GIRL WHO PLAYED DOUBLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14133, 7 August 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

GIRL WHO PLAYED DOUBLE.

A STUDY IN PERSONALITY.

Thosk who are interested in mental dis-

• eases and in the psychology which is perpetually overlapping the mental diseases, will find an exceptionally interesting • study in , "Marcia" (Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh), by Marguerite Curtis.

In many respects " Marcia" may appear ■•' clumsy and unsatisfactory, because the author so evidently takes her sincerity for granted, and assumes a mystery where there is no mystery whatever of the character supposed. Yet this very acceptation of the idea of a "double" existence

on the part of the heroine enables us £ to perceivc upon how slight a foundation r many such cases must be erected and how / fundamentally they differ from the "lost ■■• memories" which have a superficial resemblance to them.

f;./ Wc are told in the preface that: 1' • " There was a true Marcia Byrnes." f) : This is extremely probable in spite of | - the common modern trick of claiming tK' actual existence for book-heroes, a device ft,, to heighten interest which has already fe. defeated its own purpose and causes I:' doubt to be thrown upon genuine asserft ; tions. In this case, however, it is much easier to accept Marcia as " a transcript | ■■from life" than as a creation. She is | v ! too real and imperfect for a creation. The salient points are easily covered. Marcia Byrnes is the nervous and highly[i strung daughter of a capable father— j - mental history of whose family is bad— Rand a sickly mother who dies, After •! : various periods of mental stress and 1 strain the girl writes letters to hersell: fe from various people, all tending to her p|t own glorification,, though calculated to Bsplease for the time being the friends thus victimised. She makes a cousin tell [ how he loves her bosom friend from a r- photograph, and from Marcia's descripI tion; makes a London magazine editor |- accept a story with many complimentary pf remarks; makes publishers and editors Iff,write to her as a famous authoress, when p, in reality she does nothing. By these K freaks she estranges her father, her steph': mother, and her lover, and finally dies p! young of .tuberculosis of the spine. Ritl|ln the ; story Marcia "forgets" after II her frt«ks are* discovered; and this is asI sumed to imply " double personality." p> But obviously this " forgetting" is a [ mere hysterical suberfuge. The interest [ lies in the conditions and influences which | induce a kindly, well-bred, well-meaning, i . and evidently clever girl to act in the fc way she does. That it is clearly a case b of unbalanced mind, control being lost [/■through the accumulated pressure of I# trials upon an extremely nervous tem|l perament, may assist a better underatand-' fil ing of allied cases of endless variety. I of unbalanced mind, control is wonderthrough the accumulated pressure of trials upon an extremely nervous temperament, may assist a better understandin" of allied cases of endless variety. The life history of Marcia is wonderpfully well writeen. Her childhood, ' her '■/ school-fellows, her household, her friends, L ? her acquaintances, her relatives, her expi.periences, are all concisely and incisively . dealt with. This is the deluding of Freda: | " I began once more the story of f. ;; Philip's infatuation.

"Philip and I were alone in the draw-ing-room before supper last Tuesday, when he asked me rather abruptly is. abrupt sometimes !— I hadi finished with the- Barrack Room Ballads'? oHe's very fond of Kipling, and he lent • me the ' Ballads' soon after I reached : Brand. I told him ' no,' but if he want- . Ed them I would go and fetch the book, it -.was on my dressing-table. •, He would not let me go for it, however, and' startled off himself, and when he came back with the book he stood with his -back s to the fire, looking down at 1 me in sil- ! ence. ; '•■•'J-iVi .it. ■■■"" -..tin "'What's the matter I said.' Ij , "'Nothing,' he answered, 'but in a minute more he asked me softly—not a bit in his oidinary voice—whose was the portrait in the little silver frame on my dressing-table? . V' " I told him yours, and just then Uncle Howard came in and we could say l- no more. We could have, I suppose, but ''luncle has such a disconcerting habit of appearing not to listen, and then saying, if. 44 What, what, . what's that?' in the - very middle of your explanation; so we £ stopped. But all through supper Philip kept -lapsing into silence, and then stidadently remembering himself, and firing off a string of , jokes to prevent our noticing it. After -supper he came to me |§ and said quietly. ' Come and play to me, Marcia,' and all the while I played he .• leant over the end of the piano and | asked > questions. I don't remember Everything he said, but he wanted to know, again and again, what you were S like, what colour your , hair was, and: i your eyes, and what you were like in Hyourself ; and then, when we couldn't stay at the piano any longer, he carried |v me off to his den and asked for the If photograph again, and when I got it for : him he would not. let me have it, back. He still has.it, Freda; have you another you can give me? My little frame is I: empty." j> . "Ij-V Yes, yes, you : shall have one, darkling, of course; and the next day—, ##2" Oh, the next day we went for a % drive in the gig to Fordhampton, and Phil pretended he had never heard your name. Then, as; we were coming back, fi he took out his pocket-book and showed . me the photograph with a smiled He's i gan inveterate tease, Freda !" feS"I can imagine it!" She nodded her ; v head wisely, still with the tender little smile upon her face. " After thatl was coming home the (next day— buried myself, in a book and I; refused to be drawn into any sort of r conversation with him, and at tea-time he came, very humbly, into the hall. ' Mareia, will- you do something for me?' Ifef "I was' caught unawares by his hut; mility and appealing tone, and said, *Of course I will, with pleasure and thert he laughed and said audaciously, fei Tell me all you can of your Freda !'" if- " Oh, it was dear of him," said Freda. i,, ■ "It was abominable of him," I said with simulated , wrath; "there I had to sib and talk , for two hours of you and ; your perfections; it ought to have been a strain on any friendship!" " Not on yours!.'-' Freda interpolated || softly."

|I |' And this the discovery : ; a "It was early the next morning that I the maid announced Mr. Egerton, and 1 11Hurried forward to meet him gladly; | then at sight of his face ,1 stopped, | "something sang in my ears, my face went | white. Gathering all my forces together, | |I offered him a chair. I . "' No, thank you,' he said curtly, ' I I prefer to stand. Can you give me any ex- | planation of this Marcia.?' " I Mi" He took a letter from his pocket, | funfolded it, and passed it to me. In my | trembling hands I held a letter from 5 Philip. I pi.'" Dear Sir,—l; am honoured by your i : letter of welcome, but beg to state that I | have no, intention at present of visiting f -my cousin's home. Unfortunately I am 1 [bound to Brand by the exigencies of the estate, and explained this to my cousin | /some time ago. There must, I feel, be a 1 (mistake somewhere.—Yours truly, Philip 2 H. Colston." ,

I. "'He's ■ not coming?'" I said miserably, handing back the letter. | : " ' No, he .is not coming,'"' Mr. Eger- [ ton said sternly ; "'he has never intendI ed to come ! Marcia, what have you been doing? Who has been helping you to this deception?'" . j " I passed my hand across my eyes. | * Deception !' The word rang harshly; " there J was no deception, nnd yet there i ;waG. Philip's letterin his own writing— ; fronting me. I looked at Freda's father J in fc bewilderment. V 1 ■" 'No ' one has helped me,' " I said. I Xi'- ' But those letters, portending to come from Mr. Colston, written, for him I by his friend Rippingille, they; were not ]in your writing. Who wrote them for I you ? .. And " what put the scheme into • you head? 'p It ; ■ was clever, diabolically i clover; but oh, Marcia, after we trusted | son so!' "

OTHER BOOKS. "Jeanne of the Marshes," by E. Phillips Oppenheim (Ward, Lock, and Company, Limited, London), is a good story. Major Forrest is a blackmailing adventurer, having a princess for a confederate. Jeannie, their daughter, is the heroine, and 'is reputed to be enormously wealthy. Her mother makes use of her to gain access to fashionable society, and has a scheme for selling her to a worthless Belgian count. There are queer doings at an old house on the sea coast, where a visitor who has denounced the major as a card-sharper is immured in a dark and damp .dungeon, an old tunnel once used by smugglers. At last, after detectives and so forth, Jeanne is married to the man who is evidently from the first her predestined husband. The illustrations by Mr. C. E. Brock, are remarkably good.

John Lang, , an elder brother of Andrew Lang, has written " The Thunder of the Hoofs" (John Long, London), in which the Australian background is excellentindeed, there are some scenes which challenge comparison with some of Henry Kingsley s work 111 " Geoffrey Hamlyn." The hero is a young Scotsman, of Edinburgh birth, who is a good cricketer and all round sport, but who comes to financial and family grief through backing horses—as usual the wrong horses. He emigrates to Australia, and after a time prospers. To Australia there has also gone his elder brother, Charley, a downright " waster," as modern slang puts it, and the fortunes of the pair become unpleasantly involved. Charley goes from bad to worse, eventually murdering his aunt, who had made him her heir, but the erstwhile scapegrace, Tom, turns out trumps, marries a charming girl, and returns to "Auld Reekie " with honour unimpaired and pockets well filled with shekels.

AUSTRALIAN PUBLICATIONS. In "The Plum-street Brethren" (T. C. Lothian, Melbourne), Mr. Harold Hansell tells of a hypocritical scct in a Melbourne slum and of the escapades and adventures of brothers and sisters. Some of the storychapters are quite funny,, but those who do not live in Australia generally wonder why Australian,writers and Australian publishers publish rather weakly trash of this description. Yet there must be a market for it, and possibly the world is more eclectic than would appear at first sight. :

"A Rogue's Luck," by Arthur Wright (New South Wales Bookstall Company, Sydney), is a story of much the same calibre. A Sydney clerk falsely: accused of embezzlement on his wedding day, is drugged by his rival, a bookmaker, who poses as a street preacher, and is shipped to Melbourne. Murder is also charged,. but in the end virtue triumphs over vice, and the lovers are united and the villain dies repentant.