22 December 2016
The Peacock Spring
by Rumer Godden
Reviewed by William Morton
I have been reading a lot of Henry James this year and have been struck by his work but the Peacock Spring is by a lesser- known author, who lived in India as a child and for some years as an adult.
A senior UN official, Sir Edward Gwithiam, is based in Delhi. He has two daughters, Una, aged 15, and Hal are by different mothers (one dead, one divorced) and are being educated in England at a smart girl’s school, Cerne (think Wycombe Abbey). Sir Edward abruptly withdraws them and brings them out to India to live with him. The real reason for this, as it becomes clear, is that he wishes to live with his Eurasian mistress, Alix Lamont. To give a cloak of respectability to this, his story is that she has been hired as a governess for his two daughters. The daughters predictably do not take to Alix, although she works hard to try to bring them round though it rapidly becomes clear she does not have the knowledge or training to teach Una. There is, as a result, considerable tension in the house, which is concealed from Sir Edward.
Una, unknown to anyone, begins a relationship with the under-gardener, Ravi, an educated man and a poet, who is in hiding from the police. She becomes pregnant and elopes with Ravi to Varanasi. Sir Edward tracks them down and retrieves Una without Ravi putting up much of a struggle. Una miscarries and is packed off back to Cerne and Sir Edward and Alix marry.
What I found remarkable about the book is the amount it packs in. Without in any way being racy or salacious, there is a strong undercurrent of sex. It is taken as a given that people want and have sex and that it influences their behaviour.
The difficult position of Alix and the tightrope she has to walk as a Eurasian is treated sympathetically. She is attractive and talented but has a somewhat chequered past that Delhi society is well aware of and has to conceal the existence of her old mother who is not fit to be allowed out.
The servants are also vividly and sympathetically described. They know Alix’s background and ambition and she treats them badly. In particular, she allows one to take the blame when she steals UN whisky to feed her mother’s love of Scotch.
It touches on the Indian caste system. Ravi’s family are Brahmins and his father, from whom he is estranged, is very strict. When trying to find Una, Sir Edward visits him and is treated as coolly as an alien.
A well-plotted book with a lot of punch and written with verve by somebody who knew India well.
What did Una tell the girls after lights-out in the dorm on her return to Cerne?
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