SIR FREDERICK DERV/ENT. *
Tun two previous fictions of this writer have been distinguished for strong but coarse pictures of rural life and character, very na- tural and true, but verging upon the unpleasant. The story was so singular as to stand alone, representative as it were of nothing, but accompanied by more general pictures of life though unconnected with the main events.
These faults are softened in Sir Frederick Derwent without being altogether removed. The strong point of the Writer—hard, untutored, selfish, rustic nature, in its most churlish and some alight say in an exaggerated if not in an exceptional form—is pre- sent in this novel; but it is not brought so prominently before the reader, nor so frequently met with in the action. The greater part of this story introduces the reader to common country life in the West of England, with such characters as a village, a small watering-place, a country-town and its neighbourhood, can supply, occupied for the most part with their own small objects. These persons are consistently designed and accurately painted ; but some of them are perhaps rather conceptions than personifications. They want the visible form, the flesh and blood personality, of the lower actors. The churlish animal farmer IZoger Pemberton, and his almost equally churlish wife, seem to stand before the reader .as actualities. This can only be said of a. few of the higher persons,—as Mrs. Holcombe's sister Penelope, a spinster approaching a certain age, and aiming at the hand of Sir Frederick Derwent ; or Lady Fortescue, the martial widow of an East India General, who has the same object, but drives at it more openly, like a military operation. Mr. Holcombe, the in- cumbent of Sir Frederick's parish Maydwell, is a capital concep- tion, consistently wrought out, of the gentlemanly, good-tempered, reverend man of the world, doing his duty decorously, and keeping up the social ball, but at bottom without any sense of a clergy- man's real responsibilities, thoroughly selfish in spite of his open pleasantness of manner, and devoid of even a thought of religion beyond the profession. At the same time, we do not seem to know him bodily ; he is rather a dramatis personm than a man.
There is not much of story in the novel, so far as regards inci- dent, movement, or variety of fortune ; yet the outline is some- what complex. Sir Frederick Derwent, a middle-aged bachelor, who has been for many years kept out of the family estate of May-
dwell by the longevity of his uncle's widow, has the daughter of his brother Laura Derwent thrown upon his hands, with her com- panion Clarice Le Sage, a young lady about whom there is a spe- cies of mystery. By his uncle's will, the property in default of heirs-male passes to the family of his wife, who was a Miss Pem- berton. This disposition naturally produces little good-will towards the Pemberton family which is increased to quarrel by the low brutality of Roger Pemberton ; his brother Louis, an excellent, devoted, able yopig clergyman, being innocently in- volved in the bitter dissffiget. The end of the tale is to make up this breach as ilegarcli` Louis, by not only reconciling him to Sir Frederick but...marrying him to Laura, Sir Frede- rick himself carrying off Crarice ; while the story describes the rise and progress of these love affairs, and brings them about. This is done naturally, and pleasantly, but with some lack of novel interest, and of incident till the third volume. There is then enough, but perhaps of an unlikely cast. The mystery of Clarice is that her mother has married a second time to a certain Yerma- loff, a Croatian noble, gambler, and adventurer. The object of this worthy is to sell Clarice to a personage as bad as himself, in order that he may share her fortune ; and it is to avoid his perse- cution that she takes refuge with her friend Laura. Baron Yer- maloff, however, discovers her retreat, endeavours to induce her to return, and quarrels with Sir Frederick on the matter. A duel ensues ; Yermaloff is dangerously wounded; Sir Frederick is per- suaded to go on board a vessel which is lost ; and a distress is produced not only by his supposed death but by Roger Pember- ton taking possession of the property, till, in the height of his vulgar tyranny and extravagance, Sir Frederick returns. The following scene exhibits his downfall. After the duel, Yermaloff has been carried to Pemberton's house, and their common hatred forms a bond between the Baron and the rough farmer ; the Baron cultivating the intimacy for his own purposes, when he finds his Lost has fallen into possession of the Maydwell property. "Roger and Rebecca Pemberton were, for the first time' entertaining com- pany in the long dining-hall, which the social habits of Sir Frederick Ber- went had made the scene of such cordial hospitality. The foreigners, in- deed, came and went without ceremony, making themselves more at home there than the master of the place altogether liked ; but on this occasion, as Yermaloff was on the point of leaving England, they had been invited with greater formality. The massive silver plate, which Mrs. Derwent had left to her own relations, was now placed on the board, with what was an heir- loom in the family. First and last, Roger had acquired all. lie sat in the seat of the liberal-minded Dements, the monarch of all he surveyed.
"lie had learned to pass the Wine freely. His penurious habits were ex- changed for boastful extravagance. The old butler was ordered to have everything arranged as it used to be in his former master's time. There were no discrepancies visible in the appointments of the table at which Re- becca and her spouse presided. "The days when they regaled themselves with bacon and sour cider had long been over. The best wines in Sir Frederick's cellar—a more ostentatious banquet than he would have set before his friends—now covered the board. Roger and Rebecca ate and drank heartily. The lady's brocade dress might have stood on end with its own stiffness. Her stout arms were ornamented with bracelets, and she had also learned to cover the defects in their com- plexion with the best white kid gloves which the shop at Fordington could produce.
• Sir FrideriCk Derwent; a Novel. By the Author of "Fabian's Tower," and "Smugglers and Foresters." In three Volumes. Published by Newby.
"The person on her right hand was the boyish nobleman from Stanmore Park ; on the left sat Baron Yermaloff. The young lord was carving for her, and endeavouring to make himself agreeable. He was quite new to the county, having passed only a few weeks in the neighbourhood the preceding year, before the approach of the cholera drove him from it. Most of his life had been spent on the Continent, where he had learned to ape the vices of older men, and whence he had brought back the manners and principles of the worst description of fashionable foreign society. "This was the first time that he had dined with the Pembertons. He thought them decidedly vulgar ; but they had shown hospitality to his guest when Yermaloff was wounded in the duel ; and he did not know how to refuse their frequent invitations without rudeness. At this moment, while he was complimenting Rebecca on her made dishes, he was resolving never to place himself under the necessity of partaking of them again. "The young Austrian officers, beneath the influence of the quickly circu- lating wines and liqueurs, were talking and laughing gaily. 'This was re- garded as a kind of house-warming ; and, when the cloth was removed, Yer- maloff stood up and drank the health of Roger and Rebecca, the master and mistress of the mansion, wishing them, in return for all the kindness they had shown him, health and strength to enjoy the favours of fortune. "Reynolds left the room precipitately. He could not stay and hear that toast drunk with all the honours. The old man closed his ears, while he remained in the hall, to deaden the sound of the felicitations that pierced through the thick oaken door.
"Roger stood up to return thanks. He meant to propose afterwards the Baron's health, and to wish him a safe journey back to his own country. He was not a man of many words, and he hesitated as most persons who are not accustomed to public speaking are apt to do. Ile looked up the table towards his wife. Rebecca was the bolder spirit, and sat undisturbed by the novel luxuries that surrounded her, bolt upright in her chair ; her gloved hands respectably folded, one under the other, across her broad chest; the lights now burning in the silver candelabra shining on her face. Re- flected in the polished mirror of the brightly rubbed mahogany, Reynolds's peculiar pride, was the costly family plate of the Derwents. Everything that riches could procure, all that could lend assurance and tangibility to his recently-acquired station, was there to give him courage. "Nevertheless, he said only a few words, and stopped. Such a startling sound rent the air, that a better speaker than Roger Pemberton might have been daunted. Pealing over dale and down, yet seemingly touched by in- visible hands, close at his ear rang out from the neighbouring church- tower the long-silent bells of Maydwell. There was but a couple of hun- dred yards' distance between the sacred ivy-mantled building and the man- sion; and that deafening clang, struck up by willing hands, filled loudly, but not discordantly, the old house with its heart-stirring music.
"The blood that seemed usually fixed in his coarse cheek forsook it as Roger Pemberton stood still and listened. Louder and louder the mad re- - velry of the joy-bells pealed over the valley, rose on the summer air, and sank with a dying fall on his ear. His pulses for an instant stopped ; his face turned lividly white. If anybody could have doubted the fact an- nounced by that glad note of welcome, Roger Pemberton's countenance was an index not to be mistaken. No one who looked at him could fail to in- terpret its meaning. He felt, at once and instinctively, that Sir Frederick was himself again ; that the people of Maydwell had got their own master to rule over them. There was hatred, fierce and virulent, as well as glad- ness, in the vehement pealing of the bells. The manly arms that pulled the relies threw the pent-up emotions of the last sorrowful weeks into every nervous effort. It was said, long after, in the village, that the bells had never, before or since, rung such a peal as when the news flew like wildfire through Maydwell street that Sir Frederick had returned.
"If Roger had had the heart to complete his carouse, it would not have been possible. There was not the slightest order in the establishment. The servants rushed wildly about, kissing each other, crying and laughing, and committing all sorts of indecorums. Even Rebecca's self-confidence forsook her."
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