Tracking T&T: Brief Thoughts on By The Pricking of My Thumbs

Note: This post contains spoilers for By The Pricking of My Thumbs!

Just some brief thoughts I had about three things in the story: the story's loose ends, Sir Philip, and the inscription on the tombstone Tuppence found.

Aging and Memory

The story is known for having a considerable number of loose ends. Mr. Eccles’ involvement, for example, is one of those things (at least for me). Plus, the story isn’t very clear in its chronological timeline either. Obviously this is a major reading obstacle and I myself certainly had moments of confusion. However, if we’d like to infuse meaning into this, I guess this snippet from the story can help us do so:

“I know that,” said Tuppence. “I was brought up in a country vicarage, after all. They date things by events, they don’t date them by years. They don’t say, ‘That happened in nineteen thirty’ or ‘That happened in nineteen twenty-five’ or things like that. They say, ‘That happened the year after the old mill burned down’ or ‘That happened after the lightning struck the big oak and killed Farmer James’ or ‘That was the year we had the polio epidemic’. So naturally, of course, the things they do remember don’t go in any particular sequence. Everything’s very difficult,” she added. “There are just bits poking up here and there, if you know what I mean. Of course the point is,” said Tuppence with the air of someone who suddenly makes an important discovery, “the trouble is that I’m old myself.”

“You are eternally young,” said Ivor gallantly.

“Don’t be daft,” said Tuppence scathingly. “I’m old, because I remember things that same way. I’ve gone back to being primitive in my aids to memory.”

Growing old is a big theme in this story. Tuppence acknowledges that growing old has changed her way of remembering things. So I guess we can take the loose ends and chronological ambiguity as things that immerse us better into this old-people-way of remembering things, haha. We are experiencing how T&T probably experienced the mystery.

El Greco

Sir Philip, Mrs. Lancaster’s husband, is an interesting character. Tuppence frequently describes him as a haunted and tortured person. He’s covering up his wife’s murders, so of course he would feel tormented by all that - and by his own guilty conscience.

In addition to that, I think it’s natural to say that Sir Philip is in a constant state of grief. Once he found out his wife’s murders, he pulled her away from society and fabricated a story about her death. He even went so far as to put up a tablet in the church for her. He then began to put her in nursing homes under a different name.

It sounds like his wife really is dead to him. Once her mental condition worsened, she became someone completely different to who she was, and became unrecognizable to Sir Philip. Her fake name can also highlight that she is not the same person anymore. It’s as if she really died. And so Sir Philip grieves for his wife, who physically is still alive, but is dead - unrecognizable - in perhaps every other aspect.

Tombstones and Millstones

At one point in the story Tuppence tries to help a poor old priest find a tombstone bearing the name “Lily Waters”. She has just found the tombstone when an impact to the head renders her unconscious. Nevertheless, Tuppence caught the name “Lily Waters” and traced an inscription underneath:

Whoever…offend…one of these little ones…

Millstone…Millstone…Millstone…

After recovering from the mishap Tuppence spends some time in search of a Bible because she wanted “to refresh my memory over those words that were scratched on the child’s tombstone”. She seems to think that it’s a Bible verse. And yes, it is indeed a verse. The inscription is a verse from Matthew 18:6.

(KJV) But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

(NIV) If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

The verse speaks of judgement on those who harm or dismiss little children. Many people may take children lightly, but children are taken seriously by Jesus, the speaker in this verse. The punishment for leading them astray is very severe. Doesn’t such a punishment effectively mean death?

For me, this verse reminds me of Mrs. Lancaster’s guilt. Mrs. Lancaster, during her last conversation with Tuppence, reveals that she had aborted a child. She had not taken her first child seriously. Mrs. Lancaster might know the verse above and keenly feels the severity of her sin. As a result, she views her inability to have children with Sir Philip as the punishment for her abortion. The verse may also suggest her feeling that she deserves death. Unable to live with such heavy guilt any longer, she devises a coping mechanism: She is exempt from guilt if she killed other children as sacrifices.

The fact that it was inscribed on the Lily Waters tombstone might also represent Mrs. Lancaster’s loss of childlike innocence. She loved being the Waterlily, but she had to end that role prematurely because she became pregnant and eventually got roped into criminal activities. She was made to stumble, so to speak. The Waterlily “died” when she lost her childlike innocence, and those who made her lose it must be held accountable as well.