Eleven Things that Weren’t Written by Dorothy L. Sayers, VII

[nineveh_uk]

Spoilers and disclaimers (incl. for directly quoted text) as usual.

Have his Carcase

I

Harriet Vane looked out at the sweeping rain. She had started on a solitary walking-tour of the south coast: plenty of exercise, no responsibilities, and no letters forwarded. The time was June, the weather hitherto perfect. She had intended to spend the day walking the sixteen miles along the cliffs to Wilvercombe. But the sky was black, her lodgings comfortable, and she had had an idea for The Fountain-Pen Mystery. She turned her back on the lowering clouds and ran down the stairs to reserve her room for a second night.

II

Harriet watched Wimsey as he ran, bathing-suited, down over the sand.

‘And he strips better than I expected,’ she admitted candidly to herself. ‘Better shoulders than I realised, and calves to his legs, and really a very nice bum.’

III

‘I say, Peter! That’s not a bad idea for a novel.’

‘What?’

‘The blood. If one could contrive a situation in which the only evidence for the time of death was that the blood hadn’t clotted, and contrive some way that the blood wouldn’t clot, then the murderer could arrange a false alibi.’

‘Harriet!’

‘My God, Peter. You don’t think that Henry Weldon – ’

‘No. Not arrange it – you said that Henry Weldon was stupid. And arranging that sort of thing would require a good deal of ingenuity. But there is another possibility.’

IV

And dinner. And dancing. And so to bed.

‘Oh my Lord!’

***

Plus one or two extras in the comments courtesy of azdak.

Comments

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

having inherited the Wimsey bum

Although it isn't in the (public) portraits, and thus one only knows for sure by going, at the age of twenty-one, into one of the attics where there is a curtained picture and a complicated set of mirrors so that one can stand and compare.

"And possibly, given this animal's reluctance to move, a crop."
I particularly like IIIb - Harriet at her towniest. I did consider doing one in which Peter fell off the horse, but thought that it would be an implausibility too far.

(For amusement on the horse in HHC, click here (http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:s5PC1g1L87IJ:www.incwriters.co.uk/Incwriters_files/issue3vol2.rtf+%22he+could+control+a+horse%22+Harriet&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk) and search for "horse".)

[azdak.livejournal.com]

there is a curtained picture and a complicated set of mirrors so that one can stand and compare.


And as the years pass, the bum in the picture grows wrinklier and saggier, whilst the owner's remains taut and trim?

I did consider doing one in which Peter fell off the horse, but thought that it would be an implausibility too far.


Given how he felt about Charles's suggestion in MMA, I don't think Peter would ever have forgiven you.


(For amusement on the horse in HHC, click here and search for "horse".)


Bwahahaha! Especially to the bit about horses bringing out the caveman in Peter. You have to do some very deliberate misreading there to support that particular thesis (it reminds me of a review I read somewhere in which it was argued that the fact that Peter came from a family that "had never shot a fox" showed how tender-hearted the Wimseys were). However, it is true that horses in literature do tend to be associated with sex - I am reminded of one of Goethe's poems, in which he sets out to a midnight assignation with his beloved, a horse pounding away between his thighs, arrives at said assignation, is received with "tenderness", gives the girl a "rosy glow", and departs, apparently now sans snorting stallion.

The highwayman came riding, riding, riding

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

the bum in the picture grows wrinklier and saggier
Now that's a crossover that needs writing.

However, it is true that horses in literature do tend to be associated with sex
Deliberate mis-reading is half the fun! Though maybe Sayers missed a trick in not having Harriet present to witness Peter's best bit of horsemanship (or not, if it sent her running in the opposite direction). You are also making Goethe's poetry (which Erlkonig aside I have never read) seem a lot more enticing. (In this regard, it is interesting that a bit of Thrones MS mentions that Helen and Gerald conducted their courtship at the covert side, and that H. has always looked very good on a horse. Perhaps G. mistook huntin' enthusiasm for sex.)

Re: The highwayman came riding, riding, riding

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that. (Can I be nosy and ask where you found that out?)

Re: The highwayman came riding, riding, riding

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

The manuscript of Thrones is available to read in a research centre at Wheaton College, Illinois (just outside Chicago), and where I spent a day or so and some frantic lunchtimes tearing through it and other DLS stuff. There's quite a bit of interesting stuff that Jill Paton Walsh did not use in her continuation. (I know that many people would rather have the novelization, but I'm the History of Middle Earth reading type myself, and I'd rather have the bits and pieces of original.)

Re: The highwayman came riding, riding, riding

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that!

*plans next trip to the States*

Re: The highwayman came riding, riding, riding

[azdak.livejournal.com]

You are also making Goethe's poetry (which Erlkonig aside I have never read) seem a lot more enticing.

He's actually pretty good, although overly keen on this lurve stuff which, as you know, is not really my thing. But generations of Seminar graduates can recite "Es schlug mein Herz, geschwind zu Pferde!" it playing a central role in first year voice classes.

H. has always looked very good on a horse. Perhaps G. mistook huntin' enthusiasm for sex

I bet she rode side-saddle - that looks incredibly sexy. And I doubt if G. was looking for sexual enthusiasm in his wife of all people - that's what a chap has mistresses for.

Re: The highwayman came riding, riding, riding

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

this lurve stuff which, as you know, is not really my thing
You're really going to have trouble with my honestly-I'm-going-to-write-it-any-day-now planned end of Gaudy Night fic...

Re: The highwayman came riding, riding, riding

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Sick bag at the ready, Alice...

Es schlug mein Herz, geschwind zu Pferd!

[tree_and_leaf]

Why did they cut all the interesting bits out of T,D?

Poor old Gerald. That makes a lot of sense.

[alexandralynch.livejournal.com]

Some bums remain quite fine over the years. That IS genetic. While I did not plan nor wish to see my father-in-law like that, at least I now know that my husband will still have the same one at seventy-nine. I suppose that is one good thing my future sons or daughters-in-law will get in my sons...(giggle)

[tree_and_leaf]

And, as well as the masochism, can the modern scholar also detect a tell-tale hint of bestiality?

In fact horses in Have His Carcase seem to bring out the worst in Wimsey, and in Sayers. He tells Harriet in one of his more jocular moments, “You miserable little cockney... Your knowledge of horses is comprised in the rhyme which says, 'I know two things about the horse and one of them is rather coarse.' ...Wretched girl - wait till we are married. You shall fall off a horse every day until you learn to sit on it.”

More bestiality, of course. Its ghostly footprints - or hoofprints - are everywhere.

Ahahahaha. Although actually, all those essays are sources of inadvertent hilarity. Like the guy who writes fantasy but is embarrassed to tell people because they might think he writes like Tolkien, when he actually is just drawn to the boundaries of genres....

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I believe Margaret Atwood claims quite frequently that she doesn't write science fiction.

At least the writer is transparently out to have fun (I particularly like his parthenogenesis comments, touching as it does on a Wimsey cross-over of my own).