FAMILY FORTUNES

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 154, 26 March 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

FAMILY FORTUNES

Seven Sisters In Post-War • Austria

“Seventh Sister,” by Freda Lingstrom (London: Cape).

Had it not been for the seventh sister, Nadine, the fortunes of the Graf Ferdinand von Sterzing’s family would have been even worse than they were. The Graf’s household in Austria, just before the war, was run with all the fear and prejudice and tyranny of the worst of the Victorian menages. There were far worse things than aspidistra in the Graf’s household; the Graf himself was the most objectionable and bullying of fathers. The Grafin had sunk into a state of dull defeatism, her health and spirit ruined by satisfying the Graf’s adamant demand for a son. Jt was unfortunate that the boy baby did not arrive higher up than eighth, but then there might never have been Nadine, and it is her presence that provides the joy in an otherwise drab tale of family misfortune. The seven sisters are well portrayed. They vary from Anna and Nadine, the more human, to martyred Liso, who gave up her one chance of matrimony to care for her overbearing father and his spoilt son. The arrival of Josef, though it delighted the hearts of his father and one or two of his less likeable sisters, was a bitter blow to Nadine who, until his arrival, was the baby and the pet of the family. Josef was always spoiled, till the family was finally exhausted in a brave endeavour to keep up family appearances through him. His sisters starved and worked in the black years after the war so that he might live in comfort. There was no escape for any of them, even though they had. found varying work, until Nadine married Charles Crendon, a young Englishman with a diplomatic post in Vienna. Fortunately for the von Sterzing family, Charles was comparatively well endowed, with material assets, and he had a patient hospitality that even allowed Josef to sponge on him regularly. Running through the family story is the biography of Catherine Ring. Miss Ring was one of the minor tragedies of the World War. A governess dependent on the fortunes of her employers, she was left destitute after years of fending for herself. When war was declared against Austria she had to leave her beloved von Sterzings and return to England. In her homeland she found that there was no niche for a middle-aged woman of scanty means. But, at the depth of her degradation and despair she, too, is rescued by the ever-willing Charles. Nadine’s family appear in the later stages of the book and are entirely charming.

Miss Lingstrom has written a novel disclosing the effects of the war on the noble families of Austria, and she has created a living group of people for whom the reader feels sincere affinities and just as marked dislikes. The book has no pretensions other than, to present a true picture of postwar life as it was so frequently lived by women who were left alone iu the world. It has done that well.