A Game of Hide and Seek (1951) is a novel by the English author Elizabeth Taylor (who shares a name with the celebrated Hollywood actress). It is the winding love story of Harriet Claridge and Vesey Macmillan, who meet in their youth and cross paths again and again over the years. They meet during summers spent at Vesey's aunt and uncle's home where Harriet takes care of Vesey's younger cousins. While playing hide and seek with the children, Harriet and Vesey hide together. They share a kiss and have a shared attraction. During these summers, Harriet falls in love with Vesey, but his feelings are less clear towards her. Harriet is painfully shy and can't express herself, and Vesey is aloof and abrasive. I thought Taylor's portrayal of young people in love was very convincing.
Harriet's mother, Lilian, and Vesey's aunt, Caroline, are lifelong friends who both fought in the suffragette movement and went to jail together. After fighting for equal rights for women and equal education for girls, they are disappointed that Harriet does so poorly in school and is squandering the opportunities they fought for. Harriet is fully conscious of her mother's disappointment in her. At the same time, Harriet feels embarrassed by her mother's role in the suffrage movement. Caroline, noticing Harriet's strong feelings for Vesey, encourages Vesey's mother to summon him home in order to separate them. So, Vesey suddenly departs, leaving Harriet behind. Harriet left waiting to hear news of him when she visits Caroline's home, but Vesey makes no effort to contact her.
Harriet counts the days and struggles to occupy her time. She decides to work in a dress shop where she makes a group of friends. She begins dating Charles Jephcott, a neighbor who is older than her, and who was previously jilted by his fiancée. Vesey returns, and plans to meet Harriet at a dance, but he never shows up. Soon after, Lilian dies, and Harriet marries Charles and settles into the type of domestic life and social order her mother once railed against. Harriet has a daughter named Betsy, a dreamy girl with a vivid imagination.
Meanwhile, Vesey goes to Oxford, but soon drops out. Though he dreamed of being a writer, he winds up a struggling actor in a theatre troupe and experiences little success. When Vesey re-enters Harriet's life, their old feelings are rekindled, but is it too late for them?
Taylor excels at characterization in a way that few authors do. She delves into the minds and emotions of each character in the drama, while leaving mysteries for the reader. Taylor's characterization extends beyond Harriet and Vesey, to Harriet's mother, Vesey's aunt and uncle, Charles, Charles's mother, Betsy, Betsy's teacher and more. Each character felt fully formed and real.
This was the first book I read by Elizabeth Taylor. I thought her writing was strikingly beautiful.
I loved so many quotes from the book. Here's are some of them:
"His personality had for long influenced hers, as the moon influences the sea, with an unremitting and inescapable control."
"If we do not alter with the times, the times yet alter us."
"He was not one to keep up friendships, never threw out fastening tendrils such as letters or presents or remembrances; was quite unencumbered by all the things which Harriet valued and kept: drawers full of photographs, brochures, programmes, postcards, diaries. He never remembered birthdays or any other anniversary."
"He needed Harriet for his own reasons, to give him confidence and peace. In the shelter of her love, he hoped to have a second chance, to turn his personality away from what he most hated in himself, to try to find dignity before it was too late."
"'When you are hurt, you lay waste all around you,' Harriet said quietly. 'No one is safe.'"
"Tomorrow, she would begin the desolate task of ticking off the days of her life until Vesey should come again; today her despair was too dreary."
"We cannot always remember our first glimpse of those who later become important to us. Feeling that the happening should have been more significant, we strain back through our memories in vain."
"He felt a sense of change, of loss. He longed to say to someone — and who could it be but Harriet? — 'I can only fail. Never expect anything. Because of some flaw in me, some wrongness, I can neither succeed nor admit defeat and between the two wait cynically for nothing whatsoever. When I am touched, I give a false note, like a cracked glass's. A note of cruelty, or scorn.'"
"It was never away from her, and in moments of stress her fingers felt for it and held it, the only writing of his she had ever had — 'Dear Harriet, I am sorry. Love, Vesey.' It had seemed — and still did seem — a message from some outside and more natural world: brusque, simple, it comforted her. She carried the paper secretly with her and its words always in her heart."
'When I was young,' she said, 'I stole from Caroline a photograph of you. I had nothing. That, and the note you left for me when my mother died I put into an envelope and sealed it down and always kept it.'
He was unbearably moved and afraid to speak."
"She found, though, that love was a disorganising element."
"'But an idea can't ever make mistakes. He led a perfect life in your brain. When he turned up again, the climate was right for him, tempered by your imagination. But his climate isn't right for you.'"
"'No,' Harriet protested. 'All that makes life worth living is that we are completely different from one another and then — and it is always wonderful when it happens — see little likenesses; find some quickening, some response; some common ground.'"
"'Years fly by: at first, I couldn't believe I would ever be middle-aged, as my mother was: now I can't believe that I am. It has all melted away and meant nothing. Anything that comes now is much too late.'"
"He began to realise that neglect lay deep in him, too deeply to be eradicated now — neglect of his friends (for he had not made the social effort), his life, his love, his body. It was not his nature to be sorry for himself; but he wondered how he had come to make a wry thing of his life."
"'If he had always been either less cruel or less kind!' she suddenly thought."
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