Fiction
Deeps_ and ,Shaltows
Whispering Lodge. By Sinclair Murray. (John Murray. 7s. Gd.)
LIKE a dewpond gleaming upon the verge of dusk, like the locked pool of a stainless river, so Viola Meynell's Girt Adoring lies separate and quiet, away from the fever and the fret of so Much contemporary fiction. There is satire in the book; there is knowledge as well as wisdom, there is meticulous daily detail of a delicate kind of realism ; but that pellucid style unifies the variety of its matter into this impression of crystal, with flashes of silver that may be vanishing wings and inaccessible stars. In this clarified world the violences of definite action become meaningless. An exchange of looks is a miracle, a lifted hand is a subtle eatastrophe, and love enters into the heart of a young girl With the Inith of annunciation and wild wonder. The atmosphere seems too rare almost except for the vibrating souls of supersensitive women ; yet it is not too thin to bear the Spirit of Comedy.. All the women are effective. At first we feel- it is Gilda's story that matters, till we realize that it is by the secret Scarlet of her past agony that we perceive the rose-clear quality of the virgin: flame in. Claire's young heart, candid and irradiant. Laura,i sweetly intent on the small -courtesies -and little things of beauty, because her life has perished in a passion of pity and loss, is intimately imagined ; and Louise, Whose physical charm is her only and much-exploited -Value, • is a true- thief of love. Yet, after Claire herself, - with all her' quivering -solicitudes and- endearing follies of tenderness). the most animated -person in the book is a man. Not the lover, who remains a little vague ; but Claire's selfish brother Moresby, one in whom Jane Austen would cer- tainly have taken pleasure. His egotistical little plots, his sham altrnisms, the unending diplomacy of his fine fatuity, the author unravels with an elvish glee. Yet under all this ethereal irony he does not become-detestable, for, enchanteti. away from sordid cares, Moresby cannotdo much harm; He -merely affords 11 sharp flavour of delight.' ' The loveliest thing in the gracious book, is the poem at the beginning.-- After all, the-- implications of this ' novel are stranger and more wistful than its statements. However Alefesby may talk, or Hague mistake, you apprehend behind all the gentle intercourse and the happy landscape of familiar fields, the new moon in the skies, the little wind among the stars, and a wild dryad among the trees.
From these deep springs and elusive intimations Mr. Compton Mackenzie will snatch you to the surf of a siren sea and a pagan shore, to the wicked mirth and sunlit pleasure of the island that bears the satyric imprint of Tiberius. It is, on the -whole, a brilliant description of a gay non-moral scene, though it is often merely flippant, and generally too discursive. What chiefly spoils the aesthetic effect is a certain mutability of the writer's own point of view. The book suggests compari- son with Mr. Norman Douglas's ironic masterpiece South Wind ; and there are passages that remind you of the smiling paganism of Anatole France. Mr. Compton Mackenzie's own manner is flightier and more Puckish ; but it has a distinct charm. Unfortunately he occasionally becomes sermon-serious, and forcibly recalls his readers to that morality of actual life which, for the purposes of his comedy, he has invited them to forget. It is unfair to play fast and loose with the aesthetic obedience that most writers of comedy exact from their audiences. Nevertheless the book is wildly amusing, and crowded with absurd and fantastic figures. Farcical situations, outrageous processions, a lazy masquerade of libertines with a commentary from Martial ! The two aged American ladies who love their Sirene with such touching naivete humanize the decidedly cruel and glittering mockery ; and there is pathos in the death of the old scholar, muttering the first sentence of the book he has meditated for years. However unequal, Vestal Fire is more arresting than any of Mr. Mackenzie's later novels.
A humorist usually pierces deeper in his mirth than in his deliberately sober hours. Mr. Barry Pain's The Later Years offers a strangely hard and even repellent surface. The story describes affairs that seem psychologically incredible in a matter-of-fact way, and discusses the consequences in rather stilted conversations. Patricia seems a likeable girl till she is suddenly seized, as if by madness, with an appetite for a caddish actor who abandons her the moment she becomes enceinte. Her elderly friend, Carteret Rome, whose career seems to have been that of the average sensual man, imme- diately marries her, having seen from the beginning the probable outcome of her misadventure. The only person in the book who is really attractive is Katherine, sister of Patricia. Being an honourable unselfish person with no sex mania, she is unkindly left in a woman's hostel where they have chicken every Thursday. The story, however, is not without interest, probably because the hard-edged people are so surprising in their transitions.
Miss Tar-robin's Experiment leads to an old, old farcical situation, that in which a boy tries to pass himself off as a girl. Don Juan and Tennyson's Prince, amongst others, attempted the same disguise without dignity. It is artistically so much more delightful when a girl goes masquing as a boy. Jinn's successful effort to represent his sister Pat is concluded by the entrance of a cat burglar. This modern version of an old trick is played out in the kind of Scottish castle and estate frequented entirely by Sassenach sportsmen. Miss Torrobin adduces some very solemn reasons for the highly frivolous experiment of confusing her nephew and niece ; they hardly sound convincing. The details of Jim's toilet are distasteful ; and so is the conunimplace comment on the problems of the day which Miss Torrobin gives out as original wisdom. The mere story runs merrily enough ; but the style has a tittupping effect most irritating to the nerves.
Last of all comes a mystery tale, Whispering Lodge, which is sufficiently exciting. Indeed, the chief criminal is at once so polished and so debonair that one is rather dis- appointed to find he has done nothing worse than take a hand in the depreciation of the franc. Airships and secret passages and murderous minions, all to increase paper currency ! The young people engaged in solving the mystery are very pleasant young people ; and the conclusion is not without its surprises. But a "mystery story" moves on the very superficies of true RACHEL ANNAND TAYLOR.
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