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Novels and Novelists

Kensingtonia

Kensingtonia

A Remedy against Sin — By W. B. Maxwell

The author who sets out deliberately to write a novel with a purpose must content himself with being a little less than an artist, a little more than a preacher. To accept life, and by thus accepting it to present us with the problem—that is not his chief concern. He is the brilliant lawyer who is bound to look at life from the point of view of his case—who cannot therefore afford to inquire into the evidence that would make the guilty less guilty, or, always with the success of his case in mind, to despise the ridiculous excess of painting the lily and throwing a perfume on the violet.

In ‘A Remedy against Sin’ Mr. W. B. Maxwell has chosen to obscure his talents under a wig and gown that he may deliver a tremendous attack against the monstrous injustice of our present divorce laws. His description of the ‘typical’ upper-middle-class family, of which the heroine, Clare, is the younger daughter, is very skilful and amusing. As we read of old Mrs. Gilmour drifting through her large, desirable family residence, always looking for something, or wondering what she has lost or forgotten or ought to have remembered; as we encounter full-blown Emily, the married daughter with the hard page 177 laugh and chaffing ways, and all the various members down to Clare, the young girl, just ‘out,’ whom nobody wants—who fits in nowhere, we feel it could hardly be better done. It is an admirably painted portrait of what we might call an old-fashioned modern family. Then comes the adventurer, Roderick Vaughan, who makes up his mind to win Clare, and because she is lonely and vaguely unhappy and feels herself unwanted, he succeeds to the extent of her running away from home one afternoon and putting herself under his protection. The young man, trading upon the family sense of honour and horror of anything approaching a scandal, plays his cards so cleverly that they are forced to acknowledge him and to arrange for a fashionable wedding, even though he is almost a complete stranger and they know nothing of his past or his present and ignore the fact that he is vulgar, ill-bred and loud. Now, of course, comes the awakening for the poor heroine, and Mr. Maxwell spares her nothing. She is married to a beast, a bully, a torturer, and there is no escape. Up to this point we must admit that ‘A Remedy against Sin’ is a great deal better than the majority of novels. The character of Roderick Vaughan—his disposition, which is, as it were, a series of bounds and rebounds—the whole temper and feeling of the book, place it far above the average. But then, more or less suddenly, we are conscious of the purpose.

Clare, from being an innocent, rather charming creature, changes into a martyr; she disappears, and is from henceforth a soft cheveril conscience, submissive to her lord, boundlessly forgiving, less than the dust, in fact, beneath his chariot wheels. We cannot imagine a more effectual goad to a bold bad man than the sight of so great meekness. The purpose becomes dreadfully clear. There is a child—of course there is a child—delicate, tender, born to wring our hearts and die. And as the book sets, the shadow of the Divorce Court grows larger and larger, darker and darker. Of course, the case is defended. Women of England—ye who have the vote page 178 —of course Roddy wins, and there is naught for the lily-white, white-as-snow Clare but to go out into the dark, a branded woman, with her innocent friend, a ruined man, at her side.

But—hold! Why did Clare's family let her marry the man? Why, having married, did she submit? Which was her greater tragedy—the loss of her innocence or seeing her name in the newspapers? And if the opinion of the lady shoppers in Sloane Street mattered so awfully—what was her worth? Why, when the case was decided against her, did not her strong, splendid friend say: ‘Look here, darling, if people are so vile, let's go away and leave them to their vileness and be gloriously happy together’? Instead of which, she pinned on an hysterical hat and raved about being his mistress and ‘they went out into the darkness hand in hand.’ It is 1920, ladies and gentlemen! If we must have a novel with a purpose, let our novelist remember. Let him send them into the light hand in hand—with Kensington behind them for ever!

(April 23, 1920.)