Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3815/Our Booking-Office
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Mr. Dornford Yates, whose name I seem to recall as a contributor to the magazines, has written a book of the most agreeable nonsense which he has called The Brother of Daphne (Ward, Lock). For no specially apparent reason, since Daphne herself plays but a small part in the argument, which is chiefly concerned with the brother and his love affairs. This brother, addressed as Boy, was a bit of a dog, and an uncommonly lucky dog at that. The adventures he had! He apparently could not go out for the simplest walk without meeting some amiable young woman, divinely fair and supernaturally witty, with whom he presently exchanged airy badinage and, towards the end of the interview, kisses. What distressed me a little at first, till I tumbled to the spirit of the thing, was the discovery that the charmer was always a fresh one, and in consequence that these osculations had, so to speak, no matrimonial significance. Perhaps, however, Boy recognised an essential similarity in each of his partners. He may, for example, have been deceived by the fact that they all talked exactly the same Dolly dialogue—light, frothy and just a little more neatly turned than is the common intercourse of mortals. You know the kind of speech I mean. It is vastly pleasant and easy to read; but I must decline to believe that any young man could have the amazing fortune to meet fifteen pretty girls who all had the trick of it. Still, that by no means lessened my enjoyment of an entertaining volume, notice of which would be incomplete without a word of praise for the illustrations of Mr. C. W. Wilmshurst, a favourite black-and-white artist of mine, whose name is unaccountably omitted from the title-page.
If Dorothea Conyers knew as much about English syntax as she does about Irish, and were as certain in the handling of a story as she is in the conduct of a horse, Old Andy (Methuen) might be taken at a single refreshing gallop. As it is, I advise the reader to tackle it piecemeal, a brisk run here and there, followed by a considerable breather. For the novel is put together in a scrambling fashion, being full of repetitions of almost identical scenes and making very little definite way in a forward direction. There are the usual Irish peasantry and farmers who worship the horse for pecuniary and sentimental reasons, as the Israelites worshipped the golden calf; the usual hunting people, who either ride straight and are grimly sarcastic or talk very big and go for the gates; and the usual English visitors, who astound by their guilelessness and simplicity when confronted by aboriginal horse-copers and native bogs and stone-walls. If cubbing be included, I should be afraid to say how many meets are described in this book, or how many hunt-breakfasts and heavy teas in Irish interiors—interiors of cottages, of course, I mean—resulting in how many tricky deals and harmless tosses in the heather and the mud. But if you follow my lead there is plenty of pure joy in Old Andy, and the most and the best of it perhaps is to be found in the remarks of grooms, servant-girls and casual country folk, who as often as not have no kind of connection with the thread of the tale. "'If meself an' the Masther wasn't rowlin' rocks all the day yestherday, he would be within long ago,' replied the covert keeper." "If there is one rabbit with a skinned nose there's a hundther, an' they runnin' by mistake to the door they're used to be at." Such scattered flowers of speech abound in a book whose very want of construction is perhaps symbolical and a reflection of the charming incoherence of the Irish mind.
It is my painful experience that, when a novelist sets out to write a tale of English country life, the better he is at the job the more sombre is the finished product. Mr. George Stevenson is very good indeed at his job; he has sincerity and power, and a certain austere aloofness that will take him far; the result is that Jenny Cartwright (Lane) is about as gloomy a story as ever I read. Above everything else, what I noticed about this book was its freedom from all straining after effect. Whatever takes place, I fancy Mr. Stevenson saying, do not let us be sentimental about it. Half the characters in the book seem to come by violent ends; of the two chief women, one commits suicide and the other is hanged. Mr. Stevenson, one can only suppose, speaks of life as he finds it. There are really two stories, that of Beatrice Barrington, the faithless wife of Sir Philip, and the dreary mockery of life up at The Court, with its hatreds and subterfuges, its crippled master, frightened children and spying servants. This is the county as the author sees it. Linked with this is the life of the farm, where Jenny is brought up by an uncle who hates her; where she tends his bedridden wife; where her cousin Beatrice goes wrong; where Beatrice's betrayer is killed in an accident, and her baby falls into the fire; and where finally the dour uncle himself, after shooting the young squire who has offered dishonourable addresses to Jenny, allows her to pay the penalty of his crime. There is undeniable strength about the book and it holds the attention; but I dispute the right of anyone to call it cheerful.
Cynthia Stockley has the writing quality in her; she can both see and feel; she can do man-talk with a plausibility beyond the reach of most of her sex; and she works with a refreshing dash and freedom. With a certain carelessness also sometimes; as thus: "The other, turning to run, got a shot in his leg that put him out of business, but in spite of which he managed to crawl away." And there are little kakophonies, such as: "He was loved, openly and gladly, back." The work is good enough to make worth while the cleansing of these defects. The author certainly puts into a short story more thought and characterisation than is common in these days of half-hours with even the best authors through the medium of magazine pot-boilers. Wild Honey (Constable) is the title of the first (not quite the best) of an excellent bunch. It sums up the bitter-sweet of South Africa, which is the setting of all these stories of love, adventure, horror and the wild. They give a strong impression of fidelity of draftsmanship, though here we know so little that is intimate of the dark continent that we cnnon judge how far actual occurrences are based on fact or probability. But Cynthia Stockley has some of the mysterious qualities of a possible South African laureate. Perhaps she will contrive to put away a little weakness for tall and scornful aristocratic women; but, in any case, I can commend her book confidently to all intelligent beach-haunters.