HATE1ERCOURT RECTORY.*
WE are delighted to welcome this pleasant writer, in her own name, from the mysterious ranks of the noms de plume, but she makes her debut playing—without doubt quite unconsciously—a bold stake, when she compels, in the plot of her story, a comparison, which no one can avoid, between herself and Miss Austen. The points of resemblance between Hathercourt Rectory and Pride and Prejudice are very striking. In each there is a family of five daughters, Who have lived a comparatively secluded life, and to whom enter two young men Of the Upper Ten Thousand,—one of a simple, impulsive, affectionate nature ; the other, reserved, cautious, and somewhat proud. In each story this wise friend steps in and spoils sport, when the eager lover is about to make his proposal ; and in each the spirited second sister takes upon herself to rate the proud marplot soundly for his cruel pride, afterwards falling in love with him herself, captivating him in turn by her courage and sisterly devotion, and ultimately acknowledging her own great injustice, founded in mistake and prejudice. Even in detail there is one notable inci- dent in common to the two stories,—the visit of the spirited sister, with a party of friends, to the grand house of the proud lover, in his supposed absence, when, of course, a meeting takes place. Notwithstanding, however, these remark- able coincidences of thought in Mrs. Molesworth and Miss Austen in the arrangement of their respective plots, there is so little similarity in the method with which they are carried out, and in the genius, power, and style of their respective authoresses, that the similarity of circumstances, as we move along, soon ceases to suggest any comparison, and only excites an amused wonder at the superficial resemblance. We recognise, very early, that Mrs. Molesworth had no thought, in her story, of that of Miss Xusten. There is no attempt at the marvellously vivid pictures of social life—no pretence of humorous writing, though many humorous touches—nothing that looks like a remembrance even of those inimitable prototypes, Mr. and Mrs. Bennett, Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Sir William Lucas, or Lieutenant Wickham. Mrs. Molesworth deals exclusively with quiet people, of the introspective modern type. But if there is not the delightful amusement which Mr. Bennett and Mr. Collins afford, there is at least the great charm of an in- teresting story in which not even the most fastidious can complain of the least trace or shade of vulgarity. We question whether we have ever read a story so perfectly refined, and yet without a touch of either prudery or tameness. There is nothing unique in the machinery of the story, but it is developed with both skill and delicacy, and its interest never flags ; nor anything remarkably original in the conception of the various characters, • Hathereourt Rectory. By Mrs. Molesworth (Ennis Graham). In 3 vols. London; Hunt and Blacken. and yet every one of them is life-like,—there is not a lay figure amongst them.—and all, whether prominent or subsidiary, are drawn with a wonderfully equal and sustained power. Of course our interest centres in Mary—the spirited sister, as we have de- nominated her—who, though as perfect as we could desire her, is by no means a saint, and though frequently taking her- self to task, does not succeed in eradicating very strong and very insufficiently grounded prejudices. Indeed her ability in this line is very slight. All her analyses of motives, and all the introspection which she practices, in common with every con- scientious person since people began to think—for the practice is old enough, though the record of it in novels is of recent date— do not enable her to conquer a very healthy-minded hatred of the man who has quite innocently injured.her sister, and which hatred, by keeping up a lively interest in its object, ends as usual—subversively of all poetical justice—in winning for itself the pleasant substitute of a very deep love. But hatred to her enemy, Mr. Cheviott, and passionate love for her sister are not Mary's only charms (we use the word advisedly) ; her friendship for Alys, (why does Mrs. Molesworth give this nice girl so ugly- looking a name ?) her pity for her hard-worked mother, her care for the little ones at home, and lastly, her sweet tenderness to her sensitive and gentle old father, all claim our admiration. They are none of them overdone ; there is not a touch of gush or senti- mentalism in the book. Mary is a natural, sincere, lovable girl, so that she becomes a real person to us—true test of a genuine book—and we arc indignant and remorseful with her alternately. How completely we feel with her in the following little outburst of pain at being misunderstood, and in the questioning of self that so naturally succeeds !— "'About Captain Beverley—did you hoar anything about him 7' said Lilies, hastily. 'Mary, you aro concealing something from me— ho is going to be married ?'—' No, indeed. I heard nothing of thataort, Lily, I assure you. If I bad, I would have told you about it at once; you know it is not my way to shirk such things—I am rather over- hasty the other way, I fear,' said Mary, with a little sigh. 'And indeed, I think I should almost have been glad to hoar it. It would have been a stab and done with.'—' Mary, you are awfully hard,' said Lilies. Her voice was low and quivering.—' Hard!' repeated Mary, with amaze- ment in her tone. She hard to Lilias ! What fearful injustice—for a moment she felt too staggered to speak—how could Lilies misjudge her so? What a world it must be whore such near friends could make snob mistakes! Had she over so misjudged any one? And by an association of ideas which she herself could not have explained, her mind suddenly reverted to that never-to-be-forgotten scene in the Romary library, and the look on Mr. Chevion's face which she had determined not to recog- nise as one of pain. Was it possible that in the cruel, almost insulting things she had said to him she had been influenced by some uttor mis- judgment of his motives? "' There must have been a mingling of personal feeling and wounded pride, far more than I was conscious of,' she said, regretfully. And now it is too late. I have myself placed a far more hopeless barrier between us by the scornful way I rejected what—what he said to me, what, in- deed, I do not believe ho ever would have said had I not in a way goaded him to it. Oh, yes, I must have been wrong—if only I Gould clearly see how !' She was tee young to have had much oxperlenoe of that terrible longing, that anguish of yearning 'to see how we have been wrong ; too young to understand that, were that cry answered at our entreaty, half our hard battle would be over ; too young to have any but the vaguest conception of the bewildering complication of motive in ourselves, as in others, which at times makes 'right and wrong' seem but meaningless jargon in our oars idle words to be presumptuously discarded with other worn-out childishness. As if our childhood IMO ever over in this world !—as if the existence of eternal truth depended on our understanding of it !” And yet we find her harking back to her first impression with obstinate wilfulness, and asking herself,— " Would it not have been honest to have said a little more, to have told him that, while she really did thank him for his courtesy and thoughtfulness, nothing that had happened had in the least shaken her real opinion of his character ? Of the other side of his character, so she mentally worded it in instinctive self-defence of her constancy. For, indeed, to her there had come to be two Mr. Choviotts,—Alys'a brother, and, alas! Arthur Beverley's cousin !” That the misapprehension between the devoted sisters is only a passing one, the following little strife of love, a few pages further on, will show :— " think Mary bad bettor go,' said Lilies.—' But you see what Mrs. Greville says about preferring you,' suggested Mrs. Western, gently, with some faint, instinctive notion of what was passing in her second daughter's heart.—' Yes, but that's rubbish,' said Lilian, the colour rising slightly in her cheeks. 'Mr. Greville likes us both. It is only that I chatter more than Mary, and like all quiet, indolent men, he likes to be amused with the least possible trouble to himself. Mary is not so amusing, perhaps, because there is generally a large sprinkling of sense in her remarks, and even when, on rare occasions, she mixesit up with nonsense, it is more fatiguing to separate the two than to take it all in comfortably, as pure unadulterated nonsense like mine I"— Yon are certainly giving us a specimen of it just now,' said. Mary, parenthetically. 'But seriously, mamma,' she went on, ' Ithink we should consider what Mrs. Greville says about preferring Lilies. I am speak- ing partly selfishly, for though I should have liked it well enough at smother time, jest now I should not like it at all. It would unsettle me altogether—I have just got all the things I want to do before the summer nicely arranged. Don't be vexed with me or think me very selfish, Lilies,' for her sister was regarding her with an expression she did not quite understand. To her surprise, Lilies, by way of answer, threw her arms round her and hugged her violently. 'Think you selfish ! Mother, just listen to her,' she exclaimed. 'Fancy me think- ing Mary selfish.' Then she hugged her again, and Mary fell there were tears in her eyes. 'Selfish, indeed ! No, but I wouldn't say as much for your truthfulness, you little humbug ! Do you think I don't see through all your unselfish story-tolling ?' she added, in a lower voice.
And when Lilian has left for her visit, we have one of Mrs. Molesworth's many thoughtful, but rather sad reflections on life. Mary wonders,—
" 'If anything will have happened—anything of consequence, I mean—before I see Mary again, six 'weeks or so home.' An idle, childish sort of speculation, but one not without its charm for even the wiser ones among us sometimes, when the prize that would make life so perfect a thing is tantalisingly withheld from us, or, alas! when, in -darker, less hopeful days, there is no break in the clouds about our path, and in the weariness of long-continued gloom, we would almost -cry to Fate itself to help us !—Fate which, in those seasons, we dare not call God, for no way of deliverance that our human judgment can call divine seems open to us. Will nothing happen—something we dare not wish for—to deliver us from the ruggedness of the appointed road from which, in faint-hearted cowardice, we shrink, short-sightedly forgetting that, to the brave and faithful, 'strength as their days' shall be given ?"
We do not quote the scenes between Mary and her deadly enemy, because we are loath to spoil the reading of the story ; but they are very spirited, from the very first quarrel, when he ven- tures to doubt the quality of her education, to the last inter- change of expressions of devotion. Nor will our space allow us to do more than allude to the other equally well drawn characters,— the refined, and sensitive, and sympathetic Mr. Western, so anxious about his children's future, but too timid and indolent to give them any useful aid ; his wife, somewhat cold and reserved, but practical, and kind, and wise ; Lilies, the other heroine, beautiful, and animated, and affectionate, but a trifle self-occu- pied, and taking for granted her position of first importance ; and the children, very slightly touched off, it is true, but always touched off with a master-hand, as who that has read Carrots, and Mrs.
Molesworth's other exquisite stories for and about children, can doubt ? And out of the rectory, there is Mr. Cheviott, chafing and irritable under suspicion, but just, for whom we are very sorry, though we cannot see why he need have kept the reasons for the part he takes such a profound
secret from Mary. There is nothing to explain this,—
the one weak point in the construction of the plot. The gossipy Mrs. Greville is a lady, we all know ; and feeble-minded, fidgetty Mrs. Winstanley also. We have also to thank Mrs. Moles- worth for a most unprecedented piece of kindness in an authoress. For no reason except unwonted thoughtfulness for her readers' feelings, but at the same time without the least straining of the natural action of the story, she brings Arthur and Lilies together
eoon after their enforced long separation, and allows them an
uninterrupted and most satisfactory explanation, which lifts a huge burthen from the reader's heart, and enables him to en- counter with hope and courage all further complications. Why can't authors more generally content themselves with outside difficulties, and not harass us with personal misunderstandings not affecting the fundamental conditions of the story ? Why, for instance, does Mrs. Molesworth herself, with painful incon- sistency, make the other pair of lovers fly to opposite poles, over the different readings of Cheviott's assertion that he was not always "an infatuated fool " ?
There are many beautiful passages of reflection scattered up and down in these pages, showing their authoress to be a woman of thought and cultivation ; and of religious feeling untinged with either narrowness or indifference. And there are descriptions of scenery which reveal a true knowledge and love of nature, and with one of which we shall conclude ; first expressing our regret for what we cannot pass over without remark—that the English is often loose and ungrammatical ; and though the mistakes are common ones, and some of them almost universal and therefore not startling or remarkable, we do not like to find them
in the writings of a lady of such evident cultivation as the authoress of Hathercourt Rectory :— "It was November now, but who that has really lived in the country —lived in it all the year round,' and learnt every change in the seasons, every look of the sky, all the subtle combinations of air, and tight, and colour, and scent which give to out-door life its indescribable variety and unflagging interest, who of such initiated ones does not know how marvellously delicious November can sometimes be ? How tender the clear, thin, yellow tone of the straggling sunbeams, the half-frosty streaks of red on the pale blue-green sky, the haze of ap- proaching winter over all ! How soft, and subdued, and tired the world seems —all the bustle over, ready to fall asleep, but first to whisper gently good-night ! And to fed November to perfection, for after all, this shy autumnal charm is not so much a matter of sight, as of every sense combined, sound and scent and sight together, lapsing into one vague consciousness of harmony and repose—the place of places is a wood. A wood where the light, faint at the best, comes quivering and brokenly through the not yet altogether unclothed branches, where the fragrance of the rich leafy soil mingles with that of the breezes from the not far-distant sea, where the dear rabbits send about in the most unexpected places, and the squirrels are up aloft making arrangements for the winter—oh ! a wood in late autumn has a strange glamour of its own, that comes over me, in spirit, even as I write of it, far, far away from country sights and sounds, further away still from the long-ago days of youth and leisure, and friends to wander with, in the Noveuabers that then were never gloomy."
Previous page
