Cecil – Elizabeth Eliot (1962)

I finished my March reading with Cecil – the final novel by Elizabeth Eliot. Cecil is the fourth novel by Elizabeth Eliot I have read, all of them reissued by Dean Street Press. With all of them, I have really enjoyed the way she creates characters, exploring them within a story spanning several decades. In this novel, like in two of those previous novels Eliot tells the story of her eponymous character through the eyes of another. It is an interesting lens through which to tell a story, one that I imagine is difficult to get right. The character telling the story can’t possibly know everything, and yet they need to know enough to tell the story, Elizabeth Eliot seems to get this limited perspective just right. There is both humour and darkness here, and Eliot’s gift of observation sits alongside her skill as a darn good storyteller perfectly.

Lady Anne, the wife of Charles Guthrie narrates this story, which starts in the 1870s. From old age she looks back on the life of her husband’s half brother Cecil, telling the story of the relationship between him and his mother, the beautiful, dominating Lady Guthrie, who married a man many years older than herself. Although the novel is named for Cecil, Lady Guthrie is necessarily the main focus of the novel – for her influence upon Cecil, his life and everything that happens to him is key. Lady Guthrie is that wonderful thing, a brilliantly written monster, who sees herself entirely differently.

“As I waited for the carriage I realised that whereas before I had been accustomed to think of her as a selfish and often foolish woman I now regarded her as a veritable ogress.”

Cecil is Lady Edythe Guthrie’s adored son – he has been petted, coddled and gushed over his whole life by his mother, a woman prone to sudden, unexplained illnesses (which will often occur when most convenient to her) and adept at manipulation. The two have a strong bond and even as an adult, when away from home Cecil writes long and affectionate letters home to her. Lady Anne, her husband, the mild, dependable Charlie, and their cynical American cousin Nealie, watch from that unique and privileged position enjoyed by family as Cecil’s life is systematically destroyed by Lady Guthrie’s absurd and selfish domination.

“What dark secret could there possibly be in the boy’s life that would not be at least suspected by us? It was Lady Guthrie’s almost insane desire to possess her son and keep him for ever chained to her side that was so horrible.”

As a young man, Cecil falls in love, and despite the fact the couple are still very young, Cecil is eager to marry. Lady Anne is concerned from the first that Lady Guthrie will somehow ruin it all, and as things transpire she has reason to fear. Cecil appears oblivious to his mother’s behaviours, her illnesses that mean he must immediately return home to her side, her pretended support – that to others looks rather different and slightly malevolent. Time and again, Anne, Charlie and Nealie conspire gently, charmed by his happiness and obvious love, wanting only to save him from his mother. Later, Lady Anne and Charlie even manage to take Cecil’s manservant Thompson into their confidence, someone else who cares what happens to Cecil but is powerless against the power of Lady Guthrie.

“Intensive preparations for the wedding started a full month before it was due to take place. It was to be in the grand manner, although of course big weddings were then much smaller affairs than they became later. In those days, although the custom was already beginning to change, people invited only their relations and more intimate friends to see them married and didn’t bother with persons whom they had only met once in their lives.”

For the reader, there is a poignancy in witnessing Cecil’s slow decline, all the promise, love and optimism that we witness when he is a young man starting out, replaced by illness, addiction and manipulation. There is an inevitability to parts of this story, Elizabeth Eliot is too subtle just to tidy everything away neatly, and we sense from the start there is no happy ending in store for Cecil. Still, there is a shocking, unexpected element to this story, which really makes it a wonderfully compelling read.

Elizabeth Eliot shows us in this story of a late Victorian family, that we can’t ever really know all there is to know about the people around us.

A lovely conclusion to my March reading, as I enjoyed spending time among the leisured classes of the late Victorian age, the houses, house parties, carriages etc being rather a lovely escape from reality.