Evening star., 1932-12-10
THE LIBRARY TABLE
BY SARAH C. BOWERMAN.

only living souls that bear my name
Nant Escob has been in the family's
possession for seven hundred years.
1t is mine to dispose of absolutely. have
often debated what I should do with it,
and have come to the decision that my
duty to the name must outweigh my
personal feelings Let me be candid
/ like you as little as I liked your
father" In this way Griffith Tregaron,
in Francis Brett Young's novel. The
House Under the Water" Is notified by
his kinsman, old Col. Tregaron. of his
inheritance of the long, low stone house
of Nant Escob and II square miles OF
Welsh mountain, moor, forest and tor
rental streams 1t Is dificult for ali
author to create an original character
in fiction. II results indicate anything.
most novelists do not even attempt II.
Francis Brett Young has. however,
achieved originality in the character OF
Griffith Tregaron-originality and con-
yincingness at the same time-for
Tregaron is no mere imaginary eccentric
He is real person, as his daughter
says OF him, "a loVable man in some
ways; quite hateful in others Son of
Welsh Tregaron and Provencale
peasant, hating his father from child
hood because their temperaments were
sayory life of independence and ad-
venture when, at the age OF Is, he ran
away from school and shipped as a
sailor On a coasting schooner. When
the story of his later life begins he is
As and has never seen the home of his
ancestors until the visit to Nant Escob
at the summons of his dying kinsman
He is a red-headed, melancholy-eyed.
stocky Tregaron. resembling some of
the family portraits of Tregarons of
past centuries. He is by nature a
"hounder," 'plunger," is excessively
proud and resents both his short
stature and his mothers peasant origin
because they make him feel inferior.
He is suspicious of every one, except
the wife whom he has always neglected
and insulted. but to whom he always
returns in times of need. He is dis
agreeable, quarrelsonle neighbor. dis
trustful, tricky client for his lawyers, a
mean man to do business with. and an
utterly irresponsible husband and father.
women and has never been discrimi-
mating IN his numerous affairs.
The story of The House Under the
Water" is the story of the rapid vibra-
ton OF Griffith Tregaron between pow
erty and wealth, his wild and unrea-
soning speculat-ons, his delusions of
grandeur, his frequent, sudden flashes
OF canniness almost amounting to gen.
lus, his extravagances, his brutalities,
and his final retribution. When he un-
e1pectedly finds himself transformed
! from a tenant farmer in the Midlands
to a landed proprietor in Wales. his
excitement Is intense and he plunges
emotionally and ignorantly into the
1 business of farming and sheep raising
IN his mountain domain. At the first
evidences of Natures hostility when
his grain Is destroyed by floods and his
sheep are killed in a blizzard, he i'm
! patiently deserts Nant Escob, leaving
his sons to quarrel over it, and rushes
into South African eold speculation. A
/ fortune Is made-and scattered Anew
fortune comes to him through the sale
/ OF his lands and streams to the North
Bromwich Corporation for giant dams
and reservoirs, and Nant Escob be-
comes the house under the water" "
when the last reservoir is finished. This
/ fortune is put into an investment cor
porstion and mine, after Tregaron,
more inflated than ever, has FIRST pur-
| chased Stoke Priory, the estate on
which he was once tenant farmer,
with all its furnishings. tapestries and
old masters. But by this time a very
professional specialist has as kindly as
possible revealed to Tregaron that he
Is suffering from progressive disease
OF the nervous system, and that Ma
ttre cannot replace nervous tissue /"
So the final collapse of his fortunes
and his health comes at the same time.
In passing. notice should be taken OF
the skillfully drawn physicians in the
novels of Francis Brett Young, himself
practicipg physician In South Devon
and medical officer in East Africa
during the World War, before he began
to devote himself entirely to writing
Nearly every one Of DR.. Brett Young
recent novels introduces some interest
ing tfrom the medical standpoint) dis
ease, whose symptoms are described
with considerable detail, but never to
such an extent as to exchange artistic
for pathological values.
y
Tregaron's family is second only in
interest to himself. His Italian wife,
Lucrezia, of the noble Neapolitan
family of the RoccaneYas, solid, poised
ASoNAAbAti6 VIC otaIhC VI q SdCbdI, COLI
tains hidden fires of jealousy ifor her
children, not on account of Tregaron's
lnfdelities) and intrigues unscrupu-
lously for them. Otherwise her calm
fatalism in the face of all the vicissi-
tudes that life and Tregaron have
brought her is undisturbed Rob, the
eldest son, by his common sense and
capability justifies Tregaron's suspicion:
that, though the child of first wife,
he is not Tregaron. Gerald is as
pleasure loving as Rob is hard working
and as tricky as Rob Is honest, as
predestined for failure as Rob Is for
success. Virginia. whose only asset is
her beauty, makes of it cult for the
purpose of securing desirable husband
She overplays her hand, wins only a
third prize. and slumps early into
middle = aged embonpoint. Diana
sWarthy, passionate, musical. fiercely
envies Virginia her beauty and is bitter
toward everybody and everything, until
happiness makes her selfishly contsnted
Philippa, the youngest daughter. is the
one whose life We follow with mos.
interest. Her childlikeness and longing
for high romance linger to her thirties,
and her love for the Dol Escob valley,
Radnor Forest, and the crouching lion
shape of Forest Fawr we know will
endure as long as she lives Ali the
minor characters of THE House Under
the Water" are also entirely real-the
Delahayes Of Clan Elan the Wieners,
Jewish financiers and new landowners
in Wales; the single minded young en-
gineer, Lingen; the sentimental but
crafty Jewish Italian business man.
Verona; Red Pugh. sly Welsh peasant
who acts as informer for Tregaron and
Gerald, and Evan Vaughan, dreamer
and master of the farm Trenant, who
is so. close to the valley of Dol Escob
that he is almost "a part of 1t. He says
to Phil: They (the North Bromwich
Corporation) can never own It: Forest
Fawr belongs to its ravens and kites
and buzzards; to the ghosts OF the men
who have fought over it and toiled in it
and just two living people; Vaughan
and Tregaron."