The Marriage Market.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17385, 23 April 1928, Page 13

The Marriage Market.

I In many ‘A’ays Miss Sheila Kaye- a ! Smith’s new novel is the most interest- 1: i j ing she has written. It is in no sense J of the “strong - *school, as its title, “Iron c l and Smoke” might suggest. It contains i no dialect (to mo a great relief), and no religion. The scene shifts from the Black Country to Sussex and back again, but neither- North nor South offers more , than a background to the group of char- C acters with whom the story is concerned. 8 a Jenny Bastow is a naive and charming v girl just out of the schoolroom. Her t I father is an iron-master, self-made, un- e ) educated, but rich enough to tempt Hum- v i phrey Mallard to mako him his father-in- ! law, e A Sordid Exchange. ; j In a word, Sir Humphrey Mallard, t j Bart., of Herringdales Manor, Heathfield, j Sussex, was prepared to barter his title s i for this rather insipid young girl and j the income from £40,000, at 20 per 1 i cent.:— t ' c Not that old Bastow regarded it as a sale. He could see plainly that the girl •was in love—lovesick, it might be said —and the man, if not so obviously strickj en, had for her true love and regard a i besides other qualities calculated to make i-a woman happy. Tho fact that tho pay- p j ment of money in large sums would in- e | evitably accompany the romance merely a j bore out Tom Bastow’s conviction that ! money was the essential stuff of life and i that nothing, not even romance, happen- ! ed without it. a J Jenny, besottedly happy in her engage- d j ment, knew nothing of the two big in- v fluences in her husband's life —his land 0 and Isabel Halnaker. The latter for four v years had been his mistress. The laison i indeed, had been ended before Jenny ’ n I appeared on the scene. Isabel heiself had p | urged on Humphrey the necessity of 0 marrying a rich woman to pay off his j debts and present him with an heir. She p had the foresight to see that the time p would come when his lands and his fam- J : ily name would count more than she did. 0 Troubled Waters. o I So Sir Humphrey marries Jenny Bas- p ! tow with her £40,000, only to find very j soon afterwards that the firm is on the j brink of liquidation. It was extremely ; annoying for the baronet, who had only ! just begun k> redeem his mortgages, but ,] | need scarcely have behaved in such unkniglitly fashion to his poor little wife. P - He complains that he has been swindled. “It’s part of your marriage settlement —part of your contract with me. I’ve f' ! been cheated. If Td known how things j were going, as he must have known—” S “You wouldn’t have married me?” pj I The doubt that for days had been w driving from her heart now rose to her li lips. tc “I couldn't, have married you. God, h; child! D’you think a man like me can pi afford to many eo he chooses? I had to I-

❖ ♦> ♦> Sheila Kaye-Smith's New Novel .

»*♦ afraid—l love you all right, but I’d never have let myself love you if I’d known your family was on the verge of becoming as broke as my own.” Angry, bitter tears rolled down her chaeks. "Then it’s I who’ve been swindled.” "You! How?” "I thought you loved me.” "I’ve told you that I do love yon. But, God! I’m not a boy. 1 look where I’m going. I looked whe.re I was going then, and what did 1 see? Why, people who were obviously wallowing in riches—the utmost welter of tasteless luxury and extravagance. How was I to know it was a.ll bluff?” "It wasn’t bluff. . . Wo’re different up here from you down south. We don’t get shabby and at the first hint of things going wrong. We keep things up till tho end.” “Of course you do. It’s all part of the swindle.” After this incredibly cruel scene, Sir Humphrey Mallard feels complacently that he has acted with dignity as well as decision! A Picture on the Wall. After Jenny’s son is born, she learns from a local gossip of the intrigue between Isabel Halnaker (whom she knows and likes) and her husband. Another conjugal row ensues and Humphrey goes off to Yockletts, his Kentish estate, contracts pneumonia, and Jenny arrives to find him at the point of death:— She pulled a chair up to the bed, and held his hand. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light of the room, and details till then unnoticed began to decorate the general impression. There were photographs upon the walls, and she recognised several of them as photographs of Isabel Halnaker. Over the fire-place was a portrait of her in a water-colour younger and more girlish than Jennj had ever seen her, holding a white wrapper across her breast, while her hair fell on her shoulders in a sweeping cloud. As Jenny looked at the portrait she suddenly realised that tho whole room must have been furnished for Isabel.

Jenny’s heart ached once more with the old sickness —jealousy, disillusion—-hatred of this proud thief who had spoilt her marriage before it had begun. She would have liked to get up and turn, the portrait with its face to the wall, but the weak hand in tier own detained her. After all, she could take comfort in the thought that here fch-9 was and Isabel was not, that if this was the end, Isabel had no part nor lot in it. . Comlort in Little Things.

With the death of Humphrey a strange fiiendship dawns bet.veen the two women. Superficially unlikely, Miss KayeSmitli lias made it extraordinarily convincing One’s impulse rejects absolutely the idea that such a friendship could outweigh sexual passion and maternity. The litlie dinners of t.he pair, their desire to drink light wines in the right way, have a curiously non-ccnvivial atmosphere. which 'S scarcely brightened when Habsl i slls her new parlour-maid to bring

and two glasses,” to toast their friendship, "which now we know to be the best thing in our lives.” Yet, is there not, after all, a good deal in it ?—"comfort in little things—the refuge in a book and a glass of wine.” What is certain is that in Jenny Miss Kaye-Smith has given us a masterly example of femi line psychology. From the apparently humdrum she has extracted uu!ocked-for subtleties. Her Jenny lives and breathes.