Top-floor Tragedy*
Top-floor Tragedy*
Three Old Ladies of Polchester
The Story. On the top floor of the battered old skeleton of a house on Pontippy Square, Polchester, dwelt three old ladies. Two of them were nice old ladies; but Mrs. Payne was big and hard, with something uncanny about her and a gypsy strain in her blood. All three were very poor.
Old Mrs. Amorest was a charming little person, bright-eyed, with snowy hair. Rich Cousin Francis liked to stroke it when she came to visit him. He was an invalid in the charge of a housekeeping dragon and he hinted to Mrs. Amorest that he would leave her untold sums when he died. He regretted that he could not take his money with him.
Miss Beringer was the feeblest and most timid of the old ladies. In her loneliness, she caught at the brave cheerfulness of Mrs. Amorest for solace and protection. Years ago, Miss Beringer had had six months of perfect happiness. That was the period of her friendship with Jane, the greatest and loveliest thing in her life. All that remained to her of Jane now was a piece of red amber--a gift which she cherished above all else in the world.
Mrs. Agatha Payne, weird and swarthy, saw the piece of amber glowing with a cold, hard life of its own in Miss Beringer's shabby room and lusted for its possession. She was a passionate, mad sort of woman, with three obsessions : rich food, cards, color. She would sit all day, shuffling and dealing out the cards, playing a curious game of her own, reading in the cards the fate of nations and dynasties. Above all, Mrs. Payne loved color--she bathed sensuously in it. Bright stuffs, the little golden flames of candles against the green of a Christmas tree, and, most of all, Miss Beringer's ruby-red piece of amber were the objects of her craving.
Mrs. Payne set to work to get the amber. First she thought of buying it with the money Mrs. Amorest was expecting from Cousin Francis. It would be easy to make kindly little Mrs. Amorest give her enough. Mrs. Payne felt it a form of treachery when Cousin Francis died, leaving not a cent to his aged kinswoman. "May he rot in Hell!" was her amiable comment.
Mrs. Payne was not without resources, however. Purchase being out of the question, she resolved to torture Miss Beringer into giving her the amber. She found a curious, voluptuous pleasure in watching her ungainly old neighbor shrink in terror from her threats. She gave her no rest, tapped on her wall by night, threatened her with the fate the cards held for her. Miss Beringer went to Mrs. Amorest for protection, tried to run away. In the end, one gloomy night, Agatha Payne overplayed her hand and frightened her victim to death. She got the amber, but lost her peace of mind. The ghost of May Beringer never left her.
But brave little Mrs. Amorest was saved just as her strength and courage were being taxed beyond endurance. Her son, Brand, whom she had not seen for years, came back from the U. S. with a fortune and took her out of the ominous old house. "Is it right, do you think," said she, "to be so happy?"
The Significance. Mr. Walpole treats his old ladies with sympathetic affection and contrives not to be over-sentimental about them. The drama in the "windy, creaky, rain-bitten house" is handled simply and effectively. There is a vivid feeling of the importance of little things in little lives. The dreary top floor is a world in itself where a passing word assumes the proportions of an adventure and destinies are swayed by the dripping of a tap.
Brief glimpses are caught of some of the characters from The Cathedral, also a tale of Polchester. The magnificent Archdeacon Brandon, his daughter Joan, Canon Ryle are seen wandering in the world outside the sphere of the little old ladies of Pontippy Square.
The Author. Hugh Walpole is a robust gentleman of about 40. He is one of the most agreeable of novelists, an entertaining lecturer and a charming companion. His recreations, says Who's Who, are book-collecting, golf, talking. Among his better known novels are: The Secret City, The Dark Forest, Jeremy, The Young Enchanted, The Cathedral.
Genial Professor
As I LIKE IT (SECOND SERIES)-- William Lyon Phelps--Scribner ($2.00). Mr. Phelps, pedagogic enthusiast, likes any number of things. He chats about them in an intimate, cheerful sort of way. In this sort of spontaneous comment, the genial Yale professor is at his best. Among the topics that catch his eye are R. L. Stevenson; grammar; Keats and breakfast food; diaries; murder mysteries; the Faerie Queene Club (composed of those, who have read Spenser's poem) ; the diet of sheep ; smells ; cats ; the younger generation ; Joseph Conrad; golf; W. B. Yeats and the Nobel Prize; the double life of clergymen, professors, business men ; Henry Becque ; Carlyle ; the New York stage ; walking; sermons ; Archibald Marshall, women and Art; Otis Skinner; importance of the "n" in damn. The papers are reprinted from Scribner's Magazine.
Spain
THE Fox's PAW--Ramon Perez de Ayala--Dutton ($2.50). This is the third of a series of four volumes designed to show the strangling effect of the modern Spanish social and educa- tional system on the development and growth of native genius. Albert, introspective esthete, is here on the threshold of life, betrothed to Josefina. Doubting his own worthiness, he leaves her, spends a short time traveling with a circus, is arrested for the assassination of a woman, is released. Still groping for a solution of the vague problems of life, he loses his fortune through the dishonesty of a friend, is confronted by poverty. Follows a love affair with a passionate, capricious, English girl-- Meg. And finally Albert returns to seek salvation again in the arms of Josefina. He finds that she has died-- for love of him. The story is told in a compact, intense way, subordinating action always to analysis.
Professor's Escape
PROFESSOR How COULD You!--Harry Leon Wilson -- Cosmopolitan ($2.00). Algernon Copplestone, husband of the town Mayor, history professor, accidentally burned down his neighbor's house, disguised himself as a sandwich man, set forth to roam the roads--a free man at last. He promptly became involved as the unconscious ally of rum-runners in a pistol battle, and was taken in charge by Sooner Jackson, who made him into a bona fide chief of the Ugwalalla Indians, with a view to selling patent medicine. Followed countless adventures as the home-wrecker in a divorce suit, as wild man in a sideshow, as assistant to Irene, the Hamburger Queen. At last his brief, wild career as wanderer of the roads came to an end and he returned, with a new dignity in his heart, to his domestic hearth, chastened spouse, cheering pupils.
Sidney Howard
He Writes Bluntly
Sometimes I permit myself to write of my friends--nor do I expect to be accused of log-rolling when I do so. In this case, I am writing of a friend whose story Mrs. Vietch: A Segment of Biography is included in his volume Three Flights Up* just about to be published. It is as good a story as Ethan Frome--a magnificent piece of writing. Therefore, I feel justified in speaking of a friend.
Sidney Howard is a Californian by birth. He is around 30 years of age, tall, dark, striking in appearance and possessed of an unusual amount of physical and mental vitality. He has written poetry, plays, short stories and done spectacular journalistic investigations. He was an aviator and an ace during the War; but he came as near being killed in his recent dope investigation for Hearst's International as at any time during the European conflict. Howard is a robust and a romantic gentleman. He likes life dramatic; and it becomes so for him. He married the star of his first Broadway production, Swords. The star was the young and striking Clare Eames. This autumn, he is co-author with Edward Sheldon of Bewitched (TIME, Oct. 13, THE THEATRE) ; and the Theatre Guild will produce another of his plays in November. A gentleman of parts, you will observe, and a gentleman whose work is worth following.
His education was completed at Harvard, where he studied, like so many others of our young playwrights, under Professor Baker. His earlier college career was in California. It was in California that his first play was produced under the advice and direc- tion of Sam Hume. He then proceeded to Cambridge; from thence to the Air Service and on to journalism. It was he who did "The Labor Spy" series for The New Republic; and another series of his exposes is appearing in that publication now.
Howard is an admiration of mine in the literary world because he is so forthright and so vivid. He writes with a sense of beauty, poetry and rugged simplicity. If he wants to write of sex, he does it bluntly, in a manner Elizabethan; there is nothing sneaky about him. I have always suspected him of being one of the finest of our younger writers.
J. F.
*THE OLD LADIES -- Hugh Walpole -- Doran ($2.00). *Published by Scribner.