The first article about Walter de la Mare's horror novel The Return ended at the point where Arthur Lawford, whose appearance has changed because he is possessed by the ghost of a dead Frenchman, has convinced both his wife Sheila and the vicar Mr Bethany that he is not an imposter.
They now have to decide how to deal with 'this awful business'.
They call in a doctor; he is not much use, which is not surprising as Lawford gives him only a modified version of what happened in the cemetery.
They want to avoid comment or scandal so invent some cover stories for their friends and the servants: they tell people that Arthur Lawford is staying in his room and not seeing anyone because he is very tired and ill, and that the 'stranger' who has been seen in the house is a new doctor.
From this point on, the story itself did not hold much of my attention. I couldn't find much to inspire commentary as I skimmed quickly through the details of the web of deception and Arthur Lawford's impersonation of the new doctor, the descriptions of Arthur's inner state, his disagreements with his wife and his excursions, not to mention the long philosophical discussions about life. I did however find a few more connections and a little incidental material of interest.
Another reminder of Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood
Arthur Lawford makes a new friend, someone with the strange name of Herbert Herbert. This man believes Arthur's story about being possessed by the Frenchman when he fell asleep in the churchyard, and theorises that Nicholas Sabathier's restless ghost had been lingering on by his grave waiting for someone to ambush because he still has some living to do.
Then, Herbert says, a godsend in the form of Arthur Lawford comes along. Arthur has been suffering from a dispiriting illness, he is half asleep, tired out and depressed; his weak inner state makes him a suitable vehicle for possession. This is spot on, and similar to what George Cubbins says to Lucy and Lockwood about ghosts homing in on vulnerable people in the previously mentioned article about Jonathan Stroud's Empty Grave.
This is an interesting quotation from the article about John Buchan's Gap in the Curtain:
“He wanted people whose physical vitality was low, and who were living on the edge of their nerves...”
It may also be relevant that Arthur Lawford was a great day-dreamer as a boy and still had the habit of drifting away from the real world as an adult.
No Latin or Celtic connections here!
Arthur Lawford is fortunate in that, unlike Austin Gilroy in Arthur Conan Doyle's Parasite who has to get through his nightmare ordeal all by himself, he has wise, loyal and supportive friends who make helpful remarks, ask key questions and form a kind of buffer state, making themselves intermediaries between him and the world while he is under the alien influence.
Herbert Herbert is one of these friends. In addition to telling Arthur his theories about the vulnerable state, he asks him whether he has any French blood; he theorises that a French heritage would have made him open to possession by the Frenchman. Arthur can come up only with a small Dutch connection, so unlike Austin Gilroy he has no Celtic heritage to increase his vulnerability to supernatural forces.
There may be something relevant in the Lawford family though. Arthur's mother is said to have been a little eccentric. His young daughter Alice, who has been staying somewhere else, comes home 'on impulse' earlier than expected soon after Arthur first encounters the ghost; perhaps she has sensed trouble.
The price of knowledge
Herbert Herbert says this about himself and his sister to Arthur Lawford:
“We are just buried alive. We have lived here for years, and scarcely know a soul—not even our own, perhaps. Why on earth should one? Acquaintances, after all, are little else than a bad habit..."
"'We have chosen to live such a very out-of-the-way life,’ he went on, as if following up a train of thought.... ‘The truth is if one wants to live at all—one’s own life, I mean—there’s no time for many friends...One must simply go one’s own way, doing one’s best to free one’s mind of cant— ...'”
This reminds me of what L. M. Montgomery said about good mixers not being worth anything and loners who walk by themselves being the only worthwhile people!
Herbert Herbert is a great reader and, just like L. M. Montgomery the 'book drunkard', he is aware that reading can be an addiction:
“It’s a habit this beastly reading; this gorge and glint and fever all at second-hand—purely a bad habit, like morphia, like laudanum. But once in, you know there’s no recovery Anyhow, I’m neck-deep, and to struggle would be simply to drown.“
This reminds me of all the other avid readers who are featured on here. They got far more from books than they did from the people around them.
If Herbert Herbert had been a very sociable person and not dedicated to reading and researching his interests, which include ghosts and their world, he would not have been able to help Arthur Lawford as much as he did.
The vicar's wise words
Mr Bethany the vicar is a tired little old man. He describes himself as an old fogey, a dull old fellow, a fumbling old meddler, talkative, tottery, owlish and parochial. There is more to him than this though.
Mr Bethany believes in unseen influences such as the devil and the Powers of Darkness. He believes in faith backed up with evidence. He comes up with some very insightful remarks, including this one about Nicholas Sabathier, the possessing ghost:
“I should say decidedly that the fellow was a very rare character, so long as by rare you don’t mean good. It’s one of the dullest stupidities of the present day, my dear fellow, to dote on a man simply because he’s different from the rest of us. Once a man strays out of the common herd, he’s more likely to meet wolves in the thickets than angels.”
People who stand out do indeed often attract negative forces: they are easier to see, they make useful tools and their lives are worth sabotaging.
There is still something more to say about The Return.
A more recent edition of the story:
