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A love story of sorts set between
the wars, the overwhelming feeling of this novel is one of constraint.
As the
story opens, there is the burden of financial constraint, as Frances Wray and
her mother, robbed of husband and sons by the war enter into the spinsterish
twilight of genteel poverty together. In an attempt to make ends meet in their
now-too-grand house, they take in lodgers, Mr and Mrs Barber, whom they
squeamishly refer to as ‘paying guests’. The Wrays and their paying guests
comprise a taut, repressed household of things left unsaid: mother and
daughter, husband and wife, never tell it like it is.
There is the
social constraint of living in close proximity to people who are strangers, and
over whom you have no control. As expressed by the consternation caused by Mrs
Barber choosing to have a bath at mid morning, requiring heroic bangings and
knockings from the ancient geyser, a gas-gobbling water heater that the two resident
ladies dare not use for the expense. They are of course too polite to mention
it.
As Frances and
Lilian’s (Mrs Barber) love affair begins to take shape, there is the constraint
of hiding in plain sight: whispering on the stairs, snatched meetings in the scullery
and outings to the park. This building pressure can have no good outcome, and
it is not sexual but emotional frustration that finally seizes the day.
For fans of
Sarah waters, there is constraint in the plot also. There is a twist at the end;
but not perhaps the knockout sort we’ve come to expect from this master of the
genre. Much of the engagement of the reader is in actively looking for a twist
that never comes. Ah…we think, I’ve got it… but Waters turns our expectations
back upon ourselves. Perhaps this is her true skill. In our wish to inhabit a
world that eludes us, to walk alongside the author and see drama where there is
none. In Fingersmith, Tipping the velvet et al, Waters has written masterly
novels to entertain a demanding audience. This one she seems to have written for herself: it
is we who are the paying guests…
