FICTION.
HELENA BRETT'S CA_REER.*
WE cannot think at the moment of any other novel in which the role of heroine has been assigned to the wife of a popular novelist, but in an age in which the ratio of novelists to the total population is so immensely larger than ever before, it seems unlikely that the situation should not have been exploited. Mr. lichens once wrote a short story in which prominence, not altogether enviable, was given to the husband of a popular novelist, but quite apart from this inversion Mr. lichens approached his theme in a frankly cynical mood. Mr. Desmond Coke is a humourist, though with a charming modesty he will not credit himself with more than writing " works of humour ex hypothesi," but he shows a generous and sympathetic spirit towards Helena Brett, and deals on the whole faithfully with that monumental egotist, her husband.
Hubert Brett, when we first make his acquaintance, was thirty-five, living in comfortable bachelor quarters with his excellent but rather harassing sister, aged thirty-eight. They were always having rows—or rather Hubert, being extremely selfish, was always losing his temper with the unfortunate Ruth, a person who had all the virtues without tact or charm or high spirits. After the last of these quarrels Hubert had sent for his old college friend, Boyd, and Boyd had urged him strongly to marry. Hubert, having torn his arguments to pieces, promptly proceeded to act upon them, and proposes by letter to a young lady whom he had met in Cornwall. Helena Hallam had lived all her life in the country away from culture and the Queen's Hall. She had been rigorously brought up by an Early Victorian mother, but was neither a prig nor a prude—just a healthy, natural, normal girl, who had no romantic illusions in regard to her marriage, regarding it as a providential means of escape from the unending boredom of her life in the country. Besides, Hubert was good-looking, affectionate, and thoroughly domesticated. Unfortunately he was horribly selfish, vain, and sulky. For a while the novelty and bustle of the life appealed to the country cousin well enough, and her eyes were only gradually opened to the drawbacks of her position and the constant and exacting drain on her sympathies. For Hubert was a fair-weather husband who required the incense of perpetual flattery, whether by word of mouth or in the shape of flattering reviews. And when he began to repeat himself and to lose his vogue, poor Helena had a very trying time. As so often happens, heroic remedies aggravate disaster. To raise their dwindling income to its old level, Helena tries her hand at writing a novel sub rosa, and, without the knowledge of her husband, publishes under a pseudonym The Confessions of an Author's Wife. Partly on its own merits, which are not inconsiderable, and largely owing • Helena Brett's Career. By Desmond Coke. London: Chapman and Hall [A•] to the ingenious system of mystification adopted by the publisher, the book achieves a resounding success. But the literary friend who has acted as go-between, in a moment of vinous expansion gives away the secret of her authorship, and the wretched Hubert has to face the double humiliation of being beaten at his own trade by an amateur and at the same time, as he believes, grossly caricatured by his own wife. The worst that can be said against Helena is that she did not know Hubert nearly well enough to warrant her marrying him, that the theme of her novel was indiscreetly chosen, and that she proved herself a poor judge of character by relying on such a broken reed as her literary friend. It is quite right that the author should extricate her from the imbroglio, it is characteristic of his ingenuity that it should be the much-enduring sister who effects a reconciliation, and he is thoroughly logical and consistent in making Hubert acquiesce in his wife's self-sacrifice while conscious that he is wholly unworthy of it. One cannot reasonably expect any true nobility from a man whose pettiness is exposed with such deadly precision in the following passage:- " To Hubert Brett his work was life, and nothing much else counted. He was a man who valued success less for its achieve- ment than for its reward. He liked to be pointed out as one who wrote (he often was, in little country places) ; he enjoyed meeting men and women whose names were famous far and wide ; he loved press-cuttings, revelled in his photograph when reproduced, and was almost physically upset when he received a real old-fashioned, slashing review. To anything of this sort ho always replied, quoting the opinions of some other papers, and 'relying on the editor's sense of justice to give his letter publicity. Papers, in fact, that liked neither his novels nor his letters, had ceased to notice the first-named, hoping to avoid the last ; and he was glad of this decision. Letters from unknown readers were shown to all his friends, who also had the privilege of reading the longest reviews, left out upon his mantelpiece ; though when they took them up he would always protest, Oh, that'll bore you : it's only a few stray press-cuttings.' He liked at dinner-parties to sit next women who had read his books (the dear, kind, tactful sex !), and asked him how he wrote. He had, in fact, published his first book under a pseudonym (his father, as a clergyman, naturally object- ing to the real name being used), but found that no one recognized him as the author under his own different name. He therefore, on his father's death, had paid some pounds and taken the name Brett permanently as his own for ordinary use. His sister, who was like most women in being petulant as to trifles but mild about the things that matter, had submitted from being Ruth Brettesley to become mere Ruth Brett. Now, when ho dined out, Hubert often found that women next him would ask if he was the author.' It never had occurred to him, of course, that they were coached by an ideal hostess."
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