The Hours Before Dawn – Celia Fremlin (1958)

A couple of years ago I read my first novel by Celia Fremlin – it was her second novel Uncle Paul I was captivated by her taut storytelling and the way the tension built slowly. I hadn’t meant to leave it so long before reading her best known novel The Hours Before Dawn of which I had heard such good things. I now want to read more by this author – who has been called the British Patricia Highsmith (I haven’t read that much Highsmith, but I’m not convinced that is entirely accurate.) Still, Fremlin is an excellent writer of suspense fiction, in which she weaves a psychological mystery around a domestic setting. This was such an enjoyable read, I began it one evening and finished it by the following afternoon, Fremlin certainly knows how to reel in her readers. Published in 1958, this novel went on to win the Edgar award in 1960.

Louise is a typical middle class 1950s housewife, she stays at home with the baby, delivers her other children to school, attends mother and baby clinics, and sometimes chats to the other neighbouring housewives. Her husband Mark is out at work all day, arriving home in time for dinner before depositing himself behind a newspaper – the children settled upstairs out of sight. However, Louise’s domestic life is not running as smoothly as everybody else’s seems to. Her youngest child, seven month old Michael barely stops crying, she is desperate to get some sleep. With two lively, chatty little girls also taking up her time and energy, Louise is exhausted, and she can expect little if any help from her husband.

“If you went on neglecting your own tastes like this, did you, in the end, cease to have any tastes? Cease, in fact, to be a person at all, and become merely a labour-saving gadget around the house?”

At night Michael screams for hours, Mark has complained of being disturbed and so Louise takes her inconsolable son into the scullery – the furthest away from her sleeping husband she can get – to try to soothe him, where she sits uncomfortably with her feet propped up on the mangle, her poor head lolling against the draining board.

Another member of the household who Louise feels must not be disturbed is Miss Brandon. Miss Brandon has recently taken the attic room the couple advertised in the newspaper. Mark and Louise know little about her, save that she is a teacher at the grammar school with an interest in classical studies. There is something a little mysterious about her, Mark feels he might have seen her somewhere before – and Louise feels she recognises the large blue suitcase that sits on top of the wardrobe.

“Louise was aware of a queer, lurching giddiness. When – where – had she thought these things before? Where had she seen that suitcase – or one the very double of it – and had found herself thinking, exactly as she was thinking now: How out of place that is! Fancy seeing a suitcase like that here, of all places.”

One day, Louise and her mother in law Mrs Henderson go into Miss Brandon’s room to retrieve some books, having been told earlier that Miss Brandon would be out all day, find her sat silently by the window – watching. Louise starts to have vague unspecified doubts about her lodger, Mark dismisses her worries, he shares some of Miss Brandon’s interests and Louise has noticed they seem to get on quite well.

Harried daily by the needs of her children, exhausted beyond all bearing – Louise fears she may not be thinking entirely rationally, but she can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right at all about Miss Brandon. Louise’s friend from the baby clinic Mrs Hooper has taken to off loading her children on to Louise whenever she needs, Louise is hopeless at saying no. Mrs Hooper rarely returns the favour. Mrs Hooper’s son Tony is fascinated by spies – and having been left in charge of Louise’s children for a while by his negligently casual mother – later chats innocently to Louise about the spy in her house, revealing that he spotted the lodger going through Mark’s desk. Is it just a case of a nosy lodger – or is there really something more sinister going on – and will anyone believe her? Between them all the children notice other things, and their chatter feeds into Louise’s doubts. A terrifying incident late one night, with Michael screaming the house down, shakes Louise’s confidence in herself – and seems to convince Mark – and her curtain twitching neighbours that there is something wrong with Louise’s nerves.  

There are several things that Fremlin does really well. We see everything from Louise’s perspective, and the reader is never sure how reliable her view of things is. She portrays the world of an exhausted young mother to perfection, this is no advertisement for 1950s domestic harmony, and the reader feels Louise’s frustrated exhaustion as her baby continues to scream throughout the night. Gradually, Fremlin winds up the tension creating a wonderfully suspenseful atmosphere throughout the novel. None of this detracts from some excellent characterisation – from the annoying Mrs Hooper and her spy obsessed son to Louise’s perfectly groomed mother-in-law – who prefers to keep her grandchildren at a distance, Fremlin uses a sharp and observant eye.

The Hours Before Dawn is a hugely compelling psychological mystery that becomes increasing difficult to put down. I have discovered that some of her novels and story collections are available in paperback and e-book from Faber and Faber. I shall certainly be investigating some of these at a later date.