A PAGEANT OF ABBESSES

By Elizabeth Hamilton
THE LADIES OF SOISSONS, by Sidney Cunliffe-Owen (Harvill Press, 12s. 6d.); MY FRIEND MONICA, by Jane Duncan (Macmillan, 16s.); SO FAIR A HOUSE, by Robert Neill (Hutchinson, 15s.).
"THE LADIES OF SOIS
2SONS." written when the author was a patient in the West London Hospital and dedicated to one of the hospital sisters, tells the story of an imaginary community of nuns who left England in the train of Tames II, going first to Ireland, then to France; were in France through the Revolution and still there in the First World War. In the Second World War they were back in Ireland, then subsequently returned to France-all this compressed into approximately 125 pages.
Brevity is so much to be commended and so rare a virtue in novel writing that perhaps it is carping to suggest that the author has not allowed himself enough room for the presentation of his pageant of " Mitred Abbesses". Nevertheless I could not help feeling that, though much of the story is highly entertaining, certain passages read as if they came out of a history text book. (Incidently, there is no such person as a Carmelite abbess).
THE many readers who have enjoyed " My Friends the Miss Boyds" and " My Friend Muriel " will welcome the third volume in Jane Duncan's series. They will find once again the liveliness, fun, pathos, intelligence and humanity displayed in her previous books.
"SO FAIR A HOUSE," the blurb tells us, marks a new phase in Robert Neill's writing, in that he has turned from the historical novel to the novel of today.
The idea of the impact of a Georgian Vicarage and its history upon the life of a wealthy business mun who purchases the house is a good one. Unfortunately the writing is pedestrian and the characters wooden.