NOVELS.
TREGARTHEN'S WIFE.*
IN Tregarth,en's Wife we find an agreeable work of fiction,
compounded according to a prescription of which the late Sir Walter Besant was, if not the inventor, at least one of the most successful employers. Roughly speaking, it consisted in the introduction of some mediaeval principle or element into the crucible of modernity, with explosive results more or less of the nature of a foregone conclusion. The method is, no doubt, somewhat mechanical—the contrasts being ready. made—but that there is scope for the display of skill and humour in its treatment will be readily admitted by all who have read, for example, The Monks of Thelema. Mr. White, it must be admitted, has in one respect bettered his instructor, because, though his romance
belongs to the category of impossible stories," the theme has a solid foundation in fact•. To this very day in some of the small islands off the coast of Great Britain there survives a King, to whom some of the attributes of sovereignty still belong, though in an attenuated form. Seizing upon this idea, placing his island off the coast of Cornwall, raising the social standing of his King from that of a peasant
to an aristocrat of ancient lineage exercising a rigid despotism over his subjects—who are nevertheless connected with the mainland and civilisation by telephone—endowing all his vassals with superlative physique and irreproachable manners, sub- stituting wrongheadedness for villainy, and compensating the only plain woman in the story with abundant brains and wealth in lieu of beauty, Mr. White has built up a most agreeable fantasy — by turns mildly satiric, pleasingly picturesque, and wildly melodramatic, for there is a shipwreck scene altogether Adelphian in its quality—which agreeably titillates the interest of the reader without ever causing any constriction of the heart or acceleration of the pulse. Tregarthen, the hero, is a picturesque man of forty, white- haired yet robust, and bearing (to judge from his picture) a striking resemblance both to Sir Henry Irving and Mr. William Gillette. The community over which he rules is governed on principles part Socialist but mainly tyrannical, and the romantic development of the plot grows out of Tregarthen's suicidal resistance to any commercial develop- ment of the resources of the island, and his rigid inter- pretation of the charter under which he holds office. The only industry that Tregarthen will allow within his dominions is the export of flowers, rendered most precarious by the disastrous effect of a single night's frost. He has boycotted the lace industry, the pilchards have departed, and the result is that the community pays for this Quixotic hostility to commerce by occasional periods of starvation. To them thus circumstanced enter a wonderful be-diamonded but benevolent American heiress, Mary Blenkiron, and a no less wonderful duenna, Miriam Murcia, journalist and proprietress of newspapers. Landing on the island in de- fiance of Tregarthen's orders, these American invaders, panoplied with beauty, wit, brains, and money, set about the arduous task of converting Tregarthen from his mediaeval heresies. The situation is vigorously sketched in their first interview :—
" Have you no manufactures ?' Miriam asked. 'No source of employment for the poor women ? You know what I mean ? ' Tregarthen's eyes flashed. The spring of fanaticism that Miriam had guessed at from the first was tapped. His speech gushed out like water from the living rock. Miriam watched him with all the palpitating interest the student of human nature feels for a new type. I would cut off my right hand first,' he cried. He strode to and fro across the wet sand ; he had forgotten his audience. 'Rather would I see my people starving in a ditch. I say your modern commerce is a hateful and loathsome thing; • Tregartheret's Wife. By Fred. M. White. London : G. Newnan. [Si.' that what you call business is a delusion and a lie. And now you have dragged women into it, women who should remain pure and unspotted from the world, who should remain at home and make it beautiful. Once start a manufactory here, and the purity and morality of my people are doomed. Poor they may be, but honest and upright they are, and so they shall remain while there is strength in my arm and breath in my body. Let the men stick to their flowers and their fish, let them toil in the sweet air and in God's blessed sunshine, and they will be as their fathers before them, good men, with no guile in their hearts. Do you know that there ha- been no crime of any kind on this island for over a century ? But once you send greed and the love of gain amongst us, you destroy our purity for ever. And anything would be better than that.'—' There is a great deal in what you say,' Miriam replied. And at the same time a deal of nonsense. Do you know, sir, that I have made a large fortune by my own efforts ? ' — You have my profound sympathy,' Tregarthen said with feeling. Indeed, he was so obviously sincere that all the contemptuous anger died out of Miriam's heart. You are utterly and abso- lutely wrong,' she said. There is a large field waiting for woman, a field that calls to her. Oh, I would not have her different from what she is for all the wealth in the world. But I have found scores of them starving, with temptations such a man as you cannot dream of,' Miriam said, glaring behind her spectacles. It was Mary's turn to look on and enjoy the fray. 'Do you know what I would do with you if I had my way ? Could one hazard a guess as to the wishes of a woman ? ' Tregarthen asked. —' Well, I would send you out into the fierce hard wolfish world with just one solitary half-crown in your pocket to get your own living. I would starve your eyes clear and your mental vision clean. Ah, you should learn what it is to be a defenceless woman, you should learn what opportunities you are wasting here. That's what I would do with you if I had the chance.'— `A woman at work, at man's work, is an outrage before God,' Tregarthen cried stubbornly. 'You will never see that here.' What if your flowers fail P Mary asked.—' We starve, or near it,' Tregarthen admitted. But wo are patient. Com- plaining is for the children. They are tried in the fire of affliction, and they endure it with silence.' Miriam listened quietly, but the gleam of battle was in her eyes. On woman's mission she was the greatest authority in the United States. The Employer was no god in the car, nothing more than the conduit pipe from which flowed Capital. And here was an Employer, a king of Employers, who regarded starvation as one of the first attributes of labour. That man would have to be taught things. When she had her glasses on, Miriam would have taught things to the Czar."
But it is not only an economic and industrial problem by which the Americans are confronted. The islanders are human, and Ruth, a beautiful maiden whom Tregarthen, in accordance with the charter, has chosen for his bride, is beloved by Gervase Tretire, Tregarthen's stalwart foster- brother. To rescue Ruth from a loveless marriage, Mary Blenkiron is prepared to go even to the length of taking her place, and does so, for the prospect of taming this picturesque feudal despot appeals irresistibly to her romantic nature. Besides, all the time she has a trump-card up her sleeve in the shape of conclusive documentary evidence that she, and not Tregarthen, has a right to the throne, and when Tregar- then proves recalcitrant she plays it with crushing effect. To say more would be to weaken the impact of novelty with which the denouement ought to affect the reader, and so to im- pair the surprise which is perhaps the chief element in all true recreation. But we trust that we have said enough to show that Mr. White has developed a pleasing and wholesome inven- tion in Tregarthen's Wife, and that those who do not want to be convinced, or edified, or harrowed will find excellent enter-
tainment therein.
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