Clouds Of Witness – Dorothy L. Sayers

It’s a rainy Sunday morning and what I should be doing is brushing up on my knowledge of distilled spirits ahead of an exam in a couple of weeks (as well as actually learning about some of the more arcane elements of cocktail making – Sunday morning however just doesn't feel like the right time for this kind of thing). Instead I'm almost entirely focused on Dorothy L. Sayers still, with a very small part of my concentration reserved for the possibility of a-nice-cup-of-tea-and-a-biscuit; proper Sunday activity I'm sure you’ll agree.

When I read Jill Paton-Walsh’s ‘The Attenbury Emeralds’ I thought I wanted more Peter and Harriet because those were the books I enjoyed most and consistently re read through my teens and onwards (reading back through Elaine Random Jottings post on ‘The Attenbury Emeralds’ from last year I see that this is a pretty common theme). What I actually wanted was more Sayers, looking at the books on my shelf I see that there are half a dozen that are falling apart with use and rather more that look suspiciously unmolested so I hauled out ‘Clouds of Witness’ in a fairly arbitrary manner and started reading. I couldn’t stop reading (and not just because I’m not interested enough in being able to identify bar tenders kit).

The thing with Sayers is that she leaves you in no doubt as to her academic credentials and proclivities – she will throw in quotations and longish chunks in French without either explanation or excuse. I imagine that she saw her audience as women like herself or like the provincial lady (and after all, who else would her audience have been but the educated middle class and middlebrow?) when I was much younger it made me want to learn more, now it makes me grateful for Google. The relationship between Harriet and Peter was fairytale enough to appeal to me in my teens; I think I was too young for the rest of the series.

I appreciated the silly rhymes, the slang, and indeed all Lord Peter’s affectations. I liked the aspirational element of the books as well – soft carpets, silks and velvets, Russian leather, crepe de chine underwear and fine wines (though one mention of Chateau d’Yquem has sent me off on a little research mission of my own to see if Sayers actually understood what she was talking about or not – I really can’t help myself) but mystery aside a lot in the rest of the books was over my head. This time round I enjoyed the whole of ‘Clouds of Witness’ in a way I was incapable of twenty plus years ago – for good and bad; the affectations are no longer as amusing but the inter war world is far more fascinating. The huge bonus here is that instead of pinning unrealistic expectations on a new book by a different author I have a sizable chunk of actual Sayers that I can work my way through to all intents and purposes for the first time.

Plot wise it’s a dead body in a country house with the likely culprits being the sleuths brother or sister which leads to an investigation that dashes from Yorkshire to London then Paris and New York in a very unlikely (but entertaining manner). I think the final courtroom scenes are the best – brother’s life hanging in the balance as we wait for Peter to fly back across the Atlantic with something vital to the case - all in the teeth of a rising storm (it’s 1924 – I think) so this is quite an undertaking and Sayers really builds the tension beautifully. Having her policeman buy a camisole for his elder sister in Paris has a touch of comic brilliance about it, and for menace there is Lord Peter putting pressure on a witness to come forward knowing quite well that if she does her husband will probably kill her (I don’t think that scene would really have sunk in first read round for me) which makes the nervous breakdowns at the end of each case feel far more inevitable.

The Attenbury Emeralds – Jill Paton-Walsh

First things first – it’s only fair under the circumstances to give some context to the depth of my affection for Dorothy L. Sayers, especially the books with Harriet and Peter. Going back through the mists of time to 1987 and the BBC series that ran ‘Strong Poison’, ‘Have His Carcase’ and ‘Gaudy Night’, I fell completely in love with Miss Sayers creations getting the books just as soon as I could. I was 13, it was Dorothy L. Sayers who made me determined to go to university (Oxford naturally, although my mother favoured Cambridge because she felt it had better tea shops, and I ended up in Aberdeen which suited me so well I didn’t notice the tea shops or lack thereof). It was also Dorothy who instilled in me a desire for silk pyjamas, my own library, and a flat decorated in soothing shades of grey.

As you’ve probably guessed I read these books at an impressionable age and they didn’t fail to make an impression. The non Harriet novels not so much but every 13 year old girl (presumably) likes a love story and a feisty heroine. When Jill Paton-Walsh completed Sayers unfinished novel ‘Thrones, Dominations’ I really couldn’t tell the difference between the two writers and was happy to accept this new addition to the canon. I don’t think I’ve read the second book Paton-Walsh wrote (‘A Presumption of Death’) but (and it was almost certainly the mention of emeralds in the title) I quite fancied reading this one despite my oft mentioned distrust of writers taking on other peoples characters.

Unfortunately ‘The Attenbury Emeralds’ released my inner pedant (never on a very tight leash anyway), and once you start picking holes everything starts to unravel. It wasn’t a plotting problem – a mystery solved, unsolved, and resolved is what it says on the cover and what it does in the book. The original case of the Attenbury Emeralds is one of Lord Peter’s first and here he’s telling the story to Harriet, now 30 years later the emeralds new owner needs to prove their provenance which turns out to be no simple matter.

My problem with the book comes down to the never explain, never apologise principle. Frequently bad advice but when it comes to recreating the past (or much loved characters) it should be the rule to live by (says I). I imagine that the majority of people buying this book – especially in hardback – are doing it because they already know Sayers’ books. We’re already familiar with Peter’s back story and shell shock issues, bringing it up again didn’t feel natural. Neither did all the explanations about the aristocracy ostensibly for Harriet’s benefit; the fascination for a title has never gone away, not even in detective fiction as Elizabeth George’s inspector Lynley shows.

After that mentions of Elizabeth David’s new book and the upcoming festival of Britain jarred a little because they didn’t feel like part of the flow of the plot. However the biggest sticking point was over manners and mannerisms. Everybody seemed so keen to apologise for being upper class, the oldest Whimsy boy calls Bunter (Lord Peter’s man) Mervyn but I can’t believe that an Eton educated child would ever exhibit such a breach of etiquette in his father’s house, or show Labour tendencies, or... but I won’t harp on in this vein because you either let these details bother you (as I sadly do) or you don’t.

In the end what it comes down to is probably this. Dorothy L. Sayers was clearly more than a little bit in love with her Lord Peter, and I like to think that Harriet is more than a little bit of Sayers. There is a chemistry in those books that was and is irresistible to me. Jill Patton-Walsh clearly has a great deal of affection for Harriet and Peter but I feel she treats them like slightly elderly relations who can’t be trusted not to say something outrageously un pc.

However I enjoyed getting slightly annoyed by what I saw as inconsistencies almost as much as I would have appreciated a production I regarded as flawless, and I’ll be looking out for Jill Paton-Walsh’s other books to see what she’s like on her own ground as well as going back (again) to Miss Sayers so all’s well that ends well...