Short Story Review D H Lawrence THE Shadow in THE Rose Garden

SHORT STORY REVIEW – D. H. LAWRENCE – THE SHADOW IN THE ROSE GARDEN 1914 in The Prussian Officer & Other Stories. Newlyweds go to their new house by the sea. At least the house is new to the husband. His wife had lived there before, many years before, and though she loves the village, its gardens, churchyards and cliff road paths, she is terrified of meeting the people there. Her husband, who she hates, and does not love, pries into the reasons for her evasiveness, but she refuses to tell him her reasons. She merely implores him not to give away her presence to the neighbours. He agrees. Unable to remain at home, she goes out for a walk and visits the local rectory where she is spotted by a wild eyed, twitchy man, who seems to recognize her but won’t admit to it. She certainly recognizes him. He claims to have mislaid his tobacco though he has it to hand. Separated when asked to leave the gardens (not yet open to the public), the wife returns to her husband who realizes she is in some distress. He gets her to tell him her story. The man she met in the garden was a former lover, who had suddenly left her to go and fight for the army. His relatives had told her that he was dead but here he was year’s later, shell shocked into insanity. The woman’s husband resents her having had a lover and not having told him of it, holding her pre-marital infidelity in contempt.  Though they don’t hate each other now her story is in the open, they are still cold to one another too. A story with a tense unsettling air – the bride clearly must know her past is inescapable and that he truth must come out. We get to see little of the husband’s real views though beyond his puritanical desire for open-minded honesty. The story leaves you wondering where things could possibly go from there, and then cruelly stops. The shadow moves from the air of mystery surrounding the lady to the darkness that haunts the loveless marriage once the truth is revealed. The beauty of the garden and roses is tarnished forever. Link to the text of the story – http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301501h.html#C07

Arthur Chappell.