3. A Supernaturally Dysfunctional Family

As in Out of the Deep, which was discussed in the previous post, De La Mare does not appear to have much sympathy for his lead character Arthur Seaton, who is also doomed.  How he meets his end is a mystery, but the reader knows from the beginning that he will probably have an untimely one.  Seaton’s Aunt (1923) is occasionally seen in anthologies of early 20^th century weird fiction; it was originally published in a collection of Walter De La Mare’s short stories called The Riddle and Other Stories.  This book, by the way, is an excellent place to start for readers interested in this master of quiet, subtle, psychological horror.

Unlike Out of the Deep, the story of Seaton’s Aunt is not the profile of a single individual so much as the analysis of toxic relationships and their consequence for one member of a family.  Readers who have experience in family counseling and family therapy may be spooked by the author’s supernatural “systems approach” to Arthur Seaton’s predicament.  However, because this is a horror story, there will be no intervention.   The author merely has his narrator observe the demise of Seaton over time—which may or may not be related to the ministrations of his overbearing yet malevolently wise maiden aunt.

No one likes Arthur Seaton, including the author, who describes him as looking “distastefully foreign, with his yellow skin, and slow chocolate-coloured eyes, and lean weak figure.”  These are traits he shares with his mysterious aunt, and also disturbingly, with his fiancé later on.  In the beginning of the story, Withers, the narrator, and Arthur are both school boys.  Arthur is frequently bullied and ostracized by his class mates, but Withers reluctantly befriends him.  He goes with him to visit his aunt for an overnight stay. 

The aunt for her part does not like Arthur either.  She neglects and belittles him during the visit.  “When I look upon my nephew…I realise that dust we are, and dust shall become.”  Arthur, an orphan like the character Jimmie, in Out of the Deep tells Withers that the house and property are actually his to claim when he comes of age.  When that time comes, Arthur plans to have his aunt “hand over every blessed shilling of it.”  He strongly doubts that the woman is truly his aunt.

But Arthur is terrified of her, just the same.  He believes she is watching him all the time.  In fact there are odd drawings of single eyes scattered all over the house—one has a caption underneath that reads “Thou God Seest ME”.   He tries to demonstrate to Withers the extent of her supernatural powers and her communications with the spirit world.  Seaton tells Withers that his aunt is in league with the devil, had probably killed his mother, and draws “swarms” of invisible ghosts into the house every night—these can just barely be heard in the dark if one concentrates.  “She just sucks you dry”, Seaton says.  “She simply hates to see me alive.” 

In one suspenseful scene, the boys creep up to her bedroom to see what the old woman is up to in the dead of night.  But Withers is not persuaded, and accuses Seaton of making all of this up. Seaton’s fears and the observations that support them appear to exist only in his imagination.  Yet on the way back to bed, Withers experiences “a kind of cold and deadly terror” that sweeps over him, sending him running to bury himself under the covers. 

After the visit, the two boys go their separate ways, and years pass.  Near the end of the story, Arthur Seaton intends to marry a young woman named Alice.  Withers visits them and the aunt for dinner at the Seaton house.  The aunt is dismissive and ambivalent about the impending marriage.  There is a tone of cynicism and sarcasm as she regards the couple—and humanity in general—from a distance.  Later in the evening, Withers has a disturbing conversation with the aunt while the couple is still out walking in the garden.  She reveals herself to be world weary and intelligent, but also cold and reptilian.

There is a sense that marriage might allow Arthur to transcend his aunt’s influence and have a more normal life, but the hope is feeble.   Readers who are familiar with biographies of H.P. Lovecraft, (S.T. Joshi and L. Sprague De Camp have written very interesting ones), may imagine a parallel with the triangulation that occurred among Lovecraft, his wife Sonia, and his aunts.  The circumstances are very different, except for the strong and controlling influence of the family matriarchs.

Seaton’s aunt is by far the most interesting character in the story.  “I was never lonely in my life…I don’t look to flesh and blood for my company.”  (I once had an old maiden aunt who said something very similar:  “I would rather be alone, than wishing I was.”)  Ancient, powerful and supernaturally perceptive of others, she is an archetype of the “crone”—part witch, part matriarch, part mediatrix with the spectral world that surrounds us.  She is still alive after Arthur Seaton has passed, and though she ages visibly, it is clear at the end of the story that she will be around for some time to come.

De La Mare’s Alice and Her Looking Glass

“But then, Alice could seldom sleep in the afternoon because of her troublesome cough…”

Several of Walter De La Mare’s short stories have been discussed in previous posts, among them The Creatures, Out of the Deep, The Tree, and his well known Seaton’s Aunt.  They may be found in an excellent collection of his work called The Riddle and Other Stories (1923).  He is a master of quiet subtle supernatural fiction.  In nearly every story he makes skillful use of minor details—easily overlooked upon first reading—to create a sense of foreboding and dis-ease.  For that reason his stories must be read slowly and savored.

Even death is typically depicted offhandedly and with great restraint—its understatement magnifying the discovered horror.  Here is his description of the demise of the wastrel in Out of the Deep:

“That is why when, next morning, out of a sounding slanting shower of rain Mrs. Thripps admitted herself into the house at the area door, she found the young man, still in his clothes, lying very fast asleep indeed on the trucklebed in the attic…She merely looked at what was left of him; her old face almost comically transfixed in its appearance of pity, horror, astonishment, and curiosity.”

It is difficult to imagine H.P. Lovecraft—admittedly a very different kind of author—ever creating such subtle modulation of shock and dismay.  Without characterization, dialogue, or relationships among his characters, he had to rely heavily on setting and lengthy back story to create mood and foreshadowing.  De la Mare can do this with a conversational response, the appearance of an everyday object, or a thought that is unspoken.  What is also very interesting about De La Mare is what he does not say in his stories, the spaces he leaves unfilled.

Why is young Alice unable to leave the service of crotchety old Miss Lennox?  Who wrote the letters that she has kept bundled up with a faded blue ribbon all these years?  Is the garden haunted?  By whom?  The author of The Looking Glass leaves these and other questions unanswered.  Events in the story appear to be straightforward, as they often are in De La Mare’s work.  Alice is a companion and caregiver to the aged Miss Lennox, but is allowed a break from her work every afternoon—which she spends in the garden.   Her routine often includes a conversation with Sarah, an old servant from next door.

Perhaps the two older women are stand-ins for the Red and White Queens of Lewis Carrol’s Through the Looking Glass (1871), though the comparison is imprecise.  De La Mare’s description of the garden, with its low wall separating Alice’s small confined world from the meadows beyond is suggestive of a chess board, upon which her movements are quite limited.  There are no men in this story, and certainly no White Knight that will rescue her.  There are just the letters she has saved, and the ones she writes but never sends.

     

Much of what the two older women say to Alice seems inexplicable, especially their respective comments about whether the house and garden are haunted, and by whom.  Sarah’s comments are especially unsettling and prophetic, (the White Queen could “remember” future events).  “May-day’s the day, and midnight’s the hour, for such as be wakeful and brazen and stoopid enough to watch it out.”  She later tells Alice that she herself, because of her age and loneliness, is metaphorically speaking, a ghost.  But that idea is taken much more seriously by Alice.

She begins to see the garden as a kind of mirror, reflecting her thoughts, her spirit, and her solitude:  “What was all through the place now like smoke Alice perceived to be the peculiar clarity of the air discernible in the garden at times.  The clearness as it were of glass, of a looking glass…”  She makes herself a white “watch gown” with embroidered daisies.  There is some urgency—who is it for?  What occasion?

At the end of the story, a day in the garden is once again described, from dawn until dusk. But the author emphasizes its utter emptiness.  “…there came no watcher—not even the very ghost of a watcher…”  It is the final absence of anything in the garden that is the most terrifying notion.