The Score by Lucas Malet (1909)

 This is two short novels entitled Miserere Nobis and The Courage of her Convictions. They are quite disparate, aside from one aspect, that of concentration of time. Both take place over a very defined short period, where a great situation, requiring facing of the truth, is confronted. Miserere Nobis recounts the period of the dying of a soldier in an convent-infirmary in Italy. He lapses in and out of clarity whilst making his last confession to a priest. The power of the confession arises from the fact that he has been led into wickedness by his stepfather. This inwardly bitter but outwardly suave man convinces him of the wrong done by and to his dead mother. His father is the culprit in this man's twisted mind; he uses his extraordinary power of influence to lead his stepson to hatred. The stepson has benefitted enormously from the admiration and patronage of a mystery lordly benefactor who sees his prowess at a fencing school. It slowly dawns that the man could be his father and he first begins to question the story his stepfather has always promulgated. He goes through uncertainty but remains under the spell of his stepfather's charm. Stressed and burdened after another interview with his manipulative second parent, he steals into his father's house and, almost deranged, plunges a knife into his heart to avenge his mother for the abandonment she suffered at his hands. Only after his father is dead does he understand that he actually loved his mother, and that, though his father wasn't perfect, his stepfather has orchestrated the whole thing in a simple act of hatred, presumably because he detected that the mother also still loved her deserter, and had seen through the stepfather before her death. This one is marred a little by the sense of lack of basedness in the lead-up to the murder. Though the stepson is growing aware of his stepfather's double-nature and his newly discovered father's redeeming goodness, he still goes ahead with the murder, just because he's 'under baleful influence'. It doesn't quite ring true. The Courage of her Convictions takes the story of Poppy St John, from Malet's previous novel, The Far Horizon, on another step. There are several references to her thoughts about her friendship with Dominic Iglesias, detailed in the prior book, here, seeing it in terms of a benevolent force which influences her actions for the better. With Poppy is Malet's recurring worldly gentleman character, Antony Hammond, from several earlier works, now grown a little portly and middle-aged. They are staying at an elegant hotel in the south coast town of Compton Regis, and working together on rewrites for Hammond's latest play, which the now world-famous St John will bring to the stage, and make her peak starring role. But Poppy has been attracted to a young bull of a political candidate, Lucius Denier, who, having won his contest, races down to the town in his dangerous new motor car to ask Poppy to marry him, feeling that he can finally offer her the life she deserves. Thus ensues a removal from the restaurant of the place to the dense gardens above a chine by the two, with the tide coming in way below, black-purple deep night atmosphere prevailing, and the tufted tips of pine trees just visible ruffling in the wind. On a grass platform with a bench, they go through a soul-searching few hours, coming to terms with his proposal and what it might mean for each of them, he fighting to keep it alive, she wanting badly to agree but knowing in herself that it won't work. She battles with temptation sorely in various scenarios which emerge in their talk. In the end she faces the truth which she wishes wasn't the case, and which Denier can't accept - that she will lose so much status by their union, becoming a politician's wife and despised for brazenness by his wealthy family, as well as the agency in her career which sustains her, and which she would need, for his sake, to give up. She finally forces him away, dog-tired and emotionally drained. Hammond finds her the following morning, shrunken-faced, her usual shine utterly dulled. His will be the task of restoring her to herself, loving her himself a little. These two display Malet's ideas on short pieces clearly - they require foreshortening of time elapse and superintensity of wrangled emotion. Her style is profoundly elegant always, and contrastingly never quite leaves hothouse territory. But here it does feel ever so slightly overheated at times, with its richness the saving element.