The children's writer Lucy M. Boston, author of the Green Knowe series, has been featured in an article about her birthday and her memoirs. There are brief references to her witch Dr. Melanie Powers in a few other places, and some elements that this evil woman has in common with fellow fictional modern-day witch Miss Heckatty are described in the article about Linwood Sleigh's witches.
I re-read An Enemy at Green Knowe recently, and, just as happened when I took another look at Beverley Nichols's books about the witch Miss Smith, I found some more material to comment on.
Starting with some coincidences
The main story begins when the boy Ping asks old Mrs Oldknow if she knows anything about a 17th-century man called Piers Madely. She says that this is odd, because she had been thinking about Madely earlier that day!
She tells the disturbing story of the good vicar Piers Madely and the unprepossessing occult scholar, alchemist and necromancer Dr. Vogel, whose evil books and manuscripts were all burned, to Ping and his friend Tolly, who is her great-grandson. The very next day, a letter arrives from a Dr. Melanie D. Powers enquiring about Dr. Vogel's collection!
Before the letter comes:
“The queer thing about Grand's stories," Tolly explained to Ping, "is that bits of them keep coming true now, although they are all so old.“
After the letter comes:
"There you are, Ping!" Tolly exclaimed. "Didn't I tell you part of Grand's stories always come true? She no sooner mentions Dr. Wolfgang Vogel than Dr. Melanie D. Powers comes asking about him."
Perhaps Mrs Oldknow had been thinking about Dr. Vogel because she subconsciously sensed that the letter was coming.
Something about Dr. Vogel
Mrs Oldnow tells the boys that Dr. Vogel was appointed tutor to a young boy called Roger, whose bad health prevented his being sent away to school.
Things began to go wrong not long after Dr. Vogel arrived at Green Knowe. Roger's health got worse by the week, and Dr. Vogel also had a bad psychological effect on the local parish priest:
“Piers Madely was afraid of Dr. Vogel for every reason. He made him feel a nobody, ill born, poor, stupid, provincial, and unwanted. Yet Piers had a strong feeling that the scholar, though terrifying, was a hollow man.”
He had good instincts - as did Roger who took an immediate dislike to Dr. Vogel.
The effect that Dr. Vogel had on Piers Madely reminds me very much of the effect that Terry Pratchett's evil elves have on people. Roger's declining health reminds me of the people who became ill after the arrival of Violet Needham's villain Mr Papadopoulis.
Something about Melanie Powers
Dr. Melanie Powers is determined to acquire Dr Vogel's old occult books and is relentless in her pursuit of them. She begins as she means to go on: in her letter, she invites herself to tea at Green Knowe. It is significant that when she arrives, she asks to be invited into the house: evil people are said to be unable to cross the threshold unless they are invited in.
Once inside, she becomes very intrusive and overbearing. She refuses to accept that Dr. Vogel's old books no longer exist. She says, “When I want something, I am not easily put off.”
That is putting it mildly!
She is actually quite right: one of Dr. Vogel's books did survive and she senses its presence.
Unlike Robin Jarvis's witch Rowena Cooper, Melanie Powers fails in her attempt to get the house and its contents signed over to her so that she can search it thoroughly for the magical item she desperately wants. Mrs Oldknow is on to the witch, and thanks to a protective charm she resists the attempted hypnotism and refuses to sign the deed of sale.
The two boys see the sneering face of Melanie Powers in a Persian looking glass:
More about Melanie Powers
Melanie Powers is a very unpleasant person indeed. She has several characteristics in common with other witches mentioned on here; she is in many ways a classic, textbook case.
Rather like Diana Wynne Jones's witch Aunt Maria, she has a constant flow of talk that compels listening and prevents thought.
There is malice and menace behind her words; she makes spiteful jabs and subtly threatening remarks, saying for example that happy families such as Mrs Oldknow's are easily broken up and telling Mrs Oldknow not to flatter herself that her house is invulnerable.
She resembles Miss Smith in the withering and blighting effect that she has on people and the environment and when she behaves as if roses smell like drains to her.
She sneers at holy items.
She is able to get at Mrs Oldknow remotely when the latter forgets to wear her protective charm; this is similar to the way in which the curse thar Joan Aiken's witch Mrs Lubbage launches against Dido Twite 'takes' when Dido forgets to wear hers.
The episode of Mrs Oldknow's little iced cakes from Paris shows that Melanie Powers is sometimes devious, masking greed with pretended benevolence. She is fascinated by the cakes but declines when offered them at tea, saying that she wants to leave them for the boys. She later uses mind power to draw one to herself when she thinks that no one is watching, and puts it on her pocket!
After her failed attempt to hypnotise Mrs Oldknow, she talks to her as if nothing had happened and they were meeting for the first time. Inflicting injuries then carrying on as if nothing has happened and expecting the victim to do the same is a familiar feature.
Old Mrs Oldknow is spot on when she calls Melanie Powers affected, greedy, false and detestable.
Another depiction of Melanie Powers:
Good triumphs over evil – for a while
Both Dr. Vogel and Melanie Powers come to a bad end.
Dr Vogel has to live with the consequences of his actions: he says that what's thought cannot be unthought. He is reduced to a terrible state and destroyed by the forces he had called up.
Mrs Oldknow and the boys fight back successfully when Melanie Powers sends plagues of maggots, cats and snakes to attack Green Knowe. Melanie becomes distracted by her failure and misses an opportunity to take the magic looking glass:
“Those who cast spells must surely have a sense of near panic when their power goes wrong.”
They wonder what she will do next and when she will do it. Mrs Oldknow makes a point that has been mentioned in connection with other witches:
“...she expends a lot of malice each time, and perhaps, like snakes, once she has bitten, she needs time to recharge.”
The boys discover the witch's true name, which gives them the advantage. They use a ritual, a diminishing incantation, to drive away the demon that controls Melanie Powers:
“She was…exposed, a failure, cast off by her demon lord—an empty, powerless woman, crumpled up and distracted.”
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. These two enemies may have been destroyed, but Green Knowe is always in danger.
The threat to Green Knowe
Green Knowe is around 900 years old. Mrs Oldknow tells the boys that the house has enemies and needs guardians all the time:
“...it wouldn't be there another five years if we stopped watching and guarding it. The very fact that it has lasted so long makes some people impatient. Time it went, they say, without further argument. The fact that it is different from anywhere else, with memories and standards of its own, makes quite a lot of people very angry indeed. Things have no right to be different. Everything should be alike.“
This could be applied to people who take an independent path in life and stand up for their values and beliefs: many other people believe that they have no right to be different!
Where did Melanie Powers come from?
Lucy M. Boston probably did some reading up on alchemy, witchcraft, demonology and magical battles to get some background information and authentic details for the story, but I am still wondering where her witch came from.
Perhaps the character of Melanie Powers was inspired by an acquaintance; it is also possible that she was inspired by a fictional character. Lucy M. Boston may have read and, consciously or unconsciously, been influenced by some of the books about fictional witches mentioned on here. An Enemy at Green Knowe first appeared in 1964; the books about Miss Smith and Miss Heckatty were published several years earlier.
Lucy M. Boston as a young woman:
