NOVELS.
THE PILLAR OF FIRE.*
NOVELS which deal with the quest of fortune in London are gradually changing their tone in accordance with the trend of our age. For a long time they were concerned exclusively with the efforts of the youthful but aspiring male to storm the citadel of fame, but these variations on the Whittington theme are no longer the monopoly of one sex. Nor need this be wondered at when we consider the immense change that has been wrought in our social system in the last quarter of a century by the incursion of women into a host of callings from which they were previously excluded, or in which their peculiar qualities enable them to compete efficiently with their brothers. The resolve to lead a life of self-supporting independence, whether prompted by the desire to lighten the domestic burden, or by rebellious discontent, or by ambition, or by ennui, leads hundreds of middle-class girls to seek employment in London "on their own," and their experiences are rich in materials for the novelist in search of actuality. The history of one of these " bachelor girls " was given us the other day by Mr. Richard Whiteing in Ring in the New. Privations and gloom were not wanting in his recital, but with Mr. Whiteing there is always " a budding morrow in midnight," and the ultimate • The Pillar of Fire. By Francis H. Dribble. London Chapman and Hall.
impression of his story, if not rosy-hued, at least made for optimism. Now we have the realistic antidote in Mr. Gribble's drab and dispassionate narrative of the fortunes of Bella L'Estrange and the other members of the " Way Out Club."
The opening scenes of the story are laid in a hostel—a quasi-philanthropic, but really commercial concern, aristo- cratically patronised, and paying a safe five per cent —for women earning their living " genteelly " as clerks, cashiers, typewriters, governesses, &c. The " Way Out Club" repre- sents the elite of the inmates, the five members, though differing widely, having this in common, that "in a house in which there necessarily lived many common girls, they were neither common nor vulgar." Bella L'Estrange, in virtue of her good looks and good manners, is at once elected to the club, the aim of whose members is to extricate themselves from their life of drudgery. One is a cashier in a shop, another a superintendent of restaurant girls, a third is employed as typewriter in a publisher's office, a fourth is day- governess to a grocer's family. Bella, the daughter of a bankrupt provincial solicitor, obtains the position of music- teacher in a small girls' school, and devotes her savings to carrying on her musical education. With greater personal charm and distinction than any of her clubmates, she has less strength of character. One by one they find their way out,— the first, after an attempted suicide, by death in hospital; one by marriage; a third by collaborating in the writing of sensational novels. Bella, romantic and impressionable, with no one atimme to help or advise her, having lost her place by the bankruptcy of her employers, wearying of drudgery, drifts into a liaison with a young man of good family, but entirely dependent on his father, and virtually pledged to marry an heiress. Gilbert Oare, though genuinely fond of Bella, ultimately yields to domestic pressure, and, pecuniary solace having been offered through his family solicitors, leaves his mistress to fall a prey to the persistent attentions of a pseudo- Russian Count. Her new protector soon wearies of her, and another is ready to make her his wife, when Gilbert returns from the war in South Africa—his rich fiancee having thrown him over—assuming that Bella has been waiting for him ever since. The other suitor gets his congg ; but Gilbert, on learning what has happened in the interval, contents himself with offering "all that friendship can do." Bella, once more deserted, is again reduced to drudgery to earn her living, and is rescued from degradation by a chance meeting with the oldest and steadiest of the members of the " Way Out Club," the story closing with her entrance, in the company of her friend, into just such another boarding-house as that in which the narrative begins.
We have given a tolerably full outline of the plot because it is just as well that intending readers should know what to expect. It is anything but an agreeable recital, but it is only fair to Mr. Gribble to state that the painful and sordid episodes in his story are not disfigured by any repulsive realism, and that the career of his ill-starred heroine is developed logically enough from the combination of heredity, character, and environment assigned to her. There is, how- ever, a certain suggestion of artificial enhancement of her misfortune in the circumstances under which her lover returns, and in spite of the circumstantial, and even con- vincing, description of the surroundings of these poor working gentlewomen, we cannot resist the conviction that Mr. G ribble has focussed his camera too exclusively on the drudgery and dangers of their lives. This is all the more to be regretted in that he has on occasion a pleasant vein of humour, witness the description by the aspiring novelist of her first
interview with an editor :—
". What was he like ? ' asked all the girls at once. a He was a great big man,' said Isabel, with a great big black beard, and a melancholy look in his eyes. I was so nervous that I was afraid it was my story that had made him melancholy, but it evidently wasn't that, so I suppose he has a secret sorrow ; and the first thing he said, in a far-away tone of voice, was, "Take a seat, Miss Annesly. I hope you don't mind the smell of smoke?"'—`And what did you say to that ?' asked Mary, with the vague appre- hension that the editor had probably invited Isabel to smoke too. Why, I said it was a treat to smell smoke for a change; and then the editor man talked business. "Miss Annesly," he said, "you've got a wonderful imagination for writing stories with, but I don't think you've had much experience in writing them." "No," I said, "I didn't know experience was necessary for writing stories, but I'll write the story over again for you if you'll tell me how." " That's what I was coming' to," said the editor man. "You see we've got a fist of twenty rules for writing stories." "I didn't know that," I said ; "but l'll soon learn up the rules if you'll give them to me." He gave them to me, and they were about every chapter having to be a particular length, and about always laying the scene in England, and not revealing who did the crime until the last chapter but one, and introducing as many characters as possible, and always having a happy ending. "I don't think much of those rules !" I said, and then he seemed disappointed, so I explained that I meant that they didn't seem very hard to learn; and he said "No, I don't suppose they are. But it wasn't only the rules that I wanted to talk to you about. You see your story has got a wonderfully ingenious plot, but you don't seem to know about stops. We don't trouble much about stops, but we do like to have some of them in their proper places." "If you'll take the story," I said, "I'll let you move the stops about as much as ever you like," and he seemed to look a little less gloomy when I told him that, and then he went on to something else. "You see," he said, " you've made some rather serious mistakes in your story owing to your not having enough experience. You've spoken of somebody miss- ing affidavits from a drawer as if-they were something of great value." " But these were very important affidavits," I explained. "I was very careful to point that out." " I know," he said ; "but I think it would be better if it was something else that they missed." "Well," I said, "perhaps it wasn't affidavits that they missed. Perhaps it was copybooks—I mean to say copyholds—or something of that sort." "Why not War Office secrets ?" said the editor man; and I said, "Oh yes, that's the very thing ; and when the hero disappears, that's because he's disguised himself in order to hide in a cupboard that be knows of in the French War Office, so as to get the secrets back again." "That's the style," said the editor man, "only I'm afraid you won't be able to work it out all by yourself, so I thought of getting somebody to help you. Do you think you would mind collaborating with a gentle- man?" "Mind," I said. " Why should I mind ? It's the very thing I'm dying to do."' "
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