her vanity was too innocent and her nature too easy to bear offence long."
"But to think that after all the offers I have had you should be the first to get married, or anyhow, engaged! Who would ever have expected such a thing?" "Who would, indeed?" said Edna, in all simplicity, and with a sense almost of contrition for the fact. "Well, never mind," answered Letty consolingly, "I am sure I hope you will be very happy; and as for me"—she paused and sighed—"I should not wonder if I were left an old maid after all, in spite of my appearance."
But to be left an old maid is not to be Letty's fate. Julius, already bewitched by her beauty through being much more thrown into her society, falls passionately in love with her, and for lack of any one else, and because his ardour flatters and amuses her, Letty encourages him, permits an engagement, and promises to join him in India. But on the voyage out she meets a rich Mr. Vanderdecken, with whom she lands at the Cape, and whom she marries. This is the tragic note in the happy story, the one drop of gall in the Stedmans' cup of felicity. Edna and her husband are patterns of domestic well-being. The joys and cares of every-day life have mellowed all that was good in them, and the account given of their home and their family is one we dwell upon lovingly.
Perhaps it is but natural that in our later reading we should note some small discrepancies that had formerly escaped us. We regret that the sisters had drifted so widely apart, and that each should seem to be so unconcerned at the distance which divides them. It is as if happiness can make us callous as well as luxury. And although it was true that Letty's desertion suddenly wrecked the hopes of her lover, it seems hardly probable that such an unstable being as Julius would have taken her falseness so seriously. A wiser man might have foreseen the possibility.
Still, when this and more is said, our liking for the story remains as strong as ever. We know of few books which give a better picture of healthful domestic happiness and pure family life.
Although we have hitherto called, and shall continue to call, our authoress by her maiden name, she had in 1864 changed it by marrying Mr. G. Lillie Craik, a partner in the house of Macmillan & Co., and shortly after she removed to Shortlands, near Bromley, in Kent. This change in her state does not appear to have interfered with her occupation, and for many years volume followed volume in quick succession.
Unwisely, we think, for her literary reputation, she was led, through her strong sympathy, to advocate marriage with a deceased wife's sister in a novel, published in 1871, called "Hannah."
The novel with a purpose is almost certain to fall into the error of giving the argument on one side only. Its author has rarely any toleration for the ethical aspect of the other side of the question, and it is to be doubted if such books ever advance the cause they desire to advocate. In "Hannah" we are perfectly surfeited by those who wish to marry within the forbidden degree, and we feel as little toleration for the placid Bernard Rivers—one of those men who never believe in the pinch of a shoe until they want to put it on their own feet—as for Jim Dixon, who, after evading the law, speedily grows tired of the deceased wife's sister, and avails himself of his legal advantage to take another wife.
The objections we feel to novels of this class are well stated by a writer in the Edinburgh Review, No. clxxxix. "We object," he says, "on principle to stories written with the purpose of illustrating an opinion, or establishing a doctrine. We consider this an illegitimate use of fiction. Fiction may be rightfully employed to impress upon the public mind an acknowledged truth, or to revive a forgotten woe—never to prove a disputed one. Its appropriate aims are the delineation of life, the exhibition and analysis of character, the portraiture of passion, the description of nature."
In most of these aims Miss Mulock had proved herself an expert. In addition to her numerous novels and volumes of poems, she wrote a large number of tales for children, many of which, I am told, are exceedingly charming. One cannot read her books without being struck by the intense affection she felt for children. She had none of her own, but she adopted a daughter to whom she gave a mother's love and care. From time to time there appeared from her pen volumes of short stories, studies, and essays; but it is not by these that her name and fame will be kept green. Neither will her reputation rest on her later novels. This she must have realised herself when writing, "Brains, even if the strongest, will only last a certain time and do a certain quantity of work—really good work." Miss Mulock had begun to work the rich vein of her imagination at an early age. She took few holidays, and gave herself but little rest.
She was by no means what is termed a literary woman. She was not a great reader; and although much praise is due to the efforts she made to improve herself, judged by the present standard, her education remained very defective. That she lacked the fire of genius is true, but it is no less true that she was gifted with great imaginative ability and the power of depicting ordinary men and women leading upright, often noble lives.
The vast public that such books as hers appeal to is shown in the large circulation of some of her works, the sale of "John Halifax, Gentleman" amounting to 250,000 copies, 80,000 of which—the sixpenny edition—have been sold within the last few months. This shows that her popularity is not confined to any one class. The gospel she wrote was for all humanity.
As a woman, she was loved best by those who knew her best. "Dinah was far more clever than her books," said an old friend who had been recalling pleasant memories to repeat to me. She died suddenly on the 12th of October 1887, from failure of the heart's action—the death she had described in the cases of Catherine Ogilvie, of John Halifax, and of Ursula, his wife—the death she had always foreseen for herself.
Around her grave in Keston churchyard stood a crowd of mourners—rich, poor, old and young—sorrowing for the good loyal friend who had gone from them, whose face they should see no more.
t is difficult to think of two writers more strongly contrasted, judging from the revelation their books afford of their natures and ways of thought. They both strove, in their novels, to represent individual specimens of humanity. They must both have possessed the power of distinct vision; but though Miss Kavanagh was a keen observer of externals, her types seem to have been created by imaginative faculty rather than by insight into real men and women, while Miss Edwards appears to have gone about the world open-eyed, and with note-book in hand, so vivid are some of her portraits.
In traditions, also, these writers differ. Miss Kavanagh has complete faith in the old French motto, "le bon sang ne peut pas mentir;" while one of Miss Edwards's heroes, an aristocrat by birth, is extremely happy as a merchant captain, with his plebeian Italian wife.
The two writers, however, strike the same note in regard to some of their female personages. Both Barbara Churchill and Nathalie Montolieu are truthful to rudeness.
Julia Kavanagh never obtrudes her personality on the reader, though she lifts him into the exquisitely pure and peaceful atmosphere which one fancies must have been hers. There is something so restful in her books, that it is difficult to believe she was born no longer ago than 1824, and that only twenty years ago she died in middle life; she seems to belong to a farther-away age—probably because her secluded life kept her strongly linked to the past, out of touch with the new generation and the new world of thought around her.
She began to write for magazines while still very young, and was only twenty-three when her first book, "The Three Paths," a child's story, was published. After this she wrote about fourteen novels, the best known of which are "Madeleine," "Nathalie," and "Adèle." She wrote many short stories, some of which were re-printed in volumes—notably the collection called "Forget-me-nots," published after her death. She also wrote "A Summer and Winter in the two Sicilies," "Woman in France in the 18th Century," "Women of Christianity," and two books which seem to have been highly praised—"Englishwomen of Letters" and "Frenchwomen of Letters."
Julia Kavanagh's first novel, "Madeleine," appeared in 1848—a charming story, its scene being in the Auvergne. The beginning is very striking, the theme being somewhat like that of "Bertha in the Lane"; but Madeleine, when she has given up her false lover, devotes the rest of her life to founding and caring for an orphanage.
Born in Ireland, Julia Kavanagh spent the days of her youth in Normandy, and the scene of her second novel, "Nathalie," is Norman, though Nathalie herself is a handsome, warm-blooded Provençale. The scenery and surroundings are very lifelike, but, with one exception, the people are less attractive than they are in "Adèle." In both books one feels a wish to eliminate much of the interminable talk, which could easily be dispensed with.
Nathalie, the country doctor's orphan daughter, teacher to the excellently drawn schoolmistress, Mademoiselle Dantin, is sometimes disturbingly rude and tactless, in spite of her graceful beauty. With all this gaucherie, and a violent temper to boot, Nathalie exercises a singular fascination over the people of the story, especially over the delightful Canoness, Aunt Radégonde, who is to me the most real of Miss Kavanagh's characters. Madame Radégonde de Sainville is a true old French lady of fifty years ago, as charming as she is natural.
The men in Julia Kavanagh's books have led secluded lives, or they are extremely reserved—very hard nuts indeed to crack for the ingenuous, inexperienced girls on whom they bestow their lordly affection. One does not pity Nathalie, who certainly brings her troubles on herself; but in the subsequent book, sweet little Adèle is too bright a bit of sunshine to be sacrificed to such a being as William Osborne.
The old château in which Adèle has spent her short life is in the north-east of France; its luxuriant but neglected garden, full of lovely light and shade, its limpid lake, and the old French servants, are delightfully fresh. The chapters which describe these are exquisite reading—a gentle idyll glowing with sunshine, and with a leisureful charm that makes one resent the highly coloured intrusion of the Osborne family, though the Osborne women afford an effective contrast. Adèle is scantily educated, but she is always delightful, though we are never allowed to forget that she is descended from the ancient family of de Courcelles. She is thoroughly amiable and much enduring, in spite of an occasional waywardness.
Fresh and full of beauty as these novels are, with their sweet pure-heartedness, their truth and restful peace, they cannot compare with the admirable short sketches of the quiet side of French life by the same writer. The scenes in which the characters of these short stories are set, show the truth of Julia Kavanagh's observation, as well as the quality of her style; they are quite as beautiful as some of Guy de Maupassant's little gem-like Norman stories, but they are perfectly free from cynicism, although she truly shows the greedy grasping nature of the Norman peasant. The gifts of this writer are intensified, and more incisively shown, in these sketches because they contain few superfluous words and conversations. Julia Kavanagh must have revelled in the creation of such tales as "By the Well," and its companions; they are steeped in joyous brightness, toned here and there with real pathos as in "Clément's Love" and "Annette's Love-Story," in the collection called "Forget-me-nots."
Such a story as "By the Well" would nowadays be considered a lovely idyll, and, by critics able to appreciate its breadth and finished detail, a Meissonier in point of execution: it glows with true colour.
Fifine Delpierre is not a decked-out peasant heroine; she is a bare-footed, squalid, half-clothed, half-starved little girl, when we first see her beside the well. This is the scene that introduces her.
"It has a roof, as most wells have in Normandy, a low thatched roof, shaggy, brown, and old, but made rich and gorgeous when the sun shines upon it by many a tuft of deep green fern, and many a cluster of pink sedum and golden stonecrop. Beneath that roof, in perpetual shade and freshness, lies the low round margin, built of heavy ill-jointed stones, grey and discoloured with damp and age; and within this ... spreads an irregular but lovely fringe of hart's-tongue. The long glossy leaves of a cool pale green grow in the clefts of the inner wall, so far as the eye can reach, stretching and vanishing into the darkness, at the bottom of which you see a little tremulous circle of watery light. This well is invaluable to the Lenuds, for, as they pass by the farm the waters of the little river grow brackish and unfit for use. So long ago, before they were rich, the Lenuds having discovered this spring through the means of a neighbouring mason, named Delpierre, got him to sink and make the well, in exchange for what is called a servitude in French legal phrase; that is to say, that he and his were to have the use of the well for ever and ever. Bitter strife was the result of this agreement. The feud lasted generations, during which the Lenuds throve and grew rich, and the Delpierres got so poor, that, at the time when this story opens, the last had just died leaving a widow and three children in bitter destitution. Maître Louis Lenud, for the Parisian Monsieur had not yet reached Manneville, immediately availed himself of this fact to bolt and bar the postern-door through which his enemy had daily invaded the courtyard to go to the well....
"'It was easily done, and it cost me nothing—not a sou,' exultingly thought Maître Louis Lenud, coming to this conclusion for the hundredth time on a warm evening in July. The evening was more than warm, it was sultry; yet Maître Louis sat by the kitchen fire watching his old servant, Madeleine, as she got onion soup ready for the evening meal, utterly careless of the scorching blaze which shot up the deep dark funnel of the chimney. Pierre, his son, unable to bear this additional heat, stood in the open doorway, waiting with the impatience of eighteen for his supper, occasionally looking out on the farmyard, grey and quiet at this hour, but oftener casting a glance within. The firelight danced about the stone kitchen, now lighting up the armoire in the corner, with cupids and guitars, and shepherds' pipes and tabors, and lovers' knots carved on its brown oak panels; now showing the lad the bright copper saucepans, hung in rows upon the walls; now revealing the stern grim figure of his father, with his heavy grey eyebrows and his long Norman features both harsh and acute; and very stern could Maître Louis look, though he wore a faded blue blouse, an old handkerchief round his neck, and on his head a white cotton nightcap, with a stiff tassel to it; now suddenly subsiding and leaving all in the dim uncertain shadows of twilight.
"During one of these grey intervals, the long-drawling Norman voice of Maître Louis spoke:
"'The Delpierres have given up the well,' he said, with grim triumph.
"'Ay, but Fifine comes and draws water every night,' tauntingly answered Pierre.
"'Hem!' the old man exclaimed with a growl....
"'Fifine comes and draws water every night,' reiterated Pierre....
"... he had seen the eldest child Fifine, a girl of eight or ten, sitting on her doorstep singing her little brother to sleep, with a wreath of hart's-tongue round her head, and a band of it round her waist. 'And a little beggar, too, she looked,' scornfully added Pierre, 'with her uncombed hair and her rags.'
"'Shall we let the dog loose to-night?' he said."
"Maître Louis uttered his deepest growl, and promised to break every bone in his son's body if he attempted such a thing.
"Pierre silently gulped down his onion soup, but the 'do it if you dare' of the paternal wink only spurred him on. He gave up the dog as too cruel, but not his revenge.
"The night was a lovely one and its tender subdued meaning might have reached Pierre's heart, but did not. He saw as he crouched in the grass near the old well that the full round moon hung in the sky; he saw that the willows by the little river looked very calm and still" ... [the revengeful lad watches for the child and falls asleep, then wakes suddenly].
"... behold ... there was little Fifine with her pitcher standings in the moonlight ... she stood there with her hair falling about her face, her torn bodice, her scanty petticoats, and her little bare feet. How the little traitress had got in, whilst he, the careless dragon, slept, Pierre could not imagine; but she was evidently quite unconscious of his presence.... The child set her pitcher down very softly, shook back the hanging hair from her face, and peeped into the well. She liked to look thus into that deep dark hole, with its damp walls clothed with the long green hart's-tongue that had betrayed her. She liked also to look at that white circle of water below; for you see if there was a wrathful Adam by her, ready for revenge, she was a daughter of Eve, and Eve-like enjoyed the flavour of this forbidden fruit.... Fifine ... took up her pitcher again and walked straight on to the river. Pierre stared amazed, then suddenly he understood it all. There was an old forgotten gap in the hedge beyond the little stream, and through that gap Fifine and her pitcher nightly invaded Maître Louis Lenud's territory.... having picked up a sharp flint which lay in the grass Pierre rose and bided his opportunity. Fifine went on till she had half-crossed a bridge-like plank which spanned the stream, then, as her ill-luck would have it, she stood still to listen to the distant hooting of an owl in the old church tower on the hill. Pierre saw the child's black figure in the moonlight standing out clearly against the background of grey willows, he saw the white plank and the dark river tipped with light flowing on beneath it. Above all, he saw Fifine's glazed pitcher, bright as silver; he was an unerring marksman, and he took a sure aim at this. The flint sped swiftly through the air; there was a crash, a low cry, and all was suddenly still. Both Fifine and her pitcher had tumbled into the river below and vanished there."
Pierre rescues her, and when Fifine has been for some years in service with the repentant Pierre's cousin her improved looks and clothing make her unrecognisable to the thick-headed well-meaning young farmer.
The only fault that can be found with these chronicles of Manneville is the likeness between them. The "Miller of Manneville," in the "Forget-me-not" collection, is full of charm, but it too much resembles "By the Well." The "Story of Monique" gives, however, a happy variety, and Monique is a thorough French girl; so is Mimi in the bright little story called "Mimi's Sin." Angélique again, in "Clément's Love," is a girl one meets with over and over again in Normandy, but these Norman stories are all so exquisitely told that it is invidious to single out favourites.
The stories laid in England, in which the characters are English, are less graphic; they lack the fresh and true atmosphere of their fellows placed across the Channel.
Julia Kavanagh died at Nice, where she spent the last few years of her life. Had she lived longer she would perhaps have given us some graphic stories from the Riviera, for it is evident that foreign people and foreign ways attracted her sympathies so powerfully that she was able to reproduce them in their own atmosphere. In a brief but touching preface to the collection called "Forget-me-nots," published after her death, Mr. C. W. Wood gives us a lovable glimpse of this charming writer; reading this interesting little sketch deepens regret that one had not the privilege of personally knowing so sweet a woman.
In regard to truth of atmosphere in her foreign stories, Julia Kavanagh certainly surpasses Amelia B. Edwards. In "Barbara's History," in "Lord Brackenbury," and in other stories by Miss Edwards, there are beautiful and graphic descriptions of foreign scenery, and we meet plenty of foreign people; but we feel that the latter are described by an Englishwoman who has taken an immense amount of pains to make herself acquainted with their ways and their speech—they somewhat lack spontaneity. In the two novels named there are chapters so full of local history and association that one thinks it might be well to have the books for companions when visiting the places described; they are full of talent—in some places near akin to genius.
"Barbara's History" contains a great deal of genuine humour. It is a most interesting and exciting story, though in parts stagey; the opening chapters, indeed the whole of Barbara's stay at her great-aunt's farm of Stoneycroft, are so excellent that one cannot wonder the book was a great success. Now and again passages and characters remind one of Dickens; the great-aunt, Mrs. Sandyshaft, is a thorough Dickens woman, with a touch of the great master's exaggeration; Barbara's father is another Dickens character. There are power and passion as well as humour in this book, but in spite of its interest it becomes fatiguing when Barbara leaves her aunt and the hundred pigs.
There is remarkable truth of characterisation in some of this writer's novels. Hugh Farquhar is sometimes an eccentric bore, but he is real. Barbara Churchill at times is wearyingly pedantic; then, again, she is just as delightfully original—her first meeting with Mrs. Sandyshaft is so inimitable that I must transcribe a part of it.
A rich old aunt has invited Barbara Churchill, a neglected child of ten years old, to stay with her in Suffolk. Barbara is the youngest of Mr. Churchill's three girls, and she is not loved by either her widowed father or her sisters, though an old servant named Goody dotes on the child. Barbara is sent by stage-coach from London to Ipswich:—
"Dashing on between the straggling cottages, and up a hill so closely shaded by thick trees that the dusk seems to thicken suddenly to-night, we draw up all at once before a great open gate, leading to a house of which I can only see the gabled outline and the lighted windows.
"The guard jumps down; the door is thrown open; and two persons, a man and a woman, come hurrying down the path.
"'One little girl and one box, as per book,' says the guard, lifting me out and setting me down in the road, as if I were but another box, to be delivered as directed.
"'From London?' asks the woman sharply.
"'From London,' replies the guard, already scrambling back to his seat; 'All right, ain't it?'
"'All right.'
"Whereupon the coach plunges on again into the dusk; the man shoulders my box as though it were a feather; and the woman who looks strangely gaunt and grey by this uncertain light, seizes me by the wrist and strides away towards the house at a pace that my cramped and weary limbs can scarcely accomplish.
"Sick and bewildered, I am hurried into a cheerful room where the table is spread as if for tea and supper, and a delicious perfume of coffee and fresh flowers fills the air; and—and, all at once even in the moment when I am first observing them, these sights and scents grow all confused and sink away together, and I remember nothing ... when I recover, I find myself laid upon a sofa, with my cloak and bonnet off, my eyes and mouth full of Eau de Cologne, and my hands smarting under a volley of slaps, administered by a ruddy young woman on one side, and by the same gaunt person who brought me in from the coach on the other. Seeing me look up, they both desist; and the latter, drawing back a step or two, as if to observe me to greater advantage, puts on an immense pair of heavy gold spectacles, stares steadily for some seconds, and and at length says:
"'What did you mean by that now?'
"Unprepared for so abrupt a question, I lie as if fascinated by her bright grey eyes, and cannot utter a syllable.
"'Are you better?'
"Still silent, I bow my head feebly, and keep looking at her.
"'Hey now. Am I a basilisk? Are you dumb, child?'
"Wondering why she speaks to me thus, and being, moreover, so very weak and tired, what can I do, but try in vain to answer, and failing in the effort, burst into tears again? Hereupon she frowns, pulls off her glasses, shakes her head angrily, and, saying: 'That's done to aggravate me, I know it is,' stalks away to the window, and stands there grimly, looking out upon the night. The younger woman, with a world of kindness in her rosy face ... whispers me not to cry.
"'That child's hungry,' says the other coming suddenly back. 'That's what's the matter with her. She's hungry, I know she is, and I won't be contradicted. Do you hear me, Jane?—I won't be contradicted.'
"'Indeed, ma'am, I think she is hungry, and tired too, poor little thing.'
"'Tired and hungry!... Mercy alive, then why don't she eat? Here's food enough for a dozen people. Child, what will you have? Ham, cold chicken pie, bread, butter, cheese, tea, coffee, ale?'
" ... Everything tastes delicious; and not even the sight of the gaunt housekeeper ... has power to spoil my enjoyment.
"For she is the housekeeper, beyond a doubt. Those heavy gold spectacles, that sad-coloured gown, that cap with its plain close bordering can belong to no one but a housekeeper. Wondering within myself that she should be so disagreeable; then where my aunt herself can be; why she has not yet come to welcome me; how she will receive me when she does come; and whether I shall have presence of mind enough to remember all the curtseys I have been drilled to make, and all the speeches I have been taught to say, I find myself eating as though nothing at all had been the matter with me, and even staring now and then quite confidently at my opposite neighbour.... Left alone now with the sleeping dogs and the housekeeper—who looks as if she never slept in her life—I find the evening wearisome. Observing too that she continues to look at me in the same grim imperturbable way, and seeing no books anywhere about, it occurs to me that a little conversation would perhaps be acceptable, and that, as I am her mistress's niece, it is my place to speak first.
"'If you please, ma'am,' I begin after a long hesitation.
"'Hey?'
"Somewhat disconcerted by the sharpness and suddenness of this interruption, I pause, and take some moments to recover myself.
"'If you please, ma'am, when am I to see my aunt?'
"'My aunt, if you please, ma'am?'
"'Mercy alive! and pray who do you suppose I am?'
"'You, ma'am,' I falter, with a vague uneasiness impossible to describe; 'are you not the housekeeper?'
"To say that she glares vacantly at me from behind her spectacles, loses her very power of speech, and grows all at once quite stiff and rigid in her chair, is to convey but a faint picture of the amazement with which she receives this observation.
"'I,' she gasps at length, 'I! Gracious me, child, I am your aunt.' I feel my countenance become an utter blank. I am conscious of turning red and white, hot and cold, all in one moment. My ears tingle; my heart sinks within me; I can neither speak nor think. A dreadful silence follows, and in the midst of this silence my aunt, without any kind of warning, bursts into a grim laugh, and says:
"'Barbara, come and kiss me.'
"I could have kissed a kangaroo just then, in the intensity of my relief; and so getting up quite readily, touch her gaunt cheek with my childish lips, and look the gratitude I dare not speak. To my surprise she draws me closer to her knee, passes one hand idly through my hair, looks not unkindly, into my wondering eyes, and murmurs more to herself than me, the name of 'Barbara.'
"This gentle mood is, however, soon dismissed, and as if ashamed of having indulged it, she pushes me away, frowns, shakes her head, and says quite angrily:
"'Nonsense, child, nonsense. It's time you went to bed.'"
[Next morning at breakfast.]
"'Your name,' said my aunt, with a little off-hand nod, 'is Bab. Remember that.'" ... [Mrs. Sandyshaft asks her great niece why she took her for the housekeeper; the child hesitates, and at last owns that it was because of her dress.]
... "'Too shabby?'
"'N—no, ma'am, not shabby; but....'
"'But what? You must learn to speak out, Bab. I hate people who hesitate.'
"'But Papa said you were so rich, and....'
"'Ah! He said I was rich did he? Rich! Oho! And what more, Bab? What more? Rich indeed! Come, you must tell me. What else did he say when he told you I was rich?'
"'N—nothing more, ma'am,' I replied, startled and confused by her sudden vehemence. 'Indeed nothing more.'
"'Bab!' said my aunt bringing her hand down so heavily upon the table that the cups and saucers rang again, 'Bab, that's false. If he told you I was rich, he told you how to get my money by-and-by. He told you to cringe and fawn, and worm yourself into my favour, to profit by my death, to be a liar, a flatterer, and a beggar, and why? Because I am rich. Oh yes, because I am rich.'
"I sat as if stricken into stone, but half comprehending what she meant, and unable to answer a syllable.
"'Rich indeed!' she went on, excited more and more by her own words and stalking to and fro between the window and the table, like one possessed. 'Aha! we shall see, we shall see. Listen to me, child. I shall leave you nothing—not a farthing. Never expect it—never hope for it. If you are good and true, and I like you, I shall be a friend to you while I live; but if you are mean and false, and tell me lies, I shall despise you. Do you hear? I shall despise you, send you home, never speak to you, or look at you again. Either way, you will get nothing by my death. Nothing—nothing!'
"My heart swelled within me—I shook from head to foot. I tried to speak and the words seemed to choke me.
"'I don't want it,' I cried passionately. 'I—I am not mean. I have told no lies—not one.'
"My aunt stopped short, and looked sternly down upon me, as if she would read my very soul.
"'Bab,' said she, 'do you mean to tell me that your father said nothing to you about why I may have asked you here, or what might come of it? Nothing? Not a word?'
"'He said it might be for my good—he told Miss Whymper to make me curtsey and walk better, and come into a room properly; he said he wished me to please you. That was all. He never spoke of money, or of dying, or of telling lies—never.'
"'Well then,' retorted my aunt, sharply, 'he meant it.'
"Flushed and trembling in my childish anger, I sprang from my chair and stood before her, face to face.
"'He did not mean it,' I cried. 'How dare you speak so of Papa? How dare....'
"I could say no more, but, terrified at my own impetuosity, faltered, covered my face with both hands, and burst into an agony of sobs.
"'Bab,' said my aunt, in an altered voice, 'little Bab,' and took me all at once in her two arms, and kissed me on the forehead.
"My anger was gone in a moment. Something in her tone, in her kiss, in my own heart, called up a quick response; and nestling close in her embrace, I wept passionately. Then she sat down, drew me on her knee, smoothed my hair with her hand, and comforted me as if I had been a little baby.
"'So brave,' said she, 'so proud, so honest. Come, little Bab, you and I must be friends.'
"And we were friends from that minute; for from that minute a mutual confidence and love sprang up between us. Too deeply moved to answer her in words, I only clung the closer, and tried to still my sobs. She understood me.
"'Come,' said she, after a few seconds of silence, 'let's go and see the pigs.'"
The sketch of Hilda Churchill is very good, and so is that of the Grand Duke of Zollenstrasse. Taken as a whole, if we leave out the concluding chapters, "Barbara's History" is a stirring, original, and very amusing book, full of historical and topographical information, written in terse and excellent English, and very rich in colour—the people in it are so wonderfully alive.
"Lord Brackenbury" is very clever and full of pictures, but it lacks the brightness and the originality of "Barbara's History." Amelia B. Edwards wrote several other novels—"Half a Million of Money," "Miss Carew," "Debenham's Vow," &c. &c. She also published a collection of short tales—"Monsieur Maurice," etc.—and a book of ballads. Born in 1831, she began to write at a time when sensational stories were in fashion, and produced a number of exciting stories—"The Four-fifteen Express," "The Tragedy in the Bardello Palace," "The Patagonian Brothers"—all extremely popular; though, when we read them now, they seem wanting in the insight into human nature so remarkably shown in some of her novels.
She was a distinguished Egyptologist, and the foundation in 1883 of the Egypt Exploration Fund was largely due to her efforts; she became one of the secretaries to this enterprise, and wrote a good deal on Egyptian subjects for European and American periodicals. She wrote and illustrated some interesting travel books, especially her delightful "A Thousand Miles up the Nile," and an account of her travels in 1872 among the—at that time—rarely visited Dolomites. The latter is called "Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys:" it is interesting, but not so bright as the Nile book.
When one considers that a large part of her output involved constant and laborious research—that for the purposes of many of the books she had to take long and fatiguing journeys—the amount of good work she accomplished is very remarkable; the more so, because she was not only a writer, but an active promoter of some of the public movements of her time. She was a member of the Biblical Archæological Society—a member, too, of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Literature. Then she entered into the woman's question, not so popular in those days as it is in these, and was vice-president of a Society for promoting Women's Suffrage.
It is difficult to understand how in so busy and varied a life she could have found sufficient leisure for writing fiction; but she had a very large mental grasp, and probably as large a power of concentration. Remembering that she was an omnivorous reader, a careful student, possessed too of an excellent memory, we need not wonder at the fulness and richness of her books.
t is hardly necessary to state that this beautiful and charming woman was the second daughter of Thomas Sheridan and grand-daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, of Regency renown. She was one of three sisters famous for beauty and brains, the eldest of whom married Lord Dufferin, and the youngest Lord Seymour, afterwards Duke of Somerset.
Born in the first decade of the present century, she married at nineteen, in 1827, George Norton, brother of the third Lord Grantley—a union which proved most unhappy. In 1836 Mr. Norton sought for a divorce, in an action which entirely failed. Nevertheless, Norton remained irreconcilable, and availed himself of all the powers which the law then lent to a vindictive husband, claiming the proceeds of his wife's literary work, and interfering between her and her children. But it is with Mrs. Norton as a writer rather than as a woman that we are concerned, and it is useless now to dwell upon the story of her wrongs and struggles.
Previous to this unfortunate suit she produced, in 1829, "The Story of Rosalie, with other Poems," which seems to have been her first published work. This was well received and much admired.
In 1830 "The Undying One," a poem on the Wandering Jew, was brought out, followed in 1840 by "The Dream and other Poems." This was highly praised in the Quarterly Review by Lockhart, who spoke of her as "the Byron of poetesses." Other poems from her pen touched on questions of social interest: "A Voice from the Factories" and "The Child of the Islands," a poem on the social condition of the English people. She also printed "English Laws for Women in the Nineteenth Century," and published much of it in pamphlets on Lord Cranworth's Divorce Bill of this year (1853), thus assisting in the amelioration of the laws relating to the custody of children, and the protection of married women's earnings.
Her natural tendency was towards poetry, and the first five books published by her were all in verse. In 1851 appeared a novel, in three volumes, called "Stuart of Dunleath," which was succeeded by "Lost and Saved" and "Old Sir Douglas."
It is curious to observe the depth and width of the gulf which yawns between the novel of 1851 and the novel of to-day.
The latter opens with some brief sentence spoken by one of the characters, or a short dialogue between two or three of them, followed by a rapid sketch of their position or an equally brief picture of the scene in which the action of the piece is laid. The reader is plunged at once into the drama, and left to guess the parts allotted by the author to his puppets.
Forty-five years ago, when Mrs. Norton wrote "Stuart of Dunleath," the reader had to pass through a wide porch and many long passages before he reached the inner chambers of the story. An account of the hero and heroine's families, even to the third and fourth generation, was indispensable, and the minutest particulars of their respective abodes and surroundings were carefully detailed. The tale travelled by easy stages, with many a pause where byways brought additional wayfarers to join the throng of those already travelling through the pages; while each and all, regardless of proportion, were described with equal fulness whatever their degree of importance.
These are the characteristics of Mrs. Norton's novels, which stretch in a leisurely fashion to something like two hundred thousand words. Nevertheless, "Stuart of Dunleath" shows great ability and knowledge of the world. It is evidently written by a well-read, cultivated, and refined woman, with warm feelings and strong religious convictions. The descriptions are excellent, the language is easy and graceful.
The scene of the story lies chiefly in Scotland, and the Scotch characters are very well drawn, save one, Lady Macfarren, who is inhumanly hard. This, too, is one of the peculiarities of the forty or forty-five year old novel; its people are terribly consistent in good or evil. The dignity, the high-mindedness, the angelic purity of the heroine is insupportable, and the stainless honour, the stern resistance to temptation, the defiance of tyrannical wrongdoers, makes the hero quite as bad.
In "Stuart of Dunleath," however, the hero is decidedly weak. He is the guardian of Eleanor Raymond, the heroine, and, seeing a probability of making a large profit by a speculative loan, risks her money, hoping to obtain the means to buy back his estate without diminishing her fortune. The speculation fails. Eleanor is reduced to poverty, and Stuart is supposed to drown himself. Then the impoverished heroine, who is desperately in love with her guardian, is compelled to marry a wealthy baronet, Sir Stephen Penrhyn. This is the beginning of troubles, and very bad troubles they are, continuing steadily through two-thirds of the book.
Sir Stephen is a brutally bad husband, is shamelessly unfaithful, personally violent, breaks his wife's arm, and makes her life a burden. Her little twin sons are drowned in a boating accident, and then Stuart returns from the grave, having been stopped in his attempt to drown himself by a picturesque old clergyman, and started off to America, where he manages to recover the lost fortune.
By his advice, Eleanor leaves her tyrant and takes steps to obtain a divorce, but before the case is ready for hearing is seized with scruples and gives up the attempt, chiefly because she fears she is influenced by an unholy love for Stuart. Finally she gets leave of absence from her amiable spouse, and dies of a broken heart before it expires, Stuart having married her dearest friend, the brilliant Lady Margaret Fordyce, thinking that Eleanor had no real affection for him.
The scruples are much to her credit, of course, but she might have tried to save the remainder of her life from the degradation which must have been the result of a reunion with her husband, yet kept aloof from Stuart without offending God or breaking any sacred law.
Eighteen very distinct characters figure in these pages, and three or four children. Of these the best drawn are those most lightly sketched. The author's favourites are too much described, their merits, their peculiarities, their faults (if allowed to have any) are detailed as the writer sees them. But they do not act and live and develop themselves to the reader, and, therefore, become abstractions, not living entities.
"Lost and Saved," written some dozen of years afterward, has much the same qualities as "Stuart of Dunleath." The subsidiary characters are more convincing than the leading ladies and gentlemen. The hero, if such a man could be so termed, with his extreme selfishness, his surface amiability, his infirmity of purpose and utter faithlessness, is well drawn. There is a respectable hero also, but we do not see much of him, which is not to be regretted, as he is an intolerable prig.
In this romance the heroine elopes with Treherne, the villainous hero. (Of course, there are the usual family objections to their wedding.) They intend to go to Trieste, but in the confusion of a night march they get on board the wrong steamer, and find themselves at Alexandria. Here Treherne is confronted with his aunt, the magnificent Marchioness of Updown. He is therefore obliged to suppress Beatrice (the heroine) until the Marchioness "moves on."
They consequently set off on a voyage up the Nile, apparently in search of a clergyman to marry them. It seems, by the way, a curious sort of hunting-ground in which to track an English parson. Then Beatrice falls dangerously ill, and nothing will save her save a parson and the marriage service. A benevolent and sympathetic young doctor is good enough to simulate a British chaplain, and the knot is tied to the complete satisfaction of Beatrice. Much misery ensues.
It must be added that the magnificent Marchioness of Updown is an extraordinary picture. Besides being a peeress by marriage, she is the daughter of an earl, an aristocrat born and bred. Yet her vulgarity is amazing. Her stupid ill-nature, her ignorance, her speech and manner, suggest the idea of a small shopkeeper in a shabby street.
In this novel Mrs. Norton portrays the whited-sepulchre sort of woman very clearly in Milly, Lady Nesdale, who is admired and petted by Society, always smiling, well tempered, well dressed, careful to observe les bienséances, making herself pleasant even to her husband; while, screened by this fair seeming, she tastes of a variety of forbidden fruit, one mouthful of which would be enough to consign a less astute woman to social death. This class of character figures largely in present day novels, but few equal, none surpass, Mrs. Norton's masterly touch.
"Old Sir Douglas," her last novel, was published in Macmillan's Magazine, 1867. It is planned on the same lines as her previous works of fiction—the plot rather complicated, the characters extremely numerous; among these is an almost abnormally wicked woman who works endless mischief.
It was, however, as a poetess that Mrs. Norton was chiefly known. Her verse was graceful and harmonious, but more emotional than intellectual. Wrath at injustice and cruelty stirred the depths of her soul; her heart was keenly alive to the social evils around her and she longed passionately for power to redress them. The effect of her own wrongs and sufferings was to quicken her ardour to help her fellow women smarting under English law as it at that time existed. What that law then permitted is best exemplified by her own experience. When the legal proceedings between her and her husband were over, and her innocence of the charges brought against her was fully established, she was allowed to see her children only once for the space of half an hour in the presence of two witnesses chosen by Mr. Norton, though this state of things was afterwards ameliorated by the Infant Custody Act, which allowed some little further restricted intercourse.
But these evil times are past. Indeed, it seems hard to believe that barely fifty years separates the barbarous injustice of that period from the decent amenities of this, as regards the respective rights of husbands and wives.
Mrs. Norton's second poem of importance, "The Undying One," is founded on the legend of the Wandering Jew, a subject always attractive to the poetic imagination. It contains many charming lines, and touches on an immense variety of topics, wandering, like its hero, over many lands. The sufferings of isolation are vividly depicted, and isolation must, of necessity, be the curse of endless life in this world.