Longstanding readers of this blog will be aware of my fondness for Elizabeth Taylor and her beautifully executed stories of human behaviour – the small-scale dramas of a domestic nature, typically portrayed with great insight and attention to detail. In a Summer Season is no exception to the rule – a novel of love, family tensions and the fragile nature of changing relationships, all conveyed with this author’s characteristic economy of style.
The novel revolves around Kate Heron, previously widowed and now married to Dermot, a man ten years her junior. Also living with the Herons at their comfortable home in Denham are Kate’s children from her first marriage: twenty-two-year-old Tom, who is struggling to please his punctilious grandfather in the family business, and sixteen-year-old Louisa, a slightly awkward teenager home from boarding school for the holidays. Completing the immediate family are Kate’s elderly aunt, Ethel, a kindly, sharp-eyed woman who delights in noting the smallest of developments in the Herons’ marital relationship, and the cook, Mrs Meacock, who longs to travel and compile an anthology of sayings.
Kate’s relationship with Dermot is a very different affair to that of her previous marriage to Alan. Where Alan was cultured and dependable, Dermot is uninformed and aimless, failing to hold down any kind of job for more than a few weeks – a situation that frequently leaves him short of money when he most desires it. While Kate is aware of many of Dermot shortcomings, she accepts them relatively willingly, believing herself to be liberated in this new relationship. Dermot, for his part, also seems to be very taken with Kate, the emotion of love being a relatively new experience for him, albeit one that comes with its own anxieties.
Nevertheless, the marriage has its weak spots, a point that becomes abundantly clear when an old family friend of Kate’s returns following a period abroad. Into the mix comes Charles, an attractive widower who was previously married to Kate’s best friend, Dorothea, a woman much missed by those closest to her. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dermot – who has never met Charles before – is destabilised by the presence of this newcomer with his easy, sophisticated charm and intimacy with Kate. Consequently, Dermot cannot resist going on the offensive with Charles, a development that Taylor conveys with her trademark intuition and skill.
‘What will you imbibe?’ he [Dermot] asked, smiling to himself as he took up the decanter. He picked these phrases with care and uttered them precisely and maliciously, watching keenly for a sign from Charles – for the slightest flicker of distaste; but Charles stayed bland and vague. As the glass of sherry was handed over, their eyes met for the first time that evening, and it was Charles who looked away first. (p. 184–185)
It’s a situation exacerbated by Dermot’s fondness for drink and predilection for petty quarrels. As the tension builds, the fault lines in the Heron marriage are exposed, with Kate adopting an air of edgy restlessness and Dermot responding to her mood accordingly.
There were voices in the kitchen, and then Kate came bustling in. Ever since a few evenings before, when Dermot returning drunk and late for dinner had spoken harshly to her, she had moved in a bright little whirlwind of her own making, with not a minute to spare for anyone. She was always on the wing, setting out on one errand after another, and no one could hope to detain her or say a word that would be listened to. Their words were what she dreaded – their thoughts she knew – and, trapped at mealtimes, she warded them off with a torrent of her own. The flow was more easily come by when she had had several drinks. In attaining this end, Dermot, full of uneasy contrition, was ready to encourage her. (p. 185)
Meanwhile, Kate’s children are experiencing relationship troubles of their own…
Having worked his way through a succession of casual relationships with attractive young women, Tom finds himself hopelessly in love with Charles’ daughter, the cool and glamorous Araminta – now utterly transformed from the uncomplicated girl he knew as a child. Araminta – sophisticated, distant and supremely comfortable in her own skin – looks set to drive Tom wild with her nonchalant behaviour and air of mystique.
‘Will she [Araminta] ever look like this again’, Tom wondered, ‘– in that frock and with her hair like that and the two of us alone?’ He wished that Dermot would be done with staring at her bosom. ‘This bloody, damned family gathering,’ he thought furiously. ‘The mix-up of the age-groups, the cramping fools the this, the that, the rubbishy tedium of it all, with the bloody everlasting chatter, sitting for hours at the table with pins and needles in my feet, all the sodding knives and forks. Aunt Ethel with her surreptitious pill-taking. “Have you seen anything of old so-and-so lately?” “No, old son, I can’t off-hand say as I bloody have.”’ (p. 129)
For Louisa, the challenges of growing up are somewhat different, attracted as she is to Father Blizzard, the local curate. With little fuss being made of her at home, Louisa finds solace in her friendship with the clergyman, even though she wishes it could be something more romantic. (In truth, she misses her father terribly, a loss that has destabilised her sense of comfort and security at home.) Father Blizzard, for his part, is also unsettled, relegated to visiting the least important parishioners while the Vicar keeps the most prestigious parish duties to himself.
Meanwhile, Aunt Ethel is busy observing developments from the sidelines, documenting every intricacy of Kate and Dermot’s relationship in a sequence of gossipy letters to her friend, Gertrude, a fellow suffragette from days of old. As far as Ethel sees things, Kate is far too colourful for her age one minute and rather irritable or over-tired the next.
In a Summer Season is an exquisitely observed novel of the different manifestations of love – from the muddles of Kate’s love for Dermot, to the anxieties of Tom’s adoration for Araminta, to the simplicities of Louisa’s affection for Father Blizzard. As ever with Taylor, the characters are perfectly drawn, complete with little idiosyncrasies and details that make them feel authentic and believable. She is an author adept at catching people in their most private of moments, exposing their anxieties and failings alongside their hopes and dreams. Even the supporting players are beautifully realised, from the watchful Aunt Ethel with her penchant for the cello to the genial young curate with his leanings towards Catholicism.
It’s a novel full of perceptive observations about the changing nature of relationships, the differences in attitudes between the generations, how productively (or not) we spend our time, and the challenges or fears of ageing. The heat and sensuality of an English summer are also beautifully evoked.
While the novel’s denouement is rather dramatic and sobering, much of the narrative is shot through with dashes of sly humour – as evidenced by the passage on Tom and Araminta quoted earlier. (There are some wonderful set-pieces in the novel, mostly revolving around family dinners and social gatherings, events that enable Taylor to flex her social observation skills to the full.)
As the narrative draws to a close, certain individuals find their lives altered forever, a fateful reminder of the transient nature of the seasons in more senses than one. This is an excellent novel, full of insight and lucidity about love and its various complexities. Very highly recommended indeed.
In a Summer Season is published by Virago; personal copy.