Both times I read Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, there was a scene in chapter 17 that strongly reminded me of one in Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. This time, I found both passages so I could compare them.
In chapter 17 of Sayers’ book, Parker is looking at the paintings in Ann Dorland’s studio. As Marjorie Phelps earlier told Peter Wimsey, Ann is not a skilled artist. All the way at the back is one turned to the wall. Charles attempts to compliment it and does not quite succeed. Ann says, “Oh, that’s nothing. Just a fancy head.” Dorothy absolutely slays it with a sentence: “Evidently this picture–the head of a rather cadaverous man, with a sinister smile and a slight cast in the eye–was despised–a Philistine backsliding, almost like a human being.” (188, Bourbon Street Books)
The normally kind and generous Parker then “tried to concentrate his attention on a “Madonna and Child,” which, to Parker’s simple evangelical mind, seemed an abominable blasphemy.”
In addition to being funny, where the excruciatingly polite Parker is appalled by the art yet struggling to find something nice to say, the reader also wonders, who is this man, and is it only her lack of skill that makes him look so bad?
Later, when Parker takes Wimsey to look at the paintings, Wimsey comments on “the head of the sallow, squinting man.”
“That’s very interesting. The others, you see, are all an effort to imitate other people’s art, but this–this is an effort to imitate nature. Why?–it’s very bad, but it’s meant for somebody. And it’s been worked on a lot. Now what was it made her do that?” (212)
And later, “It was the portrait that worried him most. Painted as a record, pained to recall beloved features–thrust face to the wall and covered in dust.”
This scene, with a painting turned toward a wall and downplayed by its artist, reminded me of a passage in Ann Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. It’s in Chapter 5 when the narrator, Gilbert, is pursuing Mrs. Graham, the mysterious woman who has just taken a house in the area.
The last time I re-read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë, I noticed a similar passage. It’s in Chapter 5 when the narrator, Gilbert, is pursuing Mrs. Graham, the mysterious woman who has just taken a house in the area.
In taking this [painting] up to bring it to the light, I discovered another behind it, with its face to the wall. I ventured to take that up too. It was the portrait of a gentleman in the full prime of youthful manhood—handsome enough, and not badly executed; but, if done by the same hand as the others, it was evidently some years before; for there was far more careful minuteness of detail, and less of that freshness of colouring and freedom of handling, that delighted and surprised me in them. Nevertheless, I surveyed it with considerable interest. There was a certain individuality in the features and expression that stamped it, at once, a successful likeness. The bright, blue eyes regarded the spectator with a kind of lurking drollery—you almost expected to see them wink; the lips—a little too voluptuously full—seemed ready to break into a smile; the warmly tinted cheeks were embellished with a luxuriant growth of reddish whiskers; while the bright chestnut hair, clustering in abundant, wavy curls, trespassed too much upon the forehead, and seemed to intimate that the owner thereof was prouder of his beauty than his intellect—as perhaps, he had reason to be;—and yet he looked no fool.
I had not had the portrait in my hands two minutes before the fair artist returned.
“Only some one come about the pictures,” said she, in apology for her abrupt departure: “I told him to wait.”
“I fear it will be considered an act of impertinence,” said I, “to presume to look at a picture that the artist has turned to the wall; but may I ask”—
“It is an act of very great impertinence, sir; and therefore, I beg you will ask nothing about it, for your curiosity will not be gratified,” replied she, attempting to cover the tartness of her rebuke with a smile;—but I could see, by her flushed cheek and kindling eye, that she was seriously annoyed.
“I was only going to ask if you had painted it yourself,” said I, sulkily resigning the picture into her hands; for without a grain of ceremony, she took it from me; and quickly restoring it to the dark corner, with its face to the wall, placed the other against it as before, and then turned to me and laughed.
In my mind, the two scenes are connected, though I’m not sure what significance that holds. It’s likely that Sayers read the Brontë novels. Some similarities peek through here and there. Mr. Grimethorpe and his farm in Unnatural Death are quite like Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights. There is a scene in Strong Poison in which a maid visits a floor she’s been warned away from, and sees a ghastly face, which is reminiscent of Jane Eyre. What I find most curious about these occasional details in Sayers that echo those from the Brontë sisters is that they read to me like homages within the text. Meanwhile, Sayers, a frequent (profligate?) deployer of epigrams in her Wimsey books, uses ones almost entirely from white male authors. No Austen, Brontë, Shelley, Wollstonecraft.
My modern self wishes that Sayers had been more of a progressive feminist, but this is another example where what she puts in her story (Brontëish nods) is at odds with what she does overtly, quoting aptly from male pop culture mysteries like the adventures of Kai Lung. I’ve read that she was determined to imbue the mystery genre with a greater respectability, reputation, and wider readership. Most scholars agree that she was instrumental in making that happen.
Her eschewing of other women writers’ works is an example of Sayers not embracing the identity of a feminist, while still trying to push the genre beyond its past limitations, which include, but aren’t limited to sexism, racism, colonialism, and classism. When I find these echoes, I think she was doing feminist work, even if she did not call it that, and sometimes even actively avoided or denied doing so. The result wasn’t just a wider readership of the genre, but that other women writers like Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham, were able to have successful writing careers, too.
K.J. Boldon 