Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3811/Our Booking-Office
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
If memory serves me, the publishers of World's End (Hurst and Blackett) described its theme as one of unusual delicacy, or words to that effect. I should like to reassure them. The particular kind of marriage of convenience which it concerns (marriage for the convenience of the wronged heroine, by which the virtuous hero gives his name to the child of the villain) may be, indeed is, a delicate matter, but—in fiction at least—by no manner of means unusual. Nor can I see that its present treatment by Amélie Rives (Princess Troubetzkoy) lends it any degree of novelty. No, let me be just; perhaps Richard Bryce, the wicked betrayer, does strike a somewhat new note, at least in his beginnings. Richard was the product of art super-imposed upon dollars. He was so cultured that the humanity in him had dwindled to a negligible quantity; and thus, when poor Phoebe wanted him to "do the right thing by her," he sent her instead some charmingly modern French verse—which she could not understand—and finally took ship for Europe in mingled alarm and boredom. You will have gathered that the scene is laid in America. Perhaps this explains the hero. Owen Randolph was one of the strong and silent. He was so silent that, though he knew perfectly well all that had happened, he married Phoebe, and allowed that unhappy lady to suffer chapters of agonized apprehension as to his attitude, when half-a-dozen words would have set her at ease on the subject. He was, moreover, so strong that, when eventually the theme of their relations with Phoebe did crop up between himself and Richard, the latter spent some months in hospital as a consequence. However, he recovered, and things were thus able to reach the kind of ending which was expected of them. There are parts of World's End that are worthy of a better whole, but that is the best I can say for it.
I believe that Paul Moorhouse (Long) was never really predestined to end unhappily and that his suicide was a conclusion as little premeditated by the author as it was apparently by the hero. If such ends must be, they should be a climax demanded by relentless logic: some sort of culminating event should occur which, added to what has gone before, leaves no alternative. Paul, however, had survived for years under the stress of all the circumstances which finally constrained him to make an end of himself; and, had he stayed the course—only another hour or so—he would have found that all had turned out for the best and that adequate arrangements had been made for his permanent happiness. No doubt these things happen in real life and I cannot accuse Mr. George Wouil (a most discerning author) of any inhuman treatment of his puppet; yet I wish that he had been more kindly disposed and had spared me a bitter disappointment. Having known Paul, man and boy, for upwards of ten years, I had become sincerely attached to him; as assistant time-keeper, foreman and works-manager he showed a spirit true to the real Black Country type. He had his moments of weakness when he went astray after the manner of his kind; but he always became master of himself again and, when he had to, paid like a man the price of his misdeeds, never pausing to dis- cover the overcharge. As for Joan Ware, his intended and his due, she was a dear; poor dear!
I do not think that you will believe The Story of Fifine (Constable), although Mr. Bernard Capes takes some pains to give it an air of actuality; but if you are like me you will not be greatly concerned about that. Purporting to be the ill-used daughter of a mad French marquis, Fifine, in that naïve and charming way which has always been so dear to the hearts of novelists, came to live at the bachelor abode in Paris of the sculptor Felix Dane (his half-sister, who was keeping house for the marquis, provided the introduction), and, calling each other "cousin" and "gossip," these two shared rooms together in perfect simplicity of soul and held several conversations which reflect, I suppose, Mr. Bernard Capes' views on the plastic arts and life in general. And why, in passing, he should continue to heap ridicule on staid Victorian respectability I cannot for the life of me imagine. The plucky and unorthodox thing nowadays surely is to make game of Bohemianism. But, anyhow, the happy moment for me arrived when Felix Dane suggested (on the grounds that the marquis would soon discover his daughter's hiding-place) a holiday tour through Provence. Mr. Bernard Capes in Provence is Mr. Bernard Capes at his best. How the lovers (for that—perhaps you roguishly guessed it?—they gradually became) paid visits to Nimes, to Aigues-Mortes, to Arles and to Paradou les Baux, and met M. Carabas Carabus, the native minstrel, you must read for yourself, for I cannot give a faint idea of the eloquence with which their fairyland is portrayed. And if the plot ends as artificially as it began, and with an unnecessary tragedy thrown in, I suppose for the sake of that idyll in the very nesting-place of idylls I must shrug my shoulders and forgive. After all, it does not matter much who Fifine really was, nor what happened to her. Suffice it that Mr. Bernard Capes has conducted her to Arles.
The Caddis-Worm (Hurst and Blackett) is an appropriate enough title for Mrs. Dawson Scott's novel, but I confess to having grown a little restive at its appearance on the top of each of 352 pages. "Episodes in the Life of Richard and Catharine Blake" is the alternative title, and to the average human reader possibly a more significant one. The Caddis-Worm is quite in the modern manner, having no plot—or what has been contemptuously called "anecdote." I have, however, a more genuine grievance against Mrs. Dawson Scott, and it is that she seems inclined to be a propagandist without the requisite robustness. A little more vigour in her protests against the iniquity of British laws, and her theme might have allured me. As it is, the troubles of Catharine with her peremptory Richard only made me want, but not very keenly, to take and give her a good shaking. Whereas, with a little more encouragement, I believe I should have bean quite anxious to kick her husband from the top to the bottom of several flights of stairs. Drastic methods were taken by the author to bring Richard to his senses; in fact, at one time he made a sort of corner in disasters. But unless a sanatorium exists where patients are treated kindly and firmly for swollen-head I do not think that Richard's cure is likely to be permanent. That, however, does not affect my view that Mrs. Dawson Scott has given us a book which is full of clever writing and fairly shrewd observation.
"It was a wild wet night, though the month of May was well begun." Without caring very much about the month of May, I felt on reading these introductory words that the story called My Lady Rosia had excellently well begun. I am sorry to add, though, that it does not carry on quite so bravely as you might expect from such a start. My own suspicion is that Lady Rosia is one of many novels that owe their existence to a summer holiday. I haven't the slightest knowledge of the facts, and still less wish to incur a libel action, but, by my way of imagining it, Miss Freda Mary Groves found herself one day in the Winchelsea country, fell very naturally in love with its jolly old houses, and determined there and then to write a story about them. So here it is, with a mildly romantic hero, Bernard, a heroine in the title role who is as pretty and persecuted as heroines should be, a villain (Lord Segrave by name—even, you see, in those Black-Princely days peers were a bad lot), some conflicts not quite so exciting as they might have been, and the rest of the mixture as before. You perhaps catch already my chief ground of complaint. Frankly I do not think that Miss Groves' pen is quite sufficiently dashing for this sort of thing. Historical and adventurous romance, if it is to earn my vote, must keep me out of breath the whole time. It should never be allowed to slacken pace; and (to be entirely candid) My Lady Rosia sometimes ambles rather heavily. I forgot to add that it is published by Washbourne, printed on detestable paper, and contains some pleasant illustrations of the places mentioned in the story. In few, the best I can say of it is that it would make a charming gift for the young Person (if she still survives) on the occasion, say, of a family holiday to Hastings.