"RUMOUR OF HEAVEN"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21396, 20 October 1934, Page 11 (Supplement)

"RUMOUR OF HEAVEN"

AN UNUSUAL NOVEL Miss Beatrix Lehmann, in " Rumour of Heaven, has written an unusual type of novel in that it deals with a family stricken with strong traits of insanity. The working out of the destinies of this strange family in the remote atniosphero of Prince's Acre has produced a book whose lingering charm is like the evanescence of a dream. William Peacock marries a dancer, who not long afterwards shows strango symptoms of fear which finally develop into insanity. Her first child, Clare, is entirely free from the taint, but Hector and Viola, who follow her, are both touched with insanity in different ways, lheir iaiher decides that he must remove his wife and family into some secluded place in the country whose quietuess shall lap about them and perhaps effect a cure. So he goes to Prince's Acre, an old and hidden retreat " lost between sea marshes and forest somewhere on the south coast of England." " The old house and garden oversowed with silence, dust, strange weeds and wild creatures. A glint of sunlight, a spatter of rainfall, a passing of wings irom light to darkness, a reflection of sky, a shadow of cloud; a stillness hollowed into chaos and a dream undreamt was Prince's Acre." Such a passage gives an insight into the atmospheric charm of Miss Lehmann's writing; the soothing, lazy peace of the English country enters into the soul as one reads. However, it does not suffice to bring Miranda Peacock back to normality. Her actions become dangerous to the children, until she is removed to a mental home, where she dies. The interest of the story now centres round Clare, whose mission in life is to care for her afflicted sister and brother under the motherly direction of Mrs. Humble, who serves che family devotedly. But as the years pass the solitude of this hidden retreat is invaded by others —men from the outside world to whom the contact with Prince's Acre and its isolated family comes as an entirely new experience. The destiny of Clare and the self-sacrificing beauty of her character shine # with star-like brilliancy through the whole book, and the characterisation is well done, though at times one gets the impression that not only the Peacock family are tainted with madness, but others of Miss Lehmann's characters as well.

A happy ending for Clare brings the story to a close after the tragic but merciful death of her brother and sister. The writer is to be congratulated on a work, whose atmospheric lights and shades are vividly arresting and whose characters move across the lovely background with extraordinary realism. To compare the dreaminess of Prince's Acre with Mary Webb's TJndern in " Gone to Earth " is to pay Miss Lehmann's descriptive ability a very high compliment; arid in some of the latter's paragraphs one is forcibly reminded of that genius which wove sound and scent and colour into one living whole. Readers will not be disappointed with this unusual novel, whose scheme of island settlement (whence the title) is tho least important feature it discloses. " Rumour of Heaven," by Beatrix Lehmann. (Methuen.) .