Part 14

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.

[Signature: Louisa Parr]

JULIA KAVANAGH. AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS

_By_ MRS. MACQUOID

JULIA KAVANAGH. AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS

It 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 "Adele." 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 Provencale. The scenery and surroundings are very lifelike, but, with one exception, the people are less attractive than they are in "Adele." 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 Radegonde, who is to me the most real of Miss Kavanagh's characters. Madame Radegonde 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 Adele is too bright a bit of sunshine to be sacrificed to such a being as William Osborne.

The old chateau in which Adele 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. Adele 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 "Clement'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. Maitre 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 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?'