“Then you won’t marry me?”
The prisoner shook her head.
“No, it wouldn’t be fair to you. . . .”
“All right,” said Wimsey, “I won’t worry you. Not fair. Abusing my privilege and so on.”
—(Strong Poison, Ch. 21)
The backstory for the above dialogue begins like countless other romances: a woman is in a tight spot until a man appears to save her. In Dorothy L. Sayers’s 1930 novel, Strong Poison, Harriet Vane is accused of murdering her lover. The evidence is so piled up against her that even those who have read the story several times might wonder if she actually did it. If it weren’t for the tireless efforts of Lord Peter Wimsey, a successful amateur sleuth of many novels, she would surely be condemned.
Naturally, Peter falls in love with her. Nor is it a spoiler to reveal that Harriet is not guilty and that the hero saves her (the tensions of the plot revolve around the means of her deliverance, not whether she is delivered). So far, so romantic.
How does Harriet feel about all of this? Does it matter?
After all, she was originally expendable—a means to get rid of Peter so Sayers could move on to other literary projects. In an essay written several years after Strong Poison (titled “Gaudy Night,” not to be confused with her novel Gaudy Night), Sayers confessed that she wrote the novel “with the infanticidal intention of doing away with Peter; that is, of marrying him off and getting rid of him.” But she immediately realized that Harriet would not—could not—cooperate. It is worth quoting Sayers at length here.
I could not marry Peter off to the young woman he had (in the conventional Perseus manner) rescued from death and infamy, because I could find no form of words in which she could accept him without loss of self-respect. I had landed my two chief puppets in a situation where, according to all the conventional rules of detective fiction, they should have had nothing to do but fall into one another’s arms; but they would not do it. (“Gaudy Night,” 1937)
According to her creator, for Harriet Vane to fall in love after such a traumatic ordeal would have been a violation of her character.
Not that Peter doesn’t hope otherwise. Early in the novel, Sayers depicts an awkward proposal, especially for someone of Peter’s suavity. On his first visit to her prison, with the warden looking on, he introduces himself and ultimately declares, “What I mean to say is, when all this is over, I want to marry you, if you can put up with me and all that.” I highly recommend watching the BBC version of Strong Poison to get the full impact of his terrible timing. It’s like watching the end of Romeo and Juliet—you know it’s coming, but you wish it wouldn’t.
Sayers’s novel clearly depicts what is rare in rescue romances: the heroine’s conflict, the hero’s learning process, and their mutual respect.
Harriet responds with “distaste”: “Oh, are you another of them? That makes forty-seven.” (Strong Poison, Ch. 4). So begins a realistic love story that is not resolved until two novels later. Lord Peter eventually gets Harriet off the hook, but she will not accept him precisely because he delivered her. What is more, he is an aristocrat, she is not. He is wealthy, she has to work for a living. Peter also feels the inequality and hates it. Long after she has been acquitted, he asks her, “Do you think it’s pleasant for any man who feels about a woman as I do about you, to have to fight his way along under this detestable burden of gratitude?” Harriet responds, “I know I’m being horribly ungrateful,” and Peter explodes, “Grateful! Good God! Am I never to get away from the bleat of that filthy adjective?” (Have His Carcase, Ch. 1)
This heated depiction of a 1930s relationship makes for good reading, and it contains a great deal of wisdom—especially when you compare it to many popular modern love stories.
Many women in Christian circles have read or seen Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers (the film version was produced in 2022 by Universal Pictures). It tells the story of Angel, a woman manipulated into prostitution as a girl, hardened by that life, and ultimately brought out of it by the persistent love of her suitor, Michael. In the film version, one morning, after she has been brutalized by one of the villains of the story, Michael finds her and proposes to her yet again. Her response through swollen lips is “Sure.”
CAPC author Teagan Cooper has pointed out the problems with such a love story in her article “Redeeming Love Does a Disservice to Hosea and Women” (Feb. 28, 2024). What struck me, however, were the similarities of the proposals in this story and in Strong Poison. Just as Michael proposes to Angel when she has no other escape route, so does Lord Peter propose to Harriet in prison. Angel, in understandable desperation, agrees and enters into a life where she has nothing to contribute except her beauty. After all, Michael is a virtuous farmer and Angel an abused city girl: she is clueless about everything from fishing to cooking to living as an emotionally whole human being. Harriet, on the other hand, rebuffs Peter’s advances, whether in or out of prison. It takes literally chapters of him giving her space, valuing her work as a writer (she’s a novelist), and respecting her scholarship (she’s an Oxford graduate) before she can trust him not to condescend to her.
To be fair to Francine Rivers, Redeeming Love does show the difficulties of Michael and Angel’s situation, as well as Angel’s need to maintain a level of self-sufficiency. On the other hand, Michael’s salvation of Angel is part of the romance. As Sayers writes it, Lord Peter’s rescue of Harriet is actually an obstacle. Granted, she is alive, but they spend the rest of their literary lives trying to get over the hurdle of inequality such a deliverance creates.
Cooper concludes her article with the following observation: “Conflating the relentless, unconditional love of God in a literalistic manner with the romantic love of a man and woman is ultimately harmful.” I agree. What is more, in Harriet Vane, Sayers offers a counter-example: the strained aftermath that follows a relationship founded on unequal footing.
Four of Sayers’s novels feature Harriet Vane: Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night, and Busman’s Honeymoon. In the 1980s, the BBC produced miniseries versions of the first three books. The BBC versions are worth watching, although it’s probably time for an update. But the books are irreplaceable, for they clearly depict what is rare in rescue romances: the heroine’s conflict, the hero’s learning process, and their mutual respect.
There is an important moment at the end of Gaudy Night when Peter and Harriet—on the verge of falling into one another’s arms but still needing to get some things cleared up—have a frank discussion about their early encounters:
“Harriet,” said Peter, “I want to ask your forgiveness for these last five years.”
“I think,” said Harriet, “it ought to be the other way round.”
“I think not. When I remember how we first met—”
“Peter, don’t think about that ghastly time. I was sick of myself, body and soul. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“And I chose that time, when I should have thought only of you, to thrust myself upon you, to make demands of you, like a damned arrogant fool …”
(Gaudy Night, Ch. 23)
This exchange goes beyond the rescuer and the rescued; it reveals the hearts of two flawed individuals in a relationship. It reminds us that the only one worthy of our abject gratitude should be our infinite, loving God, not any other human, not even Lord Peter.
