JEAN."*
ABOUT a year and a half ago we noticed in these pages a tale by Mrs. Newman called Too Late, which seemed to us to have a clever plot and well-conceived characters,—plot and,characters all very ill-used, but betraying considerable power. And it is disappointing, therefore, to find that added time and experience have failed to improve our authoress as a writer of fiction. It is sad for readers that novels so seldom combine sense and liveli- ness ; that the sensible women are so anxious to avoid being foolish, that they steer clear of everything that is not common- place and "likely," and make up by indulging in reflections —generally melancholy — on life, and are consequently dull to the last degree. Unfortunately, too, it is this class of ladies that invariably produce three thick volumes ; reflection and common-place having, by some law of nature, a tend- ency to go on,—perhaps because sense feels bound to explain itself, and reflection is necessarily commensurate with the great- ness of the minds or of the object which they represent. When this, say, is " growth from within," who shall limit or measure the reflection of that which is infinite? We can but avert our eyes and pass on quickly, lest in gazing into such depths our weaker senses reel. The lively ladies, on the other hand,—though, for novel-writers they are certainly very preferable, and liveliness is not so long-winded,—are sometimes so very silly that we blush for their folly and ignorance, and feel irritated by their absurdities, and angry with ourselves—or should be, if we were not profes- sional critics—for reading on, and taking a childish interest in the utterly ridiculous adventures and altogether impossible fate of ladies and gentlemen who are as grotesquely unnatural and • Jean. By Mrs. Newman. London : Smith, Elder, and Co.
as " out of drawing " as the figures on a Chinese tea-tray. Jean is, indeed, not so wildly absurd in its incidents as its prede- cessor, but there is far less originality•in its plot, and much less ability in its sketches of character. In both stories there is but one person to admire, and the heroine of this will not compare with the Margaret of Too Late. It is true that, like Margaret, , she is high-principled, but it is the principle of an impulsive, hushing girl, and not of a thoughtful, spiritual woman, warmed into life by love and disciplined by sorrow. But it is Mrs. Newman's fault, and not ours, if this is all that we can say seriously about her new story. If she had carefully pondered our valuable criticism of Too Lose, before writing again, we feel certain she might have done better, especially as there still are some, though fewer, indications of power in her writing, and there is some amelioration of the extravagance of incident.
Jean is an outrageously plain-spoken young lady, with so pre- posterously humble an opinion of herself, that if we were not behind the scenes, we should charge her openly with the grossest mock-modesty ; she is also wonderfully simple-minded and cre- dulous, for a person of exceptionally great mental powers and of a remarkably ready wit. She is impulsive and impressionable, but being anxious to spare her friends all the pain she can, she invariably retires to her own room for the luxury of tears, and being uniformly—by a happy chance for which the present writer has hitherto sighed in vain—an occupant of a bedroom possessing an exceptional advantage, she always conscientiously " double- locks " her door. But her most remarkable quality is that of self-denial, which betrays her into all sorts of quixotic vagaries. Jean is a nameless child, brought up at a school near London, with a prospect of a governess's career, and is, of course, avoided by the pupils, and utterly neglected by the mistress, except in the matter of pocketing the quarterly income, and providing as little in return as possible. Suddenly a gentleman in India writes that she is his daughter, and that he is leaving her a fabulous fortune. A weak-minded aunt immediately sends for her, and two wicked, but fascinating cousins, who had expected to inherit her wealth, beset her with attentions,—the beautiful fiend de- voting herself to obtain an ascendancy over her mind, while the indolent profligate reckons confidently on the possession of her heart and fortune. His sister's fiancé, however, falls in love with her, and she returns his passion, though, of course, they say good-bye, and are true to duty and despair ; but a letter arriving announcing her father's death, she faints, and he, being a great, wise, and self-controlled person, ejaculates "my darling !" amidst a circle of relatives, and persists in calling back his " Jean ! Jean !" to life. But then another letter arrives, the will cannot be found, and the property belongs to the amiable relatives. Maude, the young lady who has lost her lover to Jean, bargains greedily for the pleasure of telling the poor child the sad news, and the weak mother, of course, has to consent. Here is how Maude tells it :-
"Well might Jean shrink back in her seat with a little cry of alarm, when, swift and silent, Maude entered the room, and locked the door behind her. ' Is there anything the matter, Maude ? Why do you look at me like that ? ' Maude stood looking, only looking, at the girl who 'had won his love from her—who had stepped between her and happiness.' But it was enough to make Jean rise nervously from her seat and shrink farther away. 'Are you angry with me ? ' she faltered. For a few moments Maude made no reply, her oyes still fixed upon Jean with that terrible look ; then presently she asked in a low voice, 'If some crawling thing had stung you, and you bad got it under your heel, what should you do ? Crush it, perhaps ; but I should be very sorry to do it, Maude.'—' I should not,' and her eyes so unmistakably hungered to crush, that Jean cowered back again with a low cry. She saw now that her secret was known, and that she must expect no mercy. Maude laughed aloud. Why a viper could not look more afraid.'—' I am not afraid, Maude, only sorry, very, very sorry, that you think me so bad as I see you do.'—'Bad ! is there any word bad enough for a girl who could treacherously take advantage of a friend's absence to spread a net for her lover?'—' I spread no net. I did not know—oh! Maude, do believe it, I did not know he was your lover, and I couldn't help loving him until it was too late. When I let him see it, he told me at once that he was engaged to you.' But it was not that Jean loved him ; what would her love have mattered to Maude if he had not returned it ? She could have watched the heart-breaking process calmly enough in Jean's case. The never-to-be forgiven offence was that he loved her. Do you think I will ever release him ?'—' He does not desire it, and he knows I do not.' Maude chafed at her quiet, hopeless tone. She had expected passionate weeping—all sorts of rhapsodical lamentations ; but what was there to triumph over here?—' You will never persuade me that you did not know.'—' But indeed, indeed, I did not!'—' You will never persuade me.'—' But I shall know it myself, and that will prevent my being as miserable as though I had wronged you intention- ally, Maude. I shall not be entirely without comfort.'—' You are thinking of your father's promise to leave you his money ? '—'No.'—' I say, yes. You are thinking of the power it will give you ; all that you can do with five thousand a year?'—' It would not buy what I care for most. It would not buy my father back for me, or it should be thank- fully given.'—' Very sentimental, but how if it is not yours to give after
all,—if you have neither father nor money?' Fixing her eyes eagerly on the girl's face, she went on : ' What if the will was never signed ? What if your mother was never married to my uncle, and you are illegitimate, and left dependent upon our bounty for your bread ?
Not married !' faintly echoed Jean, every vestige of colour dying out of her face.—' At last ! Yes : one of those women who—'—' Wo are women, Maude.'—' Do not bracket yourself with me.'—' Is that all I've got to know ? whispered Jean.—' Is it not enough ? Can there be any- thing worse than to be branded as one degraded amongst women ? ' —'Yes, yes, yes ! ' Maude stared at her, for the moment utterly dumb- founded, as she went on passionately, 'It would be worse a thousand times to be degraded, and I am not.'—Maude caught her arm, roughly shaking it in her anger and mortification ; she was all the more violent for beginning to feel ashamed of her own violence. She had not meant to go such lengths as this, but then she had imagined the victory would be more easy. She hated the girl all the more for making her lose her self-respect in this way. She must bring her to her knees now at any
cost. Have not you one spark of womanly feeling? Are you proud of being the child of shame ? Oh, Maude, do you like to say such things to me ? ' ejaculated Jean, the tears streaming down her cheeks, utterly unable to comprehend the other's feeling. 'I was so very sorry for yoa.'—' How dare you tell me that ? Sorry for me ! You? whom every one will scorn.'"
After the amiable relatives have sufficiently insulted poor Jean, they find the latest will in an old desk that comes with the nabob's luggage from India. Of course Jean is lawful possessor, but as this is too humiliating, the will is burked and the insults continued. Jean, however, discovered the will first, and her high principle and good-feeling deciding that it would be too cruel to take the property from them after they had thought it their own for a week or two, she resolves to say nothing ; and as she cannot bear to be a burden on them, she runs away and goes to lodge at a very dirty little " goodie " shop in Chelsea, kept by a carpenter's wife. On her way, simple Jean is charged ten shillings for a cab, which is the occasion for a little stroke of humour on Mrs.. Newman's part Ten shillings ! Are you quite sure it's so much ? Haven't you made a mistake ? ' she asked, hesitatingly.—' She's sharper than she looks,' was his mental comment. But he volubly appealed to a group of children hastily gathering about them, whether it was fair to be down upon a man like that after telling him to drive fast? 'Did she think he was going to endanger his horse's life for nothing ? There was the pore beast fit for nere another job that day all along of his trying to please her, and now she was a-trying to do a pore—'—' I did not think of the horse,' said Jean, quite shocked. ' And you ought not to have injured it to please me, ' she added, counting the money into his hand.—' All right, miss ; I'll take particular keer on him for the rest of the day,' returned the man, with a serious face."
And a little further on, when the lodging-keeper's cunning little son returns with the young lady's dinner and the change, we have a droll touch of nature in the lad's hint that he would like to be paid for the errand:- " He gave the basket to his mother, and then placed fivepence on the table before Joan, waited a few moments, rearranged them more symmetrically, which necessitated the leaving one by itself, and stood looking at it. But Jean gathered the whole five up, and put them into her pocket, at which he turned on his heel and went whistling out again."
The adventures of Jean in search of a livelihood are remarkably exceptional ; it is fortunate that both her situations are as "companion," since the instructors of her youth had conspicu- ously failed in the matter of her English grammar. Her first engagement—which would make the ground-work of an amusing farce—is as companion to two elderly ladies living near Hampton Court who are sisters, but have not spoken to each other for forty years ; so they hire a companion to talk to, or rather through whom they may talk at each other, but they fall foul of her also, because she thinks them so exactly alike that she cannot distinguish between them :—
", Alike ! Alike!' repeated both ladies, with what Jean thought sounded very much like anger in their tones. Then went on the lady on her right,—' I do not think any two persons could be more essen- tially dissimilar than are my sister and myself, Miss Bell.'—' 1 cannot understand any one not perceiving the difference ; alike, indeed ! ' from the left, each lady drawing herself up with an indignant air. After a few moments, recommenced the lady on the right,—' I must beg you for the future to recollect that I am Miss Drake, Miss Bell.'—' And be good enough to remember that I infinitely prefer being Miss Barbara,' severely, from the 1(3[1—'1 will do my best, replied Jean, trying to fix upon some mark of difference by which to distinguish one from the other, but failing to detect any."
The sister in power has built a very high wall round the premises, to spite the other, who is fond of country sights ; the effect is prison-like, since even the upper windows cannot scale the wall. A propos of this wall, the sisters, in alternate sentences, tell a tale of two wicked women, which any child would recognise as. being a history, of the narrators ; but simple Jean, of course, can- not believe that they could be so wicked, so, in her enforced character of umpire, she exclaims, in her outspoken way, and re- markably classical English, " Well, I don't know which was the worst, really. They must both have been as wicked as ever they could be, and there is not a pin to choose between them." But though Jean receives her dismissal thereupon, she has, meantime, softened the heart and effected the reformation of Martha, a surly old lady's-maid, who at once goes to plead for her, and states such unpalatable truths to the startled spinsters that one of them goes into a fit ; thereupon the most unexpected burst of natural affection gushes out, and the three old women call each other " Bab " and " Dolly," " and all the old foolish names of their girlhood again," and "sob and cry in each other's arms for joy." But impulsive Jean thought she had caused the fit, so she gets away at a back-door with her portmanteau, and they never find her again, till Martha turns up in the drop- scene. Her next engagement is much more marvellous and much less amusing,—it is with Lady Roughton, who discovers that Jean is her daughter, but does not " let on," as they say in Yorkshire, because her lord was not aware that her love for him had tempted her to commit bigamy. Still she was a most sweet and delicious creature, and anything prettier than the way she pettedher recovered daughter, and nearly choked over the affection she had to conceal, and cried behind her, and kissed her hair, and grew -thinner and whiter and more angelic every day till her daughter ran away—having got into trouble because her step-papa could not help being as unfaithful as her mamma, and falling in love with the daughter also—it would be difficult to conceive. After Jean runs away, her mamma dies, and Jean has an illness, and is nursed by her friends at the sweet-shop, where her gentle influence effects a radical and lasting reform, as it does wherever her fate leads her ; but an advertisement for her from her remorse-stricken aunt revives her, and she presents herself—softly opening the door —just as poor Aunt Maria has got to the word "forgive," in the following touching exclamation Oh, Jean, Jean ! If you could come back, but for one moment, to say you forgive—." Then her lover claims her, for he justly conceives that his Maude has forfeited her right to him by her mendacious advertisements in the Times,—one that they were married, to destroy any hope that Jean might still entertain,—and a second that Jean was dead, to do the same for her lover. But Jean clings, with touching for- givingness, to her unprincipled relatives, and thinks their desire for property natural, and fully atoned for by their advertisement for her ; so she tears the will to pieces—we hope her lover didn't much mind—and the curtain drops.
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