Trefusis

Hunt the Slipper by Violet Trefusis

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Last Bank Holiday weekend, I decided to go and spend a bit of time at a National Trust property, enjoying the sunshine and reading a book or two (or three). None of the books I was reading at that juncture felt quite right – and so I scouted round my shelves until I found something that did. And I chose Hunt the Slipper (1937) by Violet Trefusis.

I’ve read a couple of other novels by Trefusis before. I loved Echo, and quite quickly read Broderie Anglaise, which I didn’t much like. Then I came to impasse and waited a few years, clearly. The cover to Hunt the Slipper was enough to persuade me – that, and the fact that it fitted one of my empty years in A Century of Books.

Trefusis’s novel is about privileged, artistic, middle-aged types – experimenting with love and with detachment. At the centre is Nigel Benson, on the cusp of 50, and living with his sister Molly. He has been something of a lothario, but is becoming a little more interested in fine furniture and architecture. Into his life – because she is the new wife of his close friend Sir Anthony Crome – walks a young woman called Caroline. She has little time for manners, airily says what she thinks, doesn’t really understand the mores of his world. And they fall awkwardly, uncertainly in love. In Paris, of course.

Trefusis has a rather assured and engaging tone – quite arch, witty, and the right level of detachment from her characters. Here’s the opening paragraph:

Molly Benson was clipping a small yew with a virtuosity, a flourish that would have put many a professional topiarist to shame. The click-click of her secateurs, monotonous, hypnotic, was sending her brother to sleep, the newspaper on his knees had slithered to the ground, and his head lolled… Molly had hoped this would happen. Poor pet! He gets so little, she thought, meaning sleep. She was glad to contribute to that little. An excellent sleeper herself, she was rather proud of his insomnia. It set him aside as a superior being. Like Nietzsche, he only obtained by violence what was given others freely.

It’s her wonderful writing style that stands out. And particularly the ways that characters observe and misunderstand each other – and how they see a whole scene, including crockery, sideboards, walls, landscapes. They each build their own interpretations of surroundings, and Trefusis convinces us that they are whole people. Often her turns of phrase and small similes are perfect – and this helps elevate the story above the traditional love triangle tropes. I rather liked this excerpt:

“Well, good-bye, my dear,” he said, with a sickly heartiness. “I shall look forward to seeing you in May. Don’t forget my address is the Grand Hotel, Florence.” 

“Good-bye, Nigel. I can never forget all you’ve done for me.” They were like guilty correspondents who imagine that so long as the end of their letters is above-board, nobody will inquire into the rest.”

I certainly preferred the sections of the novel that weren’t about love affairs. It’s something I find rather tedious to read about, and is the reason Broderie Anglaise was a misfire for me – but she is rather more clever about it in this book. We don’t get pages of people pouring their hearts out, or a narrative that expects us to weep when they weep. The characters are no less sincere, but Trefusis knows better than to expect us to buy into it completely.

Incidentally, the title is explained at one point:

He did not suspect that by one of Love’s infallible ricochets she was behaving to him as Melo had behaved to her. Her cruelty was Melo’s legacy; her indifference to him was out of revenge for Melo’s indifference to her. Love had passed from one to the other, furtive, unseizable, like the slipper in ‘Hunt the Slipper’.

I still wish I could read a Trefusis novel where she’s not writing about romantic love – because I think she’s better and more interesting on other topics – but I’ll keep reading whatever she has written. She might mostly be remembered now as a footnote in Bloomsbury love triangles, but I think she deserves more than that.

Echo

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One of the novellas I read during Novella Reading Weekend was Echo (1931) by Violet Trefusis (translated from French by Sian Miles) and I thought it was rather brilliant. If I hadn’t read Paul Gallico’s exceptionally good Love of Seven Dolls at the same time, I’d probably have dashed off an enthused review of Echo right away. As it is, prepare yourself for some enthusiasm now. (I should add, I’ve since read Broderie Anglaise – I’ll probably write a blog post on it at some point, but I was severely disappointed – it was nowhere near as good as Echo.)


I had a little stack of unread Violet Trefusis novellas (they do all seem to be short – Echo is 109pp.) on my shelf, mostly because I recognised her name from Virginia Woolf’s diaries and various Bloomsbury books. I hadn’t quite worked out where she fitted into everything (turns out she had a youthful affair with Vita Sackville-West, as you do) but the combined allure of Bloomsbury and brevity was enough for her to find her way to my shelves. And, eventually, to my hands – I’m very glad she did, because Echo is very funny, as well as well written and occasionally quite moving. Oh, and it has twins in it. That’s what sealed the deal.

As people seem to in novels of the period, the central characters live in a Scottish castle. To give you an image of its state, this describes the bedrooms: ‘They were all equally high-ceilinged, equally pale, equally damp, and entirely devoid of comfort or charm.’ The castle houses Lady Balquidder and her twin niece and nephew, Jean and Malcolm – Lady Balquidder is proper and restrained, always behaving exactly as polite society expects of her, and receiving her due from society in return. Here she is:
Her plump hands were covered with freckles which matched the colour of her hair, still auburn, despite her sixty-five years. From time to time, the ale-coloured eyes, beneath their reddened lids, darted a glance at the door. Her whole person flickered like a small but constant flame.
Jean and Malcolm are not built in the same mould as their aunt. They are hardy, rough, and unmannered youths – in their early 20s – whose behaviour is closer to savages than to Lady B’s. That is to say, they greatly prefer nature to the confines of rooms (‘each of the twins had a passionate love of their wild homeland and were constantly entranced by its beauty’), and possess no frailties nor qualms which generally afflict those of their supposed class. Jean, especially, is proud of not being unduly feminine – and is devoted to her twin brother.

Into the mix of this maelstrom comes another of Lady Balquidder’s nieces, the twins’ cousin, Sauge, from Paris.
“Yes,” agreed Jean, “I can’t wait to see her teetering about the moors in Louis Quinze heels. She’ll want to have snails every mealtime – when she’s not eating frogs, that is. She’ll have a little corncrakey voice, and she’ll keep saying ‘Ah mon Dieu!’ all the time. And, of course, she’ll be fat and dumpy, like her mother; you know, there’s a photo of her on Aunt Agnes’ desk.”

“Well we can certainly make her life a misery,” proclaimed Malcolm with relish.
Needless to say, Sauge is not in the least like this. Trefusis dashes us away from Scotland to Paris, and we get to glimpse Sauge first-hand:
Her searching curiosity was by now proverbial and she was strong and capable enough to act as a prop to someone who really interested her, as a trellis to the young tendrils of a plant slow to develop.

But whenever the eternally grateful ‘subject’ showed signs of wanting to stabilize a relationship regarded always by Sauge as temporary, she would quietly slip away, fearful lest a human heart bring her down from the Olympian heights of her disinterestedness.
The arrival of Sauge triggers off all manner of change at the castle, of course. Initially the twins treat her with the rudeness they intend – but Sauge’s unusual, beguiling nature begins to work its effect over the family. This is no Cinderella tale, or even a novel with the enchantment of The Enchanted April – Sauge brings tragedy alongside comedy; and I should reiterate, Echo remains very amusing throughout – Trefusis’ turn of phrase is a delight. But it is not unmitigated…

Through no fault of her own, Sauge is the catalyst for a change in Jean and Malcolm’s interaction with one another, as both become, in their clumsy ways, besotted with their cousin. Behind Jean’s refusal to be thought feminine lies a painful naivety; behind Malcolm’s bravado lies inexperience and immaturity. Running beneath the amusing encounter of the civilised and uncivilised is a much more dramatic, tautly told narrative of a crisis point in a relationship – albeit one between siblings. The early 20s can be an incredibly difficult time to be a twin, and Trefusis paints so perfectly the unspoken struggle that must take place when one is ready to loosen the close bond before the other. Trefusis moves from comic to farce to moving with brio – and all in just over a hundred pages.

Echo starts like a Saki short story, all dark mischief and childish menace, but develops and maintains the fablesque tragedy of the Brothers Grimm, alongside flashes of the vibrant, vulnerable 1920s heroine. It’s a heady, brilliant mixture – and, of course, a further addition to the pantheon of twin-lit.

Books to get Stuck into:

The Juniper Tree – Barbara Comyns: the same weaving of fable and pathos appears in this lesser-read Comyns novel

‘The End of the Party’ – Graham Greene: I haven’t written about this twin-based short story, but it is a perfect little accompanient, and can be read online if you click the link.