NOVELS..
POOR EhtlitA la THE announcement of a new novel from the pen of Miss Evelyn Tempest revived agreeable memories of The Mardis Peerage, and our anticipations of another stimulating entertainment have not been falsified. But, lest any misleading interpretation should be put on the word "stimulating;' let us hasten to state that the story, while founded on an extensive knowledge of human nature, is sound and wholesome from cover to cover. The impression of vitality is conveyed without any concession to ignoble curiosity. Miss Tempest tells us all we want to know about her characters, and tells it, whether in description or in dialogue, with a minimum of surplusage. In regard to this happy combination of vivacity and conciseness she takes rank with the authors of Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. and Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick. No better models in expression could be recommended to " novelists commencing."
The Emma who gives her name to the story without being its heroine is one of the two handsome and masterful daughters of Mrs. Burton, the widow of an inefficient architect, who lives in a twenty-pound villa in Sandringham Terrace, Barwick. Emma, on the recommendation of the rector's wife, has been engaged to superintend the education of little Jimmy Hobart, the motherless son of Gerald Hobart, an amiable and highly-connected country gentleman of con- siderable means, and at the opening of the story the country- side has just been petrified by the announcement that he is going to marry his nursery governess. As a matter of fact, there are plenty of extenuating circumstances. Emma was a capable as well as handsome girl, and Hobart was a lonely widower. Again, Emma, though revelling in her emancipa- tion from the petty economies of her previous life, is loyal to her family and determined to make the best use of her opportunities to give them a good time. It is only as the story progresses that the unlovely sides of her character develop, and here we may note that a capacity for noting and portraying the development of character is one of Miss Tempest's strongest points. One of Emma's first visitors is her husband's brother Sidney, a captain in a cavalry regiment, with irresistible manners, great personal charm, and a genius for outliving his income. He captivates Emma, who at once sets to work to make a match between him and her sister Linda. Linda, who is far cleverer than Emma, and her superior in every respect save that of social self-assertion, is the real heroine of the book, and a most engaging character— honest, self-critical, and humorous. She is charmed by Sidney Hobart and flattered by his attentions, but the moment they become engaged her eyes are opened to his shortcomings and, on the other hand, to the handicap her own antecedents will impose on her as the wife of a social favourite. Moreover, the extraordinary way in which Sidney makes up to her maiden aunt, a delightfully eccentric old lady of modest fortune living in West Kensington, reveals the ugliest trait in his character —that of the fortune-hunter. This strange episode, culminating in the wonderful luncheon party which Sidney attended by special request in his uniform, is by turns ludicrous and pathetic, and Aunt Ellen's journey with Sidney in the four- wheeler to her solicitors to make her will is an incident not easily to be forgotten. Of the sequel it is enough to say that Sidney, by great good fortune, is rescued from ignominy more by good luck than management, and that Aunt Ellen's for- tune, left to Linda, proves the means of enabling her to act as Sidney's good genius in the lean years that follow the breaking off of their engagement and his bankruptcy. Meantime, the arrival of a son has entirely altered Emma's attitude towards her step-child, and the feeble protests of Jimmy's father are quite unavailing to protect the boy from Emma's rigorous supervision. But we can almost acquiesce in Emma's cruelty— for it is nothing less—to her stepson in view of the conse- quences which it provokes. Jimmy runs away from home and finds employment on a London sporting paper, The Chase, to which he had already been an occasional contributor. His knowledge of horses and hunting appeals to the editor, Mr. Waters, a delightful person, and he is adopted by the. Waters
• Poor Emma/ By Evelyn Tempest. London g Hodder and Stoughton. Cam•]
family. The humours of office work and the relations of Waters to his exasperating proprietor are told with infinite spirit. Emma's triumph is, after all, only short-lived. Her husband is killed in a hunting accident, Jimmy succeeds to the estate, and his half-brother, Harold, Emma's spoilt darling, rewards her
petting by a series of audacious exploits as poacher and chauffeur which bring him into abrupt conflict with the
authorities. Her Nemesis is finally accomplished by her second marriage to the formidable Mr. Groom, the assistant at a school for backward boys, to which Harold is sent as the price of the abandonment of a prosecution for poaching, and the last glimpses that we get of Emma, reduced to the condition of a domestic doormat, awake a tardy com- passion for this now well-tamed shrew. The minor characters are admirably drawn—notably Parsons, the shrewd county solici- tor, and that middle-aged Amazon Lady Marshland, the best authority on hound-work in the county after her husband. Lady Marshland's caustic sayings are legion. When her friend Miss Villiers suggested that the newly-married Emma wanted some- one to take her by the band, she replied," You do it, dear ; you'll do it admirably. Take her by the hair first. She looks ex- actly like a cloak-room attendant at the theatre, now." But if Lady Marshland could not endure pretence, she was a thoroughly sound judge of character, and Linda's conqueit of
this ironclad grande dame is one of the many human touches which enliven the narrative. Of Miss Tempest's gift of graphic portraiture we can only give one example—the passage in which she introduces the wife' of the genial editor of The Chase :— " Mrs. Waters was a tall, fair woman, whose expression suggested that she once had a bad fright, from which she had never quite recovered ; it was the legacy left by years of struggle. She had been beautiful, and was still handsome despite her rather neglected appearance. Her friends said they could never remember seeing Gertie Waters with her hair decently done or in a frock that did not look home-made. She had, indeed, lost interest in her appearance under stress of family cares, but these had not affected her equanimity of temper."
Miss Tempest has given us three or four hours of unmiti- gated pleasure. We are glad of the opportunity to express our gratitude, and it is our agreeable duty to invite our readers to a first-rate entertainment.
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