The Spoils Of Poynton – Henry James, 1897 ★★★

Too Good for Her own Good

If only people behaved in an ethical, upright fashion, bad stuff would never happen.

Right?

Not so fast. Henry James, a writer whose work was nothing if not concerned with moral principles, suggests such a thing as overconcern about being good. Take Fleda Vetch.

The protagonist of The Spoils Of Poynton is nothing if not virtuous. What drives Fleda more than anything else is the aesthetic ideal she sees embodied in her friend Mrs. Gereth’s luxurious estate of Poynton. When Fleda opts against an action that would place Poynton under her control because it means hurting someone else, her good intentions wind up ruining everything.

“There was something in her that would make it a shame to her forever to have owed her happiness to an interference,” is the way James puts it late in the novel. It makes a fitting epitaph.

"There were places much grander and richer, but there was no such complete work of art, nothing that would appeal so to those who were really informed." Henry James' description of Poynton has real-life counterparts, like Wakehurst Place Mansion above, located like Poynton in the south of England. Image from https://mantex.co.uk/the-spoils-of-poynton/.

This is actually not the interpretation you find at Wikipedia. There, in a short article, Fleda is described as “one of James’ typically sensitive central characters, very scrupulous and thus sometimes victimized by the more decisive if less fastidious people around her.” Technically, that is true, but it misses something I felt after reading the book, that Fleda, for all her scruples, is the principal author of her own misery.

Mrs. Gereth would agree.

Mrs. Gereth is the takeaway character in The Spoils Of Poynton, the most vivid personality and main driver of the plot, trying to drive Flora to get over herself and save Poynton. That is, Mrs. Gereth’s vision of Poynton, which she knows Fleda shares. As things stand early in the novel, Mrs. Gereth’s son, Owen, is about to marry a woman whose conventional tastes the mother finds supremely disagreeable.

When Mrs. Gereth is told to vacate Poynton so Owen and his soon-to-be bride can move in, the result of a rather cruel provision in the late Mr. Gereth’s will, Mrs. Gereth lights upon her new young friend Fleda. Despite being quite poor, with no prospects of social advancement, Fleda is the sort of woman Owen likes, and more importantly has the properly refined sensibilities to look over a place like Poynton.

Tyntesfield, today a National Trust house, suggests the splendor of Poynton: "There's nothing in it that isn't precious," Mrs. Gereth tells Fleda, who is inclined to agree. Image from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/564005553308366285/.

The alternative is Owen’s choice for bride, Mona Brigstock, whose simple, garish tastes sharply clash with those Mrs. Gereth has maintained at Poynton. About Mona, James writes:

She belonged to the type in which speech is an unaided emission of sound and the secret of being is impenetrably and incorruptibly kept. Her expression would probably have been beautiful if she had had one, but whatever she communicated she communicated, in a manner best known to herself, without signs.

Bits of humor like that are scattered throughout The Spoils Of Poynton. Fleda’s name, for one thing. For another, the whole plot revolves around a woman who wants to ruin her son’s pending marriage because it will upset her living arrangements.

Owen (Ian Ogilvy) finds himself in the middle of two unmovable objects in Mona (Diane Fletcher, on the left) and Mrs. Gereth (Pauline Jameson) in a 1970 BBC adaptation that aired in the United States as part of PBS's inaugural season of "Masterpiece Theatre." Image from https://silverscenesblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-spoils-of-poynton-1970.html.

Owen, regarded as a blockhead by all, doesn’t get any of this:

It had lodged itself in that empty chamber that his mother hated the surrender [of Poynton] because she hated Mona. He didn’t of course understand why she hated Mona, but this belonged to an order of mysteries that never troubled him: there were lots of things, especially in people’s minds, that a fellow didn’t understand.

The Spoils Of Poynton may be light like that, but it is also serious, with James taking his typical hard line regarding human endeavor. If you approach Henry James’ fiction as I do thinking the guy is as lost as a Vulcan when writing about romance, nothing here will change that.

But James had a special quality that made him unique in his own day, remembered in ours, and worthwhile to all: His sensitivity to the architectural complexity of the human mind.

Henry James. American by birth but English by temperament, he might be the first Transatlantic novelist. He's more of an influence on American fiction, it seems, so that's how I categorize him. Image from https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/henry-james-brought-to-life-in-2-what-if-scenarios/.

This is both a good and bad thing when reading James. On the plus side, you get some wonderful perceptions on the human condition and the nuances of social conduct as observed by the upper class at the dawn of the 20^th century. James is a sharp and wry observer; the fineness of his prose alone a thing of wonder.

On the other side, you get a lot of stretched-out sequences where much is felt, less said, and very little happens in the way of forward momentum. This is a suspense story about preserving a fine old house where tables and tea trays double as battlefields, and while it is sometimes amusing, it isn’t easy to relate to; less so once James goes deeper into his characteristic punctilios and gamesmanship.

Is Fleda strong enough to resist Mrs. Gereth’s command that she help save Poynton by redirecting Owen’s affections to herself? Should she?

“The world is full of cheap gimcracks, in this awful age, and they’re thrust in at one at every turn. Who would save them for me – I ask you, who would?” Mrs. Gereth demands of Fleda, who suspects herself of agreeing for the wrong reasons.

Gemma Jones as Fleda in the 1970 BBC adaptation of The Spoils Of Poynton. With the possible exception of Owen, she's the novel's only conflicted character, unsure of her own motives when it comes to mixing romance and real estate. Image from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaaWfMAPsa0&list.

James makes clear Fleda’s unalloyed affection for Poynton – “There were places much grander and richer, but there was no such complete work of art, nothing that would appeal so to those who were really informed.” Mrs. Gereth’s motives are less pure:

The truth was simply that all Mrs. Gereth’s scruples were on one side and that her ruling passion had in a manner despoiled her of her humanity.

The book turns on a romantic entanglement between Owen and Fleda which failed to draw this reader in. Passion is expressed, but in a cardboard way without feeling or desire. Owen is just used to women running his life, and finds in Fleda someone much kinder in that way than Mona or his mother.

Mrs. Gereth finally vacates Poynton in a huff, but takes with her all its most valuable objects to the smaller home she is left with. This is unacceptable to Mona, who unabashedly wants it all; and also Fleda, who sees denuding Poynton as a violation like hacking off human limbs. Fleda’s desire to make things right draw her and Owen closer.

Double doors are one design element Mrs. Gereth is very passionate about. James writes: "On the subject of doors especially Mrs. Gereth had the finest views: the thing in the world she most despised was the meanness of the single flap. From end to end, at Poynton, there were high double leaves." Image from www.doors4home.com. 

“When I got into this I didn’t know you, and now that I know you how can I tell you the difference?” he tells Fleda. “And she’s so different, so ugly and vulgar, in the light of this squabble. No, like you I’ve never known one.” It is not clear who is meant by “she”: Mona or his mother?

Fleda falls hard for Owen, too. James is shy about why. “She had never seen a person with whom she wished more to be light and easy, to be exceptionally human,” he writes. Maybe it’s just Poynton she wants. But rest assured however much you second-guess her, you won’t do half as much of that as Fleda herself. 

Mrs. Gereth is savage on the subject:

“Get him away from her!”

Fleda marveled: her companion had in an instant become young again. “Away from Mona? How in the world – ”

“By not looking like a fool!” cried Mrs. Gereth very sharply.

And that is how things play out. Fleda can’t bear the idea of being the cause of a high-society break-up and ensuing scandal, even with the mother of the guy she loves not just backing her up but shoving her forward. Watching Mrs. Gereth swing into action trying to sow dissent between Owen and Mona is amusing and exhilarating, for the way James gets you rooting for her despite her harsh manner.

The first appearance of The Spoils Of Poynton was in The Atlantic Monthly beginning in April 1896 under the title of "The Old Things." The series was concluded in this August 1896 issue.

At a critical juncture in her relationship with Owen, Fleda explains that as she sees it, the decision to allow a relationship cannot come from either of them, but from Mona. Before Fleda can take up Owen’s hand, Mona must first let it go. Fleda puts it plainly:

“Everything must come from Mona, and if it doesn’t come we’ve said entirely too much. You must leave me alone – forever.”

By today’s standards this is more likely to produce smirks than suspense. That a woman gravitates to such a self-admitted weakling and gives up so much initiative to someone she doesn’t like or respect in claiming him is definitely not in a modern way of thinking. I guess it is an open question whether it was James’ way of thinking.

A first British edition of The Spoils Of Poynton. While not one of James' best-known works, it nevertheless is an important marking point between his two most well-regarded periods as a novelist. Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spoils_of_Poynton#/media/File:The_Spoils_of_Poynton.JPG. 

I think his view is firmer on the question of Poynton itself, an estate which breathes the upper-class England he loved so much and made his own. “To have created such a place was dignity enough; when there was a question of defending it the fiercest attitude was the right one,” he writes, which sounds ironic but I think is meant sincerely, and doubles back to put Fleda’s lukewarm defense of it in a harsher light.

Despite proudly occupying a wholly different time in attitude and sensibility, The Spoils Of Poynton connected with me, mainly for the amusing but sympathetic way it treats Fleda’s dilemma as well as the surprisingly warm relationship she forges with the proud and ruthless Mrs. Gereth. Ambiguity is a feature of many Henry James stories, and sometimes a detriment. Here I think it works just fine.