The Centenary of 'Colin II' by E.F. Benson: A Guest Post by John Howard

E.F. Benson (1867-1940) is probably best known today for his tales of supernatural horror and the six novels, dripping with campery and back-biting, portraying the rivalry between Elizabeth Mapp and Emmeline Lucas (‘Lucia’). Benson was a prolific and efficient writer, producing books of all kinds and qualities, including history, biography, memoir, and current affairs – as well as many other novels of social comedy and satire. A number of these blurred genre labels and could perhaps be described as explorations into dark psychology, terrible secrets, and obsession, with touches of the gothic and sensational, sometimes crossing further borders and venturing into the supernatural. Many also contained strong homosexual or homoerotic elements. Several of Benson’s novels in this vein were reprinted in paperback during the 1990s by publishers specialising in gay literature. Among them were The Inheritors (1930) and Raven’s Brood (1934); others were Colin (1923) and its continuation or sequel, Colin II – which was first published one hundred years ago in August 1925.

Although Colin II might seem a somewhat uninspired choice of title, it is certainly an accurate one. As Benson stated in his spoiler-friendly Preface to Colin: ‘“Colin” comprises the first part only of this romance: it will be completed in a second volume which will tell of the final fading of the Legend with which the story opens.’ Colin Stanier was not the first member of his family to bear the name; there was the ‘old Colin’ whose pact with Satan made in the late sixteenth century took him from life as a shepherd boy to becoming a close confidante of Queen Elizabeth, ennoblement as Lord Yardley, and given the riches and continuing prosperity for him and his descendants that flowed from the bargain.

This part of the story so far is summarised in the Introduction to Colin II, which makes clear that not only evil, but its redemption, will be the theme of the story. This provides an ongoing tension between good and evil, love and hate, obligation and liberty, that may only be resolved at the end: ‘Often Violet [Colin’s wife] wished he could have killed her love for him, for then would have died withal that eternal struggle within her between love and her horror of him, whose soul, whether in fulfilment of the legend, or from his inherent wickedness, was as surely Satan’s as if with his own blood he had signed the fabled bond. Yet as often as she wished that she cried out on herself at so blasphemous a desire, for she knew that by love alone, though in some manner inscrutable, could redemption come to him’ (11).

Colin divides his time between Stanier, the great house near Rye in Sussex built by his ancestor, and his villa in Capri. At Stanier he lives with his wife and young son Dennis, playing the role of an influential local grandee who is also a loving family man. His grandmother, aunt, and wife’s parents also live at Stanier, and within its walls provide opportunistic outlets – relief – for Colin’s endless store of barbed wit, sarcasm, and scarcely concealed mixture of contempt and hatred. Benson knew Capri well, sharing the lease on a villa for many years; the island was a haven for writers and artists whose lifestyles would be deprecated – if not illegal – in their own northern European countries. The ancient shadow of another regular visitor, the Emperor Tiberius, cast as a background contrast to the heat, glaring light and glowing colour of Capri, is inescapable – and necessary – as a symbol to depict Colin’s two aspects and double life. Colin is looked after by his valet Nino, who ‘had the morals of a sleek black panther’ (39). Nino is Colin’s willing accomplice – although always still a servant who can be put in his place when required.

Colin learns that Mr Cecil, the British Consul in Naples, possesses a missal of the Black Mass which once belonged to his ancestor. Now determined to build a chapel to Satan at Stanier, Colin quickly forces Cecil to give it him: ‘Never had he felt himself so truly in harmony with the spirit that inspired his life. Here, under the symbolism of the rite, was his own spirit revealed to him, his hatred of love, his love of hate. Here was the strengthening and refreshing of his soul; the renewal, mystically, of the bargain made in Elizabethan days…’ (91f).

Traditionally fathers told their sons the truth when they came of age: ‘They had, so he pointed out to them, the free choice of disassociating themselves from that bargain, and of taking the chance of material prosperity here and of salvation hereafter…’ (Colin 20). Colin begins to consider how he can influence Dennis, now in his teens, towards choosing the same allegiance that all previous generations of Staniers had, so he could initiate his heir into the ‘evil sacrament’. Disregarding all opposition from Violet, Colin decides to do so through hate and cruelty; however, no matter how hard he tries he cannot get Dennis to hate him. The novel ends dramatically with Colin, apparently a victim at last, confronted and in mental agony, asking his tormentor whether he is ‘the Lord whom I have served so well’ (254).

Benson’s novels from the years of Colin and Colin II seem to have provoked very different reactions from his biographers. For example, Geoffrey Palmer and Noel Lloyd wrote in E.F. Benson – As He Was (1988): ‘They may be a tribute to Fred’s industry, but not to his talent. He seems to have been marking time, waiting in a literary limbo, content to drift along. The seven books are either exceedingly silly or exceedingly sentimental or just dull’ (190). In The Life of E.F. Benson (1991) Brian Masters discussed Colin and other novels in very different terms, stating that ‘Fred was periodically obsessed with the notion of people who are the epitome of evil while bearing the appearance of consummate good’ (267). He went on to describe The Inheritor as combining ‘mystery, terror and a goodly chunk of healthy male beauty to make a tantalising cocktail. Beneath it all lies Fred’s serious, reiterated purpose, to demonstrate that inherent evil can only be destroyed, and the victim whose lot it is to carry evil within him be saved, by the intercession of human goodness’ (273). The same could be said of Colin II.

(John Howard)