Fear Stalks the Village by Ethel Lina White

Ethel Lina White’s The Wheel Spins is one of my favourite British Library Crime Classics, second only to London Particular by Christianna Brand. I was very excited to get my hands on another of her books. Don’t let the autumnal colours of its cover mislead you, White’s 1932 novel, Fear Stalks the Village, is set at the beginning of summer in an idyllic English village. But like The Wheel Spins, White manages to wreak havoc amongst the peace and tranquility. This one is dripping with atmosphere and it is just so well executed. 

The village was beautiful. It was enfolded in a hollow of the Downs, and wrapped up snugly— first, in a floral shawl of gardens, and then, in a great green shawl of fields. Lilies and lavender grew in abundance. Bees clustered over sweet-scented herbs with the hum of a myriad spinning-wheels. (13)

The village sounds aesthetically pleasing, but what of its residents?

[T]here was no poverty or unemployment in the village. The ladies had not to grapple with a servant problem, which oiled the wheels of hospitality. If family feuds existed, they were not advertised, and private lives were shielded by drawn blinds. Consequently, the social tone was fragrant as rosemary, and scandal nearly as rare as a unicorn. (13)

With no railway station, and a London bus that does not stop in the village, but outside it, it is not surprising the place gets few visitors. The birthrate is stagnant and apparently no one dies there, either. No one leaves, and no one comes. It is an extremely close knit community. Which is why when the villagers get inundated with a slew of poison pen letters, it is so very unnerving. The thought that it must be one of their own sending the letters turns neighbour against neighbour. Trust is broken. No longer is the village a place of hospitality and friendliness. Because how can you feel safe inviting your neighbours into your home when you can’t be sure a traitor isn't among them?

The heart of the village is sick and everything that has made this place special is at stake. Despite the idyllic appearance of the village, everyone in it has a secret they would rather keep hidden. And when the shame of having your darkest secrets revealed becomes too much, people are bound to get desperate. With one person dead under mysterious circumstances, the body count is only going to increase as the tension is ratcheted up and up, until it reaches the breaking point.

Everyone from the “queen of the village”, Miss Decima Asprey, the to the local gentry, the Scudamores, to the Rector are sucked into the drama. When things get too unbearable to go on, the Rector gives a thundering sermon, denouncing the secret enemy, but seeing the sermon has had no effect—besides an increase in donations—he goes to visit the Squire. 

The two men consider consulting with local police, essentially Sergeant James. But as the poisoned pen writer may very well be a woman, as the Squire says, “Probably is. The place is stiff with them” and both the Rector and the Squire do not like the idea of a woman getting arrested, the Rector makes an alternative suggestion.

“I have a friend, Ignatius Brown, one of the idle rich. He rather fancies himself as Sherlock Holmes. He’s not so clever as he thinks he is, but he’s keen, and he should be more than a match for anyone here. Shall I ask him down?”

“No,” said the Squire. “We don’t want any amateurs. I’ll instruct James.” As he spoke, he caught his wife’s eye. Her lips were pursed and she first nodded violently and then shook her head vehemently.

The Squire knew, from experience, how to interpret these conflicting signals, for, suddenly he changed his mind. (127)

Even in this serious moment, we see White’s wonderful sense of humour.

When the Rector had gone, the Squire turned to his wife. Although he usually bullied her, there were times when he followed her advice; for, if the Squire had no positive virtues, he had some rather good faults. (128)

The village is full of interesting characters. There is Joan Brook, who is a companion to Lady D’Arcy, and lives about a mile outside the village with her. We meet Joan at the very start of the book as she entertains her friend, a novelist visiting from London, with a walk through the village. As they take a leisurely stroll through the village, the friend comes up with salacious stories about each of the villagers that are directly contradictory to the people that Joan knows them to be. For example, “the highly respectable married couple […] are not really married to each other, but living in sin”, the Rector throws “bottle-and-pyjama parties with some very hot ladies from town”, the doctor is poisoning his wife, and the tea-totalling local novelist, Miss Julia Corner, is a secret drinker (18, 19, 21). 

I think White is a great writer. She draws complex characters, creates a tightly woven plot that centres around a compelling mystery, and takes “a perfect spot” and turns it into a prison (13). All of this she manages, while writing genre fiction that is also literary. For example, one would take for granted that the title Fear Stalks the Village is figurative, instead White turns fear into a physical presence that lurks in the shadows, that enters gardens, and rooms, when least expected. I found it to be an unexpected technique, but effective. After all, fear is a visceral reaction felt in the body, why not give imbue it with life by giving the bodily presence it already has?

[P]oor Miss Corner unconsciously applied the match which blew up her party.

[…]

“Well, Decima, anything fresh about your anonymous letter?”

Miss Asprey raised her heavy ivory lids.

“No,” she replied. “It is best forgotten.”

“No idea as to who wrote it?” went on Miss Corner, unabashed.

“No.”

Miss Corner suddenly exploded into a fit of laughter. “Perhaps I could make a guess,” she said.

As though her words were a signal, the dark blotch, huddled in a corner of the garden, quivered into hideous life and mingled with the other guests.

With the entry of Fear, Miss Corner’s party was practically killed, for its spirit had soured and died. The continual hum of conversation was now broken by sudden awkward pauses. Immaculate men and elegant ladies stood in the usual little clusters, but each one gave the impression of whispering to his friend, while he tried to overhear his neighbour. For the same thought was in every mind.

‘There is someone here who has slandered a good woman. I may be the next victim.’ (79-80)

Miss Corner, the local novelist, may have “applied the match”, but Fear, “the unbidden outsider” had “slunk outside the gate, awaiting its opportunity to steal inside” (79, 71). I think this image of a “dark blotch” which “quivered into hideous life and mingled with the other guests” is so visceral. There is more than one traitor amongst these people, and the invisible one may be even more dangerous. After all, they can close their doors to their neighbours, but Fear is able to slip in unnoticed.

If you have visited this blog before, you know I love reading mysteries. But I really struggle with how much to share in my reviews. I don’t want to say too much, and I definitely do not want to spoil anything for anyone who has not yet read the book. But I also really want to dish! Especially when it’s a book I really appreciated, by an author that deserves all the praise she can get. Just know that I want to tell you everything about this book. I want to discuss it in depth. But I won’t. It wouldn’t be fair to you, the person who, I hope, is going to be inspired to go out and get your hands on a copy of this book.

After reading, and now reviewing this book, I feel I need to reassess my list of favourite British Library Crime Classics. This one may not have knocked London Particular out of first place, but I fear it will knock another title out of my top five.

Thank you to British Library Publishing for kindly sending me a copy of Fear Stalks the Village for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.

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The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White

As she listened to the gush of words behind her, Iris was again perplexed by the discrepancy between Miss Froy's personality and her appearance. It was as though a dryad were imprisoned within the tree-trunk of a withered spinster. (78)

Ethel Lina White’s 1936 novel, The Wheel Spins, attracted Alfred Hitchcock’s attention and in 1938 it was made into the film The Lady Vanishes. Before I had read the book, I thought the film had the better title. But now, I believe the film just has the more obvious title, and while that perhaps makes it more suited to cinema, The Wheel Spins is the superior choice for this novel. 

The Wheel Spins opens with Iris Carr on holiday in the mountains somewhere in Europe. Her friends and herself have made general nuisances of themselves during their stay, and destroyed the tranquil setting that no doubt would have attracted the other guests to the location. Iris, who, by the end of the trip, has grown tired of her friends, happily waves them off at the train station. Glad to see the back of them, she is looking forward to some quiet time in the remaining days of her holiday.

Her solitude becomes a bit too real when she gets lost in the mountains without food, water, map, or the means of asking directions. Because as well as not knowing the language, she is unable to tell the one person she comes across the name of the village where she is staying. So when it comes time for her to return home she is starting yearn for company, though she is barely able to acknowledge this herself. When one of her fellow guests, a vicar’s wife, extends an olive branch, Iris snaps it in two, making it perfectly clear she is not interested in making nice.  

Iris was awakened that night, as usual, by the express screaming through the darkness. Jumping out of bed, she reached the window in time to see it outline the curve of the lake with a fiery wire. As it rattled below the hotel, the golden streak expanded to a string of lighted windows, which, when it passed, snapped together again like the links of a bracelet.

After it had disappeared around the gorge, she followed its course by its pall of quivering red smoke. 

[…]

Once again she was flooded with home-hunger, even though her future address were an hotel. Mixed with it was a gust of foreboding—which was a legacy from the mountains.

“Suppose—something—happened, and I never came back.” 

At that moment she felt that any evil could block the way to her return. A railway crash, illness, or crime were possibilities, which were actually scheduled in other lives. They were happening all around her and at any time a line might give way in the protective square in her palm. (45)

Previously, she had been told that the lines on the palm of her hand formed a protective square, which Iris has been willing to believe keeps her from harm. Her experience in the mountains is the first time Iris has felt the weakness in her belief. Iris is coming to feel how vulnerable she is as a woman travelling in a foreign country without friends and not speaking the language.

While waiting at the station for the train that will start her on her journey home, she collapses and we begin to wonder if Iris’s feeling of foreboding wasn’t warranted. She wakes up not knowing how much time has passed. Overcome with panic that she has missed her train, she struggles to get up. But she is forced to rest and drink something. Still feeling ill and disoriented, she is bundled onto the train, a porter aids her in squeezing into a packed compartment as the train pulls away from the platform. She gets a cold feeling from people in the compartment, as though they don’t like her. But that doesn’t make any sense. They don’t even know her. It’s not like they could have talked to anyone from her hotel. Thankfully, a woman, who introduces herself as Miss Froy, befriends Iris and noticing she doesn’t look well, takes her under her wing. Feeling better after a cup of tea, Iris drifts off to sleep.

When Iris awakes Miss Froy is no longer across from her. At first Iris assumes the woman has just stepped out of the compartment for a bit—a trip to the lavatory or the dining car would explain her absence—but as time goes on, Iris’s worry builds. The train is full to the brim, so she couldn’t have simply changed compartments. When Iris finally gets to the point of questioning her fellow passengers about the missing woman, they all say they don’t know who she is talking about. The suggestion is made that she has dreamt the woman up, and Iris herself admits that she was suffering from heatstroke. Could she have hit her head when she collapsed? Iris even begins to doubt herself, at first. But the more she thinks of all the details that chatty Miss Froy shared with her, Iris knows Miss Froy is not simply a figment of her imagination. She was too unexpected. Too unlike the person she appeared. She may have looked middle-aged and dowdy, but she was almost girlish in her behaviour and vocabulary. 

“Oh, isn’t all of this fun?”

Her pleasure was so spontaneous and genuine that Iris could not condemn it as gush. She stared doubtfully at the faded old gold plush window-curtains, the smutty tablecloth, the glass dish of cherry jam and then she glanced at her companion.

She received a vague impression of a little puckered face; but there was a sparkle in the faded blue eyes, and an eager note in the voice, which suggested a girl.

Afterwards, when she was trying to collect evidence of what she believed must be an extraordinary conspiracy, it was this discrepancy between a youthful voice and a middle-aged spinster, which made her doubt her own senses. In any case, her recollection was far from clear, for she did not remember looking consciously at her companion again.

The sun was blazing in through the window, so that she shaded her eyes with one hand most of the time she was having tea. But as she listened to the flow of excited chatter, she had the feeling that she was being entertained by some one much younger than herself. (73)

I just loved this book. Everything is against Iris, not least of all herself. For a person who is bored and doesn’t do much of anything, it is easy to imagine that she has never gone out of her way for anyone in her life. Frankly, as privileged young woman, she has never had to. Ethel Lina White does a fabulous job of laying the groundwork for Iris’s character, so by the time Iris gets on that train, we have a good idea of what she is like and what she would do in most circumstances. 

One of her fellow passengers, a young man offers to help, but he is as sceptical as everyone else about Iris’s claim that Miss Froy has disappeared.

“Have I got it right?” he asked. “Is this Miss Froy a complete stranger to you?”

“Of course.”

“Yet you’re nearly going crackers over her. You must be the most unselfish person alive. Really, it’s almost unnatural.”

“But I’m not,” admitted Iris truthfully. “It’s rather the other way round. That’s the amusing part. I can’t understand myself a bit.’

“Well, how did it start?”

“In the usual way. She was very kind to me—helpful, and all that, so that at first, I missed her because she wasn't at the back of me any more. And then, when every one declared I dreamed her, it all turned to a horrible nightmare. It was like trying to explain that every one was out of step but myself.”

“Hopeless. But why had you to prove that she was there?”

“Oh, can’t you understand? If I didn’t, I could never feel that anything, or any one, was real again?” (123)

If Iris had been travelling with even one other friend she would not have worried herself about Miss Froy. She likely wouldn’t have treated her disappearance with anything more than a shrug of the shoulders between pulls on her cigarette. And this begins to explain why I think The Wheel Spins is such a fantastic title. It is only by chance that a selfish person like Iris takes any interest in Miss Froy’s disappearance. As more and more of her fellow passengers plead ignorance or claim the woman didn’t exist, Iris realises that if the situation were reversed and something were to happen to her on that train, no one would do anything about it, except for Miss Froy. She feels sure Miss Froy would have caused a commotion and searched until she was found, because Miss Froy showed her a kindness when she needed it most, and Iris is sure Miss Froy is that sort of person. With each spin of the wheel, the fate of Miss Froy is put into question. Will the wheel of fortune spin in favour of Miss Froy, or not?

The wheel is part of “the great machine” which is capable of catching people up in one of its revolutions (183). This great machine might be the wheels of the train that can bring a person safely home, or not, which we can see from Iris’s feeling of foreboding in contrast to other characters in this book who also view this train from their windows and interpret the image with hope and anticipation. This intertwining of the unpredictability of Fortune’s Wheel with the wheels of the train conflates the idea that on this train ride fates will be decided and all of the passengers take a turn at spinning the wheel that decides the fate of Miss Froy, and Iris’s fate, too. 

The wheel was still spinning for her.

And since their fates were interlinked it was spinning also for Miss Froy. (180)

Wheel imagery continues to appear in unexpected places throughout this book. At one point even “the drone of masculine voices” make a drumming sound “like the hum of a spinning wheel” as they decide a woman’s fate (225).

This is a beautifully written book, full of atmosphere, tension, and—a rare thing to find in a mystery thriller—hope. If you pick up one British Library Crime Classic this year, I highly recommend choosing this one.

Oh, and here’s a small spoiler, but I anticipate it will offer comfort to some, so I have decided to share it. This is a mystery with only the passing mention of a murder, but no actual murder on the page. The Wheel Spins is a very rare book, indeed.

Thank you to British Library Publishing for kindly sending me a copy of The Wheel Spins for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.

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