ZIOVELS.,
MOTH AND RUST.* THIS author of Red .Pottage, unlike some modern novelists,. has not been seduced into overproduction by the resounding success achieved by her last book. This judicious delay, in an age when the temptations to baste are so potent, indicates an artistic conscientiousness and a self-criticism that com- mand respect In any case, one could hardly expect the im- pression made by Bed Pottage to be repeated in the next novel from the same pen. That was obviously an exceptional effort, so that one is prepared in advance for an immediate- successor designed on the revuler pour mieuz sauter principle. But if the three stories, or, to be more exact, the short novel and two short stories, collected under the title of the longest, which Miss Cholmondeley now gives to the world, do not enhance the reputation founded on her earlier works, they are at least marked by a variety of qualities which distinguish them agreeably from nine-tenths of contemporary fiction.. She can construct a plot and we are old-fashioned enough to like a good plot ; she can write of people "in society " in a way that is neither fulsome nor absurd; and her sentiment is agreeably relieved by a caustic humour. "Moth and Rust," the short novel which occupies four-fifths of the work, is up to a certain point a most engrossing tale. The outlines are familiar enough.. George Trefusis, a young • Moth and Rust. By May Cholmondeley, Londe= J. Illumay. tem.] squire of good family, is, to the consternation of his mother, about to marry Janet Black, a beautiful, semi-educated middle-class Juno, the sister of an undesirable flashy squireen" and horse-coper. The latter, desirous of exploit- ing the new connection to his personal advantage, begs his sister to endeavour, on the strength of her engagement, to persuade a moneylender with whose wife Janet is on good terms to grant him a respite. But when Janet reaches her friend's house, it is to find Mrs. Brand dying of an accident while escaping from a fire in her flat, and anxious for a final interview -with her alone. In this interview she exacts from Janet a promise that she will destroy, and then deny having destroyed, certain letters from her lover. Janet carries out her promise, discovering a new motive for silence in the fact that the lover is her own brother, but is detected in the act 'by two witnesses, and incurs the natural suspicion of the moneylender that she has merely destroyed her brother's I.O.U. The sequel is concerned with the results of Janet's splendid mendacity, by which, to screen her friend's faithless- ness to a husband whom she had come to love sincerely, Janet incurs a suspicion which alienates her own lover.
But while Janet, by rising superior to her surroundings and 'by her invincible and self-sacrificing faithfulness, constitutes something more than a technical claim to the role of heroine, by far the most interesting and carefully studied figure in the cove' is that of Lady Anne Varney, the good genius of the plot. Lady Anne is an aristocrat in all senses of the word,— high-minded as well as high-born and high-bred; and it is in -virtue of her unerring perception and appreciation of character that she is able to conquer her fastidiousness and whole- heartedly espouse the cause of Janet. Lady Anne, in short, is so rare a mortal that we find it hard to accept her infatuation—the term is not too strong—for the self- made millionaire Vanbrunt. Lady Anne cannot explain it herself—nescio sea fie4'i sentio et ezerucier—and Miss Chol- mondeley does not attempt to explain it; indeed, she boldly declares, in so many words, that it does not require explana- tion, it is what happens in real life, and quotes the French author who says that in friendship we exercise choice, 'but we submit to love. That may well be; but though Mr. Vanbrunt is a good sort of rough diamond—upright and self-reliant and chivalrous—it is pushing this theory of love a little too far to mate him with the exquisite Lady Anne. 'Two other characters call for high praise,—that henpecked humourist, the Duke of Quornshire, and Mrs. Trefusis, the h onest but uncompromising incarnation of family pride. The remaining figures are conventional; indeed, there is a taint of melodrama in the reprobate brother, the monkey-faced moneylender, and the susceptible artist. The later chapters, again, partake of the nature of an anticlimax, in which the reader's interest is only reawakened by the well-worn device of a financial smash which enables Lady Anne to prove to her millionaire that she does not love him for his money alone. Yet when criticism has done its worst—and there are many loopholes for the critic—the fact remains that the story is in -great part quite engrossing, or to put it in another way, that no one but Miss Cholmondeley could have rendered the theme so attractive.
Of the two short stories which complete the volume, the first, "Geoffrey's Wife," tells of the death of a young wife on her honeymoon. It is well told and not lacking in pathos, but we cannot altogether acquit the author of deliberately tugging at our heartstrings. "The Pitfall " tells how a well-appointed but shallow woman of thirty overshot the mark in her selfish attempt to recapture the man she loved. Here again there is cleverness, but the story is a somewhat violent illustration of the truth that fools often do as much mischief as knaves.
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