ABSTRACT
Malet’s novella and James’s manuscript both describe a turn-of-the-century man who travelled back to the Regency to become his own ancestor, replaying that ancestor’s passion for his cousin, while risking becoming trapped in the past himself. By contrast, however, in The Gateless Barrier, the house’s dying owner, Montagu Rivers, is a misogynist, vicious decadent. The Rivers men have always read the most subversive literature available; an earlier ancestor had half-crazed himself with the writings of Paine and Rousseau. Montagu’s rings are Egyptian scarabs and amethysts carved with Arabic, resembling Wilde’s own rings: emeralds engraved with cabalistic signs. His chosen flowers are aesthetic icons tinged with danger: poisonous orchids and “carmine-stained Japanese lilies”. The hand-painted furniture conveys a message of graceful and courtly love, very much opposed to the skulls and writhing nudes in Montagu’s collections. Its pale pastel colours are associated with girlishness.
