I want to talk about two items the both have fairly casual background queer content: the Netflix historic mini-series The Essex Serpent, based on the novel of the same name by Sarah Perry (though I’ll be talking about the tv show), and a rather fluffy British-set novel titled Miss Buncle's Book, written in the 1930s by Scottish author Dorothy Emily Stevenson, writing as D.E. Stevenson.
The Essex Serpent - tv series
It is, perhaps, less surprising that a fairly recently-written historic Gothic romance, set in Victorian times, makes clear nods to the homoerotic undercurrents in Victorian society.
In The Essex Serpent, everybody loves recent widow Cora Seaborne, whose interest in paleontology gets her tangled up in the concerns of an Essex village where mysterious disappearances and deaths are blamed on a supernatural mythical sea serpent. Her surgeon friend who is looking for opportunities to practice Victorian-era heart surgery loves her, the village pastor whose wife is dying of tuberculosis and trying to set him up with Cora loves her, and her beloved friend and companion Martha, whose passion is social activism, loves her. But things get complicated because Martha also has a fling with the surgeon, and the surgeon ends up living with his very, very close male friend in what likely would be called a romantic friendship if they were women.
The eroticized -- though never overtly sexual -- relationship between the two women is depicted in how they casually share a bed, and in the physical affection they share. Martha struggles with jealousy over Cora's attraction to the two men, and over the recognition that society might grudgingly accept Cora's disinterest in remarriage due to the unhappy nature of her previous one, but that society would not consider Cora and Martha's relationship to be anything more than employer and employee, or at best friendship.
But within the context of this fictional depiction, other characters within their social circle do recognize that Martha has a place and a claim in Cora's life, as illustrated by a scene where one of the men turns to Martha and says, in recognition, "You're in love with her," and Martha responds, "Aren't we all?"
The story was never going to end with Cora and Martha as a couple, but it recognizes that they have an emotional bond that is as real as the various heterosexual connections in the story, and as Martha turns more and more to her social justice work, there is space to imagine her finding a new girlfriend there.
Miss Buncle's Book by D.E. Stevenson - text
In some ways, the queer representation in D.E. Stevenson's Miss Buncle's Book is even more delightful, as it was written within the same era as the setting, and so cannot be accused of anachronism. I'm going to dive into this story in extensive detail because I think it tells us some useful and unexpected things about historic accuracy in fiction.
I became aware of this book (and the motif of interest) through a review by author and very prolific reader K.J. Charles. Written, set, and published in the 1930s, the story tells of Miss Buncle, a spinster living in the sort of small English village where everyone knows everyone else's business, who tackles an unexpected decline in her income by writing a pseudonymous roman a clef about the people around her, but with a lightly supernatural twist in which a mysterious figure wanders through the village inspiring people to break out of their ruts and make drastic changes in their lives for the better. The story involves the reactions of her neighbors to recognizing themselves in the unexpected best-seller, their attempts to identify the mysterious author, and how the changes depicted in the book come into being, though not always as they did in the novel.
Among the many stock "types" in Miss Buncle's village is a household composed of two unmarried women. Let's look at several of the passages describing them.
# # #
Miss King and Miss Pretty dwelt in the High Street next door to Dr. Walker in an old house behind high stone walls. They had nine o’clock breakfast, of course, being ladies of leisure.
# # #
In this next passage, several characters are commenting on a tennis match and we get Barbara Buncle's take on Miss King.
# # #
"It would have made a better game if they had had Dorothea Bold instead of Olivia," said Miss King firmly.
"Oh, Miss King, how can you say such a thing?" cried Miss Isabella in horrified tones.
"Merely because it happens to be true. Dorothea is a more reliable player than Olivia," replied Miss King firmly, and moved away.
"Horrid old thing!" said Miss Isabella to Barbara Buncle who happened to be sitting next to her. "It's just jealousy, that's what it is. She may dress herself up like a man, and talk and smoke like a man, but she's nothing but a cat--that's what she is."
"I rather like Miss King," said Barbara placidly, and she looked at Miss King's tall commanding figure as it strode off across the court with some affection. Of course she was rather funny with her deep voice, and her short hair, and her strange habit of wearing tailored coats and skirts with collars and ties like a man, and very often she was to be seen with a cigarette in the corner of her mouth, and her hands in her pockets; but, after all, these little peculiarities did nobody any harm, and there was something rather nice about the woman. At any rate she would never say behind your back what she would not say to your face (like some people one could name). You always knew exactly where you were with her; she said what she thought without fear or favor.
# # #
As one of the other characters is reading through the novel and recognizing who the characters are meant to be, while being amused by the unexpected turns their lives take, she thinks,
# # #
In fact everyone did something queer, even Miss King and Miss Pretty (they were called Earle and Darling in the book but Sarah had got beyond troubling her head with such details) were seized with the spirit of adventure and decided to start upon an expedition to Samarkand. They each ordered a pair of riding breeches from Sharrods, and the book closed--very suitably--on that high note.
# # #
At this era, it's plausible--though not a guarantee--that the word "queer" is meant to evoke something particular about Miss King and Miss Pretty's relationship. Note that "everyone did something queer" is referring to a number of twists in decidedly heterosexual lives. But the potential ambiguity and evocation of same-sex relationships is there.
The village queen bee, quite unamused at how her fictional persona is treated, calls a meeting to discuss the matter (including, unknown to them all, the book's actual author). We once again are told that Miss King's defining attribute is her performance of gender transgression.
# # #
Miss King found her voice first. Perhaps it was the manliness of her attire that gave her confidence in her own capabilities, or perhaps it was her confident and capable nature which promoted the manliness of her attire. It does not really matter which, the important thing is that Miss King believed she was a capable sensible person and this belief was a great help to her in emergencies such as the present one.
# # #
Once Miss King actually reads the book and recognizes the characters meant to be her and Miss Pretty, she becomes anxious enough to go confront the publisher and demand retraction. Initially she describes the issue in general terms "it is causing a great deal of misery and trouble to innocent people." The publisher (who, by the way, gradually falls in love with Miss Buncle), being accustomed to dealing with confrontations of this type, tells her she needs to be more explicit. Miss King, after some hemming and hawing, explains,
# # #
"So there we were," she was saying, "both orphans, without anybody dependent upon us, nor any near relations. I had a house, larger than I required. Miss Pretty was homeless. We both possessed small incomes, too small to enable us to live alone in comfort. I was about to sell my house (for I could not live in it alone) when the suggestion was made that we should pool our resources and live together--what more natural? By this means we were enabled to live comfortably in my house. The companionship was pleasant, the financial problem was solved. There was a book some years ago," continued Miss King incoherently, "it distressed us very much at the time, but it had nothing to do with us, and I decided to ignore it--this book is far worse--it's all about us--it's far, far worse--"
"You have misread the novel entirely," said Mr. Abbott uncomfortably. "I assure you that you have misread it. There is nothing in it to cause you the slightest distress. The author is a particularly simple-minded--er--person."
"But Samarkand!" exclaimed Miss King, trying to keep the sound of tears out of her voice. "Why Samarkand of all places?"
"I don't know anything about Samarkand," said Mr. Abbott truthfully, "but to me it has an adventurous sound, and I feel convinced that that was what it was intended to convey--"
“A dreadful Eastern place—full of vice and—and horribleness,” cried Miss King.”
# # #
She gets nowhere with the publisher, and later is commiserating with another villager who advises,
# # #
“Perhaps in time he will get tired of saying no. Come up and see him constantly—publishers love to have their mornings wasted for them—put off your visit to Samarkand for a few weeks, and sit upon Mr. Abbott’s doorstep.”
“Samarkand,” cried Miss King, goaded to frenzy. “I’m not going to Samarkand—why should I? What’s it got to do with you where I go? I shall go to Samarkand if I like—”
# # #
Now why should the reference to Samarkand – a city with deep historic roots located in modern Uzbekistan – bother Miss King so? Why should the associations of it be “vice and horribleness”? And what sort of vice and horribleness? It is located on the ancient Silk Road, and in the late 19th to early 20th centuries was caught up in the proxy wars between western powers, eventually becoming part of the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union, which was its status at the time of this book. But one gets the sense that Miss King isn’t thinking of contemporary politics, but rather that Samarkand is standing in for the “exotic East,” a place where standards of behavior are quite un-English, and that the people who live there – or even simply visit there – are suspect in some way.
One can’t help but think of the long history of how lesbian relations were projected onto Islamic societies such as the Ottoman Empire. (It’s hard not to be reminded of Anne Lister’s dramatic travels to that general part of the world that ended in her unfortunate fatal illness.) Taking a step back, it’s clear that Samarkand is standing in Miss King’s mind for sexual deviance, and that Miss Buncle’s Book, she believes, is accusing her and Miss Pretty of things she would prefer not to discuss explicitly.
But as life goes on, we learn that Miss Angela Pretty has some chronic lung problems, and her doctor raises the question with Miss Ellen King about a change of environment.
# # #
“I don’t like these continual colds,” he said. “I don’t like them, Ellen.”
These two were old friends. They had always lived next door to each other (for Dr. John’s father had been Silverstream’s doctor before Dr. John was born). Ellen and John had played together as children, and together had climbed every climbable tree in the two adjoining gardens. Dr. John had a great respect for Ellen King, and a great compassion; she was such a lonely sort of creature and ridden by a curious temperament. Her excellent brain had never been developed and turned to use. Ellen would have made a good doctor or lawyer (the stuff was there), but her father had abhorred clever women and had denied her the opportunity of a decent education.
“What do you mean, exactly?” she asked him anxiously.
“I don’t mean anything very much,” Dr. John told her. “In fact I mean exactly what I say—I don’t like these continual colds that Angela gets. Could you possibly go away?”
“Go away? You mean to Bournemouth or somewhere?”
“Bournemouth? No. I mean to Egypt. It is warm and dry there. Just for the rest of the winter, of course.”
“I suppose we could if it is necessary—I mean of course we could if it is necessary,” she amended in sudden alarm.
“I wouldn’t like to say it is necessary, but it is advisable,” he replied, choosing his words carefully.”
# # #
As Miss King and the doctor discuss this possibility, we encounter some hints of psychological stereotypes that associate same-sex relationships with personality weaknesses. The doctor dismisses these concerns, although he does so in a rather sex-stereotyped way.
# # #
“John!” she said suddenly. “Shall I let Angela go alone? I could take up some sort of work—no, don’t say anything yet—I believe I’m bad for Angela, John. I have begun to think she would be better without me. She depends upon me too much. Sometimes I think she is beginning to lose her identity altogether—”
“What on earth are you talking about?” said Dr. John furiously, taking a few strides across the floor and back again to his usual station in front of the fire. “What on earth are you talking about, Ellen? I thought you had more sense. Angela would depend upon anybody who happened to be there to depend upon. It’s her nature to—to lean—Angela is weak in body, and soul, and mind.”
“I know,” said Ellen, “I know all that, John, but I love her just the same. I love her too much. I fuss over her too much—I agonize over her—”
“Look here, we all agonize over people we love. But we mustn’t fuss—that’s the important thing. It’s difficult not to fuss, but we mustn’t do it, Ellen. I don’t think you do fuss over Angela. I think you’re very sensible with her.”
“I’ve begun to doubt it,” Ellen replied. “You don’t know how she depends upon me for everything. She can’t even decide what to wear without asking me what I think. That’s bad, isn’t it, John?”
“It’s the woman’s nature,” he said impatiently. “You’ve done such a lot for her; you’ve been wonderful to her, Ellen. Believe me it’s not your fault that she’s weak and vacillating—you’re not bad for her; it’s absurd and ridiculous to think so. As for her going to Egypt by herself, the thing’s simply unthinkable; I couldn’t countenance it for a moment. I’d rather she stayed here, infinitely rather. You must go and look after her; she needs you. For pity’s sake, don’t go and get a lot of foolish ideas into your head.”
“John, have you read that book?”
# # #
Miss King has recognized that Miss Buncle’s Book is depicting her relationship with Miss Pretty as queer (in the modern sense) and seems to be worrying that there is something unacceptable about the relationship that perhaps she, herself, hadn’t recognized. Or maybe she’s worried that everyone else will suddenly realize that they aren’t “just good friends” and it will destroy their lives. The doctor assures her, “It didn’t strike me as a satire, nor could I find anything nasty in it.” He reiterates the suggestion that Miss Pretty needs some time in a warmer climate, and Miss King concludes,
# # #
“Why don’t you send us to Samarkand while you’re about it?” she demanded, with a deep chuckle. “I believe you’re in league with [the author].”
Dr. John waved his hat at her. “Good! Splendid!” he cried. “That’s the spirit—that’s more like the good old Ellen King I know so well. Tell them all that you and Angela are off to Samarkand—and, Ellen,” he added in lower and more confidential tones, “don’t forget to order those riding breeches, will you? You’d look fine in them.”
# # #
Later on, the doctor’s wife is discussing the book with Miss Buncle (still unaware that Miss Buncle is the author) and we get the impression that perhaps Miss Buncle, while depicting King and Pretty dead-to-life is not consciously aware that their relationship is romantic.
# # #
“I can’t understand Ellen King at all; she’s usually such a sensible sort of person. I can’t see anything in the book for her to make a song and dance about—can you?”
“No, I can’t,” said Barbara. She had not intended to be hard on Miss King; she liked her. The fact was that Barbara had always been of the opinion that Miss King found Silverstream a trifle dull. There was little scope in Silverstream for Miss King’s energies and capabilities, and it had been with friendly intent that she had arranged an adventurous holiday for her in Samarkand.”
# # #
Towards the end of the book, though still before anyone knows the true authorship, Miss Buncle encounters Miss King.
# # #
“What horrid damp weather,” Barbara said, wondering what we would do without that safe topic of conversation. “And so warm and unseasonable, isn’t it? I do hope it will clear up and be nice and frosty for Christmas Day. I like Christmas Day to be frosty, don’t you?”
“It never is,” Miss King pointed out.
“I expect we shall have a cold spell later,” continued Barbara. “After all this mild wet weather we are practically bound to. Don’t you think so?”
“Well, it won’t affect me, anyway,” said Miss King blithely, “Angela and I are off to Samarkand next week.”
# # #
However we are meant to understand the self-awareness of Miss King and Miss Pretty, they are given their happy ever after. And they embrace and publicly acknowledge the depiction of their relationship in the book, as symbolized by choosing Samarkand as destination.
But much more to the point, the author D.E. Stevenson, who was born at the end of the 19th century, created a heartwarming story in the 1930s that included a female couple clearly meant to be understood as a romantic couple, living in peace and friendship with their neighbors in a small English village, who also clearly recognize them on some level as a romantic couple, but everyone just quietly accepts that and pretends they haven’t noticed.
Not only do we need that type of queer representation in historic fiction, but we need to recognize that that type of queer representation is historically accurate – that stories set in the past don’t need to choose between being pure fantasy and being awful and miserable. Go ahead and write your characters pulling up stakes and moving to Samarkand with everyone being happy for them.
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