The Demon Lover

Now the prosaic woman, looking around her, was more perplexed than she knew by everything that she saw, by her long former habit of life—the yellow smoke stain up the white marble mantelpiece, the ring left by a vase on top of the escritoire; the bruise in the wallpaper where, on the door being thrown open widely, the china handle had always hit the wall.”

Even the placement of household items takes on an eerie note of absence that causes Mrs. Drover to feel puzzled and out of place; she sees the lingering traces of objects rather than the objects themselves. This state helps heighten the strangeness of the letter—another trace of the past—when it appears. Mrs. Drover is described as “prosaic,” or ordinary, so extraordinary things rarely happen to her.

“Her reluctance to look again at the letter came from the fact that she felt intruded upon—and by someone contemptuous of her ways.”

Even before she opens it, Mrs. Drover has misgivings about the letter. The unopened letter is disruptive, and she sees the letter writer as someone who doesn’t respect her current life (if they did, she believes they would know she is in the country). Part of her subsequent feeling of threat—that the letter writer intends to harm her—emerges in this sentence.

“In view of the fact that nothing has changed, I shall rely upon you to keep your promise.”

This is an excerpt of the letter, which Mrs. Drover assumes is from her former fiancé as it is signed “K.” The letter writer notes that it is a truth that “nothing has changed,” suggesting that circumstances are the same as they were when the couple exchanged vows. In the demon lover tale type, this refers simply to the lover’s expectation of the vow’s fulfillment, while in the present scenario it also alludes to the fact that another war is happening.

“Since the birth of the third of her little boys, attended by a quite serious illness, she had had an intermittent muscular flicker to the left of her mouth, but in spite of this she could always sustain a manner that was at once energetic and calm.” 

This clues the reader in to the fact that Mrs. Drover has a nervous tic. It is unclear if the tic was caused by her baby’s illness or her own. The latter might indicate a postpartum depression. It is also significant that Mrs. Drover feels she must “sustain” her manner, which suggests that maintaining a façade of order in her life requires some effort.

“Now and then—for it felt, from not seeing him at this intense moment, as though she had never seen him at all—she verified his presence for these few moments longer by putting out a hand, which he each time pressed, without very much kindness, and painfully onto one of the breast buttons of his uniform.”

This passage emphasizes Mrs. Drover’s sense of not knowing the soldier, especially emotionally; she can’t see him clearly even (or especially) during the “intense” and personal moment of parting. The soldier’s cruelty in repeatedly pressing her hand to the button adds to his threatening characterization.

“Being not kissed, being drawn away from and looked at, intimidated Kathleen till she imagined spectral glitters in the place of his eyes.” 

Kathleen doubts her fiancé’s love. In the flashback, he is not affectionate. Kathleen feels cowed by him and begins to see him as otherworldly and/or demonic. His eyes, which glow in the dim light, seem ghostly. This again casts the soldier in the role of the demon lover.

“Looking in through the window at her mother and sister, who did not for the moment perceive her, she already felt that unnatural promise drive down between her and the rest of all humankind. No other way of having given herself could have made her feel so apart, lost and forsworn. She could not have plighted a more sinister troth.”

To plight one’s troth is to make a grave pledge to commitment and/or loyalty in marriage. Here, Kathleen feels her pledge is coerced. She thinks the promise she has made is abnormal and notes how it divides her from “the rest of all humankind.” This amplifies the sense that the fiancé is not of this world but rather supernatural. Alternately, Kathleen may feel that he simply is not the right man for her. However, she agrees because he proposes while on leave; his impending departure for the war creates a sense of urgency.

“They hoped she would, in a year or two, console herself—and had it been only a question of consolation things might have gone much straighter ahead. But her trouble, behind just a little grief, was a complete dislocation from everything. She did not reject other lovers, for these failed to appear. For years, she failed to attract men—and with the approach of her thirties she became natural enough to share her family’s anxiousness on the score. She began to put herself out, to wonder, and at thirty-two she was very greatly relieved to find herself being courted by William Drover.”

Kathleen’s response to the news that her fiancé is missing in action can be described as a shock in which she too goes missing from the living world. She feels a “complete dislocation from everything”—a type of numbness that someone who goes through trauma may experience. If this had lasted “a year or two” it would have been “straigh[t] ahead,” or an acceptable response to her fiancé’s presumed death. Instead, it takes roughly a decade for her to start dating again. The implication of a trauma response shows a precedent for Kathleen’s possible relapse during the conclusion; on the other hand, the fact that men “fail to appear” in the years after her fiancé’s death hints at the supernatural, evoking the idea of a curse or spell.

“Her movements as Mrs. Drover were circumscribed, and she dismissed any idea that they were still watched.” 

Mrs. Drover lives within the strict bounds of what are acceptable for a married woman and feels she is following the “rules.” This fits in with other descriptions of her as sustaining a calm demeanor and being dependable. However, the fact that she feels the need to “dismiss” the idea that she and her husband are “still watched” suggests underlying anxiety. It is unclear whether Mrs. Drover’s family is still worried about her, or if she believes her former fiancé, dead or living, is judging her marriage.

“The desuetude of her former bedroom, her married London home’s whole air of being a cracked cup from which memory, with its reassuring power, had either evaporated or leaked away, made a crisis—and at just this crisis the letter-writer had, knowledgeably struck.”

The “former bedroom” is in a state of disuse, or desuetude, and Mrs. Drover sees her “married London home” as a “cracked cup.” She cannot call up pleasant memories of her home life, which is a “crisis.” The emphasis on “former” and the adjective “married” suggest that perhaps there is also a crisis in her marriage itself. In the demon lover tale type, this would be the opportune moment for the demon to come—when the former lover is having doubts about their current relationship. In saying the “letter-writer had, knowledgeably” contacted her, Mrs. Drover implies that the writer was waiting for some sort of upheaval, whether in her marriage or elsewhere.

“The thing was, to get out. To fly? No, not that: she had to catch her train.” 

Mrs. Drover doesn’t want to meet the letter writer yet doesn’t know the exact time he will arrive—only that it will be on the hour. Knowing that the hour of six has already struck, she begins to think of escape routes. This creates a sense of tension and urgency in her actions. However, Mrs. Drover strives to avoid seeming emotional, so she frames her desire to escape as a practical decision to ensure she makes her train.

“He was never kind to me, not really. I don’t remember him kind at all. Mother said he never considered me. He was set on me, that was what it was—not love.”

This again emphasizes that love was not the main feeling Kathleen took away from her relationship with her former fiancé; rather, she felt that he was “never kind” and that he wanted to possess her. She references her mother’s opinion to reassure herself that her perceptions were correct and that he was in some way a threat to Kathleen’s safety. In the demon lover tale type, his fixation on her suggests he is determined to collect her soul.

“This evening, only one taxi—but this, although it presented its blank rump, appeared already to alertly waiting for her. Indeed, without looking round the driver started his engine as she panted up from behind and put her hand on the door. As she did so, the clock struck seven.”

Mrs. Drover, in her hurry to make it out of the house and to a taxi, reaches it exactly as “the clock struck seven”—possibly the hour the letter referenced, especially because the taxi is already “alertly waiting for her.” The driver, or demon lover, symbolically captains the taxi, which stands in as the ship/carriage that will take her to hell. The implication is that by running from the past, a person can run straight into it.