Fiction
Late and Soon. By E. M. Delafield. (Macmillan. 8s. 6d.)
While the Music Lasted. By Kitty Berne. (Chapman and Hall.
8s. 6d.)
The Interpreter. By Philip Gibbs. (Hutchinson. 9s.) Caravan. By Lady Eleanor Smith. (Hutchinson. 8s. 6d.) WHILE perhaps not " roses, roses all the way " the romantics have the field all to themselves this week. The times are against them, but what of that? A novel has to end somewhere and what better than on a note of hope. Miss Delafield leads the runners with the ease of the expert, followed closely by Miss Barne. The plan of Late and Soon is merely of a week in the country in January, 1912 The young, beautiful, but curiously old-fashioned Lady Arbell at Coombe with her invalid brother, General Levallois, and .1-7 daughter, the seventeen-year-old Jessica, waiting rapturously for her call-up in the W.A.A.F. There is another daughter, Primrose, living dubiously in London, suffering horribly from a violen: mother-complex. Lady Arbell is a widow, her married life has been stodgy to say the least of it, but as a. girl, some twenty-seven years ago in Rome, she fell innocently in love with a dashing youn; Irish painter, Rory Lonigan. And now, after she has been twel‘: years widowed, he turns up again as colonel and paramour of the promiscuous Primrose, who turns up too. It's a case of off ‘‘, the new love and on with the old! Lady Arbell's cwn convenue experience of life puts no great obstacle in the way of her swallo,.‘ - ing, with all its implications, the affair of Primrose rand Rory. Winn really worries her is the ghost of a French woman whom Rory loved and by whom he has a daughter, now living exiled with an aunt in Ireland. In spite of her family's opposition, Valentine Arbe;I determines to marry her Irishman. Into this complicated situation strolls her odious sister-in-law, Lady Rockingham, with a younz man, Hughie Spurway, an ex-lover of Primrose, in tow. The book has a plenitude of similar situations, reminiscent of the West End theatre with its dramatic hall-lounge-cum-drawing-room sets and the characters made stagey with tension. All done very neatly, if a little out of date and unconvincing as a whole.
While the Music Lasted is rather more sprightly and dashing, with generous quantities of charm and temperament thrown in for good measure. The romantic Karen, seventeen, with a scholarship for piano playing, comes from Bristol to board in the home of the Salets in Kennington. Dr. Salet is a professional musician of the old school, a mixture of bluff and charm, with a wholesome con- tempt for the moderns. His wife, Leo, is one of these contemporary fictional female figures, a sort of super-human all-in wrestler, capable of coping with any situation which may arise and tossing- it over her left shoulder. From Germany (we are in the thirty-sevens when this novel opens) comes their son Andy, a left-winger in music and opinions, who makes the sparks fly splendidly. Such musical roars and rows between father and son ; these, in spite of the dis- advantages of being unmusical, Mrs. Salet manages with expert tact. The death in a German concentration camp of Steinberg, Andy's professor, a composer of international fame, makes Karen hasten her wedding. On the very day of the ceremony the newly-married couple are parted by Andy being summoned to Paris, in .order to conduct Steinberg's Third Symphony. Resulting from this Andy is taken up by the wealthy Mrs. Wanda Harrison t.nd learns to fly her plane. A whole series of concerts are planned in America by the enthusiastic Mrs. Harrison, but when Andy is approathed he tells her that he has.joined the R.A.F.
In The Interpreter Sir Philip Gibbs continues his long chronicle of the present war. This time he attempts the American point of view prior to her entry into -the conflict. John Barton American correspondent and broadcaster, is still in England after the death in an air-raid of his wife, the beautiful Lady Anne. He feels there is nothing left to live for, when, at the special request of Mr. Roosevelt, he is summoned back to his native country in order that he may assist anti-Nazi propaganda against the Isolationists. The characterisation is very sketchy indeed and not at all convincing ; however, the documentary content is the important part of this new volume. One can follow John Barton's slow progress with interest. as the arguments for and against America's neutrality are fairly presented. The impact of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour makes the grand-climax of the book, which is sadly weakened by the romantic sentimentalities of conception.
One imagines the author of Caravan has been pondering the life and works of George Borrow. Her book, screened against the times of Victoria, shows the romantic adventures of a doctor's son, who early chooses literature as a career. Fair-grounds, gipsies, bull- fights and horse-coping play a large part in this novel, which is heavy with local colour. While still a twelve-year-old schoolboy, James Darrell meets the luscious Oriana, even younger than him- self: "And looking at Emily's flower-sprigged gown, 'I'm not fine enough, am I? But I thought we might run wilder if I didn't dress up.' This was Oriana at ten and she was never to change greatly. She wore a dress of clear white muslin, with a red sash, and her shoes were scarlet to match." James takes her over a muddy field and, poor dears, neither of them ever gets out of the bog again.
JOHN HAMPSON.
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