thought Maitre 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 Maitre 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 Maitre 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
Maitre 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."
"Maitre 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 Maitre 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." Angelique again, in "Clement'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?'
"'Hey? What? Who?'
"'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 Archaeological 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.
[Signature: Katherine S. Macquoid]
MRS. NORTON
_By_ MRS. ALEXANDER
MRS. NORTON
It 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.