iv
Mr. Oppenheim does not take himself seriously in the rôle of prophet. “Large numbers of people have noted the fact that in certain of my earlier novels I prophesied wars and world events that actually did come to pass. In The Mysterious Mr. Sabin, I pictured the South African Boer war seven years before it occurred. In The Mischief Maker, The Great Secret, and A Maker of History I based plots upon the German menace and the great war that did actually occur. The romance of secret diplomacy has enthralled me for years. In writing my novels I have had no particular advance knowledge of world affairs. I have reasoned to myself, ‘This nation is aiming toward this,’ and ‘That nation is aiming toward that’; then I have invented my puppets representing these conflicting ambitions and set them in action. It was the story first of all that appealed to me, and not any burning desire to express political convictions and lay bare great conspiracies.”[57]
He takes himself seriously only in the rôle of entertainer, of storyteller. “If you tell him you like his books,” says Gerald Cumberland, in Written in Friendship, “he is frankly pleased; but if you pay him high-flown compliments he will begin to yawn.” There need be no paying of compliments in a consideration of Mr. Oppenheim’s work, but no analysis of his method could fairly withhold considerable praise. We have spoken of his confidential, easy manner with the reader as a secret of his toward establishing plausibility for the things he is about to tell. But there is more to be noted. Like the best writers of his sort among his countrymen—and like far too few Americans in the same field—he is unhurried. He is never afraid to pause for the amplification of sentiment, the communication of the moment’s feeling, a bit of characterization or a passage of pure description. And these are the matters which give an effect of rondure, and not infrequently touches of charm, to a story of whatever sort. At the moment I can think of only one American—Hulbert Footner—who has had the wisdom, or perhaps the temperament, to follow British practice in this by no means negligible affair of workmanship; and it is significant that Mr. Footner, an American, has so far had a better reception in England than in his own country. Apparently we value this certain leisureliness when it comes to us from abroad, for Mr. Footner, re-exported to us, is making distinct headway. What the American writer generally does is to accelerate his action to the pitch of implausibility (if he only knew it). This does very well, and may be indispensable, for all I know, with the readers of a certain type of American magazines; unfortunately the habitual buyers and readers of books demand something more careful.
The other interesting point of excellence in Oppenheim’s work derives from his method of spontaneity. He once said: “The lure of creation never loses its hold. Personally I cannot account for the fact. Perhaps it springs from the inextinguishable hope that one day there will be born the most wonderful idea that has ever found its way into the brain of a writer of fiction.”[58] For the creator, the superlative never arrives; but certainly for the reader Mr. Oppenheim has materialized more than one wonderful idea. The Great Impersonation, deservedly one of his most successful books, is a fairly recent illustration. But I would like to call particularly to attention an earlier story, both for what seems to me to be its astonishing merit and for its interesting light on the method of spontaneity which is Oppenheim’s special technique. This is The Way of These Women, now ten years old. That it still sells is evidence that its merit is recognized; that one never hears mention of it in any offhand mention of its author’s work shows that the recognition is by no means wide enough.
Sir Jermyn Annerley, a young man of fine taste and high honor, though certainly inclined toward priggishness, is a playwright of the intellectual type. Sybil Cluley, the actress who has aroused London by her performance in Jermyn’s drama, comes to Annerley Court as his weekend guest. They are to discuss his new play in which Sybil is to appear. Aynesworth, Marquis of Lakenham and Jermyn’s second cousin, chances to pay a visit at the same time. Another distant cousin of Jermyn’s, Lucille, who has divorced a French nobleman, is Jermyn’s hostess. Lucille is in love with Jermyn. During the visit Jermyn surrenders to his love for Sybil; they announce their engagement to the others. Sybil is obviously afraid of Lakenham to a degree not to be accounted for by his reputation for excesses, and after some time Lakenham confirms and shares with Lucille his knowledge of a discreditable episode in Sybil’s career before her success on the stage.
Lakenham is murdered at Annerley Court. Suspicion points directly to Sybil, but Lucille has aided Sybil and Jermyn in the removal of very incriminating evidence. As the price for protecting Sybil, Lucille requires Jermyn to marry her within two months.
The story is developed with admirable intervals and suspense. The point of the first quarter of the book is Lakenham’s knowledge of something in Sybil’s past, and Lucille’s determination to fight Sybil for Jermyn. Then Lakenham is killed. Almost half the book lies between the murder and its solution. It is evident that as he wrote Mr. Oppenheim saw (what he may not have grasped at the beginning) that Lucille was his most striking character. As the novel proceeded he became absorbed in the possibilities Lucille offered; if, as may well be the case, he vaguely contemplated solving the murder and bringing Sybil and Jermyn happily together for a quick “curtain,” he deliberately abandoned so conventional and easy an ending. Jermyn and Lucille are married under the hateful terms Lucille has imposed as the price of Sybil’s safety.
It is this that lifts The Way of These Women out of the run of Mr. Oppenheim’s work. Did Sybil kill Lakenham? If she did not, who did she think killed him? If Lucille used fraud with Jermyn, why not annul the marriage for fraud and bring down the curtain? (And in putting these questions I decline responsibility for your wrong inferences as to the answers.) In any case, the solution of the murder would seem to end the story. But something larger and more fateful, something of very near universal significance, had by this time lodged in Mr. Oppenheim’s mind. The “wonderful idea” had come. The last quarter of The Way of These Women is the material, intrinsically, for a very great novel. And Mr. Oppenheim handles it with touches of greatness. He could, of course, by slashing off most he had already written, by adopting some such technical device as W. B. Maxwell used in The Devil’s Garden, have made it a masterpiece, for his knowledge of his theme and his appreciation of its character are plain to be seen. I do not know whether this novel has ever been dramatized, but it is incredible that it should not have been dramatized; the possibilities of Lucille are greater than those of Camille, for they are less artificial and they are not either sentimental or cheap. Why did Mr. Oppenheim not rework it; why did he let it go as the book is, a mixture? Of several possible extenuations, I think the best is that by leaving it alone he probably was able to take the reader who sought merely to be entertained into a very high place whither that reader could not have been lured directly. And it is an elevation to which the writer of ready-made plots never leads.