Vera was written in 1921 by "Elizabeth", the single name Elizabeth Von Arnim published under. She also wrote Mr. Skeffington, and her novel Enchanted April is one of my top favourites, touching and romantic. I was excited to find a first edition hardcover of Vera, and of course wished it to be as memorable. Well written, but the opposite of April. Based on her disastrous second marriage, it's a frightening story of a woman trapped with a pathologically narcissistic man.
"Into the emptiness Lucy stared, motionless herself, as if she had been carved in stone".
Inconsolable the day her father died, naive young Lucy stares out to the sea at her families Cornwall estate. Walking the coastline, Everard Wemyss is struck by her beauty and sees in her his own grief mirrored - he is away from London after his wife died in a tragic accident. As they become friends, he is so caring and attentive to both Lucy and her Aunt, Miss Entwhistle, that the romance between the couple is foregone. Back in London, the scandal of the wife's death had not waned and although they are met in society with protest, they are determined to wed. Lucy soon finds however that Wemyss is fastidious and quirky - he has a say in everything and he is always right. His house is run like clockwork and the servants are on edge. As Lucy becomes trapped, Wemyss tightens his hold, more concerned with his rules and regulations than Lucy's health as she becomes ill, going so far as to turn Miss Entwhistle away from nursing her - indeed banishing her from the house.
Enchanted April is the joyful story of two English wives who rent an Italian villa for the Summer, whose husbands find so relaxing love is renewed. Vera is the obverse story as Lucy is first enamoured with Wemyss only to become trapped and emotionally abused. Wemyss slowly cuts her off from society, friends and family - so controlling and selfish, so careless of her that the rumours his wife did not die accidentally could be true. It is a spiral that slowly closes on her and left me with a depressing, empty feeling.
Von Arnim considered Vera her "high water mark" but it's a black vision where there is no way out - a nightmare with no happy ending.
Memorable.
My other review for Elizabeth:
1921 / Hardcover / 319 pages
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