfect mask. My nerves were shaken. I

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<v Speaker 2>suppose I was seized with horror and flung back the

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<v Speaker 2>covering sheet hastily quitting the room, and the coffin was

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<v Speaker 2>closed that night. Well, she was buried, and I put

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<v Speaker 2>up a monument which the neighborhood considered handsome. As you

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<v Speaker 2>see he I was bound by no pledge to abstain

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<v Speaker 2>from marriage, and though I knew what would have been

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<v Speaker 2>a wish, I saw no reason why I should regard it.

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<v Speaker 2>And some months after a family of the name of

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<v Speaker 2>Ashcroft came to live at the Lisso's, and they had

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<v Speaker 2>a pretty daughter. I took a fancy to Lucy Ashcroft

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<v Speaker 2>the first time I saw her, and it was soon

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<v Speaker 2>apparent that she was well inclined to me. She was

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<v Speaker 2>a gentle, yielding little thing, not the superior style of woman,

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<v Speaker 2>not at all like. I made no comment, but I

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<v Speaker 2>could well understand that in his new matrimonial venture, Tom

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<v Speaker 2>would prefer a contrast. But I thought I had a

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<v Speaker 2>very good chance of happiness with her, and I grew

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<v Speaker 2>fond of her, very fond of her. Indeed, her people

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<v Speaker 2>were of the hospitable sort, and they encouraged me to

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<v Speaker 2>go to the Liso's dropping in when I felt inclined.

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<v Speaker 2>He did not seem as if they would be likely

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<v Speaker 2>to put obstacles in our way. Matters progressed, and I

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<v Speaker 2>made up my mind one evening to walk over there

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<v Speaker 2>and declare myself. I had been up to town the

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<v Speaker 2>day before and came back with a ring in my pocket,

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<v Speaker 2>rather a fanciful design of double hearts. But I thought

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<v Speaker 2>Lucy would think it pretty and would let me put

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<v Speaker 2>it on her finger. I went up to change into

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<v Speaker 2>dinner things, and making myself as spruce as possible, and

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<v Speaker 2>coming to the conclusion before the glass that I was

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<v Speaker 2>not such a bad figure of a man after all,

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<v Speaker 2>and that there was not much gray in my hair. Ay, Dick,

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<v Speaker 2>you may smile. It is a good bit grayer. Now

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<v Speaker 2>I had taken out a clean handkerchief and thrown the

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<v Speaker 2>one carried through the day crumpled on the floor. I

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<v Speaker 2>don't know what made me turn to look there, but

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<v Speaker 2>once it caught my eye, I stood staring at it

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<v Speaker 2>as if spell bound. The handkerchief was moving, Dick, I

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<v Speaker 2>swear it rapidly, altering in shape, puffing up here and there,

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<v Speaker 2>as if blown by wind, spreading and molding itself into

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<v Speaker 2>the features of a face, And what face should it

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<v Speaker 2>be but the death mask of Gloriana, which I had

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<v Speaker 2>covered in the coffin eleven months before. To say I

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<v Speaker 2>was horror stricken conveys little of the feeling that possessed me.

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<v Speaker 2>I snatched up the rag of cambric and flung it

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<v Speaker 2>on the fire, and it was nothing but a rag

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<v Speaker 2>in my hand, and in another moment, no more than

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<v Speaker 2>a black and tinder on the bar of the grate.

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<v Speaker 2>There was no face below, of course, not I said.

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<v Speaker 2>It was a mere hallucination. You were cheated by an

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<v Speaker 2>excited fancy, you may be sure. I told myself all

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<v Speaker 2>that and more, and I went downstairs and tried to

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<v Speaker 2>pull myself together with a dram But I was curiously upset,

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<v Speaker 2>and for that night at least I found it impossible

201
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<v Speaker 2>to play the wooer. The recollection of the death mask

202
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<v Speaker 2>was too vivid. It would have come between me and

203
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<v Speaker 2>Lucy's lips. The effect wore off, however, that in a

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<v Speaker 2>day or two I was bold again, and as much

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<v Speaker 2>disposed to smile at my folly as you are at

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<v Speaker 2>this moment. I proposed, and Lucy accepted me, and I

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<v Speaker 2>put on the ring Ashcroft pair was graciously pleased to

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<v Speaker 2>approve of the settlements I offered an Ashcroft mayor promised

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<v Speaker 2>to regard me as a sun and during the first

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<v Speaker 2>forty eight hours of our engagement there was not a

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<v Speaker 2>cloud to mar the blue. I proposed on a Monday,

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<v Speaker 2>and on Wednesday I went again to dine and spend

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<v Speaker 2>the evening with just their family party. Lucy and I

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00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:19.759
<v Speaker 2>found our way afterwards into the back drawing room, which

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<v Speaker 2>seemed to be made over to us by tacit. Understanding anyway,

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<v Speaker 2>we had it to ourselves, and as Lucy sat on

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<v Speaker 2>the settee busy with her work, I was privileged to

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00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:35.440
<v Speaker 2>sit beside her, close enough to watch the careful stitches

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00:12:35.519 --> 00:12:39.120
<v Speaker 2>she was setting under which the pattern grew. She was

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<v Speaker 2>embroidering a square of fine linen to serve as a teacloth,

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00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:45.639
<v Speaker 2>and it was intended for a present for a friend.

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<v Speaker 2>She was anxious. She told me to finish it in

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<v Speaker 2>the next few days, ready for dispatch. But I was

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<v Speaker 2>somewhat impatient of her engrossment in the work. I wanted

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<v Speaker 2>to look at me while we talk, and to be

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<v Speaker 2>permitted to hold her hand. Plans for a tour we

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<v Speaker 2>would take together after easter, arguing that eight weeks spent

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<v Speaker 2>in preparation was enough for any reasonable bride. Lucy was

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<v Speaker 2>easily entreated. She laid aside the linen square on the

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<v Speaker 2>table at her elbow. I held her fingers captive, but

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<v Speaker 2>her eyes wandered from my face, as she was still

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<v Speaker 2>deliciously shy. All at once she exclaimed her work was moving,

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<v Speaker 2>that there was going to be a face in it?

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<v Speaker 2>Did I not see? I saw? Indeed, it was the

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<v Speaker 2>Gloriana death mask, forming there as it had formed in

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<v Speaker 2>my handkerchief at home. The marked nose and chin, the

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00:13:43.720 --> 00:13:48.600
<v Speaker 2>severe mouth, the mold of forehead almost complete. I snatched

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<v Speaker 2>it up and dropped it over the back of the couch.

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<v Speaker 2>It did look like a face, I allowed, But never

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<v Speaker 2>mind it, darling. I want you to attend to me

241
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<v Speaker 2>something of this sort, I said, I hardly know what

242
00:13:59.039 --> 00:14:03.000
<v Speaker 2>for My blood was running cold. Lucy pouted she wanted

243
00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:05.840
<v Speaker 2>to dwell on the marvel, and my impatient action had

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00:14:05.879 --> 00:14:11.039
<v Speaker 2>displeased her. I went on talking wildly, being afraid of pauses,

245
00:14:11.120 --> 00:14:15.279
<v Speaker 2>but the psychological moment had gone by. I felt I

246
00:14:15.360 --> 00:14:18.879
<v Speaker 2>did not carry her with me, as before she hesitated

247
00:14:18.919 --> 00:14:23.120
<v Speaker 2>over my persuasions, the forecast of a Sicilian honeymoon had

248
00:14:23.159 --> 00:14:27.399
<v Speaker 2>ceased to charm. By and by she suggested that missus

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00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:29.879
<v Speaker 2>Ashcroft would expect us to rejoin the circle in the

250
00:14:29.919 --> 00:14:33.000
<v Speaker 2>other room, and perhaps I would pick up her work

251
00:14:33.120 --> 00:14:37.200
<v Speaker 2>for her. Still, with a slight error of offence, I

252
00:14:37.279 --> 00:14:40.279
<v Speaker 2>walked round the settee to recover the luckless piece of linen.

253
00:14:40.320 --> 00:14:44.039
<v Speaker 2>But she turned, also looking over the back. So the

254
00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:49.759
<v Speaker 2>same instant we both saw there again was the face,

255
00:14:50.519 --> 00:14:54.240
<v Speaker 2>rigid and severe, And now the corners of the cloth

256
00:14:54.279 --> 00:14:57.679
<v Speaker 2>were tucked under, completing the form of the head. And

257
00:14:57.679 --> 00:15:03.399
<v Speaker 2>that was not all. Some white drapery had been improvised

258
00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:07.320
<v Speaker 2>and extended beyond it on the floor, presenting the complete figure,

259
00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:12.879
<v Speaker 2>laid out straight and stiff, ready for the grave. Lucy's

260
00:15:12.879 --> 00:15:16.480
<v Speaker 2>alarm was excusable. She shrieked aloud, shriek upon shriek, and

261
00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:20.000
<v Speaker 2>immediately an indignant family of Ashcroft rushed in through the

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00:15:20.039 --> 00:15:23.399
<v Speaker 2>half drawn potier which divided the two rooms, demanding the

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00:15:23.399 --> 00:15:27.519
<v Speaker 2>cause of her distress. Meanwhile, I had fallen upon the

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00:15:27.559 --> 00:15:31.960
<v Speaker 2>puffed out form and destroyed it. Lucy's embroidery composed the

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00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:35.000
<v Speaker 2>head that the figure was ingeniously contrived out of a

266
00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:38.559
<v Speaker 2>large Turkish bath sheet brought in from one of the bedrooms.

267
00:15:38.600 --> 00:15:42.559
<v Speaker 2>No one knew how or when I held up the things,

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00:15:42.559 --> 00:15:45.240
<v Speaker 2>protesting their innocence, while the family were stabbing me through

269
00:15:45.279 --> 00:15:48.120
<v Speaker 2>and through with looks of indignation, and Lucy was sobbing

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00:15:48.120 --> 00:15:51.000
<v Speaker 2>in her mother's arms. She might have been foolish. She

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00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:54.200
<v Speaker 2>allowed it did seem ridiculous now she saw what it was,

272
00:15:54.279 --> 00:15:57.360
<v Speaker 2>but at the moment it was too dreadful. It looked

273
00:15:57.559 --> 00:16:03.200
<v Speaker 2>so like, so like, And here her fresh sob choked

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00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:07.360
<v Speaker 2>her into silence. Peace was restored at last, but plainly.

275
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<v Speaker 2>The ashcroftstubted me, the genial father stiffened, and Missus Ashcroft

276
00:16:12.919 --> 00:16:18.919
<v Speaker 2>administered indirect reproofs. She hated practical joking, so she informed

277
00:16:18.960 --> 00:16:21.320
<v Speaker 2>me She might be wrong, and no doubt she was

278
00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:24.360
<v Speaker 2>old fashioned, but she had been brought up to consider

279
00:16:24.440 --> 00:16:28.440
<v Speaker 2>it the highest degree ill bred, and perhaps I had

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00:16:28.440 --> 00:16:32.240
<v Speaker 2>not considered how sensitive Lucy was thow easily alarmed. She

281
00:16:32.360 --> 00:16:34.519
<v Speaker 2>hoped I would take warning for the future, and that

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00:16:34.679 --> 00:16:40.080
<v Speaker 2>nothing of this kind would occur again. Practical joking, oh ye, gods,

283
00:16:40.679 --> 00:16:43.039
<v Speaker 2>as if it was likely that I, alone with the

284
00:16:43.080 --> 00:16:45.120
<v Speaker 2>girl of my heart, would waste the precious hour in

285
00:16:45.159 --> 00:16:49.440
<v Speaker 2>building up effigies of sham corpses on the floor. And

286
00:16:49.559 --> 00:16:52.200
<v Speaker 2>Lucy ought to have known that the accusation was absurd,

287
00:16:52.559 --> 00:16:55.279
<v Speaker 2>as I had never for a moment left her side.

288
00:16:55.840 --> 00:16:59.159
<v Speaker 2>She did take my part when more composed, but the

289
00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:04.920
<v Speaker 2>mystery remained beyond explanation of hers or mine. As for

290
00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:07.960
<v Speaker 2>the future, I could not think of that without a

291
00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:12.359
<v Speaker 2>failing heart. If the power arrayed against us were in

292
00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:16.559
<v Speaker 2>truth what superstition feared, I might as well give up

293
00:17:16.599 --> 00:17:19.000
<v Speaker 2>hope at once, for I knew there would be no

294
00:17:19.079 --> 00:17:23.079
<v Speaker 2>relenting I could see the whole absurdity of the thing

295
00:17:23.119 --> 00:17:25.319
<v Speaker 2>as well as you do now. But if you put

296
00:17:25.359 --> 00:17:28.440
<v Speaker 2>yourself in my playtick, you will be forced to confess.

297
00:17:29.160 --> 00:17:33.200
<v Speaker 2>But it was tragic too. I did not see Lucy

298
00:17:33.279 --> 00:17:35.680
<v Speaker 2>the next day, and I was bound to go again

299
00:17:35.759 --> 00:17:38.119
<v Speaker 2>to town. But we had planned to meet and ride

300
00:17:38.160 --> 00:17:40.680
<v Speaker 2>together on the Friday morning. I was to be at

301
00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:43.079
<v Speaker 2>the Liso's at a certain hour, and you may be

302
00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:46.759
<v Speaker 2>sure I was punctual. The horse had already been brought round,

303
00:17:46.799 --> 00:17:49.279
<v Speaker 2>and the groom was leading it up and down. I

304
00:17:49.359 --> 00:17:51.599
<v Speaker 2>had hardly dismounted when she came down the steps of

305
00:17:51.599 --> 00:17:54.400
<v Speaker 2>the porch and I noticed at once a new look

306
00:17:54.440 --> 00:17:57.599
<v Speaker 2>on her face, a harder set about the red mouth

307
00:17:57.640 --> 00:18:00.880
<v Speaker 2>of hers which was so soft and kissable. But she

308
00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:02.960
<v Speaker 2>let me put her up on the saddle and settle

309
00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:05.319
<v Speaker 2>her foot in the stirrup, and she was the bearer

310
00:18:05.359 --> 00:18:08.319
<v Speaker 2>of a gracious message from her mother. I was expected

311
00:18:08.319 --> 00:18:11.200
<v Speaker 2>to return to lunch, and missus Ashcroft begged us to

312
00:18:11.240 --> 00:18:13.799
<v Speaker 2>be punctual, as a friend who had stayed the night

313
00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:17.319
<v Speaker 2>with them would be leaving immediately after. You'll be pleased

314
00:18:17.319 --> 00:18:20.119
<v Speaker 2>to meet her, I think, said Lucy, leaning forward to

315
00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:23.440
<v Speaker 2>pat her horse. I find she knows you very well.

316
00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:25.319
<v Speaker 2>It is miss Kingsworthy.

317
00:18:26.839 --> 00:18:27.279
<v Speaker 1>Now.

318
00:18:27.960 --> 00:18:32.440
<v Speaker 2>Miss Kingsworthy was a school friend of Gloriana's who used

319
00:18:32.440 --> 00:18:34.880
<v Speaker 2>now and then to visit us here. I was not

320
00:18:34.960 --> 00:18:37.920
<v Speaker 2>aware that she and the Ashcroft were acquainted, but as

321
00:18:37.960 --> 00:18:40.440
<v Speaker 2>I have said, they had only recently come into the

322
00:18:40.480 --> 00:18:45.039
<v Speaker 2>neighborhood as tenants of the Liso's. I had no opportunity

323
00:18:45.079 --> 00:18:47.960
<v Speaker 2>to express pleasure or the reverse, for Lucy was riding

324
00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:50.920
<v Speaker 2>on and putting her horse to a brisk pace. It

325
00:18:51.039 --> 00:18:54.640
<v Speaker 2>was some time before she drew rein and again admitted conversation.

326
00:18:55.519 --> 00:18:58.200
<v Speaker 2>We were descending a steep hill and the groom was

327
00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:01.400
<v Speaker 2>following at a discreet distance behind, far enough to be

328
00:19:01.400 --> 00:19:05.400
<v Speaker 2>out of earshot. Lucie looked very pretty on horseback. But

329
00:19:05.519 --> 00:19:08.759
<v Speaker 2>this is by the way. The manish hat suited her,

330
00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:12.279
<v Speaker 2>and so did the habit, fitting closely to her shape. Tom,

331
00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:16.160
<v Speaker 2>she said, and again I noticed that new hardness in

332
00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:21.079
<v Speaker 2>her face. Tom. Miss Kingsworthy tells me your wife did

333
00:19:21.119 --> 00:19:23.559
<v Speaker 2>not wish you to marry again, and she made you

334
00:19:23.640 --> 00:19:27.200
<v Speaker 2>promise her that you would not. Miss Kingsworthy was quite

335
00:19:27.200 --> 00:19:30.440
<v Speaker 2>astonished to hear that you and I were engaged. Is

336
00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:33.440
<v Speaker 2>this true? I was able to tell her that it

337
00:19:33.519 --> 00:19:35.799
<v Speaker 2>was not. That my wife had never asked and I

338
00:19:35.839 --> 00:19:40.039
<v Speaker 2>had never given her any such pledge. I allowed, as

339
00:19:40.079 --> 00:19:44.960
<v Speaker 2>she disliked second marriages in certain cases, and perhaps she

340
00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:47.480
<v Speaker 2>had made some remark to that effect. To Miss Kingsworthy,

341
00:19:47.559 --> 00:19:51.000
<v Speaker 2>it was not unlikely. And then I appealed to her.

342
00:19:51.559 --> 00:19:55.400
<v Speaker 2>Surely she would not let a mischief maker's tittle tattle

343
00:19:55.480 --> 00:20:00.599
<v Speaker 2>come between her and me. I thought her profile looked less,

344
00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:02.519
<v Speaker 2>but she would not let her eyes meet mine, as

345
00:20:02.559 --> 00:20:05.160
<v Speaker 2>she answered, of course not if that was all, and

346
00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:07.759
<v Speaker 2>I doubt if I would have heeded it, only that

347
00:20:07.880 --> 00:20:12.160
<v Speaker 2>it seemed to fit in with something else, Tom, it

348
00:20:12.279 --> 00:20:14.920
<v Speaker 2>was very horrible what we saw on Wednesday evening. And

349
00:20:15.799 --> 00:20:19.680
<v Speaker 2>don't be angry. But I asked miss Kingsworthy what your

350
00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:22.480
<v Speaker 2>wife was like. I didn't tell her why. I wanted

351
00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:25.799
<v Speaker 2>to know. What has that to do with it? I demanded,

352
00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:31.640
<v Speaker 2>stoutly enough, But alas I was too well aware. She

353
00:20:31.759 --> 00:20:35.039
<v Speaker 2>told me missus Enderby was handsome, but she had very

354
00:20:35.200 --> 00:20:38.079
<v Speaker 2>marked features and was severe looking when she did not

355
00:20:38.279 --> 00:20:44.519
<v Speaker 2>smile at high forehead of roman nose and a decided chin. Tom,

356
00:20:45.119 --> 00:20:48.200
<v Speaker 2>the face in the cloth was just like that. Did

357
00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:52.000
<v Speaker 2>you not see? Of course? I protested, like, my darling,

358
00:20:52.039 --> 00:20:54.640
<v Speaker 2>what nonsense? I saw? It looked a little like a face.

359
00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:56.920
<v Speaker 2>But I pulled it to pieces at once because you

360
00:20:56.960 --> 00:21:00.400
<v Speaker 2>were frightened. But why, Lucy, I shall have you turning

361
00:21:00.400 --> 00:21:04.160
<v Speaker 2>into a spiritualist if you take up these fancies. No,

362
00:21:04.440 --> 00:21:07.319
<v Speaker 2>she said, I do not want to be anything foolish.

363
00:21:07.440 --> 00:21:10.480
<v Speaker 2>I've thought it over, and if it happens only once,

364
00:21:10.519 --> 00:21:12.240
<v Speaker 2>I've made up my mind to believe it a mistake

365
00:21:12.279 --> 00:21:17.079
<v Speaker 2>and forget it. But if it comes again, if it

366
00:21:17.119 --> 00:21:21.240
<v Speaker 2>goes on coming here, she shuddered and turned white. Oh, Tom,

367
00:21:21.799 --> 00:21:26.720
<v Speaker 2>I could not, I could not. That was the ultimatum.

368
00:21:27.400 --> 00:21:29.799
<v Speaker 2>She liked me as much as ever, she even owned

369
00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:32.640
<v Speaker 2>a warmer feeling, but she was not going to marry

370
00:21:32.680 --> 00:21:36.799
<v Speaker 2>a haunted man. Well, I suppose I can't blame her.

371
00:21:37.720 --> 00:21:40.559
<v Speaker 2>I might have given the same advice in another fellow's case,

372
00:21:40.680 --> 00:21:44.440
<v Speaker 2>though in my own I've felt it hard. I'm close

373
00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:47.240
<v Speaker 2>to the end now, so I shall need tax your

374
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:53.039
<v Speaker 2>patience very little longer. A single chance remained Gloriana's power,

375
00:21:53.319 --> 00:21:57.000
<v Speaker 2>whatever its nature, and however derived, might have been so

376
00:21:57.240 --> 00:22:00.480
<v Speaker 2>spent in the previous efforts that she could defect no more.

377
00:22:01.640 --> 00:22:04.160
<v Speaker 2>I clung to this shred of hope and did my

378
00:22:04.200 --> 00:22:06.880
<v Speaker 2>best to play the part of the lighthearted lover, the

379
00:22:06.920 --> 00:22:09.880
<v Speaker 2>sort of companion Lucy expected who would shape himself to

380
00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:13.519
<v Speaker 2>her mood. But I was conscious that I played it ill.

381
00:22:14.599 --> 00:22:17.839
<v Speaker 2>The ride was a lengthy business. Lucy's horse cast a shoe,

382
00:22:17.880 --> 00:22:20.279
<v Speaker 2>and it was impossible to change the saddle onto the

383
00:22:20.279 --> 00:22:23.440
<v Speaker 2>groom's hack or my own mare, as neither of them

384
00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:26.079
<v Speaker 2>had been trained to the habit. We were bound to

385
00:22:26.079 --> 00:22:29.920
<v Speaker 2>return at footpace, and didn't reach the Lisos until two o'clock.

386
00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:34.319
<v Speaker 2>Lunch was over. Missus Ashcroft had set out for the station,

387
00:22:34.519 --> 00:22:38.599
<v Speaker 2>driving Miss kingsworthy, but some cutlets were keeping hot for us,

388
00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:42.759
<v Speaker 2>so we were informed and could be served immediately. We

389
00:22:42.839 --> 00:22:45.319
<v Speaker 2>went off at once into the dining room, as Lucy

390
00:22:45.480 --> 00:22:48.000
<v Speaker 2>was hungry, and she took off her hat and laid

391
00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:50.880
<v Speaker 2>it on a side table. You said the close fit

392
00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:55.240
<v Speaker 2>of it made her headache. The cutlets had been misrepresented.

393
00:22:55.359 --> 00:22:58.759
<v Speaker 2>They were lukewarm, but Lucy made a good meal of them,

394
00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:02.079
<v Speaker 2>and the fruit tart which followed very much at a leisure.

395
00:23:02.720 --> 00:23:05.079
<v Speaker 2>Heaven knows, I would not have grudged her so much

396
00:23:05.119 --> 00:23:09.079
<v Speaker 2>as a mouthful, But that luncheon was an ordeal I

397
00:23:09.160 --> 00:23:14.920
<v Speaker 2>cannot readily forget. The servant absented himself, having seen us serve,

398
00:23:15.680 --> 00:23:21.160
<v Speaker 2>and then my troubles began. The tablecloth seemed alive at

399
00:23:21.160 --> 00:23:25.319
<v Speaker 2>the corner which was between us. He rose in waves,

400
00:23:25.640 --> 00:23:29.039
<v Speaker 2>as if puffed up by wind, though the window was

401
00:23:29.119 --> 00:23:32.759
<v Speaker 2>fast shut against any wandering airs. I tried to see

402
00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:34.839
<v Speaker 2>him unconscious, try to talk as if no horror of

403
00:23:34.839 --> 00:23:38.519
<v Speaker 2>apprehension was filling all my mind. While I was flattening

404
00:23:38.559 --> 00:23:41.720
<v Speaker 2>out the bewitch the mask with a grasp by hardly

405
00:23:41.799 --> 00:23:46.519
<v Speaker 2>dared relax. Lucy rose at last, saying she must change

406
00:23:46.519 --> 00:23:50.920
<v Speaker 2>her dress. Occupied with the cloth. It had not occurred

407
00:23:50.920 --> 00:23:53.279
<v Speaker 2>to me to look round or keep watch on what

408
00:23:53.400 --> 00:23:55.920
<v Speaker 2>might be going on in another part of the room.

409
00:23:56.119 --> 00:23:59.039
<v Speaker 2>The hat on the side table had been tilted over sideways,

410
00:23:59.119 --> 00:24:01.920
<v Speaker 2>and in that position that was made to crown another

411
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:06.440
<v Speaker 2>presentation of the face. But it was made of this time,

412
00:24:06.640 --> 00:24:11.160
<v Speaker 2>I can't say, probably serviettes several lay about that The

413
00:24:11.240 --> 00:24:16.519
<v Speaker 2>linen material of whatever sort was again molded into the

414
00:24:16.559 --> 00:24:22.319
<v Speaker 2>perfect form. This time the mouth showed humor and appeared

415
00:24:22.319 --> 00:24:26.559
<v Speaker 2>to relax in a grim smile. Lucy shrieked and dropped

416
00:24:26.599 --> 00:24:29.759
<v Speaker 2>into my arms in a swoon, a real genuine fainting fit,

417
00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:32.880
<v Speaker 2>out of which she was brought round with difficulty. After

418
00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:36.160
<v Speaker 2>I had summoned the help of doctors. I hung about

419
00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:40.039
<v Speaker 2>miserably till her safety was assured, and then went as

420
00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:44.960
<v Speaker 2>miserably home. Next morning I received a cutting little note

421
00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:48.279
<v Speaker 2>from my mother in law elect in which she returned

422
00:24:48.319 --> 00:24:52.559
<v Speaker 2>the ring and informed me the engagement must be considered

423
00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:58.640
<v Speaker 2>at an end. Well, Dick, you now know why I

424
00:24:58.759 --> 00:25:03.920
<v Speaker 2>do not marry, and what have you to say? You know,

425
00:25:03.960 --> 00:25:08.240
<v Speaker 2>if you go to my patreon www dot patreon dot

426
00:25:08.279 --> 00:25:12.440
<v Speaker 2>com forward slash bar kid br cud, there are five

427
00:25:12.559 --> 00:25:15.920
<v Speaker 2>hundred and many stories for you to listen to, and

428
00:25:15.960 --> 00:25:17.880
<v Speaker 2>a link to my Google drive where you can download

429
00:25:17.920 --> 00:25:24.279
<v Speaker 2>a whole lot completely add free. Good deal. I think, well,

430
00:25:24.319 --> 00:25:29.039
<v Speaker 2>that was the death Mask by HD Everett. Now, when

431
00:25:29.119 --> 00:25:31.680
<v Speaker 2>I began to read that, because it's written from a

432
00:25:31.680 --> 00:25:33.359
<v Speaker 2>male point of view, I thought she was a bloke.

433
00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:37.079
<v Speaker 2>But she ain't the bloke. She's a lady. She's Henrietta

434
00:25:37.160 --> 00:25:41.279
<v Speaker 2>Dorothy Everett, and I'm going to tell you something about her.

435
00:25:41.640 --> 00:25:45.359
<v Speaker 2>I've just come back off my walk for thirteen days

436
00:25:45.799 --> 00:25:51.480
<v Speaker 2>walking the Office Dyke, which is the dark age barrier

437
00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:55.039
<v Speaker 2>built by King Offer of Mercier to keep the well shout,

438
00:25:55.319 --> 00:25:57.799
<v Speaker 2>so it's still the boundary between England and Well. So

439
00:25:58.799 --> 00:26:01.640
<v Speaker 2>walked about one hundred and twenty six Now. I've been

440
00:26:01.720 --> 00:26:06.200
<v Speaker 2>keeping my patreons entertained with pictures and stories of from

441
00:26:06.240 --> 00:26:08.880
<v Speaker 2>my walk. But although if you're just listening to me

442
00:26:08.920 --> 00:26:10.680
<v Speaker 2>on YouTube or on the podcast, you won't know any

443
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:14.559
<v Speaker 2>of that. I've been away and it's weird coming back

444
00:26:14.559 --> 00:26:16.720
<v Speaker 2>because I'm a little bit disslocated. So now this is

445
00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:20.559
<v Speaker 2>me getting back into the saddle. I had some videos

446
00:26:20.599 --> 00:26:25.519
<v Speaker 2>and some podcast episodes queued up to go out while

447
00:26:25.519 --> 00:26:28.279
<v Speaker 2>I was away and Imagen did a compilation on YouTube

448
00:26:28.400 --> 00:26:32.400
<v Speaker 2>of my own stories, so people didn't know I was away,

449
00:26:32.559 --> 00:26:34.359
<v Speaker 2>and people think I did the compilation, but I didn't,

450
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:37.359
<v Speaker 2>young Imagen did. Thank you very much, image and anyway,

451
00:26:37.400 --> 00:26:40.680
<v Speaker 2>back back to work. Now, enough of that enjoying yourself

452
00:26:40.720 --> 00:26:42.680
<v Speaker 2>with the rain and the sheep and the horses and

453
00:26:42.680 --> 00:26:45.200
<v Speaker 2>the red kites and everything. Let me tell you about

454
00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:49.720
<v Speaker 2>Henrietta Dorothea Everett born eighteen fifty one, died in nineteen

455
00:26:49.720 --> 00:26:54.200
<v Speaker 2>twenty three twenty three. Speak enunciate clearly tonally. I've just

456
00:26:54.240 --> 00:26:56.680
<v Speaker 2>been talking to myself as I've been walking over these hills,

457
00:26:57.359 --> 00:27:03.319
<v Speaker 2>so I haven't had practice enunciating anyway. She was born

458
00:27:03.599 --> 00:27:08.359
<v Speaker 2>Henrietta Dorothea Huskisson, it's a funny name, in Gillingham and

459
00:27:08.440 --> 00:27:11.480
<v Speaker 2>Kent in early eighteen fifty one, and baptized there on

460
00:27:11.519 --> 00:27:13.640
<v Speaker 2>the fourth of March that year, so she's probably born

461
00:27:14.119 --> 00:27:18.079
<v Speaker 2>into February. Her father, John Huskison, was the first lieutenant

462
00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:23.880
<v Speaker 2>in the Royal Marines. Now lieutenant Americans say lieutenant. The

463
00:27:23.960 --> 00:27:29.480
<v Speaker 2>Royal Navy say something like lieutenant lieutenant. I don't know

464
00:27:29.880 --> 00:27:32.440
<v Speaker 2>what they say, but they don't say it. But of

465
00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:37.440
<v Speaker 2>course it's placeholder in French. Lieutenant. It's French, isn't it.

466
00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:39.960
<v Speaker 2>I wondered if the Royal Marines, being part of the

467
00:27:40.039 --> 00:27:41.880
<v Speaker 2>Royal Navy, would go with the Army of the Navy.

468
00:27:41.920 --> 00:27:44.319
<v Speaker 2>So I looked it up, and they go with the Army,

469
00:27:44.359 --> 00:27:46.359
<v Speaker 2>as it turns out. So I'm told by my research

470
00:27:46.359 --> 00:27:48.119
<v Speaker 2>if anybody's been in the Royal Marines to be able

471
00:27:48.119 --> 00:27:51.599
<v Speaker 2>to tell me different. So there you go. So you've

472
00:27:51.640 --> 00:27:55.960
<v Speaker 2>got middle class solidity and military discipline, and she becomes

473
00:27:56.119 --> 00:28:00.000
<v Speaker 2>a late Victorian respectable person. Her mother, Julia the Lovett,

474
00:28:00.440 --> 00:28:03.200
<v Speaker 2>disappears into the record after the bare naming in parish

475
00:28:03.200 --> 00:28:06.279
<v Speaker 2>and genealogical sources. So basically, mothers name there, that's the

476
00:28:06.359 --> 00:28:10.400
<v Speaker 2>last we hearing. Mother of her early life and her

477
00:28:10.559 --> 00:28:14.920
<v Speaker 2>days in Gillingham got not much in that gap. Critics

478
00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:18.720
<v Speaker 2>sometimes try to install a theory. The more honest conclusion

479
00:28:18.759 --> 00:28:21.000
<v Speaker 2>is that she steps into view fully formed and adult

480
00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:24.200
<v Speaker 2>woman of her time, for whom writing would become late

481
00:28:24.279 --> 00:28:26.160
<v Speaker 2>both the profession and a way of thinking through the

482
00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:29.319
<v Speaker 2>uncanny edges of that time. So basically what we've got is,

483
00:28:29.599 --> 00:28:32.200
<v Speaker 2>and this happens a lot, you know, I find this.

484
00:28:32.240 --> 00:28:34.359
<v Speaker 2>I'm doing a lot of research on Dark Age of Britain,

485
00:28:34.359 --> 00:28:40.119
<v Speaker 2>hence sort of offering offer and there'll be a basic

486
00:28:40.200 --> 00:28:44.480
<v Speaker 2>sentence in the history of Brittonum or the Anglo Saxon

487
00:28:44.559 --> 00:28:48.839
<v Speaker 2>chronicles or you know, Simin of Durham, and people will

488
00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:52.640
<v Speaker 2>construct elaborate theories on the basis of you know, well

489
00:28:52.720 --> 00:28:55.319
<v Speaker 2>this must mean and then you have a whole different theory.

490
00:28:55.599 --> 00:28:59.000
<v Speaker 2>So where we lack information, we just make stuff up generally,

491
00:28:59.039 --> 00:29:02.240
<v Speaker 2>and this is what happened to the people who attempted

492
00:29:02.240 --> 00:29:07.000
<v Speaker 2>the biography of Henrietta Dorothea Everett. She was married when

493
00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:10.839
<v Speaker 2>she was eighteen, in eighteen sixty nine, to a man

494
00:29:10.880 --> 00:29:13.960
<v Speaker 2>from Derby who was a solistic called which is kind

495
00:29:13.960 --> 00:29:18.440
<v Speaker 2>of lawyer, Isaac Edward Everett. He died in nineteen oh four,

496
00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:20.599
<v Speaker 2>and she had at least three children. The stuff we've

497
00:29:20.599 --> 00:29:25.039
<v Speaker 2>got is vague. She had a son, Arthur Huskison Everett,

498
00:29:25.039 --> 00:29:26.680
<v Speaker 2>and that was really common in those days if you

499
00:29:26.720 --> 00:29:32.000
<v Speaker 2>ever done any family history, for the children to bear

500
00:29:32.079 --> 00:29:39.559
<v Speaker 2>the mother's maiden name as a second or third name. Anyway,

501
00:29:40.920 --> 00:29:44.160
<v Speaker 2>Arthur Huskinson, her son, became her executor and principal heir.

502
00:29:44.920 --> 00:29:47.000
<v Speaker 2>She has two daughters who we know very little about,

503
00:29:47.720 --> 00:29:50.720
<v Speaker 2>but they appear in the census if you want to

504
00:29:50.720 --> 00:29:53.319
<v Speaker 2>do the family research as part of the small, solid

505
00:29:53.319 --> 00:29:58.640
<v Speaker 2>domestic unit. For several decades after her marriage, Everett appears

506
00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:01.319
<v Speaker 2>to have lived a life expected a professional man's wife

507
00:30:01.599 --> 00:30:06.119
<v Speaker 2>in the late nineteenth century. Domestic responsibilities first intellectual life,

508
00:30:06.119 --> 00:30:09.319
<v Speaker 2>if any, folded into private reading and the social duties

509
00:30:09.359 --> 00:30:14.640
<v Speaker 2>of a provincial bourgeois family. Interesting because of this story

510
00:30:15.079 --> 00:30:18.799
<v Speaker 2>touches on that after Isaac Everett's death in nineteen oh four,

511
00:30:19.440 --> 00:30:23.200
<v Speaker 2>she becomes a widow and the novelist. Now, the interesting

512
00:30:23.200 --> 00:30:25.599
<v Speaker 2>thing about Victorian women was when they if they were

513
00:30:25.640 --> 00:30:29.599
<v Speaker 2>single or if they were widows, they could operate as

514
00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:34.519
<v Speaker 2>I want to say people they had rights they you know,

515
00:30:34.599 --> 00:30:36.799
<v Speaker 2>but if they were just the wife, they had no

516
00:30:36.920 --> 00:30:44.359
<v Speaker 2>rights really, And so being a widow actually was potentially

517
00:30:44.759 --> 00:30:50.559
<v Speaker 2>better for women. They could invest, they could act as

518
00:30:50.640 --> 00:30:55.279
<v Speaker 2>a man. Look, don't shoot me down, I'm not a Victorian.

519
00:30:56.319 --> 00:30:59.279
<v Speaker 2>So in the nineteen eleventh census she's marked as a

520
00:30:59.319 --> 00:31:02.319
<v Speaker 2>widow and then novelist and a woman of private means,

521
00:31:02.359 --> 00:31:08.240
<v Speaker 2>living independently herself. She died nineteen years later the old

522
00:31:08.279 --> 00:31:11.400
<v Speaker 2>vicarage Western on Trent in Derbyshire, and she left in

523
00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:14.480
<v Speaker 2>the state of around eight hundred and fifty pounds, which

524
00:31:14.519 --> 00:31:17.480
<v Speaker 2>is not insignificant in those days to Isaac Arthur's son.

525
00:31:18.720 --> 00:31:23.240
<v Speaker 2>So she is a successful professional writer working not in

526
00:31:23.279 --> 00:31:27.480
<v Speaker 2>London but out in the sticks as it were, in Derbyshire,

527
00:31:27.559 --> 00:31:31.519
<v Speaker 2>very nice county, the literally life that lay behind between those.

528
00:31:31.599 --> 00:31:33.759
<v Speaker 2>So we've got, as I was saying before, we have

529
00:31:33.799 --> 00:31:42.839
<v Speaker 2>some bare information and a lot of the stuff is

530
00:31:43.640 --> 00:31:48.799
<v Speaker 2>extrapolated from that rather than known. We do know some things.

531
00:31:49.759 --> 00:31:52.160
<v Speaker 2>So she didn't publish fiction as far as we know,

532
00:31:52.599 --> 00:31:54.960
<v Speaker 2>until eighteen ninety six, when she was forty four or

533
00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:58.119
<v Speaker 2>forty five at that time. She started writing under a

534
00:31:58.160 --> 00:32:02.359
<v Speaker 2>male pseudonym, not uncommon. Again in line with the theories

535
00:32:02.400 --> 00:32:05.680
<v Speaker 2>we've been talking about THEO Douglas and we know this

536
00:32:05.839 --> 00:32:08.799
<v Speaker 2>from you know, George Elliott and the Brontes. I think

537
00:32:08.839 --> 00:32:12.519
<v Speaker 2>originally wrote under male names. Somebody's gonna shoot me down

538
00:32:12.519 --> 00:32:14.839
<v Speaker 2>if I got that wrong. But I've been shot down before.

539
00:32:15.079 --> 00:32:17.880
<v Speaker 2>I've survived, So.

540
00:32:18.839 --> 00:32:19.319
<v Speaker 3>There you go.

541
00:32:19.400 --> 00:32:21.920
<v Speaker 2>And you know, you can talk about the great and

542
00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:28.960
<v Speaker 2>we could talk about the great injustice of this, I'm

543
00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:31.720
<v Speaker 2>just noting it. She produced about twenty two books, with

544
00:32:31.759 --> 00:32:36.480
<v Speaker 2>no fewer than seventeen different publishers moving from William Blackwood

545
00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:38.839
<v Speaker 2>and Sons to Smith Elderherston Blackert. So she's a fairly

546
00:32:38.920 --> 00:32:42.039
<v Speaker 2>driven woman, you know, Mathew and Martin Secker, Heath Cranton

547
00:32:42.039 --> 00:32:44.200
<v Speaker 2>and Nowsley and others. The publishing pattern short runs with

548
00:32:44.319 --> 00:32:48.160
<v Speaker 2>multiple houses is diagnostic of a solidly popular author of

549
00:32:48.200 --> 00:32:51.920
<v Speaker 2>the period, reliable sales across different lists, but no single

550
00:32:51.960 --> 00:32:54.839
<v Speaker 2>firm that sort of lock her in as a flagship property.

551
00:32:54.960 --> 00:32:57.680
<v Speaker 2>So she isn't sort of the Jka rolling of her time.

552
00:32:57.759 --> 00:33:01.559
<v Speaker 2>She's more like a jobbing writer who's doing all right.

553
00:33:01.640 --> 00:33:04.759
<v Speaker 2>She's doing all right, she's doing better than most and

554
00:33:04.799 --> 00:33:06.599
<v Speaker 2>it's her living. And there are a lot of women

555
00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:09.079
<v Speaker 2>like this at this time writing, and we've covered a

556
00:33:09.119 --> 00:33:13.480
<v Speaker 2>lot of their work on the podcast. Of course, Elizabeth

557
00:33:13.519 --> 00:33:15.680
<v Speaker 2>Gaskell is a big name, but thinking of you know,

558
00:33:15.759 --> 00:33:19.920
<v Speaker 2>Charlotte Reddelle and people like that who produce lots of stuff,

559
00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:25.680
<v Speaker 2>and Margaret Oliphanta, there's loads of them. So there we go.

560
00:33:25.920 --> 00:33:29.680
<v Speaker 2>So her first book eras a Mystery eighteen ninety six

561
00:33:31.079 --> 00:33:34.920
<v Speaker 2>under the name of Theo Douglas, issued by Blackwood. It's

562
00:33:34.960 --> 00:33:38.720
<v Speaker 2>an Egyptological fantasy in which a revived mummy, a cult

563
00:33:38.839 --> 00:33:43.599
<v Speaker 2>ritual and hint of scientific method overlap. You could understand

564
00:33:43.640 --> 00:33:45.960
<v Speaker 2>that this time there was a big fascination with ancient

565
00:33:45.960 --> 00:33:49.839
<v Speaker 2>Egypt and archaeology, mummification and the poorest boundary between science

566
00:33:50.119 --> 00:33:52.480
<v Speaker 2>and the occult, and we've talked about that at length

567
00:33:52.480 --> 00:33:56.880
<v Speaker 2>and other podcasts. She would return to this borderland repeatedly.

568
00:33:56.960 --> 00:34:01.200
<v Speaker 2>In nineteen hundred, she turns on hypnotism, spirit and an

569
00:34:01.240 --> 00:34:05.319
<v Speaker 2>automaton animated by the displaced soul of a conjurer's daughter.

570
00:34:05.440 --> 00:34:08.000
<v Speaker 2>Sounds good, doesn't it. One I haven't read it one

571
00:34:08.079 --> 00:34:11.039
<v Speaker 2>or two. Nineteen oh seven explorers spiritualism, and the splitting

572
00:34:11.079 --> 00:34:14.079
<v Speaker 2>of identity under occult pressure. So I'm saying she's maybe

573
00:34:14.119 --> 00:34:17.519
<v Speaker 2>interested in these themes, but these are kind of so

574
00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:20.960
<v Speaker 2>is she writing to market? One thing that writers are

575
00:34:21.119 --> 00:34:24.119
<v Speaker 2>encouraged to do to make money these days is to

576
00:34:24.159 --> 00:34:30.320
<v Speaker 2>write to market. So if it's billionaire, were wolf, alpha romanticy,

577
00:34:31.119 --> 00:34:34.280
<v Speaker 2>that's a polite word for it, mommy pawn they call

578
00:34:34.320 --> 00:34:38.679
<v Speaker 2>it as well, then that's what you should write or lit.

579
00:34:38.760 --> 00:34:41.440
<v Speaker 2>RPG was a genre I did a bit of. I

580
00:34:41.519 --> 00:34:45.000
<v Speaker 2>enjoyed writing, which is basically writing a book as if

581
00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:47.920
<v Speaker 2>it's within a video game. I think it's probably still

582
00:34:47.960 --> 00:34:50.679
<v Speaker 2>popular that I did all right from that At one

583
00:34:50.679 --> 00:34:53.199
<v Speaker 2>point I've got a I used a pseudonym as well,

584
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:55.360
<v Speaker 2>galen Wolf, if you want to look him up, And

585
00:34:55.440 --> 00:34:58.760
<v Speaker 2>I did the two or three series there anyway, writing

586
00:34:58.760 --> 00:35:00.639
<v Speaker 2>to market. So the big issue with her, it's not

587
00:35:00.679 --> 00:35:03.599
<v Speaker 2>a big issue, but just an observation is is she

588
00:35:03.679 --> 00:35:07.079
<v Speaker 2>writing the market or is this actually what she's interested in?

589
00:35:07.719 --> 00:35:12.159
<v Speaker 2>Or do the two helpfully coincide? So in Malevela nineteen

590
00:35:12.199 --> 00:35:14.599
<v Speaker 2>fourteen she has a mass there was also a psychic

591
00:35:14.679 --> 00:35:19.079
<v Speaker 2>vampire draining her client's vitality under the guise of therapeutic touch.

592
00:35:19.440 --> 00:35:22.519
<v Speaker 2>These are not occult romances in the melodramatic modern sense

593
00:35:22.519 --> 00:35:25.519
<v Speaker 2>so much as found the Siecho thought experiments, in which

594
00:35:25.559 --> 00:35:30.800
<v Speaker 2>the science room, the consulting room, and laboratory blur sounds great.

595
00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:36.679
<v Speaker 2>The stuff she also wrote under Theodouglas strict historical fictions,

596
00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:40.960
<v Speaker 2>which you know historical. You could argue that, I mean,

597
00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:44.760
<v Speaker 2>people do argue and probably right that Walter Scott invented

598
00:35:44.800 --> 00:35:49.800
<v Speaker 2>the historical novel, although he was very much he's certainly

599
00:35:49.880 --> 00:35:55.360
<v Speaker 2>the German the Schiller Ritter. German romances influenced me like them,

600
00:35:55.400 --> 00:35:57.119
<v Speaker 2>although he backed away from them because he thought they

601
00:35:57.159 --> 00:35:59.760
<v Speaker 2>were a bit vulgar by the end, because they were

602
00:35:59.840 --> 00:36:04.159
<v Speaker 2>like they were like the Billionaire Alpha, but without the smut,

603
00:36:04.920 --> 00:36:07.480
<v Speaker 2>and just a little bit of a suggestion of it.

604
00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:09.880
<v Speaker 3>So she wrote.

605
00:36:10.599 --> 00:36:12.800
<v Speaker 2>She wrote one called Golden Trust nineteen oh five, set

606
00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:16.559
<v Speaker 2>during the French Revolution, Northumberland and Paris in seventeen ninety two,

607
00:36:16.760 --> 00:36:20.119
<v Speaker 2>The Storming of the two diaries Robesparre and Due playhousehold

608
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:22.760
<v Speaker 2>in the background and works through questions of loyalty, trust

609
00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:26.400
<v Speaker 2>and cross channel entanglement. Think of the Scarlet Pimpernel cousin

610
00:36:26.559 --> 00:36:28.960
<v Speaker 2>Hugh nineteen ten. Most of the South Coast during the

611
00:36:29.079 --> 00:36:33.280
<v Speaker 2>Napoleonic Wars following smuggling operations and escape prisoners of war.

612
00:36:33.480 --> 00:36:36.280
<v Speaker 2>This is popular fiction, you know, White Webs or Romance

613
00:36:36.320 --> 00:36:39.880
<v Speaker 2>of Sussex. They're long a set against the Jacobite rebellion.

614
00:36:41.199 --> 00:36:45.760
<v Speaker 2>So she did loads of stories. So they've all gone

615
00:36:46.039 --> 00:36:52.280
<v Speaker 2>and where she has remained is her weird stories, her

616
00:36:52.360 --> 00:36:56.559
<v Speaker 2>ghost stories. So in nineteen eighteen, The Pipe is a

617
00:36:56.679 --> 00:37:01.679
<v Speaker 2>Mallory as Theodouglas was reprinted in Uncanny Stones. Nineteen twenty,

618
00:37:01.760 --> 00:37:04.960
<v Speaker 2>Philip Allen published The death Mask and Other Ghosts under

619
00:37:04.960 --> 00:37:08.079
<v Speaker 2>the name of H. D. Everett a final valedictory collection

620
00:37:08.119 --> 00:37:10.280
<v Speaker 2>of stories, drawing together work written across the war and

621
00:37:10.320 --> 00:37:13.320
<v Speaker 2>post war years. The first ward that is the Death

622
00:37:13.400 --> 00:37:15.679
<v Speaker 2>Mask with its widow or Haunted by It steadwise features

623
00:37:15.719 --> 00:37:19.440
<v Speaker 2>appearing in Nearby Cloth is a small study in obsessive haunting.

624
00:37:19.440 --> 00:37:21.000
<v Speaker 2>We're going to talk about that. And the next story

625
00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:23.719
<v Speaker 2>in the collection is Passing Clench. You can get these

626
00:37:23.760 --> 00:37:25.639
<v Speaker 2>if you go on. I think I've got this on

627
00:37:25.800 --> 00:37:30.199
<v Speaker 2>Guttenbergie the Guttenberg or the archive dot org library. No

628
00:37:30.559 --> 00:37:32.519
<v Speaker 2>I didn't, that's not true. I've got a copy of it.

629
00:37:32.559 --> 00:37:34.360
<v Speaker 2>I've got the words with copy. Hell what was I saying?

630
00:37:34.440 --> 00:37:39.119
<v Speaker 2>Then there's a whole bunch of them and they disappeared.

631
00:37:39.320 --> 00:37:39.719
<v Speaker 1>Really.

632
00:37:41.239 --> 00:37:45.480
<v Speaker 2>She's mentioned in The Guide to Supernatural Fiction nineteen eighty

633
00:37:45.519 --> 00:37:50.440
<v Speaker 2>three and slagged off, as we say in the Shadow

634
00:37:50.480 --> 00:37:54.440
<v Speaker 2>of the Attic two thousand by Neil Wilson. I think

635
00:37:54.639 --> 00:37:58.559
<v Speaker 2>as the Woman's Weird is coming out the Handheld Press

636
00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:03.360
<v Speaker 2>who do lovely book. She They did a volume which

637
00:38:03.360 --> 00:38:06.320
<v Speaker 2>I've got, we'd Women's Weird, Strange Stories by Women eighteen nineteen,

638
00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:12.000
<v Speaker 2>nineteen forty. She appears in that, and then the Wordsworth

639
00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:16.840
<v Speaker 2>you know Wordsworth editions. They're very good, cheap books of

640
00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:20.119
<v Speaker 2>collections of unknown authors. I've got a whole bunch of

641
00:38:20.199 --> 00:38:21.960
<v Speaker 2>which I picked up as a job lot in a

642
00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:25.880
<v Speaker 2>second hand bookshop in Aberystworth. So that was two thousand

643
00:38:25.880 --> 00:38:28.760
<v Speaker 2>and six, The Crimson Blind and Other Stories. So I

644
00:38:28.960 --> 00:38:30.679
<v Speaker 2>have got that's the book that I've got. I've got

645
00:38:30.679 --> 00:38:32.519
<v Speaker 2>a bunch. And how I came to read this one

646
00:38:32.840 --> 00:38:34.760
<v Speaker 2>was I've come back and I was thinking, oh, something's

647
00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:38.039
<v Speaker 2>not too long, and there we are. Anyway, let's move

648
00:38:38.079 --> 00:38:41.920
<v Speaker 2>to the story itself, The death Mask, first published in

649
00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:44.360
<v Speaker 2>nineteen twenty. In that book we talked of the death

650
00:38:44.400 --> 00:38:48.000
<v Speaker 2>Mask and Other Ghosts, a collection of ten supernatural tales,

651
00:38:48.599 --> 00:38:53.719
<v Speaker 2>actually issued under her own name, not THEO Douglas. So

652
00:38:55.679 --> 00:38:59.679
<v Speaker 2>let's think about it. On the surface, it's a carefully

653
00:38:59.679 --> 00:39:03.400
<v Speaker 2>constru detail of supernatural ambiguity in the tradition of Henry

654
00:39:03.440 --> 00:39:07.320
<v Speaker 2>James and Oliver Onions. A first person frame narrator reports

655
00:39:07.320 --> 00:39:11.199
<v Speaker 2>the testimony of his friend Tom Enderby, whose courtship of

656
00:39:11.239 --> 00:39:14.239
<v Speaker 2>a young woman named Lucy is systematically destroyed by the

657
00:39:14.239 --> 00:39:17.400
<v Speaker 2>appearance of his dead wife's face in every piece of

658
00:39:17.480 --> 00:39:21.480
<v Speaker 2>white linen that surrounds a new relationship. The story maintains

659
00:39:21.559 --> 00:39:26.360
<v Speaker 2>with considerable technical skill and unresolved tension between supernatural fact

660
00:39:26.400 --> 00:39:31.000
<v Speaker 2>and psychological projection. This is why I mentioned Henry James

661
00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:33.920
<v Speaker 2>Turn of the Screw and Oliver Onions The Beckoning fair One,

662
00:39:34.039 --> 00:39:36.400
<v Speaker 2>whereby in both those stories you don't really know if

663
00:39:36.440 --> 00:39:40.239
<v Speaker 2>the protagonist A is going mad or not. Turn of

664
00:39:40.239 --> 00:39:44.559
<v Speaker 2>the Screw is formally a frame story, so it begins

665
00:39:44.559 --> 00:39:46.880
<v Speaker 2>with a frame and ends with a frame. It's Christmas

666
00:39:46.920 --> 00:39:49.079
<v Speaker 2>even somebody's telling the story of a woman he knew,

667
00:39:49.519 --> 00:39:51.440
<v Speaker 2>who he wasn't in love with, but he knew. But

668
00:39:51.639 --> 00:39:54.280
<v Speaker 2>the bulk of Turn of the Screw is portrayed first

669
00:39:54.280 --> 00:40:00.159
<v Speaker 2>person by the governess. As you know. I think the

670
00:40:00.440 --> 00:40:03.119
<v Speaker 2>Fair Ones I recall is not a frame story, but

671
00:40:03.159 --> 00:40:06.800
<v Speaker 2>the frame in this one is we don't know whether

672
00:40:07.440 --> 00:40:10.519
<v Speaker 2>this is a hysteria or there is no proof of

673
00:40:10.559 --> 00:40:14.320
<v Speaker 2>the ghost of the hauntings, and they could be it

674
00:40:14.360 --> 00:40:18.639
<v Speaker 2>could equally be. So there is this late Victorian psychological

675
00:40:19.159 --> 00:40:22.360
<v Speaker 2>ghost stories. What was happening? We moved from the you know,

676
00:40:22.440 --> 00:40:29.000
<v Speaker 2>the High Gothic ghosts and chains and revenance, and we

677
00:40:29.079 --> 00:40:33.599
<v Speaker 2>haven't reached the twentieth century reality of ghosts again, where

678
00:40:33.639 --> 00:40:35.880
<v Speaker 2>ghosts and monsters are real, and we go through a period,

679
00:40:35.960 --> 00:40:39.639
<v Speaker 2>not in all stories from this period, but psychology. You know,

680
00:40:39.719 --> 00:40:45.880
<v Speaker 2>Freud was starting to write and this idea that you know,

681
00:40:45.960 --> 00:40:48.599
<v Speaker 2>that the world as we see it is filtered through

682
00:40:48.840 --> 00:40:52.960
<v Speaker 2>our psychology rather than being objectively real, Yeah, is coming up.

683
00:40:53.000 --> 00:40:56.159
<v Speaker 2>And so I think I mentioned that because I think

684
00:40:56.159 --> 00:41:02.079
<v Speaker 2>that's what's going on. So Dick, it's Tom and Dick, Tom, Dick,

685
00:41:02.239 --> 00:41:06.239
<v Speaker 2>no Harry, and Dick is a returned friend who's been

686
00:41:06.239 --> 00:41:09.400
<v Speaker 2>out of England for ten years. Often they are in it,

687
00:41:09.480 --> 00:41:10.960
<v Speaker 2>so they haven't seen him for ten years. This is

688
00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:13.360
<v Speaker 2>why he hasn't seen him. And he knew the wife

689
00:41:13.360 --> 00:41:18.119
<v Speaker 2>and he didn't really like her. And she Gloriana, great name,

690
00:41:18.960 --> 00:41:21.960
<v Speaker 2>the Queen of course, Queen Elizabeth first Gloriana, that's what

691
00:41:22.039 --> 00:41:27.400
<v Speaker 2>she was known as. She is not painted in particularly

692
00:41:27.840 --> 00:41:30.599
<v Speaker 2>warm light really as she's not a very nice person,

693
00:41:30.639 --> 00:41:32.920
<v Speaker 2>we don't think. And he doesn't seem to have missed

694
00:41:32.920 --> 00:41:34.599
<v Speaker 2>the much. He didn't seem to have liked his wife.

695
00:41:34.599 --> 00:41:37.440
<v Speaker 2>I think that's really important for the story. But you know,

696
00:41:37.639 --> 00:41:39.800
<v Speaker 2>Tommy is like, oh, it's just a hallucination, you know,

697
00:41:39.880 --> 00:41:43.880
<v Speaker 2>And that's sorry, Dick. That is to say, Dick. That's

698
00:41:44.159 --> 00:41:48.159
<v Speaker 2>Dick's job. So this is this, as I was saying,

699
00:41:48.199 --> 00:41:51.039
<v Speaker 2>this idea of psychology, is there a ghost or is

700
00:41:51.079 --> 00:41:56.480
<v Speaker 2>it insanity? Or you know, moper Son's story that hauler

701
00:41:56.719 --> 00:41:59.519
<v Speaker 2>eighteen eighty seven is a similar story in that we're

702
00:41:59.519 --> 00:42:01.480
<v Speaker 2>not sure whether as it goes through somebody going mad,

703
00:42:01.639 --> 00:42:04.280
<v Speaker 2>although I think probably in the all of the hall

704
00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:07.599
<v Speaker 2>it is somebody going mad. But you see, there is

705
00:42:07.599 --> 00:42:11.079
<v Speaker 2>a sort of a genre, increasingly of its time, with

706
00:42:11.159 --> 00:42:16.639
<v Speaker 2>an interest in psychology, our ghost real or the figments

707
00:42:16.679 --> 00:42:20.960
<v Speaker 2>of our hysterical mind, the ambiguous ghost story. So it's

708
00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:25.360
<v Speaker 2>a thing, you know, of course, if we go into psychology.

709
00:42:25.400 --> 00:42:27.199
<v Speaker 2>Psychology and I often talk about this and I don't

710
00:42:27.199 --> 00:42:29.039
<v Speaker 2>want to labor it too much, is this idea of

711
00:42:29.079 --> 00:42:34.880
<v Speaker 2>the return of the repressed. So Freud's theory is that

712
00:42:34.920 --> 00:42:37.679
<v Speaker 2>we things that are too painful that we don't acknowledge,

713
00:42:37.719 --> 00:42:40.079
<v Speaker 2>we don't want to live in our conscious mind. We

714
00:42:40.199 --> 00:42:43.119
<v Speaker 2>put him in the cupboard of our unconscious and we

715
00:42:43.239 --> 00:42:46.440
<v Speaker 2>hide it away. But his idea was that you can't

716
00:42:46.639 --> 00:42:50.159
<v Speaker 2>you know, the pressure builds up, this hydraulic metaphor, the

717
00:42:50.199 --> 00:42:54.480
<v Speaker 2>pressure builds up and we have to let it out again.

718
00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:58.119
<v Speaker 2>I remember when I was doing psychology, we would often

719
00:42:58.199 --> 00:43:02.360
<v Speaker 2>talk about how we see the human mind according to

720
00:43:02.400 --> 00:43:05.559
<v Speaker 2>the technology of the time. So in Freud's time, it

721
00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:08.679
<v Speaker 2>was basically, there is a pressure building up. You can't

722
00:43:08.679 --> 00:43:10.480
<v Speaker 2>do anything about it. You've got to let the pressure out.

723
00:43:10.639 --> 00:43:12.559
<v Speaker 2>You let the pressure out through talking about it. You

724
00:43:12.559 --> 00:43:16.400
<v Speaker 2>have a catharsis and everything's fine. That isn't true, as

725
00:43:16.400 --> 00:43:18.880
<v Speaker 2>it turns out. And then when I was studying psychology

726
00:43:18.880 --> 00:43:23.760
<v Speaker 2>in the early two thousands, the metaphor then was the

727
00:43:23.760 --> 00:43:26.679
<v Speaker 2>brain as a computer, and we had cognitive psychology, and

728
00:43:26.719 --> 00:43:30.960
<v Speaker 2>it was basically looking at the brain as an information

729
00:43:31.079 --> 00:43:36.119
<v Speaker 2>processing device. And I don't think we do that anymore.

730
00:43:36.280 --> 00:43:39.079
<v Speaker 2>I think probably we're looking at it as AI or

731
00:43:39.079 --> 00:43:42.960
<v Speaker 2>something now, which AI, of course llm's are just basically

732
00:43:43.119 --> 00:43:49.000
<v Speaker 2>very clever, huge predictive text machines. And so basically I

733
00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:51.000
<v Speaker 2>think the metaphor now for the brain will be some

734
00:43:51.079 --> 00:43:54.480
<v Speaker 2>kind of predictive text machine. So it's an interesting thought,

735
00:43:54.559 --> 00:43:59.039
<v Speaker 2>isn't it. But so behind that slight digression is the

736
00:43:59.119 --> 00:44:01.920
<v Speaker 2>mind is none of them those things, those are metaphors.

737
00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:05.320
<v Speaker 2>And I think again old in McGilchrist stepping in here,

738
00:44:05.440 --> 00:44:08.280
<v Speaker 2>the left brain likes to systemize you know, left hemisphere

739
00:44:08.320 --> 00:44:13.119
<v Speaker 2>likes to systemize, and it mistakes it's its representation for

740
00:44:13.199 --> 00:44:16.760
<v Speaker 2>the truth. So the danger is, of course, we Freud

741
00:44:16.840 --> 00:44:19.679
<v Speaker 2>thought he was so convinced that the brain operated like

742
00:44:19.719 --> 00:44:23.760
<v Speaker 2>a steam engine that he was trapped by that. And

743
00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:25.880
<v Speaker 2>so you know, in the two thousands, when they thought

744
00:44:25.880 --> 00:44:29.079
<v Speaker 2>the brain was some kind of computer of its time,

745
00:44:29.480 --> 00:44:32.000
<v Speaker 2>they really believed it was. And so the danger is

746
00:44:32.039 --> 00:44:34.239
<v Speaker 2>if we come to believe that the brain is simply

747
00:44:34.480 --> 00:44:39.480
<v Speaker 2>a very clever, predictive text or predictive bit machine, we

748
00:44:39.559 --> 00:44:42.320
<v Speaker 2>will be trapped with that idea and we will come

749
00:44:42.360 --> 00:44:45.400
<v Speaker 2>to take it as reality, when of course it's simply

750
00:44:45.480 --> 00:44:49.760
<v Speaker 2>a model, and an imperfect model anyway.

751
00:44:51.679 --> 00:44:58.280
<v Speaker 3>So so if this haunting is a return of the repressed,

752
00:44:58.800 --> 00:45:00.920
<v Speaker 3>and I think it's a dretched to say this, to

753
00:45:00.960 --> 00:45:03.679
<v Speaker 3>be honest, what is repressed?

754
00:45:04.519 --> 00:45:09.920
<v Speaker 2>What is Tom hiding from? I think we could make

755
00:45:10.119 --> 00:45:18.480
<v Speaker 2>a tentative argument that he's hiding from his inauthenticity. Now,

756
00:45:18.559 --> 00:45:20.960
<v Speaker 2>I've got to be careful because I'm really interested in

757
00:45:21.719 --> 00:45:25.440
<v Speaker 2>being honest and being authentic to yourself, and so that

758
00:45:25.559 --> 00:45:27.440
<v Speaker 2>is my model, and I've got to be aware that

759
00:45:27.519 --> 00:45:31.480
<v Speaker 2>I might be as trapped in my model as Freud

760
00:45:31.599 --> 00:45:36.400
<v Speaker 2>is in his you know. But so I'm thinking, and

761
00:45:36.440 --> 00:45:37.880
<v Speaker 2>you take it with the pinch of salt. Sorry, just

762
00:45:37.960 --> 00:45:39.800
<v Speaker 2>knock the microphone. Take it with a pinch of salt,

763
00:45:39.840 --> 00:45:42.199
<v Speaker 2>you know, because it could be that this is just

764
00:45:42.280 --> 00:45:45.000
<v Speaker 2>me and I'm hung up on my own theories, you know.

765
00:45:45.480 --> 00:45:48.840
<v Speaker 2>But I think I see the story as a man

766
00:45:48.880 --> 00:45:55.719
<v Speaker 2>who's not being honest with himself. Okay, that's what's repressed.

767
00:45:56.719 --> 00:46:00.400
<v Speaker 2>I stand. I'm absolutely prepared to be corrected on because

768
00:46:00.440 --> 00:46:02.920
<v Speaker 2>I'm not one hundred percent convinced I'm right. But anyway,

769
00:46:03.119 --> 00:46:05.880
<v Speaker 2>let's go on with the linen. I think the linen's

770
00:46:05.920 --> 00:46:09.559
<v Speaker 2>really interesting. So the most original and powerful element, remember

771
00:46:09.599 --> 00:46:12.360
<v Speaker 2>she is a woman of Everett's story, is her choice

772
00:46:12.360 --> 00:46:15.559
<v Speaker 2>of haunting medium. Gloriana's face does not appear in mirrors

773
00:46:15.599 --> 00:46:18.599
<v Speaker 2>or windows, or the generic atmospherics of the ghostly. It

774
00:46:18.679 --> 00:46:24.440
<v Speaker 2>appears exclusively in white linen, Tom's handkerchief, Lucy's embroidery. I mean,

775
00:46:24.480 --> 00:46:26.760
<v Speaker 2>I think the handkerchief is hers. Actually I don't think

776
00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:29.360
<v Speaker 2>it's Tom's. It was in a draw as he used it,

777
00:46:29.639 --> 00:46:32.079
<v Speaker 2>I forget now, but it was hers. She's put it away.

778
00:46:32.320 --> 00:46:35.679
<v Speaker 2>The dining room tablecloth. The ghost appears in the Turkish

779
00:46:35.679 --> 00:46:39.559
<v Speaker 2>bath sheet. It's not an aesthetic convenience. It's a precise

780
00:46:39.639 --> 00:46:42.159
<v Speaker 2>material and social argument, and it is one that a

781
00:46:42.199 --> 00:46:44.760
<v Speaker 2>woman writer of Everett's class and generation was equipped to

782
00:46:44.760 --> 00:46:47.159
<v Speaker 2>make in a way that a male writer deploying the

783
00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:50.280
<v Speaker 2>same imagery for atmospheric effect would not have been so.

784
00:46:50.440 --> 00:46:53.960
<v Speaker 2>Linen in the Victorian and Wardian middle class household was

785
00:46:54.039 --> 00:46:58.039
<v Speaker 2>woman's work from the beginning to the end. The marking, making,

786
00:46:58.119 --> 00:47:02.280
<v Speaker 2>even laundering, mending, and storing of household linen was a

787
00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:06.480
<v Speaker 2>specifically female responsibility, part of what a wife brought to

788
00:47:06.519 --> 00:47:10.159
<v Speaker 2>a marriage. In both literal and symbolic terms. The trousseau

789
00:47:10.440 --> 00:47:14.519
<v Speaker 2>assembled over years the household stock. The embroidered initials marked

790
00:47:14.519 --> 00:47:18.039
<v Speaker 2>ownership and transformed it. A man encountered linen as a

791
00:47:18.079 --> 00:47:21.400
<v Speaker 2>finished product. It was a clean shirt, laid out, nicely ironed,

792
00:47:21.760 --> 00:47:25.519
<v Speaker 2>the table set, the beds made. A woman encountered it

793
00:47:25.559 --> 00:47:29.960
<v Speaker 2>as a continuous management responsibility that began before marriage and

794
00:47:30.159 --> 00:47:33.360
<v Speaker 2>ended only at her death, when the same category of

795
00:47:33.440 --> 00:47:36.800
<v Speaker 2>cloth was used to wrap her body. The linen chest

796
00:47:36.960 --> 00:47:40.079
<v Speaker 2>was one of the few domains of genuine female authority

797
00:47:40.440 --> 00:47:43.960
<v Speaker 2>in a household where legal and financial authority resided entirely

798
00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:48.159
<v Speaker 2>with the husband exercised through She exercises her contact with

799
00:47:48.320 --> 00:47:51.599
<v Speaker 2>linen through unceasing invisible labor. Of course, in a middle

800
00:47:51.599 --> 00:47:54.440
<v Speaker 2>class houseld like this, much of the labor is carried

801
00:47:54.440 --> 00:47:57.719
<v Speaker 2>by the servants, which is a class distinction, but they

802
00:47:57.760 --> 00:48:02.280
<v Speaker 2>will be female servants. The shroud dimension compounds is the

803
00:48:02.320 --> 00:48:05.559
<v Speaker 2>same material that makes the wedding dress, makes the winding sheet.

804
00:48:05.840 --> 00:48:09.960
<v Speaker 2>Gloriana's deathbed request cover my face with the handkerchief is

805
00:48:09.960 --> 00:48:12.880
<v Speaker 2>the gesture that initiates a whole mechanism and fuses a

806
00:48:12.920 --> 00:48:16.320
<v Speaker 2>domestic and the mortuary in a single action. She's not

807
00:48:16.440 --> 00:48:19.400
<v Speaker 2>asking Tom to do something extraordinary. She's asking him to

808
00:48:19.440 --> 00:48:23.119
<v Speaker 2>perform a ritual that falls entirely with the normal management

809
00:48:23.159 --> 00:48:26.360
<v Speaker 2>of death, which was also in this period. Woman's work.

810
00:48:26.599 --> 00:48:29.960
<v Speaker 2>Who lays you out? It's woman comes from the parish.

811
00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:33.840
<v Speaker 2>Who lays you out often midwives and the laying out

812
00:48:33.880 --> 00:48:36.880
<v Speaker 2>women with the same woman. Whatever it understands and encodes

813
00:48:36.920 --> 00:48:39.320
<v Speaker 2>in the story's material texture is that the linen chests

814
00:48:39.320 --> 00:48:42.119
<v Speaker 2>and the coffin are not opposites. They are points on

815
00:48:42.159 --> 00:48:45.239
<v Speaker 2>the same continuum of women's domestic labor and the ghost

816
00:48:45.280 --> 00:48:48.199
<v Speaker 2>to haunts through cloth is haunting through the very substance

817
00:48:48.199 --> 00:48:50.800
<v Speaker 2>of her own working life. I think that's an interesting point.

818
00:48:51.000 --> 00:48:54.079
<v Speaker 2>I don't think it doesn't ring one hundred percent true.

819
00:48:54.119 --> 00:48:57.400
<v Speaker 2>It's not the whole story with the story. There's another

820
00:48:57.599 --> 00:49:01.440
<v Speaker 2>kind of issue about the whole genre of the dead

821
00:49:01.559 --> 00:49:07.599
<v Speaker 2>first wife stories. It's almost a subgenre that runs from

822
00:49:07.639 --> 00:49:10.679
<v Speaker 2>the mid nineteenth century through to the late nineteen thirties.

823
00:49:10.840 --> 00:49:13.840
<v Speaker 2>Very interesting. It's bounded in time like that. The story

824
00:49:13.840 --> 00:49:16.599
<v Speaker 2>of the dead wife whose claim on her surviving husband

825
00:49:16.840 --> 00:49:20.159
<v Speaker 2>prevents him from finding happiness with a second woman its

826
00:49:20.199 --> 00:49:23.840
<v Speaker 2>founding instant. Is instance is Charlotte Bronte is Jane eighteen

827
00:49:23.880 --> 00:49:27.360
<v Speaker 2>forty seven, where Bertha Mason is not dead but institutionally

828
00:49:27.519 --> 00:49:32.000
<v Speaker 2>prior locked in the attic legally indischargeable. So she's sort

829
00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:35.000
<v Speaker 2>of effectively like the ghost of a woman, but haunting,

830
00:49:35.320 --> 00:49:38.239
<v Speaker 2>you know, she haunts the relationship. The claim that cannot

831
00:49:38.239 --> 00:49:41.360
<v Speaker 2>be canceled by ordinary means. Bertha establishes the pattern that

832
00:49:41.400 --> 00:49:44.119
<v Speaker 2>was eighteen forty seven the first wife as the obstacle

833
00:49:44.320 --> 00:49:48.320
<v Speaker 2>whose removal cannot be achieved through normal social negotiation, but

834
00:49:48.440 --> 00:49:53.719
<v Speaker 2>only through extraordinary and violent means. It develops in a

835
00:49:53.800 --> 00:49:57.480
<v Speaker 2>later tradition where the living inconvenient wife is actually replaced

836
00:49:57.519 --> 00:50:00.800
<v Speaker 2>with a dead one, intensifying the problem can siderably, a

837
00:50:00.840 --> 00:50:05.119
<v Speaker 2>dead wife cannot be reasoned with, confronted, divorced, or outlasted. Also,

838
00:50:05.199 --> 00:50:07.880
<v Speaker 2>she can't be killed in the supernatural variance. She is

839
00:50:07.880 --> 00:50:11.039
<v Speaker 2>a quite precisely through death, a power she never possessed

840
00:50:11.039 --> 00:50:14.920
<v Speaker 2>in life. This is where I think Gloriana seems to

841
00:50:14.960 --> 00:50:19.159
<v Speaker 2>be in a very powerful woman. But we will go

842
00:50:19.199 --> 00:50:23.440
<v Speaker 2>with this argument. So we have Hugh Walpole's Snow, which

843
00:50:23.559 --> 00:50:26.079
<v Speaker 2>I've read. Of course you can find it on the podcast.

844
00:50:26.480 --> 00:50:29.719
<v Speaker 2>Nineteen ten is the earliest of these supernatural cases, and

845
00:50:29.760 --> 00:50:33.119
<v Speaker 2>in some respects are most revealing. The dead wife returns

846
00:50:33.159 --> 00:50:36.239
<v Speaker 2>not through any domestic object, but there's weather and encroaching

847
00:50:36.280 --> 00:50:39.400
<v Speaker 2>elemental cold that draws the husband, Jacob Finch, away from

848
00:50:39.400 --> 00:50:42.840
<v Speaker 2>his living second wife and out into the fatal exterior

849
00:50:42.880 --> 00:50:45.000
<v Speaker 2>with the first wife, where she won't give him up.

850
00:50:45.480 --> 00:50:48.719
<v Speaker 2>Walpole's dead wife does not colonize the domestic interior as

851
00:50:48.719 --> 00:50:52.159
<v Speaker 2>Gloriana does. She abolishes it, expanding her claim to the

852
00:50:52.199 --> 00:50:56.880
<v Speaker 2>atmosphere itself. Jacob cannot flee snow, but Walpole's most disturbing

853
00:50:56.960 --> 00:50:59.960
<v Speaker 2>insight is that Jacob does not particularly want to flee,

854
00:51:01.280 --> 00:51:03.599
<v Speaker 2>So there are variance of theme here. He walks out

855
00:51:03.639 --> 00:51:06.599
<v Speaker 2>into the cold. There's something that looks from outside like relief.

856
00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:10.800
<v Speaker 2>The first marriage is inauthenticity included. Is it implied a

857
00:51:10.880 --> 00:51:13.599
<v Speaker 2>kind of cold emotional safety. I'm going to say that

858
00:51:13.639 --> 00:51:17.679
<v Speaker 2>again because clearly the relationship with the first wife is

859
00:51:17.800 --> 00:51:21.800
<v Speaker 2>not gone, and these men in these stories have different

860
00:51:21.880 --> 00:51:27.800
<v Speaker 2>relationships to the first wife. With Jacob Finch, we don't know,

861
00:51:28.079 --> 00:51:31.280
<v Speaker 2>and WAPAT doesn't say much about the previous relationships, so

862
00:51:31.320 --> 00:51:34.559
<v Speaker 2>we surmise and very limited evidence, But it does appear

863
00:51:34.599 --> 00:51:37.119
<v Speaker 2>that there's something comforting about the snow. It's almost like

864
00:51:37.159 --> 00:51:42.320
<v Speaker 2>he's it's easier to to to relax into death with her.

865
00:51:43.639 --> 00:51:48.559
<v Speaker 2>There's something comforting about that. It's an app's so we

866
00:51:48.639 --> 00:51:51.119
<v Speaker 2>may say it's a cold emotional safety. The absence of

867
00:51:51.159 --> 00:51:54.400
<v Speaker 2>the demand for genuine feeling that the living second wife

868
00:51:54.400 --> 00:51:57.079
<v Speaker 2>now makes on him. So she needs him as a man,

869
00:51:57.159 --> 00:51:59.760
<v Speaker 2>as a person, and for some reason he can't give that,

870
00:51:59.800 --> 00:52:03.039
<v Speaker 2>and he, you know, he needs to escape that demand

871
00:52:03.119 --> 00:52:07.079
<v Speaker 2>to be a real person in life. Okay, so that

872
00:52:07.199 --> 00:52:12.000
<v Speaker 2>may be what's inauthentic here. So I want to talk

873
00:52:12.039 --> 00:52:16.119
<v Speaker 2>then about Edith Wharton's pomegranate seed, which divides people. I

874
00:52:16.280 --> 00:52:19.760
<v Speaker 2>love it. I see the comments. Some people really don't

875
00:52:19.760 --> 00:52:22.840
<v Speaker 2>get it at all nineteen thirty one. So in this case,

876
00:52:23.199 --> 00:52:26.679
<v Speaker 2>Charlotte Ashby, the dead first wife, communicates with her surviving husband,

877
00:52:26.719 --> 00:52:30.239
<v Speaker 2>Kenneth through letters that arrive in handwriting his second wife Laura,

878
00:52:30.239 --> 00:52:33.800
<v Speaker 2>and can see but never read. Kenneth reads and answers them,

879
00:52:33.800 --> 00:52:36.760
<v Speaker 2>and is progressively drawn away from the living woman until

880
00:52:36.800 --> 00:52:42.039
<v Speaker 2>he disappears entirely. Wharton's title supplies the mythological key, the

881
00:52:42.039 --> 00:52:45.880
<v Speaker 2>pomegranate seed, the persephone eight in the underworld, boundy to return,

882
00:52:45.920 --> 00:52:48.719
<v Speaker 2>you know, the myth so Posephonie descends into the underworld.

883
00:52:48.760 --> 00:52:51.719
<v Speaker 2>A mother Demeter is looking for her, but she's married

884
00:52:51.719 --> 00:52:54.599
<v Speaker 2>to Hades, and in the endicome with this deal because

885
00:52:54.599 --> 00:52:57.840
<v Speaker 2>because she's eaten the fruit of the underworld, she must return.

886
00:52:58.320 --> 00:53:01.760
<v Speaker 2>So it's something about the world of the dead, the

887
00:53:01.800 --> 00:53:05.639
<v Speaker 2>world of those who have passed already that hooks these

888
00:53:05.679 --> 00:53:09.000
<v Speaker 2>people something they can't These men cannot get away from this,

889
00:53:09.119 --> 00:53:12.079
<v Speaker 2>you know. So Kenneth has consumed something of his first

890
00:53:12.119 --> 00:53:16.280
<v Speaker 2>marriage that now operates inside himself as a compulsion indistinguishable

891
00:53:16.320 --> 00:53:18.360
<v Speaker 2>from Will. We're even talking a little bit Arthur shopping

892
00:53:18.400 --> 00:53:22.079
<v Speaker 2>out here. Won't go into that, but his shopping that

893
00:53:22.159 --> 00:53:24.239
<v Speaker 2>is great. Actually, he's hard to read, so read him

894
00:53:24.280 --> 00:53:29.039
<v Speaker 2>through somebody else. I read him through BERNARDA. Castro. He's

895
00:53:29.039 --> 00:53:31.159
<v Speaker 2>got a great book on chopping. Now helped me really

896
00:53:31.239 --> 00:53:35.480
<v Speaker 2>understand it anyway. So in Wharton's story, going back the

897
00:53:35.480 --> 00:53:39.559
<v Speaker 2>dead wives claiming Wharton requires the husband's participation. Again, Charlotte's

898
00:53:39.639 --> 00:53:43.199
<v Speaker 2>letters must be opened, read and answered, and that participation

899
00:53:43.280 --> 00:53:46.639
<v Speaker 2>is what makes the horror specifically psychological as well as supernatural.

900
00:53:47.079 --> 00:53:50.280
<v Speaker 2>Loauring the second wive watches with complete clarity and complete

901
00:53:50.280 --> 00:53:54.440
<v Speaker 2>helplessness because she cannot do Kenneth's more men, how would

902
00:53:54.440 --> 00:53:56.920
<v Speaker 2>he say that morning? And he will not do it

903
00:53:56.960 --> 00:53:59.960
<v Speaker 2>from himself, So he he's unable to process of both

904
00:54:00.079 --> 00:54:02.639
<v Speaker 2>of these men. So far are we're talking about, and

905
00:54:02.639 --> 00:54:04.760
<v Speaker 2>I suppose to Jane Eyre as well, But Hugh wo

906
00:54:04.840 --> 00:54:09.199
<v Speaker 2>Pole's character, Edith Wharton's character, they have not processed. They're

907
00:54:09.199 --> 00:54:15.199
<v Speaker 2>not done with that first marriage, that first relationship. This

908
00:54:15.239 --> 00:54:20.039
<v Speaker 2>probably says something very much alive. This is a story,

909
00:54:20.079 --> 00:54:25.400
<v Speaker 2>after all. So I imagine that the experience of many second

910
00:54:26.159 --> 00:54:30.239
<v Speaker 2>not just women, but second husbands as well, is that

911
00:54:31.119 --> 00:54:36.280
<v Speaker 2>their first partner is also somehow in the relationship. If

912
00:54:36.280 --> 00:54:39.079
<v Speaker 2>he has not been able to let's say he, but

913
00:54:39.119 --> 00:54:40.960
<v Speaker 2>it could be she as well has not been able

914
00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:45.559
<v Speaker 2>to process this, then that relationship is not effectively dead,

915
00:54:45.840 --> 00:54:48.719
<v Speaker 2>and we move on to definitely the Marie is Rebecca

916
00:54:48.840 --> 00:54:52.280
<v Speaker 2>nineteen thirty eight. The fullest treatment of this the id

917
00:54:52.920 --> 00:54:55.840
<v Speaker 2>identical effect, without recourse to the supernatural at all. Although

918
00:54:55.880 --> 00:54:57.920
<v Speaker 2>it almost feels like a go it should be a

919
00:54:57.920 --> 00:55:01.119
<v Speaker 2>ghost story. Rebecca to Winter is dead before the novel

920
00:55:01.159 --> 00:55:04.880
<v Speaker 2>begins and never appears. She is pure inscription, her monogram

921
00:55:04.920 --> 00:55:08.480
<v Speaker 2>on the household linen, her personality in Missus Danver's devotion,

922
00:55:08.559 --> 00:55:11.800
<v Speaker 2>her reputation in the neighborhood's memory. The second Missus de Wint,

923
00:55:11.840 --> 00:55:14.199
<v Speaker 2>who has no name of her own, which is the

924
00:55:14.239 --> 00:55:17.719
<v Speaker 2>novel's central semiotic statement, finds every surface of her new

925
00:55:17.760 --> 00:55:21.599
<v Speaker 2>life already covered with a prior text she cannot overwrite.

926
00:55:22.199 --> 00:55:24.920
<v Speaker 2>The dead wife's power is the total power of total

927
00:55:24.960 --> 00:55:28.239
<v Speaker 2>prior occupation. She's filled the role so completely that the

928
00:55:28.280 --> 00:55:32.920
<v Speaker 2>woman attempting to succeed her, the second wife, finds no

929
00:55:33.119 --> 00:55:37.800
<v Speaker 2>space in which to exist independently. So in this case

930
00:55:37.920 --> 00:55:39.719
<v Speaker 2>with the death mask. Of course, what we've got is

931
00:55:39.760 --> 00:55:46.559
<v Speaker 2>that Lucy Young Lucy is a promise of happiness, but

932
00:55:46.719 --> 00:55:50.960
<v Speaker 2>can never be fulfilled because Tom has not processed, has

933
00:55:51.039 --> 00:55:58.280
<v Speaker 2>not been not honestly disposed of the first relationship. The

934
00:55:58.360 --> 00:56:01.079
<v Speaker 2>dead wife prevents her husband from happy with the second woman,

935
00:56:01.159 --> 00:56:03.320
<v Speaker 2>not because the dead are inherently more powerful than a

936
00:56:03.400 --> 00:56:06.360
<v Speaker 2>living but because happiness in a second marriage requires an

937
00:56:06.360 --> 00:56:09.199
<v Speaker 2>honest reckoning with the first one, and these men have

938
00:56:09.320 --> 00:56:12.159
<v Speaker 2>not performed that reckoning. The dead wife's power is not

939
00:56:12.239 --> 00:56:17.920
<v Speaker 2>at root supernatural or psychological, it is ethical. Tom Enderby's

940
00:56:17.960 --> 00:56:22.079
<v Speaker 2>situation makes this unusually legible because Everett in this story

941
00:56:22.159 --> 00:56:25.840
<v Speaker 2>gives us key details without such telling, with such telling casualness.

942
00:56:25.960 --> 00:56:29.079
<v Speaker 2>Gloriana was his senior, the house was hers. The marriage

943
00:56:29.079 --> 00:56:31.159
<v Speaker 2>had the shape of an arrangement made for the reasons

944
00:56:31.320 --> 00:56:35.119
<v Speaker 2>for reasons other than love, property's, social settlement convenience. Tom

945
00:56:35.239 --> 00:56:38.559
<v Speaker 2>endured it, and when Gloriana died, his first private thought

946
00:56:38.719 --> 00:56:41.719
<v Speaker 2>was a good job too. That's what he says. That

947
00:56:41.840 --> 00:56:45.079
<v Speaker 2>relief is never examined, never mourned, never atoned for. It

948
00:56:45.159 --> 00:56:47.760
<v Speaker 2>is pocketed and set aside in favor of the pursuit

949
00:56:47.800 --> 00:56:50.599
<v Speaker 2>of lucy. He has never admitted to himself or to

950
00:56:50.599 --> 00:56:52.880
<v Speaker 2>anyone else, that he spent years in a marriage he

951
00:56:52.920 --> 00:56:55.119
<v Speaker 2>did not want, with a woman he did not love,

952
00:56:55.559 --> 00:56:59.039
<v Speaker 2>and that Gloriana, whatever her faults as a companion, invested

953
00:56:59.079 --> 00:57:02.400
<v Speaker 2>her entirely legal and social identity. She's just known as

954
00:57:02.440 --> 00:57:06.000
<v Speaker 2>missus Enderby in lots of things in that same marriage,

955
00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:09.840
<v Speaker 2>with no equivalent exit available to her. Under the coverture

956
00:57:09.920 --> 00:57:12.639
<v Speaker 2>system that shared her married life, she had no independent

957
00:57:12.639 --> 00:57:16.360
<v Speaker 2>property rights, no career, no public existence outside her role

958
00:57:16.400 --> 00:57:19.920
<v Speaker 2>as missus Enderby. The savage irony encoded in the story's

959
00:57:19.960 --> 00:57:23.000
<v Speaker 2>property detail is that her own house survives her in

960
00:57:23.039 --> 00:57:25.719
<v Speaker 2>a form that benefits him. He holds it as a

961
00:57:25.760 --> 00:57:29.559
<v Speaker 2>tenant for life, administering her assets for his own comfort,

962
00:57:29.639 --> 00:57:33.599
<v Speaker 2>exactly as a law administered them during her lifetime. She cannot,

963
00:57:33.639 --> 00:57:36.280
<v Speaker 2>even from beyond the grave, reclaim what was legally hers.

964
00:57:36.679 --> 00:57:39.960
<v Speaker 2>Against that backdrop, the haunting is not supernatural excess. It

965
00:57:40.039 --> 00:57:43.119
<v Speaker 2>is a logical necessity, the only channel left to a

966
00:57:43.159 --> 00:57:47.360
<v Speaker 2>woman for whom every other instrument has been closed. The

967
00:57:47.440 --> 00:57:50.199
<v Speaker 2>death mask returns because the admission of all this has

968
00:57:50.239 --> 00:57:53.320
<v Speaker 2>never been made, The account has never been settled. And

969
00:57:53.360 --> 00:57:56.880
<v Speaker 2>the ghost is not in the final analysis Gloriana enderby

970
00:57:56.880 --> 00:58:01.679
<v Speaker 2>at all. The ghost is the unlived authentic life that

971
00:58:01.760 --> 00:58:05.000
<v Speaker 2>the first marriage foreclosed, returning at the moment when the

972
00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:09.079
<v Speaker 2>possibility of living genuinely presents itself, demanding that the debt

973
00:58:09.159 --> 00:58:13.400
<v Speaker 2>be acknowledged before the new beginning can be permitted. Gloriana's

974
00:58:13.400 --> 00:58:16.320
<v Speaker 2>face in the linen is not revenge. It is an invoice.

975
00:58:16.320 --> 00:58:23.440
<v Speaker 2>But what we've got is the linen symbolizes that domestic

976
00:58:23.559 --> 00:58:28.920
<v Speaker 2>arrangement in a sense almost it's about So the ethics

977
00:58:29.119 --> 00:58:34.440
<v Speaker 2>are that he lived a lie for his own convenience

978
00:58:35.159 --> 00:58:38.440
<v Speaker 2>with a woman he didn't really like, just so he

979
00:58:38.440 --> 00:58:42.440
<v Speaker 2>could enjoy her money and property. And so it's ethical,

980
00:58:42.519 --> 00:58:45.119
<v Speaker 2>isn't it that? And of course we've got to remember

981
00:58:45.239 --> 00:58:47.320
<v Speaker 2>I went to see just before I went down to Wales.

982
00:58:47.360 --> 00:58:50.280
<v Speaker 2>I was in Newcastle or the Royal Shakespeare Company's version

983
00:58:50.320 --> 00:58:53.280
<v Speaker 2>of Hamlet. And of course it's all about ethics, isn't

984
00:58:53.280 --> 00:58:55.760
<v Speaker 2>The ghosts are all about ethics. And one of the

985
00:58:55.800 --> 00:58:59.880
<v Speaker 2>oldest roles of a ghost in the story is to

986
00:59:00.039 --> 00:59:02.760
<v Speaker 2>do right wrongs, to point out where there have been

987
00:59:02.800 --> 00:59:06.760
<v Speaker 2>transgressions in how things should be and where people have

988
00:59:06.920 --> 00:59:11.519
<v Speaker 2>actually been naughty. I can't think of the poshuath for

989
00:59:11.599 --> 00:59:18.480
<v Speaker 2>that moment. So in every case of this, so okay,

990
00:59:18.639 --> 00:59:26.440
<v Speaker 2>So let's go back to the pomegrancy briefly. It's more opaque,

991
00:59:27.159 --> 00:59:31.239
<v Speaker 2>but the structure implies the same dynamic. His silence with

992
00:59:31.360 --> 00:59:34.880
<v Speaker 2>Lauring is not discretion. It is a continuation of inauthenticity

993
00:59:34.960 --> 00:59:37.280
<v Speaker 2>that began in the first marriage and has transferred itself

994
00:59:37.280 --> 00:59:39.639
<v Speaker 2>into the second. I would slays, I would kind of

995
00:59:39.840 --> 00:59:42.800
<v Speaker 2>revise that slightly, you know, and say the inauthenticity now

996
00:59:42.880 --> 00:59:47.000
<v Speaker 2>is with the second wife. You know. I suppose what

997
00:59:47.039 --> 00:59:49.039
<v Speaker 2>we're saying about these is you have to if you're

998
00:59:49.079 --> 00:59:53.239
<v Speaker 2>in a relationship with somebody, you can't use them. It's

999
00:59:53.320 --> 00:59:57.960
<v Speaker 2>not ethical to use them. And so old Tom Enderby

1000
00:59:58.079 --> 01:00:02.400
<v Speaker 2>uses Gloriana in the set second issue, the second one

1001
01:00:02.400 --> 01:00:06.519
<v Speaker 2>that polygrams seed. He's using lawing his second wife for

1002
01:00:06.639 --> 01:00:11.480
<v Speaker 2>emotional benefit, but he isn't honest whe her, He's not

1003
01:00:11.639 --> 01:00:16.079
<v Speaker 2>true to her. Yeah, I mean, if we look at

1004
01:00:16.079 --> 01:00:20.599
<v Speaker 2>Rebecca maximum de Winter, his inauthenticity having reached the point

1005
01:00:20.599 --> 01:00:22.480
<v Speaker 2>of actual vans that was a loveless marriage. It was

1006
01:00:22.519 --> 01:00:25.679
<v Speaker 2>so inauthentic the world thought it was going on. Finally,

1007
01:00:25.719 --> 01:00:28.840
<v Speaker 2>and he in some sense benefited from that. He wanted

1008
01:00:28.960 --> 01:00:32.519
<v Speaker 2>to project this image of the county couple very successful,

1009
01:00:33.159 --> 01:00:39.039
<v Speaker 2>but she wasn't very nice. But do you see what

1010
01:00:39.079 --> 01:00:41.480
<v Speaker 2>I'm saying? Inauthentic And eventually he kills her and he

1011
01:00:41.519 --> 01:00:45.840
<v Speaker 2>gets away with it, ethics running right through this, but

1012
01:00:44.719 --> 01:00:54.719
<v Speaker 2>the other woman suffers. Okay, So the sorry asks what

1013
01:00:54.760 --> 01:00:56.559
<v Speaker 2>we owe to the dead and what it costs to

1014
01:00:56.599 --> 01:01:00.320
<v Speaker 2>carry an unexamined life forward into a future that demands Honestly,

1015
01:01:00.400 --> 01:01:02.920
<v Speaker 2>I think that is the central message here. The mascot

1016
01:01:02.960 --> 01:01:05.679
<v Speaker 2>forms in tom Enderby's handkerchief, in Lucy's embroidery, in the

1017
01:01:05.679 --> 01:01:08.159
<v Speaker 2>tablecloth at luncheon. He's made of the same cloth as

1018
01:01:08.199 --> 01:01:11.679
<v Speaker 2>Gloriana's shroud and her trousseau and the household stock she

1019
01:01:11.760 --> 01:01:15.239
<v Speaker 2>managed without acknowledgment through servants for the duration of a

1020
01:01:15.280 --> 01:01:17.639
<v Speaker 2>marriage that was never what it pretended to be. Tom

1021
01:01:17.719 --> 01:01:20.400
<v Speaker 2>Enderby's tragedy is not that he's haunted. It is that

1022
01:01:20.480 --> 01:01:23.719
<v Speaker 2>he never learns what the haunting means. He never learns,

1023
01:01:23.719 --> 01:01:26.239
<v Speaker 2>does he. At the end of it, He's no further forward.

1024
01:01:26.440 --> 01:01:28.960
<v Speaker 2>He's like, Oh, I can't marry. I can't get married

1025
01:01:29.000 --> 01:01:33.800
<v Speaker 2>because Gloriana he's the victim still of he's owing in authenticity.

1026
01:01:33.840 --> 01:01:36.159
<v Speaker 2>He doesn't seem to have any knowledge of why he

1027
01:01:36.199 --> 01:01:40.199
<v Speaker 2>should be published, published, publish, why he should be polished.

1028
01:01:40.519 --> 01:01:43.199
<v Speaker 2>What am I saying why he should be punished? Okay?

1029
01:01:43.360 --> 01:01:48.239
<v Speaker 2>He does never acknowledge that there's no honest reckoning with himself.

1030
01:01:48.480 --> 01:01:50.679
<v Speaker 2>He doesn't carry any guilt for what he did to Lucy,

1031
01:01:50.760 --> 01:01:57.639
<v Speaker 2>for what he did to Gloriana. For he's slimy backboneless corruption.

1032
01:01:59.400 --> 01:02:02.280
<v Speaker 2>I mean, he's there's a decent sort of chap, but

1033
01:02:02.320 --> 01:02:06.239
<v Speaker 2>he's not at all. Okay. These husbands in all these

1034
01:02:06.280 --> 01:02:10.679
<v Speaker 2>stories are not simply men who contracted inauthentic first marriages

1035
01:02:10.719 --> 01:02:12.880
<v Speaker 2>and are now paying the price or in authentic second

1036
01:02:13.519 --> 01:02:17.280
<v Speaker 2>They are men who at some level preferred the inauthenticity.

1037
01:02:17.920 --> 01:02:20.800
<v Speaker 2>They don't there's maximum the Winter, you know, he gets

1038
01:02:20.840 --> 01:02:23.800
<v Speaker 2>away with a crime. And in the other two cases,

1039
01:02:23.840 --> 01:02:26.960
<v Speaker 2>the Snow and the Pomegrant, see the husband's disappear with

1040
01:02:27.039 --> 01:02:30.239
<v Speaker 2>the wife. So they never they never make that moral reckoning.

1041
01:02:30.719 --> 01:02:34.440
<v Speaker 2>And you could argue that they suffer. But the second

1042
01:02:34.440 --> 01:02:39.360
<v Speaker 2>wife suffers or Lucy, you know, her hopes are dashed.

1043
01:02:39.679 --> 01:02:42.880
<v Speaker 2>She's been the subject of a broken engagement, which will

1044
01:02:42.920 --> 01:02:47.039
<v Speaker 2>will cast shade, as they say, on her. Anyway, there

1045
01:02:47.079 --> 01:02:49.599
<v Speaker 2>we go. So it's amazing what you can get out

1046
01:02:49.599 --> 01:02:52.960
<v Speaker 2>of a short a short piece, you know, an apparently

1047
01:02:53.039 --> 01:02:57.199
<v Speaker 2>simple ghost story. And this is why I think they

1048
01:02:57.280 --> 01:03:00.360
<v Speaker 2>rewards study, because they're not just simple stuf worries. In

1049
01:03:00.360 --> 01:03:03.920
<v Speaker 2>many cases, they have actually something to say about the

1050
01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:06.280
<v Speaker 2>human condition, and in this case, I think it's an

1051
01:03:06.320 --> 01:03:09.360
<v Speaker 2>ethical story. So I think that's what it's about, more

1052
01:03:09.400 --> 01:03:12.280
<v Speaker 2>than Freud or anything like that. Anyway, Okay, I hope

1053
01:03:12.320 --> 01:03:27.239
<v Speaker 2>you enjoyed it. Take care by.

1054
01:03:22.760 --> 01:03:30.559
<v Speaker 1>Everybody dies. Isn't that certain? You've tried to get into

1055
01:03:30.559 --> 01:03:31.679
<v Speaker 1>the long drouble today?

1056
01:03:31.719 --> 01:03:32.119
<v Speaker 2>Didn't you?

1057
01:03:32.800 --> 01:03:36.840
<v Speaker 1>How do that they'd come back? What's the secret