ATDTDA (5): Storytelling, 126-129 #2

[Paul Nightingale]

So where does Constance Penhallow fit in? She has "now [ie at the time of
telling] passed into legend" (127), although when we meet her she is
"watch[ing] the arrival of the Malus". The narration draws attention to
itself with "now passed ...", before admitting failure in its attempt to
represent, that is to say, recover her: the description of her that follows,
"as if leaning anxiously out of some portrait-frame ..." etc, distances us
from her, the 'real' her watching the Malus. She is duplicated by the
portrait authored by her grandson, "a three-quarters view from behind,
showing the face only just crescent": so the reader must infer that she is
indeed "watch[ing] the arrival of the Malus".

The paragraph that has introduced her will be interrupted by one that
begins: "Tales survived here from the first millennium", just as Constance,
"now passed into legend" is survived by the portrait. That sentence,
sub-clause following sub-clause, continues: "... now passed into legend,
though not herself ambitious for even local respect". Why "though"? And why
"even"? The construction here juxtaposes the "now" of narration to the
'then', the time of her not being "ambitious for local respect" (as opposed
to that bestowed by some kind of posterity). Such time-shifting might be
said to draw attention to Constance-as-enigma: what is she doing here?

In the first Constance paragraph we go from the long-shot of the Malus to
the head-&-shoulders close-up that introduces her thoughts of "another
remembered country". Just as the Malus is introduced by way of its
back-story, "the Napoleonic army engineer and physicist", so does
Constance's reminiscing bring in another back-story, which in turn will fade
and be replaced by "[t]ales ... from the first millennium". Over the page,
these "[t]ales" are, in turn, interrupted by reference to "Penhallow
forebears" (128); finally we understand how Constance has found herself in
this passage, the "ancestral home" (127) introduced in the first Constance
paragraph is picked up in the "crystal tycoons" passage (128).

With references to the Inconvenience, the time-shifting, as well as shifts
in perspective (long-shot to close-up), this section does seem to offer, in
itself, a microcosm of the novel as a whole to date. Constance fears ("only
fortune-telling") that Hunter will leave "on some ship": that he will "tag
along, ... in just some mascotte capacity" will recall Darby's introduction
"as both factotum and mascotte" (3).

When Constance thinks of "another remembered country" (127) as she
"watch[es] the arrival of the Malus", she thinks of Hunter. She is not
thinking of "country" but of the "portrait" that signifies "country", and
beyond that of the painting's author. We should recall, not for the first
time, Veikko's "memory of a memory" (84).