NEW NOVELS. * TIEBRE is no living writer of fiction who
might not be proud to have produced such a novel as Mu:representation, but there is not one amongst them all who could have written it except Mrs. Drury herself. This is not quite such a truism as it may at first sight appear. Of course there are no two persons in the world who, if they had the self-same story to tell, would tell it in the self-same form and words ; but there are scores of successful novelists, who are artisans rather than artists, who work by pattern, and whose respective workmanship it were as hard to identifyr by any intrinsic marks as that of so many tailors. Mrs. Drury is not one of these ; she is an able and conscientious artist, and therefore her novel is racy of that originality which belongs to every work that is the genuine outcome of an individual mind. The story is singularly well constructed, and it is not a short one, for the two volumes which comprise it contain as much letter-press as three of the ordinary form, but so close is its texture that not a page could be spared. The characters are numerous and distinctly marked, and they talk like men and women, not like puppets, or like a book. The diction throughout is worthy of the matter, never careless or laboured, always suited to the occasion, and leaving on the reader's mind the impression that the author has conveyed her meaning in the best form of words she could have chosen for the purpose. The general tenor of the story is signified in its name, Misrepresentation. It is a tale of long-protracted misery endured by three noble hearts through the machinations of an Iago in petticoats. Lady Adelaide Lyndon, who has escaped from the massacre in Affghanistan in Which her husband perished, seeks in vain to be forgiven by her mother the Countess Delaunay, whom she had incensed by a clandestine marriage with Captain Lyndon. Her cousin Charlotte had urged her to this rash step, had led her to believe that her husband's regiment had been ordered to India through the influence exerted by her mother, and, had conveyed to her in that mother's name a message so insulting to her husband as to sting her into replying by a letter which Lady Delaunay said should be the last she would receive. After the widow's return from India in straitened circumstances, she continued to be the victim of Charlotte's treachery, and led a miserable life in the house of her shallow-brained father-in-law, arming herself with stoic pride against the petty indignities and vexations she hourly endured. Here she was sought out by one whose love for her had been his ten years' torment, for he believed he had suffered a heartless wrong at her hands ; and this again was Charlotte's work. During a long visit of Lady Adelaide's to her uncle, General Con- way, before she had ever seen Captain Lyndon, she had come to regard Maurice Gray, her uncle's secretary, as a very dear friend, and he had become conscious of such feelings towards her as left no safety for his honour but in flight from her presence. When he announced his intention to the General, the latter seemed un- able to comprehend the urgency of the case, and leaving him for a moment, he returned with his niece and heiress Charlotte Conway. "Here Gray," said he, as he brought her in ; "here is one who can advise you the best ; tell her what you have just told me, and let her decide whether you should go or stay." If, as the General imagined, Miss Conway had been the niece alluded to by Maurice, she would certainly, have bid him stay ; but when he spoke of Adelaide, she looked aghast, and urged his immediate departure, hoping for his own sake he had not thought of it too late. That afternoon as he was wandering about the shrubbery endeavouring to cool down his excited brain, he suddenly came upon the two cousins in eager conversation, which broke off abruptly on his appearance. The rest we will let him tell in his own words.
"Miss Conway rose from the bench where they were seated, and met me with a strange smile whose meaning I could not fathom, saying, 'You are just in time, Mr. Gray ; I leave you to hear my cousin's opinion of your self-sacrifice from her own lips.'
"I turned from her as she swept past, to look in that face which had been to me as an angers. That she should have been informed why I was
going, was an unnecessary indiscretion I was quite unprepared for ; but
the secret once betrayed, all that was left for me was to preserve my honour, and neither by word nor look disturb the peace dearer to me than my own. If ever there was an honest, straightforward purpose in a man's heart, it was mine at that moment. To take leave of her as a friend, to receive her approbation, to tell her that, however far asunder, my prayers, my
thoughts, my life-blood, would ever be hers—was sill could hope, or dare to do, and more than I had ventured to expect. But when I looked at her, I was dumb. Scorn, resentment, and wounded pride, had transformed those
brilliant features into the face of a young Medusa ; and Medusa-like, it seemed to turn me to stone. What passed I cannot repeat to you ; in the countless times that that scene has returned to haunt and madden me, I never could reeal her exact words—perhaps.I did not hear them all—but the purport I understood too well. The eyes flashing through angry tears, the flushed cheek, the laugh, by far the worst of all, were interpreters there was no mistaking. She regretted that I thought it necessary to leave on her account ; regretted that she had been, however unconsciously, the means
• Misrepresentation. A Novel. By Anna H. Drury, Author of "Friends and Fortune," Ste. In two volumes. Published by Parker and Son.
Cousin Stella : or, Conflict. By the Author of "Violet Bank and its Inmates." In three volumes. Published by Smith, Elder, and Co. The Dennes of Daundelyonn. By Mrs. Charles J. Proby. In three volumes. Published by Smith, Elder, and Co. of causing me any inconvenience ; if I had known her more intimately, and understood her position a little better, I should have been spared a great deal of trouble and anxiety. This was all said with comparative composure, but when I recovered myself sufficiently to begin some apology or explanation—I hardly know what, for I was half mad—I only remember imploring her to listen to me, and in vain—her indignation burst forth; she flung her hand from mine as I tried to detain her, saying she could endure everything from me but the insult of a profession of regard. After what had passed, / might forget the distance between us, but she could— never !
"And so we parted : and the distance of which she spoke so haughtily, became from that moment an immeasurable thing."
With our knowledge of Charlotte's character we can easily guess, though Maurice could not, what sort of a story she had told her cousin.—Maurice, the coxcomb, was relieving her from his dangerous presence, in pity to her weakness he himself being
heart-whole. No wonder that Lady Adelaide weakness, have felt the deepest indignation. Soon after this scene, Maurice inherited a large fortune, and then his first wish was to put the sea between him and England. "The restlessness growing by what it fed on, I became a wanderer from that day, seeking rest and finding none ; for no change of scene or condi- tion can make me forget. I have thrown myself into danger, tracked it into its dens and strongholds, held my life in my hand, as it were, for months together; but no excitement, no exertion, no reason, no philoso- phy, has been able to efface that image, and drown the echo of that last bitter laugh."
The reader has now had a glimpse of the principal persons in the novel, and of the positions in which they stand towards each other in the beginning. Maurice has sought out Lady Adelaide with a vague desire to repay her scorn for scorn, which quickly changes into what he pretends to himself is another form of revenge, a determination to do all that a man may to effect a reconciliation between her and her mother, and to serve in every way as the friend she so much needs. Lady Adelaide respects him, but after what had happened between them ten years before, he was of all men in the world the last to whom she could bear to be under any obligations. Lady Delaunay's heart bled in- wardly for the loss of her daughter, but never would she forgive her while she remained impenitent and contumacious as she believed her to be. Out of this state of things arises the whole action of the novel, and it may easily be conceived that to make these odds all even was no slight piece of work, with so subtle a contriver as Charlotte to retard its progress.
We are inclined to give the author of Cousin Stella credit for so much original capacity as ought to have preserved her from the great mistake she has made in too palpably imitating lane Eyre. We hope for better things from her in future. The care with which she writes deserves unqualified praise, the more so as it is a merit not very common among lady novelists ; and portions of the novel in which we are allowed to forget Jane and Mr. Rochester are often pleasing and effective. This is especially the case in those scenes in Jamaica in which Cousin Louis, the hero, does not figure too prominently. To lay the venue in the West Indies before the passing of the Act of Emancipation, is we believe quite a new thing in fiction ; and there every good thing is of course all the better for being new. Moreover, a well-defined locality is under any circumstances an excellent element in a story ; it greatly tends to strengthen the reader's sense of reality; and the author of Cousin Stella has managed this matter with much cleverness, making the novelty of her scenes a means of impressing them more distinctly and definitely on the reader's imagination. Her pictures of planter-live and negro-life have the force of direct transcripts, if she would always write thus she would take a high place among contemporary novelists, instead of being in manifest danger of ranking as a mannerist.
The Dennes of Daundelyonn has some of the elements of a good novel, but wants the main one. Mrs. Proby has not yet ac- quired the art of telling a story. She cannot make its parts cohere together with any organic symmetry, but seems to be evermore beginning, leaving off abruptly, and beginning again. Her novel, like the old mansion described by Gray, abounds in "passages that lead to nothing." The passages may be very good things of their kind, but the reader soon grows weary of rambling up and down them to no purpose. The mansion, in fact, consists of little else, and would shrink to the dimensions of a very commonplace cottage if they were taken away. To speak without a metaphor, The Dennes of Daundelyonn might have been out up with ad- vantage into short articles for one of the periodicals, and in that shape its matter might have been attractive enough ; but it was a great mistake to publish it in the form of a three-volume novel without its undergoing a thorough reconstruction.
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