Irishwomen
Bricks and Flowers. By Katherine Everett (Constable. 15s.)
NEITHER the sober title of this autobiography, nor the illustrations of ladies in Court dress or of houses and gardens created by the writer, give any hint of the glorious touch of lunacy to be found in the text. Mrs. Everett is not an Irishwoman for nothing ; but the wilder notes come from her family rather than herself. " We Were so thankful, my dear, to get rid of your mother," one of her aunts explained, when asked why she had not done more to help her nephews and nieces, " that we all decided to have nothing to do with her or her vipers." This was the kindly normal aunt. The other, Aurelia, who was married to a clergyman, was described by Tonks as the only completely primitive adult he had ever known. She thought nothing of starting a fund for building a soldiers' home and diverting the proceeds to buy furniture she happened to need for the vicarage, or swimming the best part of a mile to demand breakfast from a remote and unknown cousin who owned a smart yacht, or sleeping in a flower-bed, or employing a Belgian ex-monk in the capacity of lady's maid. Mrs. Everett's own mother was an unhappy and slightly unhinged fury ; she brought up her children on the Peerage and Anglo-Catholic theology, and forced them to play whist for the money they earned by catching clothes-moths.
From all this Mrs. Everett escaped ; first from the horrors of Irish home life and ultimately even from Aurelia, for Aurelia's son, who had become her husband, took to going away if things became uncomfortable, " as for instance directly after my babies were born," and eventually went away for good. After this, it must be con- fessed, the excitement diminishes ; but even so the author's élan keeps things moving fast enough. If she is not living in a tent while superintending the building of her numerous houses, she is bicycling about Ireland in the troubles or helping a Florentine dentist's assistant to extract a cab-driver's teeth. In her hands even A.R.P. becomes entertaining. Perhaps, after all, though neither " primitive" nor unscrupulous, she is not entirely unlike Aurelia. Like, at least, in her disregard for the duller habits of life and in the zest with which she illuminates its dreariest patches.
This, in short, does not in the least resemble the stock auto- biography any more than Mrs. Everett can resemble other octo- genarian ladies who are interested in houses or gardens. It is a gay, constantly surprising book, warmly to be recommended to any reader for a railway journey or a convalescence. Connoisseurs of the wilder bizarreries of family life will enjoy it vastly, even without a journey and in perfect health. LETTICE FO%VLER.
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