CLARA LEVESQUE.*
Mn. GILBERT can do better work than this. Of course, if his object has been to show what kind of novel we might expect at the hands of a feeble-minded, vain woman,—if, with strong contempt for "the millionth woman in a superfluous herd," he wishes us to know what we might expect at her hands if she take to writing, why, then, perhaps we ought to congratulate him on his success ; only then, however amusing as a psychological study, no one not interested in mental anatomy wants to read a book of that kind. In fact, we should all infinitely prefer knowing how any phase of life looked from Mr. Gilbert's own point of view than from Clara Levesque's. For the reader must understand that the story before us is the imagi- nary autobiography of that lady, who first proposes writing a sensation novel, and for that purpose purchases "a ream of ruled paper, a gross of steel pens, and a quire of blotting-paper," but relinquishes the idea upon discovering that she has no inventive faculty, and turns her attention for a time to visiting workhouses. While so employed, a little incident occurs in the death of one of the female paupers, and the examination of a box, containing the few " memories " which remained to her. Clara Levesque discovers from these that the woman was no other than a favourite nursemaid in her father's household, of whom she had lost sight for many years, and placing the few mementoes of the woman's happier years beside some of her own—the broken garnet brooch by a beautiful diamond one, &c.—she determines to trace out the history of their joint lives, observing, "I argued, apart from the comparison which might be drawn between the lives of the rich and poor, the idea of taking the separate subjects of my narrative from the ' memories ' we had both of us preserved of different episodes in our lives, had in it something original, at least I did not remember any work of a similar description." Then the astonishing amount of blotting-paper, pens, &c., is exhumed from its hiding-place, and the story is commenced in earnest. Fortunately for us, the novel is not really written by a person of the mental calibre here indicated, and the book owes such interest as it possesses to the fact that the author cannot always act his part. Under the mask he has chosen, he yet gives us such a history of the nursemaid's life as his heroine certainly would never have written, and contrives to redeem the thin, vapid, and some- what vulgar nature of the latter from absolute dreariness by the interest he excites in her surroundings. "I was born," says Clara Levesque, "in the month of May, 1811 ;" but that fact is followed by a description of Spitalfields as it was sixty years ago, which will interest most readers. An ancient family residence in Spital Square is not to be looked at without curiosity, especially as the very type of family which dwelt there has passed from among us. The descendants of old Norman families no longer are flourishing silk manufacturers in Bishopsgate. Here and there, amid the poverty of that overcrowded locality, we are struck by a face, a manner, an indescribable something, which tell of an ancient lineage, and a time-honoured, though now poverty-steeped name—let any one who has ever visited the French Hospital in Victoria Park recall the faces he has seen there—but men of Mr. Levesque's exact position are now nowhere found among us, and the description of him is worth a second glance :— * Clara Lereque. By William Gilbert. London : Hurst and Blackest. 1872. "My father was a tall, handsome man, with a fine, open. intelligent countenance. Although the family had remained long enough in England to have lost its French characteristics, my father, with a few others of his more immediate acquaintances, still maintained many. Though hardly beyond the prime of life, he wore powder. He was strictly courteous to all, especially to women. He would address the wife or daughter of one of his weavers, if he met her in the street, with as much respect as he would have used towards the wife or daughter of a nobleman. Like his immediate ancestors, though strictly econo- mical in his housekeeping, and exacting from his weavers and warpers the full amount of work for which he paid them, he was at times liberal
and open-handed in the extreme During my youth we had but few acquaintances, and those principally members of families residing in the neighbourhood; my father choosing, by preference or habit, our associates principally of French descent, especially if of Norman blood. This possibly arose from the fact that he was presi- dent of the Norman Benefit Society, a charitable institution which had been formed among the descendants of the French emigrants from that part of France, and which probably exists even in the present day. I remember the names of several of the members, and their features, though all other things connected with them have long since passed from my memory. There were the Dubosqs, the De Brumonts, the Duchesnes, the Tripconys, the Foucheres, the Pottiers, and many others. At our different children's reunions—and we had them very frequently—my father for some time endeavoured to make us speak French, and we attempted to obey him, but it was impossible. In the joy of our hearts, in spite of our wishes to please him, we were perpetually breaking into English, so that Ending his wish impracticable, he at last gave up the attempt, and we were allowed to do as we liked, without any further interference on his part."
Then we have an account of a school established by the earlier descendants of those French emigrants who, on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, sought and found an asylum in England. This school was for the children of the distressed noblesse et boar- Deoisie of SpiteMelds, and from a foot-note we learn the walls of this school are still standing, and at present enclose a porter vat of Hanbury's brew-house. But one of the " memories" with which this tale is most closely interwoven is an old ball ticket, which recalls to Clara Levesque's mind the days when in her seventeenth year important alterations took place about the im- portation of silk into England, and her father, as one of the lead- ing English manufacturers, but more especially from his per- fect knowledge of French, won the attention of the French Ambassador, who was actively engaged in making the neces- sary negotiations, and finally the quiet household was startled by the receipt of an invitation to a ball to be given at the Embassy. We cannot enter into the probability of that occurrence ; neither that, nor the subsequent history of Clara Levesque, possesses any interest for us. We believe there are men who think a taste for mild intrigue is a woman's birthright, and we conclude our author is of that opinion—the licence of the novelist is tolerably elastic—and we have no pretension to any wide knowledge of the class of French-descended, English-taught women he describes ; but to us it is not very likely that a girl brought up in an atmosphere of simplicity and truthfulness, such as we are led to suppose existed in this girl's home, should submit to a clandestine engagement, and that her lover, a high- born Frenchman, even though a villain, should arrange to carry on a correspondence with her, by giving her a clue whereby to interpret for her own edification words in business letters to her father. There is rather more than a soupcon of unnatural vul- garity and false drawing in the whole character, which would have put it out of the pale of our criticism, but for the history of the nursemaid. It is in her story that the true interest of the book centre's, and we take the reason of this to be that Mr. Gilbert has got out of a region, in which he is seldom at ease, lacking the necessary kind of imaginative faculty, and gives us in Alice Morgan's history a simple sketch such as the records of our own workhouses might easily supply, but which is none the less worth reading on that account. It is just one of those " Studies from Life" the faithfulness of which any one much acquainted with the habits of our English poor can recognise but too easily,— of Alice, the pleasant, comely nursemaid, and John Morgan, the handsome, well-to-do carpenter, with good prospects and few of the cares of more complicated lives before them, till in an evil hour the demon of drink destroys the fair picture altogether. Mr. Gilbert sketches here with no uncertain hand, as most of our readers who are acquainted with his able article on Working Men's Clubs, published in Good Words last year, will readily believe. He has traced with a good deal of ability the efforts made by Alice to rescue her husband from impending ruin. The scene in which she perjures herself to save him from the charge of murder is really fine. (That the verdict could be less than murder does not enter her head.) In a fit of drunken madness Morgan has given his child a kick with his heavy-nailed boot, and the blow proves fatal. Alice determines at the inquest to tell the truth :-
when the sound of violent sobbing reached her, as of some
one in intense grief. Taking off her shoes, she crept stealthily down- stairs to the room in which lay the dead body of her child. The door was partly open, and she looked in. There, prostrate on the ground beside the table, she saw the athletic form of her husband, with his face towards the floor, buried in his hands, weeping bitterly, and praying that God would console and pardon him for the death of his child. There was something terrible in the wretched man's grief, so overwhelming was it. Alice gazed at her husband for a moment, and her heart yearned within her. The pity she felt for him in his distress brought back the intense love she bore him, and she continued to gaze at him till the sight grew too painful for her, and she crept softly back again to her room upstairs. Here she remained in deep thought. endeavouring to regain the resolution she had formed— to tell the whole truth at the inquest. On each occasion when she imagined she had succeeded, her love for her husband again interposed, and she was as irresolute as ever. About mid-day she heard her hus- band leave the house, when she commenced making preparations for the visit of the jury. About two o'clock the jury arrived, accompanied by the doctor, who identified the corpse ; and that over, they returned to the public-house where the inquest was to be held. Alice followed them, and was called as the first witness. When she came forward there was a singular expression on her countenance—one of settled and inflexible determination. Not a tear was to be seen, although
her eyes were red from weeping. The Book was presented to her, and she took it in her hand. The evidence you shall give shall Fe the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, BO help you God.' When she had kissed the book, a momentary tremor passed through her frame—and but momentary. She then gave hack the Bible to the person who had administered the oath, and stood quietly and resolutely, ready to answer the questions that might be put to her. When asked to describe the circumstances attending the child's death, she answered calmly and steadily, but in a peculiarly deep tone of voice. She said that the child, disturbed by his father's return home, had quitted his bed, and was playing about the room with a ball, which bounded on the landing and rolled downstairs. He then rushed out to save it, and his foot slipping, he fell from the top to the bottom of the staircase, where he remained motionless. That she had taken him in her arms and brought him back into her room, and that her husband immediately fetched a doctor. She answered several other questions concerning the death of the child, equally steadily and collectedly. One of the jurymen then asked if she had the ball. She had anticipated the question, and withdrawing it from her pocket, placed it on the table. The jury appeared satisfied, and she again took up the ball, and was preparing to leave the room, when one of the jury- men asked her if her husband had been habitually kind to her and the child. She was on the point of replying in the affirmative, when a singular sensation came over her, and she was unable to utter a word. To use her own phraseology, she felt as if the finger of an angel were pressed upon her lips, and had deprived her of the power of speech. In vain did she attempt to answer the question—not a sound could ehe utter."
That is precisely as the woman would have told the story, her over-wrought nerves would instantly have interpreted the hysterical affection as a mysterious, if not supernatural, conse- quence of the lie she had told, and it would probably have affected her after life precisely as Mr. Gilbert makes it do. Her love for her husband ever after fails in the completeness which alone could have saved him from himself. She had exhausted her nature in the one effort to spare him the consequences of his act. She was incapable of the final touch of tenderness which might have bought the man's soul of him, and made another future for them both. Perhaps a nature high enough for that could not have uttered the lie. It would be hard to say. As it was, the woman's coldness to the man whose life she had saved at the risk (as she believed) of her own soul was never overcome ; their lives drifted apart, till the one found a drunkard's, the other a pauper's death. The picture is a sad one, and Mr. Gilbert has not softened any of the colours of it, knowing how true and how common a one it is. We wish there were a better chance of its aiding him in his efforts to remedy the evil which is the canker-worm of the happiness of so large a portion of our population. But not even for the effect to be produced by such a picture as this, will any- one voluntarily undertake to wade through a three-volume story more than half of which is below mediocrity.
Previous page
