LADY'S HOLM.* UNHEALTHY sensationalism, overstrained sentimentality, and pictures only too
vivid of life as it exists under circumstances which form anything but pleasurable or profitable subjects of contemplation, being unfortunately the stock-in-trade of the greater number of modern novelists, the writer who ignores this sort of thing, and draws his inspiration from purer sources, would be for this reason alone deserving of commendation. Miss Walker, however, can claim something moreā¢ than such negative praise, for while there is a great purity and freshness about what she writes she has also considerable power of drawing character, and of making it harmonise with its surroundings. We feel that her people are at home where she has placed them, and that she understands them thoroughly, so that it is a matter of necessity in most instances that they should act as they do. There is nothing strained about them, they are in their distinct individu- alities perfectly natural and true to themselves. In fact, we are inclined to forget that we are reading a story, and think of the personages as real entities, into whose minds we have been allowed an insight, and who present us with a curious psychological study. It is possible, indeed, that some may consider that this speciality is carried a little too far ; but for ourselves, we do not think so, especially as Miss Walker has much artistic and poetic feeling, and manages, even in her incidental sketches, to introduce us to much that is beautiful.
Mary Langford, as a child, is really charming, and nothing can be prettier than the opening scene of the book, where the little maiden, standing at her favourite postāthe five-barred gate which so persistently refuses to permit her to rush down the delicious, violet-scented, green laneāand looking out for she knows not what impossible visitor, actually sees a vision of de- light in the shape of a fine chestnut horse, a beautiful, big, black-and- tan dog, and a man who positively intends effecting an entrance into Aunt Maynard's carefully-guarded domain. For little Mary has been brought up by her dead- mother's maiden sister, a lady who always seems to the child to be terribly old, and is, at any rate, wholly wanting in the sympathetic power which might have won her young affections. Having but slender means and not a small share of pride, she has also kept herself aloof from all those who might have enlivened her solitude, and yet, like most other self-restrained people, Miss Maynard has warm feelings, although she never cares to show them, and the unconscious Mary is in reality very dear to her. The description of the child's loneliness of heart, of her profound conviction that she is tiresome and ill- behaved, a creature merely tolerated, and of no use or pleasure to any one, is one of Miss Walker's very best efforts, and there is some- thing truly pathetic in Mary's uncomprehended need of tenderness. So much has she been kept in repression, that she actually fears to offer a little gift to the woman who has cared for and protected her during all her little life, while she expands, and becomes her frank, joyous, loving self, from the moment she has seen the smile and felt the caress of "Uncle Stephen."
The precise, unchangeable regime of the cottage, the strict but not unkindly discipline which seems so natural to Mary that no thought of rebellion ever enters her head, but only just a tinge of -sadness that such should be her destiny, that so far as she can see
ā¢ Lady' a .17olm. By Annie L. Walker. 3 vols. London: Samuel Tinsley and Co.
there is no future to open out before her, but only Sally, the old servant, and Aunt Maynard, and the dull routine of lessons in needlework and solitary play, until she herself shall be, perhaps, a grave, sad woman too, is all very well drawn, but is only a pre- lude to the time when brighter days come, and the last of the May- nards having passed away, an unrecognised, unappreciated heroine, because she has so sedulously crushed all feeling as to have made its very existence to herself a thing of the past, and to others an idea impossible to connect with her grave and cold-seeming presence, the girl of fourteen finds herself among the genial influences of quite another sphere, and the pet of the house- hold at Lady's Holm. Here, again, Miss Walker is happy in her subject, and she manages very well what she has undertaken to describe, the intimate, friendly relations which have subsisted for centuries between the Squire of Carysford and his yeoman neighbour, with the punctiliously exaggerated avoid- ance of equality which Mr. Langford, in spite of his culture, his property, and his descent from a long line of honourable ancestors, persists in maintaining towards the lord of the manor and his family. Lady's Holm, with its deep, stone-canopied porch, its sharply pointed gables and oriel windows, its glorious fish-pond, its mellow-tinted farm-buildings, its bright flowers and formally clipped evergreens, with the beautiful, park-like "ley," and its venerable oaks and thorns, which has been the home of successive Langfords since the days when its former monastic inhabitants were driven from its shelter, is a charming picture, over which the author lingers with artistic tenderness; and its loveliness contrasts well with the common-place splendour of the Georgian Carysford, the building of which has been the cause of the all but ruin of the ambitious squire of the time of the first of the Hanoverian Sovereigns. In the two sons of the house, old Aunt Hilda, and Millicent Lyndon, the squire's ward, Miss Walker gives us some very good portraits, and contrives not unsuccessfully to carry on two simultaneous love-stories, each of which ends happily, although both for a long time seem suffi- ciently unpromising. We must confess that we decidedly prefer that of Frank and Mary, the former being a capital specimen of English boyhood when first introduced to us, and developing into just the thoroughly good, manly fellow upon whom such a girl should bestow her affections. His friend Manners, whose pride keeps him so long apart from Millicent, is less clearly drawn, but he contrives very speedily to attach to himself the impulsive girl who has become, under Mrs. Ryan's tuition, so very nearly perfect. The taming of the conceited and haughty little heiress proceeds with considerable rapidity, from the time when she is allowed to discover that her grandfather was a blacksmith ; and as there is a really noble character to work upon, the motherly governess is able by degrees to effect a singular change in her pupil, which change we are allowed to watch with some amusement as it goes on. All this time, however, a very much more romantic affair, involving two or three tragic episodes, has been taking place, as it were, behind the scenes ; and in this Arthur Carysford, the eldest son of the squire, plays a principal part. Handsome, reckless, and selfish, consistently and absolutely self-loving, he contrives, during his short lifetime, without being intentionally wicked, to do, as such people can, an immense deal of mischief, and the mystery in which he is involved is fairly worked out, the denouement being well led up to by the picture- scene.
It shows a great want of invention, however, that two ladies should have their arms broken in the course of one novel, and we wonder that Miss Walker did not perceive and rectifysuch a blunder. But it must be confessed that imagination is not this lady's strong point. Her gipsies, her foundling, her charmed ring, the corpse found by the pool, the De Valdry story, and the villain Crawley, are but pink reproductions of a hundred melodramas, nicely handled, we may admit, but wearisome from their familiarity ; ānotwithstanding which criticism, Miss Walker's novel will be found well worth reading by all who can enjoy picturesque description and good incisive delineation of character.
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