This year marks the centenary of the publication of the first in the series of books by EF Benson (a long time resident and past Mayor of Rye – on a number of occasions – who lived in Lamb House) now known as the “Tilling novels”.
However, as some of you will know, “Queen Lucia” and its sequel, “Lucia in London”, are not set in Tilling, but in Riseholme. “Miss Mapp” was the first book to be set in Tilling and we have to wait until 2022 for Mapp’s centenary. That is the year in which Rye, as Tilling, takes centre stage.
“Queen Lucia” was published in August 1920 and, although reviewed well, was not seen in general to be as good as some of Benson’s other works. Many feel that Riseholme was based on Broadway. An American reviewer was the first to put this theory forward and it has stuck.
Although this Cotswold village has some of the features and had famous people living around, plus it had the nearby Avon, the EF Benson Society feels that Horstead Keynes in Sussex has a better claim. This village was where Benson’s mother, Mary Benson, lived from 1899 to 1918.
The name Riseholme comes from the former palace of the Bishops of Lincoln, now an agricultural college. It is a very grand building and Benson knew it well from childhood, when his father, as Chancellor at Lincoln, used to drive out to visit the then bishop, Christopher Wordsworth. In his autobiography, he mentions how impressed he was and how he and his siblings used to canoe on the lake.
The beginning of “Queen Lucia” sees Lucia arrive back from London at the station, and decide to walk to the village, which took a little while: her trap went on ahead, causing, she hoped, people to wonder why she was not in it. This fits Horstead Keynes, where the station is some distance from the village and Benson knew that from his many visits to his mother.
There is a village green, an old established “hotel” and Benson’s elder brother, Arthur, wrote in his diary how their mother and her companion, Lucy Tait, used to take their carriage up to the village from Tremans, where they lived, and as Arthur put it, “interfere in the lives of others.”
Racing in the Rolls Royce
We are sure Benson would hear these tales on his visits and of these meetings round the green. Also, later on in the series, Lucia drives out in the early evening, taking at most a couple of hours, from Tilling, to see Poppy Sheffield at her castle, passing through Riseholme. Even in a Rolls Royce, it is not possible now to reach Broadway in that time, let alone in the 1930s. As you will all know Sheffield Park is very close to Horstead Keynes. It all begins to fit together.
We must remember that Benson was writing fiction, but as in so many of his novels, he uses places and people he knew. He changed them slightly, of course, but the source is still there, as one reads about his life and the lives of those he knew and comments upon.
His mother had died in 1918 and so he could use material gathered and adapted from the village. If conditions allow, the EF Benson Society will hold a special “Queen Lucia Centenary Day” in Horstead Keynes later in the year and members will debate the issue for themselves.
Let us have a look at some of the principal characters we are introduced to for the first time in “Queen Lucia”. These characters are, like many writers, composites of people he either knew or had met. Lucia herself has many aspects of the author Marie Corelli, who used to play the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, then be so overcome with emotion, she could not proceed further. Her guests, who included Benson on many occasions, all knew she could not manage the other movements, but were amused by the artifice.
However, I am sure he met many hostesses rather like Lucia. Lady Ambermere is the grande dame in “Queen Lucia”, and Lady Maud Warrender, who used to live at Leasam at the top of Rye Hill, had many of her qualities. EF Benson used to stay with her often, when invited, together with the Elgars, Kiplings, his brother Arthur and the Beresfords.
Lady Maud’s guests were referred to as “my people” and her progress down Rye High Street in her chauffeured car, which was two way then, was very like Susan Wyse’s. The name of Miss Lyall, Lady Ambermere’s companion belonged to a devotee and religious acolyte of Benson’s brother Hugh Benson, the Roman Catholic evangeliser. Foljambe, Georgie’s maid was the name of a prominent Lincoln resident, and for a time Liberal MP.
His Grosvenoring period
Grosvenor, Lucia’s peerless maid and housekeeper, is a slight mystery, but Benson would have met members of this aristocratic family in London, and it may have amused him to use their name for a servant. It was also the name of the block of flats where he lived in Oxford Street, Grosvenor Mansions. In his pre-1914 heyday, he often dined out nearly every day, and in his autobiography he refers to this as his “Grosvenoring period”.
In these difficult times we have to practise “social distancing”, and no-one managed social distancing better than Miss Mapp or Lucia, so perhaps it might be good to re-acquaint ourselves with these books, beginning with Queen Lucia. I am sure they will make us laugh and smile and be ready for the return of normality.
I am often asked in what order the books should be read, and though it is not quite the order of publication, I recommend that after “Queen Lucia”, read “Lucia in London”, then “Miss Mapp”, “Mapp & Lucia”, “Lucia’s Progress” and finish with “Trouble for Lucia”. If you want to follow on with books that use the same characters, try Tom Holt’s,” Lucia Triumphant” and “Lucia in Wartime”.
The EF Benson Society looks forward to working with Rye Festival for an important Benson event in 2022 to mark the centenary of Miss Mapp and Tilling, that being when Rye is introduced into these splendid novels.
Image Credits: Tony McLaughlin , Seana Lanigan .