BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3831, 16 August 1927, Page 74

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

STORY OF A MARRIAGE.

“ Shepherd’s Pie.” By Owen Archer. (Cloth, 7s fid net.) London: John Lane (the Bodley’ Head).

This novel, apparently a first production, displays good powers of characterisation, and the dialogue is bright and natural. Its central interest is the process through which a marriage form is converted, after a long and tedious course of misunderstandings and playing at cross purposes, into a normal and happy’ marriage. The history is somewhat prolix, and the continuous seemingly perverse playing at cross purposes is likely to prove tedious to the reader as well as to the two people who so unnecessarily made themselves unhappy. The Shepherds were a large family clan, most of whose members seem to have" possessed a variety of disagreeable idiosyncrasies. One was a readiness to sponge on relatives and beat them down in business arrangements. And the unpleasantness—in contrasted ways—of two members of the clan, Mary Shepherd and Cicely’ Daintry, approaches the abnormal. But there were good and agreeable Shepherds in the clan, am’ the three best were Uncle Bernard Shepherd, a genial bachelor with strong Victorian prejudices and predilections, his nephew Brian Shepherd, and Daphne, Mary Shepherd’s daughter. Brian is tall, athletic, and handsome, with curly’ yellow hair and bright blue eyes, and, as a friend tells him, a man possessing these attractions is destined to love adventures. At the beginning of the story he is applying for the headmastership of a modern school, a co-educational and otherwise unconventional one. But its governors have decided that in future no bachelor shall receive the appointment. At this juncture Brian is again thrown into the company of his cousin Daphne, his pal of pre-war days, and learns how desperately unhappy’ she is with her mother. Mary Shepherd is not only a domestic tyrant, but a miser; the extent of whose miserliness is only’ revealed at Tier death when she is found to have left £90,000. Daphne had been engaged to a young man who has lately been accidentally killed; and Brian assumes that Daphne’s heart is buried in her dead lover’s grave. As a matter of fact, Daphne was in love with Brian all along, and only’ accepted Keith as a way of escape. Brian likes and sympathises with Daphne, but love and marriage have occupied his mind scarcely’ at all. Believing that Daphne has loved once and for all, he proposes that they’ shall go through a form of m-rriage. He and Daphne will be the best of pals; she will be freed from her mother, and will assist his professional career. Brian’s change of feeling and the complications attendant on such a peculiar situation occupy most of the narrative. riut the school, whose previously decidedly crank lines are to be modified under Brian’s rule, gives room for some lively description. And to it Cicely Daintry coming from India, consigns her little "son Dick. Cicely is a devastating woman whose track is bestrewn with human wrec’-age; of course, she attempts to entangle Brian, and later she calumniates him. But Daphne stands by Brian loyally, and at last everything ends happily for the two people with whom we are chiefly concerned. .

MET TOO LATE. “ The Luckiest Lady.” Bv Ruby’ M. Ayres. (Cloth, 7s 6d net.) London: Hodder and Stoughton. “ The Luckiest Lady,” as the child she rescues, little Biddy Saunders, nicknamed the “ Little Flapper,” calls her, seems to possess all the gifts of Nature and fortune—beauty’, charm, wealth, and a kind husband who adores her. But because she loves another man than her husband, and because her love is of the egoistical, consuming sort, she counts herself wretched, and life not worth living. Marna married George Paget because he was a rich man, and everyone said that only a fool would refuse him. Three months later she met his friend, Hugh Hubbard, wakened to love, and knew’ that Hugh loved her. Hugh acted loyally’, throwing up his London position and going to China »for five years. But when lie returns the two meet again, and the “ Little Flapper ” learns their secret. She was a neglected child of 12, daughter of a mother attached to an inferior theatrical company’, and given to drink, when her mother ran in front of the Paget motor car and was killed, and Marna took the child home ami adopted her. Mama’s good deed was amply rewarded, for Biddy’ proved lovable, intelligent, and devotedly’ attached to her benefactress. There is another girl in the story’, Dolly’ Benson, who, when in difficulties through her own follies, takes advantage of what she knows and assumes about Marna and Hugh to get money’ out of Marna through Biddy. Marna forfeits sympathy when after it has been agreed that they’ shall see no more of each other, and Hugh is again sailing for Shanghai she secretly’ follows him, arriving just too late to get on board. Marna languishes, and Biddy, who had acted with good feeling and judgment in the previous crisis, breaks her promise to Marna. and virtually summons Hugh back. The authoress’s solution of the problem of three people who cannot all be happy is to get rid of the unselfish and generous, but inconvenient, husband by’ a motor accident.

A PERSECUTED HEROINE. “ Lady’ Pamela’s Pearls.” By John Ironside. (Cloth, 7s fid" net.) London: Hodder and Stoughton. This is a simple and rather short story possessing interests of plot and sentiment calculated to appeal to a not too exacting reading public. The plot runs on well-worn lines of sentimental melodrama, but the story is brightly and pleasantly told. Lady Pamela, to save her father and her waster of a brother from ruin and disgrace, has married a coarse, middleaged man, Rupert Variek, a millionaire financier, who reveals himself as a thorough blackguard. To hide her misery’ Lady Pamela adopts the ways of the fastest of the fast set to which she is introduced. Her husband, to keep her wholly in his power, never allows her any’ money whatever. She wears on special occasions a long rope of magnificent pearls. The hero of the story, David Wentwoth, goes to the Varieks’s country’ house to take the pearls from their safe keeping with a famous jewellers’ firm in London, and thus meets again the woman who, as a young girl before the war, had been his playmate and comrade. A little later Pamela comes to David seeking his help that she may find asylum with her old nurse, who lives in a cottage in Hertford. The change of scene introduces two pleasant sisters, “ land girls ” during the war, who are making a living by working a little poultry’ and fruit farm. Lady Pamela’s husband meanwhile, whose financial position is precarious, endeavours by crook methods to raise money on the famous pearls. He discovers where Pamela is, and to achieve his fraudulent designs he and his detestable daughter Lena waylay Pamela and carry’ her off in their motor car to the ostensbly shut-up mansion in Hampshire, where she is kept close prisoner. But before long Nemesis is on Varick’s heels. Resisting the police who have come to arrest him for his frauds, he accidentally shoots his daughter, and then commits suicide by’ poison, leaving the way clear for the future happiness of hero and heroine.

EARLY POVERTY BAY. “ Life in Early Poverty’ Bay: Trials and Triumphs of Its Brave Founders.” Issued on the occasion of the. Golden Jubilee of the Borough of Gisborne and the County of Cook, May’, 1927. (Paper.) New Zealand: Gisborne Publishing Company. On the occasion of the joint golden jubilees of the Borough of Gisborne and the County’ of Cook in May’ a large historical survey’ of the developments of the two places was given in the Gisborne Times. In request to a widespread demand the matter, with additional articles and photographs, was reproduced, and now, in the form of a jubilee handbook, is available for all who are interested in the early’ days of our country’. No other book on early Poverty Bay’ has over been published, and, besides that reason for its value, the present volume contains several important historical features which are not to be found in any other publication available to the public.

It is profoundly interesting. Cook’s visit is described in the light of Maori tradition; Povery Bay in pre-Maori days is presented; Barnet Burns, the English sailor who became a Maori chief, tells of his exploits; incidents in the career

of the first European resident of Gisborne are related; the coming of the Church is told; Maori rule on the east coast when British authority was defied is recalled; exciting experiences of thq times are given; the pioneer school is, brought back to memory; the Maori wars are spoken of; and the life of such important people as Sir Jameg and Lady Carroll and others are told with feeling and insight. . The photographs in the issue cons siderably enhance its value, making a very worthy’ book of future reference, !

REMINISCENCES OF A GENTLE* MAN USHER. “By the Clock of St, James’s.” By Percy Armytage, C.V.O. (Cloth, 18s net.) London: John Murray’. “My memory’ stretches back to thq dying days of the old stage coach,” sayq the writer of this book of reminiscences in his preface. “In my boyhood rail-, way’s were new-fangled things whirl; well-bred people did not care to use. I" remember being told of the first Atlantie cable, and have lived to see the existing perfection of aeroplane and wireless communications.” Seventy years are thus covered, during which Victoria, Edward VII, and George V reigned. For 25 years Mr Armytage lias been in the royal household as a gentleman usher. His social experience ahd organising ability’ have found full scope in work connected with State visits, coronations, Courts, levees, investitures, ami royal ceremonies of all kinds. Members of the Royal Family, kings, potentates, presidents, and princes and great figures of the social world pass through the crowded pages of his book. Nor are his activities outside Court overlooked. The clock of St. James’s has marked the passing of centuries of English history, and is a fitting title for the volume, which, besides giving a faithful picture of high life in the author’s days, is packed with stories all in the best taste. Illustrations of a pleasing character help to bring home the realism of the memories recalled, and the whole is a feast of good reading. Among the anecdotes recounted in the memoir are the following:— Poole, a famous tailor, was once staying in a house where one of his fellowguests was a young puppy’ belonging to the deathless army of snobs. In the billiard room after dinner he complained that his coat (made by Poole) did not fit properly. Without a word Poole with a piece of billiard cue chalk marked the coat all over with lines and crosses, and then said: “Take it to my shop when you get back to London and they will put it right.” The puppy must either have had the mortification of going up to change, or remaining a sight for the rest of the evening. People paying country house visits in Mr Armytage’s early days were always accompanied by their own personal servants. These were accommodated in the housekeeper's room, where, oddly’ enough, they were addressed by’ the name of, and took the same precedence as, their master or mistress. The wife of a wellknown millionaire, a very busy, fashionable, and philanthropic woman, kept two maids, the very’ well-paid senior having been with her for several years. One day’, to her mistress's surprise and consternation, she suddenly gave notice. Being pressed to give her reasons for leaving, she would for some time give none. Eventually’ she said: “Well, it’s like this, madame: We constantly stay at the country’ houses of the nobility where most of the guests have titles. You are an excellent mistress, and I have been very’ happy’ with you for four years, but I am quite tired of going in to dinner last.”

An amusing story of the difficulties to which names sometimes give rise is the one about Sir James M‘Garel Hogg, who, when he was made a peer, chose the difficult Irish title of Lord Magheramorne. A butler, who knew him well as Sir James, tried hard to make himself acquainted with the new title on his wav upstairs. “ The new peer repeated it emphatically several times, and the poor butler arrived at the drawing room thoroughly’ rattled; he solved the difficulty’ by throwing it open and announcing: ‘The late Sir Janies Hogg'! ” Scottish lairds, especially of the minor variety, have a weakness to be known and addressed by the names of their estates. “ Sir Frank Lockwood was once at party in London where many of the guests were Scotsmen. Hearing several men who preceded him announced in this quaint Scottish fashion, Sir Frank astonished the butler by’ giving his name as ‘ Twenty-six Lennox Gardens and Lady Lockwood.’ ”

Mr Gunter, the well-known confectioner of Berkeley’ square, whose ices are famous, was extremely fond of sport. He subscribed to Grantley’s Hunt, and was frequently out with hounds. “ On one of these occasions Lord Alvanley, who happened to be riding beside the pastrycook, turned to him and said: ‘ Mr Gunter, that’s a fine horse you are on.’ ‘ He is indeed, my lord,’ responded Gunter. ‘ but he’s so hot I can scarcely’ hold him.’ ‘Then,’ drawled his lordship languidly*, ‘ why the devil don’t you ice him ?■’ ” The book abounds in these and similar anecdotes, which are sown through the fabric of more definitely’ historical matter in a most charming manner. Both men and women will be interested in the accounts of Court life, while all will be delighted to read of the doings of the Boy Scouts, who play such a large part in Mr Armytage’s life. The fact that the took is dedicated to “ the Boy Scouts

of the British Empire, who hold its future in their hands,” speaks for itself in this connection.