A Handful of Dust

by

Evelyn Waugh

A Handful of Dust: Chapter 4: English Gothic—II Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Tony rides out the sudden separation at Jock’s house for a few weeks, avoiding Brat’s club for fear of running into John Beaver and frequenting Brown’s club instead. Friends try unsuccessfully to comfort Tony and play peacemaker. Marjorie and Allan attempt to convince him that this is only a phase and that Brenda will soon come running back into his arms, but Tony insists that he doesn’t want her back. He has only one brief phone call with Brenda, who denies Allan’s downplaying of her affair and reaffirms her refusal to return to Hetton. She seems as bored with Tony as ever. Brenda’s friends swear to stick by her side no matter the outcome.
Brenda’s abandonment of Tony ironically brings them closer together geographically, as Tony migrates to London to escape the depressing atmosphere at Hetton. However, their physical proximity does nothing to overcome their actual remoteness: they continue to communicate only through interlocutors and the telephone. Brenda’s cheery heartlessness seems totally undimmed by John Andrew’s death.
Themes
Communication Breakdown and the Loss of Meaning Theme Icon
Religion, Morality, and Tradition Theme Icon
Quotes
Through intermediaries, Tony receives Brenda’s verbal agreement on an acceptable sum of 500 pounds for an annual alimony, and due to legal custom of the time, he agrees to set her up as the plaintiff. This involves incriminating himself by hiring a law firm to collect staged evidence of him “cheating.” Jock suggests they return to the Old Hundredth, the nightclub from their drunken spree. There they arrange for Milly, one of the same prostitutes they met on that night, to accompany Tony to the seaside resort town of Brighton to stage his infidelity. Tony unambiguously refuses Milly’s suggestion that she bring along her young daughter, Winnie. Nevertheless, after Tony passes a sleepless night wondering where he went wrong in his marriage, Milly arrives at the train the next morning with Winnie in tow. Tony is forced to allow her along to avoid making a scene.
Tony’s willingness to go along with this self-incrimination scheme so that his wife can divorce him is cringeworthy: sheer habit and naivety make him unthinkingly accept second-hand reports of a verbal agreement from a woman who has already betrayed him. The setup strongly foreshadows disaster for Tony. Meanwhile, the calamities of recent weeks have still not managed to provide Tony any insight into the root problems in his marriage.
Themes
Communication Breakdown and the Loss of Meaning Theme Icon
Religion, Morality, and Tradition Theme Icon
Civilization vs. Barbarism Theme Icon
Nothing about the weekend at the seaside hotel goes according to plan: the unshakeable brat Winnie’s presence confuses the hotel staff and jeopardizes the whole premise of a supposed illicit getaway, as the detectives Tony has hired to get photos of him make clear. These detectives, however, aren’t exactly filling Tony with confidence as he spots them drinking champagne on his dime.
The indignities Tony is subjected to compound over the weekend, as his situation’s absurdity multiplies exponentially with the ridiculous presence of his prostitute’s child. The detectives are just as keen to take advantage of his money and manners as Brenda turned out to be.
Themes
Chance and Fate Theme Icon
During the weekend, Milly recognizes her old client Dan, who invites them along to his friend’s party, to the displeasure of his nagging wife. The next day, Winnie makes Tony buy her breakfast, but the detectives intrude to remind him that he needs to be seen having breakfast in bed with Milly for the sake of evidence. Later, Winnie makes Tony take her for a walk on the beach. When he won’t let her swim in the freezing water, she yells about his two breakfasts, and the whole scene convinces onlookers that Tony is insane.
Tony’s presence at a wild party at some seaside hotel, with a prostitute and a man he just met, would have been unimaginable just a few weeks earlier. The scene highlights how swiftly his life has fallen apart. Tony probably regrets all the times he lost his patience with the merely enthusiastic John Andrew, faced now with a genuinely awful child whom he cannot reprimand.
Themes
Chance and Fate Theme Icon
Civilization vs. Barbarism Theme Icon
Quotes
Get the entire A Handful of Dust LitChart as a printable PDF.
A Handful of Dust PDF
Back in London, Brenda’s solicitor confidently remarks to Brenda that they now have all the evidence they need, and he encourages her to tell sob stories about Tony’s mistreatment of her in court. When Tony returns to London, Brenda’s clumsy and eccentric brother Reggie, an amateur archaeologist, goes to meet with him at Brown’s club. He suggests that Tony wait for Brenda to come back, for which Tony says he has no desire. Reggie counters with a string of trumped-up character blemishes and then gets to the point. Brenda’s verbal agreement was meaningless; she demands 2000 pounds annually, which would force Tony to sell Hetton. When Tony refuses, Reggie invokes the Brighton evidence that Tony himself staged as a sure case-winner for Brenda if it came to court.
Predictably, Brenda’s verbal alimony agreement turns out to have been a total farce and a trap that Tony walked straight into. It seems that Brenda genuinely has no scruples at all: she is willing to lie wholesale about Tony’s character in court, and it means nothing to her that her extortionate alimony demands would force Tony to sell his ancestral home. She cannot even be bothered to tell Tony this herself; she has her preposterous brother Reggie deliver the news.
Themes
Communication Breakdown and the Loss of Meaning Theme Icon
Religion, Morality, and Tradition Theme Icon
Civilization vs. Barbarism Theme Icon
Tony, in disbelief, calls Brenda, who confirms Reggie’s words: she hadn’t originally thought to renege on their verbal agreement, but John Beaver gave her the idea. Tony hangs up and feels a flash of lucidity, as the fantasy world he had mentally inhabited for so long seems to crumble: “[a] whole Gothic world had come to grief…” Tony returns and tells Reggie that Brenda will not get a cent: Winnie’s presence throughout the whole weekend at Brighton proves his fidelity. He announces his plan to take a 6-month voyage abroad, to be followed by a divorce with no settlement whatsoever. Brenda’s friends are shocked by the news.
Brenda adds some crucial context to the picture being painted by Reggie: John Beaver is really behind the drive to extort Tony for all he’s worth. Brenda, however, happily goes along with this plan, indicating how in thrall to Beaver she is. Tony’s sudden disillusion sets up his startling rejection of Brenda’s terms with an ironclad defense, his first moment of real self-assertion in the novel so far. Winnie’s unbearable presence that weekend ironically turns out to save Tony.
Themes
Communication Breakdown and the Loss of Meaning Theme Icon
Religion, Morality, and Tradition Theme Icon
Chance and Fate Theme Icon
Civilization vs. Barbarism Theme Icon
Quotes