Stella Benson’s Living Alone: Part V

This article in the series inspired by Stella Benson’s Living Alone has more to say about the effect that Angela the Witch’s magic has on people.  

Sarah Brown is not the only person to be inadvertently given the wrong impression and led to disaster by Angela.

When Angela gives a demonstration of her magic to the charity committee, it has such a strong effect on some of them that they seek her out at her place of work. Each one, the Mayor in particular, thinks that she was speaking to them personally.

Angela and the Mayor

The Mayor, a grocer who is Chairman of the committee, makes the fourth person to visit the magic shop to see Angela again.

“And then the Mayor arrived. The witch saw at once that there was some secret understanding between him and her that she did not understand. Her magic escapades often left her in this position.”

He thinks that she is interested in him personally, but this is a mistake. It is wishful thinking, but he is not altogether to blame; she has inadvertently caught him in her net.



Stella Benson’s words about magic escapades are spot on.

Attracting unwelcome and sometimes incomprehensible attention is an occupational hazard for some people of power. Perhaps there is some strong energy or residual magic in the case, a spell that pulls people in. Perhaps unasked for and unwanted approaches are an unavoidable by-product of their occult activities.

Soon afterwards the two meet, ‘by chance’, in magical Kensington Gardens.

“’What a very singular thing,’ said the Mayor, meeting the witch towards three o'clock in the afternoon, as she came down the Broad Walk towards Kensington... ‘A really very singular thing. 'Tisn't once in five years I visit these parts, and now I'm here I meet the very person I was thinkin' about.’"

Angela’s visit to the office of the committee has made him reconsider his attitude towards money-making - and for the better. He thinks that they have something in common and wants to talk about this, but they are completely at cross-purposes in their conversation.

She offers to help him with his business by supplying Happiness wholesale; he thinks that she is joking.

He wants to go for a walk; she demands a lunch.

She treats his attentions as a joke; he says that she has no heart.

When he loses his head and tries to kiss her, Harold the broomstick attacks him.

How it ends for the Mayor

While under the influence of Angela’s magic powder, some of the committee members make the Mayor invisible. He does not realise this at first.

He is never seen or heard from again, although the police are looking for him as they suspect him of being a German spy. It was actually Angela who was seen and reported for behaving suspiciously: at the time many German spies were thought to be disguising themselves as women!

The last person and backfiring features

Sarah Brown pins her hopes on the last person to fulfill them. Not only are all her efforts and sacrifices for nothing, she also gets the exact opposite of what she had hoped for when her plan to help Angela backfires. It is much the same with the Mayor: Angela is the last person to make him a good wife and his plans to marry her backfire.

Not only do they not get what they wanted, they lose what they already had.

The witch’s magic powder

Angela the Witch affects people strongly; she brings out their real selves and inner truths.

After being in her presence and experiencing just a taste of her magic, the committee members speak strangely and out of character around her, as if they have become possessed.

The three women who visit her become their authentic selves; barriers dissolve, they drop all pretence and speak frankly about themselves and their lives. Sarah Brown becomes euphoric and says very strange things when under the influence of the magic happiness powder in the enchanted sandwiches, and the witch actually tells her that she is possessed.

This makes the witch appear a supplier of dangerous and damaging substances. It is possible that the magic powders are addictive; they are certainly explosive and need careful handling.

Angela throws a packet of her powder in the fire when attending the Wednesday gathering. The fumes affect everyone in the room very strongly.

They all go to the House of Living Alone. Angela is persuaded to leave because she is thought to be in danger.  The woman who holds the gatherings then pokes around in the shop and finds that the drawer in which the packets of powder are kept is unlocked. Half unconsciously, she takes a packet, tears a corner off and lets the magic loose.

Under its influence, they not only feel good and behave strangely, singing different songs at the same time, they also accidentally make the mayor invisible and burn down the House of Living Alone.

As with the abandonment of Sarah Brown, these disasters are no concern of Angela’s; she has no concept of personal responsibility for the effects that she and her magic have on people and their lives. It is all nothing to do with her.

Perhaps Angela the Witch is symbolic of some impersonal force that bewitches people and leads them to destruction.

A French edition of Living Alone: