Sean Lang’s latest play, acted with an all-women cast by Combined Actors of Cambridge, was produced at Cambridge’s ADC Theatre from the 16th to 20th April 2024. The Ghostly Gift of Miss Constance Couper is very loosely inspired by Charlotte Moberly (1846-1937), principal of St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and Eleanor Jourdain (1863-1924), who became her vice-principal and eventually succeeded her. While visiting Versailles in August 1901 they claimed to have been transported back to the late eighteenth century, as recounted in their book An Adventure, first published in 1911 and appearing in five editions until 1955. They used the pseudonyms Elizabeth Morison and Frances Lamont, and the fourth edition, published in 1931, while Moberly was alive, was the first to include the authors’ real names.
Lang, an Oxford graduate, was, until his
recent retirement, Senior Lecturer in history at Anglia Ruskin University and –
full disclosure – the internal examiner when I took a PhD at ARU. He weaves together three time-lines: the
horrors of the French Revolution, in particular its effect on Marie Antoinette;
the academics Misses Annie Martindale and Constance Couper at Oxford, including
their holiday visit to Versailles, after which Miss Martindale writes a book
detailing an alleged time-slip; and a couple of young women in 1968 sharing the
house in which Martindale and Couper had lived together.
However, the events recounted by Miss
Martindale are faked, the book instigated by Miss Couper as part of a nefarious
plot to discredit her colleague, force her retirement, and assume her position as
principal of St Hugh’s. A scene shows
Miss Martindale offering the job as her deputy to Miss Couper, who delightedly
accepts, then proposing they share Miss Martindale’s house close to the
college, which she owns. Miss Couper accepts
Miss Martindale’s generosity and uses it to her advantage.
After their holiday, Miss Couper suggests
they use the visit to Versailles and the people they had seen while walking
around to produce a narrative describing how they were transported back to the
eighteenth century. They would both
write accounts, containing minor discrepancies to demonstrate they had been
written independently but agreeing on all important points. Initially, Miss Couper says they should do
this as a private exercise for their own entertainment, a jeu d’esprit,
and Miss Martindale enthusiastically agrees.
Later, Miss Couper encourages the naive
Miss Martindale to publish the account, knowing the result would be to make her
look credulous, and lose the support of the college fellows in the ensuing
controversy. With Miss Martindale eased
out, Miss Couper, despite her weaknesses as an academic, would be well situated
to replace her. The plan appears to be
on the point of working when Miss Martindale says she wishes to step down.
Unfortunately for Miss Couper, the mild
Miss Martindale then baulks at the prospect of resignation, and in a riverside
confrontation declares that not only does she have no intention of standing
down but, having seen through Miss Couper’s strategy, intends to force her out
instead, possessing proof Miss Couper had played a full part in the planning
and execution of the book. However, if
finesse cannot work, force can, and Miss Couper pushes her colleague into the
river, the death allowing Miss Couper to have the top job after all.
Miss Couper tries to recruit an able young
lecturer, Miss Ada Smart, to her side by dangling a fellowship, and Miss Smart
become Miss Couper’s vice-principal.
Later, disenchanted by Miss Smart, Miss Couper tells her that she plans
to force her out. However, during the
inquest Miss Couper stated she had been in the house at the time Miss
Martindale drowned, but Miss Smart, who had accompanied Miss Martindale to the
river for a walk before leaving her to attend a suffragette meeting, had seen
Miss Couper close by.
Belatedly going over the inquest
documents, Miss Smart compiles enough circumstantial evidence to show the death
might not have been an accident, the mere hint of which would cause a scandal
for Miss Couper. The price of Miss
Smart’s silence? Miss Couper’s
resignation, enabling Miss Smart to take over as principal. To this Miss Couper agrees (one might think
she would attempt to brazen it out), but she continues to live close by in the
house, dying there an embittered old woman.
The second time period follows Marie
Antoinette at Versailles as the French Revolution begins and gradually the
violence escalates, until not only does it destroy the royal family but is
killing even those who had supported it.
The third period is1968. Sheila
Smart, Ada’s great-niece and a student at St Hugh’s, moves in and is joined by
fellow student Perdi Warrender. Sheila
has been given the accommodation rent free, and assumes this was thanks to her
great-aunt. Sheila is a buttoned-up
provincial intent on her studies while Perdi is a cosmopolitan hedonist, but
despite their initial friction a friendship grows between them, and they find
they have more in common than they initially realised.
Then mysterious, and increasingly scary,
events start to happen and it becomes clear the house is haunted. The haunting escalates and the students
realise there is an intelligence behind it.
Perdi does some digging in the archive and learns it was not Sheila’s
great-aunt who had been her benefactor.
Rather, Miss Couper had willed the house to the college on the understanding
that should any descendants of Ada Smart ever come to the college to study,
they would be given rooms there free of charge.
The reason for her largesse towards a
relative of the person who had destroyed her career was because it would give
her an opportunity to be revenged on Miss Smart by proxy. As Sheila is a diabetic, this can be achieved
by hiding her insulin syringe, leading to diabetic coma. At the climax, with Perdi shut out of the
house by the paranormal force and Sheila close to unconsciousness, the
full-form apparition of Miss Couper appears and menaces her. She is saved by Miss Smart who appears and by
an act of will forces Miss Couper back (the ghostliness of each signalled by
the wearing of veils covering their faces).
Perdi is able to enter and help Sheila administer her insulin, saving
her and thwarting Miss Couper.
In his programme notes Lang asks who would
have been the ghosts in 1901 if Moberly and Jourdain had really gone back in
time. It would not have been those in
the eighteenth century ‘now’, rather the visitors from its future. But even with their ghostly presence Lang
notes the time-slip is not scary (though to be fair that was not Moberly and
Jourdain’s intention) and says he wanted his play to be scary, hence why he
added the 1968 thread. He was able to
introduce a more conventional kind of ghost, a familiar horror type as seen for
example in The Woman in Black, to
menace the living. But the aim was not
merely to provide a frisson for the
audience, a theme was how each of the three periods featured emancipation of
some kind, but with limited gains for women.
The identification of Miss Martindale with
Charlotte Moberly and Miss Couper with Eleanor Jourdain is so close that the
uninformed viewer would be forgiven for thinking Lang is presenting a scenario
close to the reality. He is of course
free to create any kind of play he likes based on historical events, but his
distorted treatment of Moberly and Jourdain, including murder, is actually
distasteful. Moberly became the first
principal of St Hugh’s College, Oxford, in 1886. Jourdain was her deputy and succeeded her as principal
in 1915, remaining so until her death.
So, while the play has Martindale/Moberly dying violently while in post,
easing the way for Couper/Jourdain, actually Moberly outlived Jourdain. Nor was Jourdain ousted by a younger
academic, leading her to ‘haunt’ the college in her old age, rather she retained
the position until her death. Lang has
used an incident in Jourdain’s career when she ill-advisedly attempted to
dismiss a colleague, which would have likely resulted in her resignation, but
she died of natural causes first. Most
obviously, while the authors used pseudonyms, from the first edition it was
clear that An Adventure was a joint effort, not the product of a single
pen.
Lang paints Martindale as weak and
manipulated by Couper, who is also able to use undue influence on the college
fellows, until Martindale stands up to her, with fatal consequences. But there is no indication the relationship
between Moberly and Jourdain became toxic, and it is implausible that someone
so weak-willed would have managed to achieve such a senior level in an Oxford
college. Nor is it likely the book was a
cynical hoax, the authors knowing the events it depicts were fictional. The content of An Adventure is heavily
contested, but the considerable amount of discussion it has generated since
1911 invariably starts with the assumption they were sincere, even if
mistaken. By playing fast and loose with
the facts, Lang has done their memory a disservice.
