Fiction
Scene in Passing. By Robert Neumann. (Dent. 7s. 6d.)
Stoughton. 8s. 6d.)
Scene in Passing is no straightforward chronological résumé of past events, but a fable placed vaguely in time. England and Germany are still struggling, the conflict as yet unresolved. It is October, the scene is a village: " It was a war not like other wars, but rather like the plague, sleeping, and sometimes feigning to be dead, but yet as ready to jump as a starved stray cat. Here or there it jumped, and then the smuts and smell of burning were floating in the air, and vehicles were moving." As refugees, the mysteno Mr. Tibbs and his hardly less mysterious daughters and grandso come to the village and decide to halt there. The past of these to rather forlorn creatures is mingled with their present, they ar oddities adrift in an odd world ; soon their lives are mingled in wi the almost equally odd villagers. Months pass, Spring is on th way, and the elderly Mr. Tibbs prepares for death. It is a quee uneven fable that we are offered. Mr. Neumann handicaps ho himself and us by too many contrivances, by too many sena mentalities. His use of symbolism is too muddled by over-ar whimsicalities, which seem to have little, or no, significance in th general scheme of his book.
The war is on (period: '40-'41) in Mrs. Wallace's Without Sign posts. The beautiful, accomplished widow Tamsin Heywood, a the suggestion of an old friend, the important Piers Marle, moves a secluded village in Devonshire. She has three children, th beloved Nicholas waiting in the Cambridge Corps for his call-u Vanessa and Budge, still at schooL Tamsin and the young children go to live with an elderly Rtissian countess, Man Lupenska, and her grand-daughter Kyra. It's a roaring success, f each group makes a more than appreciative audience for the oth Not much happens, but, of course, Piers is in love with Tamsin thinks her children jolly. Tamsin won't marry, however until s has Nicholas' full approval and consent. He must have bestowed with a very real sigh of relief, for the weight of such a heavy burl should never have rested on such young shoulders. There are or three deaths (minor characters), but whenever the action se likely to flag, a new chanicter pops on to the scene with a name, not much else, capable of arresting attention—Rozanne Purdue,
Dillon, &c. In due course, hordes of refugees come to Midsomer Gabriel from the bombed cities, and Tamsin (known to some of her friends as Tommy) moves across the green to live in the house of Professor Marie. On her birthday her son's calling-up papers arrive, but having got over this she presently marries the professor. She is enabled to get through the winter by the aid of " her own true work, her painting, for the first time in years. It was Piers' gift to her." He tells her: " If ever there was a time when the creative worket can wash his tools in holy water, it is now." Most of the characters ooze with charm of the variety associated with Mrs. Miniver; the sentiment is both facile and slightly embarrassing.
Ghost stories seem to have gone out of favour with authors, if not with readers, these days. And since the death of James the Less, good examples in this genre have been excessively rare. Con- siderable gifts are needed, atmosphere must be effectively created, tension must be maintained, interest must be forcibly fed and stimu- lated for success. At the first hint of the ludicrous, conscious or unconscious, the whole structure crashes amid the sound of laughter. The author of Couching at the Door tells us more than we need to know, too often, or too early. Miss Broster's stories, five in number, are of the semi-supernatural variety. A Wildeish poet, with a sinister past, has recently been up to something very odd in Prague, is next haunted by a feather boa. The first manifestation is a little bit of fluff; the last: " something half-python, half gigantic cobra " —but since Augustine Marchant himself is not a credible figure, it doesn't seem to matter very much either way. Then there is a story of a cottage in Worcestershire with a spectre who drinks and pays for his coffee. Another of a girl who splits into two physical selves, and a fourth of a haunted bath-chair. The final, least occult story is the most effective of the collection, but even in this we are reminded too often of the lurking author hammering at the points.
In Alphabet for Ladies Miss Macnamara writes of the three women in Hugo's life. Hugo is a stick, but Alix cannot forget or forgive him. He ought to have married her, instead he married Brenda; now, seven years later, Alix sets out to get her own beck. She goes to stay with Brenda, housekeeping in the country, and quickly discovers that the marriage is far from being a great success. The unsuspecting Mrs. Hugo takes Alix to her bosom and tells her almost all. And there is another very odd happening : after leaving Hard'cre, where she has been nicknamed " Sphinx " by the tutor, Piers Paget, Alix goes on another visit, and who should drop in for a game of bridge one night but Hugo. He is now known as Mr. Martin, and he has a wife—Christine. If the problem pleases, then
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