THE BABY'S GRANDMOTHER.* The Baby's Grandmother is in its way
a work of genius. It is too long,—the part at the cathelral town of Clinkton is much. too long,—and we are not made quite to understand, after all, the mingled helplessness and strength of the hero. But it is hardly possible to praise too much the skill and brilliance of the picture of the three figures who make up the interest of the scene at Overton,—the clumsy Earl, his handsome, gay, and yet deficient brother, and the lively and lovely sister who is "the baby's grandmother." Again, the .two figures at Endhill, who are requisite for the purpose of making the heroine into a grand- mother, the priggish Lotta and the formal pedantic Robert, out of the christening of whose baby the incidents of the story spring, are, though not as fascinating, even more amusing. Moreover, the tale itself is extremely skilful, and the way in which the denouement is brought about is as natural as it is certainly unexpected. The only part of the story which drags, is the part at Clinkton, where the gossip of the banker's family, though described with skill, is protracted over a great many more pages than Art requires or indeed can justify.
It was a happy idea to make a young grandmother, who is in everything except years a vast deal younger than her own daughter, the heroine of a story, and to make her so undeniably fascinating that her happiness is at least as dear to the reader as it is to the author of the tale. From the page in which it is told us how Lady Matilda strove to believe that her daughter was an engaging child, all the while knowing that she was trying to impose upon herself, and that the little Lotta, though she might be a compound of virtues and the least troublesome of children, was an insufferable little prig, --who watched for the moment when she ought to take her own * The Baby's Grandmother. By L. B. Walford. London; Blackwood. medicine, who set herself her own tasks as well without the governess's aid as with it, who understood what tucks were to be let out of her frocks, and refrained on principle from tasting unknown puddings at table,—to the page in which Lotta brings about her mother's happiness by declaring in her most formal fashion that she would never again think of taking any notice of Mr. Challoner, Lady Matilda is dear to the reader's heart. Her tenderness, her pride, her spriteliness, her buoyancy, her courage, her loyalty to her brothers, her perfect simplicity, all make her such a heroine as is rare in novels. We prefer her to Miss Austen's best heroine, not, of course, as a picture,—we are not comparing Mrs. Walford to Miss Austen,—but as the subject of a picture ; and we do not know anywhere a much subtler study than that of the two brothers,—the clumsy, humble-minded, almost mute, shrewd Lord Overton, and the lively, hare-brained, deficient brother, who is always . so near the very edge of half-wittedness, and yet who falls into it only when his vanity is so far hurt that he turns sullen, and ceases to lean on his sister for support. Admirable, too, is the picture of Lotta and of her husband, the dull, formal man of whom Lady Matilda says that, as for coqnetting with Robert, "you might almost as well dance round a tomb-stone," and this though into his hands she resigns her daughter with only one fear uppermost, that he should discover her delight in resigning her, and what a domestic difficulty he is taking out of the way, when that incomparable paragon of premature virtue leaves her mother and brothers to themselves. We must say that the conception of these five persons is simply perfect, and that two of them—Lady Matilda.and the clumsy Lord Overton —are painted with singular and unfailing power. What can be more effective, for instance, than the soliloquy of Lady Matilda, after the moonlight skating scene, when Mr. Challoner, to whom she haegiven her heart, and who has given his heart to her, but who is unfortunately, though of course she does not know it, engaged to a banker's daughter with whom he has never been in love, had shown her in every possible way what he was really feeling, and yet had not said what she had fully expected
him to say P— •
"' What am I to think—what am I to think F—Lady Matilda had dismissed her maid, and was musing over her fire ere she went to bed upon the Christmas Eve whereof so much has already been narrated. 'What am I to think P was the refrain of all her puzzled, happy, foolish thoughts. In reality she imagined she knew very well what to think ; but somehow it pleased her to be perplexed and discom- posed, and affectedly vexed, and secretly more charmed with Challoner than ever. Bold, heartless, presuming man—craven caitiff—to dare so much, to stop so short ; villain—coward—by turns she flouted him for this, by turns for that : in very truth she had never thought aught became him better than those extremes of presumption and modesty, those alternations betwixt forwardness and backsliding. She had heard his breathing short and thick, had caught the broken whisper, marked the catch in the throat, and felt the clasp of the hand. She had seen the revulsion, the strugede, the resolution grow- ing apace; and then what the humility of the man doubtless termed the hold regained over his runaway passions, but which she, so superior in her knowledge of all, and contempt of all, scouted as the unwelcome and unnecessary and tiresome and provoking voice of an inward mentor, who ought by this time to have had his mouth stopped.—' Really I can show him no more plainly than I do,' mused she, half sighing, half smiling ; really, my dear Mr. Challoner, it is very pretty to .see you look so lugubrious, and very touching and pathetic to hear your voice tremble and shake, and to watch you force down your throat again the kind words and accents that wilt come up when poor Matilda is by. He is in love— I'd stake every womanly power I have, the man is in love. He does all that he can do, he says all that he can say, short of the thing, the one thing. Opportunities ? He has had hosts of opportunities; he has opportunities at every turn ; this whole evening was one long opportunity. Were we not together, always together, often alone together ? He never left me for above a few minutes at, a time, and then only when I sent him. I sent him for the pleasure of seeing him return. I could not discover so obscure a nook to fly to, but what he would track me instantly and follow ; I could not be tired but he would rest too. And then be held my hand, and kissed it twice. Yes, he kissed it just here, and held the place afterwards. What right had he to hold it and yet not a word, not a single word ? Oh,' with a burst, I like his silence—I love his silence. His silence is more, a thousand times more to me than any other man's speech. He shall be silent, silent as the grave, silent for evermore, if so he pleases, once he has spoken out. Poor man,' mocking, 'poor—dear —blind man. Matilda is too good for you, is she ? Too beautiful, too rich, too highly born ? Oh dear, yes, she is all that., we know very well ; but atop a little, my friend, you will find she is too citrer also. You are not clever, Mr. challoner—not particularly clever, at least; and certainly you are not beautiful, and probably you are not rich. I wonder what you are, or why I— Pshaw ! you shall speak, sir; I say you shall. You have no right now to hold your tongue and hang your head, and put your finger in your mouth like a baby. Baby ? It is I that am the baby to let him play with me thus. He sees, he knows his power, and abuses it. He shall not, he shall not,' excitedly. `I—oh, if I can but preserve this bold heart when I am with him, if I can bat keep a merry heart and tongue, and cheat him with my face. Let me see,—can it be that I have been too soft and yielding ? Perhaps I have. Then how remedy the damage ? Coquet with another ? But there is no one else to coquet with except Robert, and one might as well dance round a tombstone. No, no ; no coquetting. No; I must be all in all to myself and by myself. I will amuse myself, be good friends with myself, and have no need of any one but myself. I will send the gentlemen about their business. It will be fit for them to go out of doors to-morrow ; but it shall be too cold, or too wet, or too early, or too late, or too any- thing, for me. They will have to excuse me. Then I will—shall I have a headache ? But a headache of that kind is missyish and vulgar ; headache is unbecoming, too, and troublesome to manage. So I will be just myself—myself as I am when this wicked Jem Challoner is not by ; a much better self in reality than the self that appears for him,— a silly subdued shadow of the real Matilda. What can he see in her to fancy, I wonder? But these mild soft-eyed impostors, these abominable hypocritical make-believes of men, one never knows what they do not see. Well, Mr. Challoner, you have done so well that you deserve to do better still ; and so, to bed, Matilda, my dear,' gaily saluting the mirror as she passed, Good night, my poor, little, ill-used, tormented, tantalised Matilda,—enter to-morrow morning, her Ladyship.'"
Perhaps that gives hardly a fair picture of Lady Matilda, for she is thinking of herself throughout this passage, and it is her way of throwing herself into the life of others, especially of the brothers to whom she is so warmly attached, that makes her gaiety so fascinating. But if Lady Matilda is admirable, and the .clumsy, mute Earl, who judges so shrewdly and speaks so well on the very few occasions when he takes on himself to speak at all, is admirable too, we caunot say that we are satis- fied with Mr. Challoner, on whose character and want of it, the plot really turns, and who seems to us almost too weak to be so strong, and too strong to be so weak.
The life in the cathedral city is much more superficially pre- sented and the description of it is not near so good; though inferior novelists might have thought.it the strong point of their work ; but perhaps the figure whom Mrs. Walford has sketched in with the most slovenly hand, is Miss Juliet Appleby. On her spitefulness a good deal depends, and yet it is by no means clear why she was so spiteful. There is no pains taken with her character, in spite of the fact that the plot turns in no small degree upon its workings. One can
well understand her jealousy of Lady Matilda, though even that ought to have been more carefully indicated and led up to ; but one cannot well understand her malice against Mr. Ohalloner, for which there is hardly an excuse at all. Yet on what seems something very like vindictive malice against Mr. Challoner, the denouement of the story hangs.
But with all its faults, it is long since we have read so bright and so brilliant a novel as The Baby's Grandmother ; and we will venture to say that there must be something deficient in the mind of any person who does not find it full of humour and vivacity varied by true pathos, and also by distinct traces of tragic power.
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