Her last
remaining
daughter, the victim of a horrible spinal dis-
ease, had died some nine or ten months before the Boyces arrived
at Mellor.
ease, had died some nine or ten months before the Boyces arrived
at Mellor.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v26 - Tur to Wat
In this
literary genealogy Mrs. Humphry Ward belongs by taste, sympathy,
and birthright of power. She is one of the few contemporaneous
novel-writers whose work is in a sound tradition, and has enough
of lofty purpose and artistic conscientiousness to call for careful con-
sideration. Had Mrs. Ward failed, she would deserve respect for her
## p. 15642 (#596) ##########################################
15642
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
high aim, in a day when tyros turn off pseudo-fiction as easily as
they do business letters.
Mrs. Ward's first story, Miss Bretherton,' which appeared in
1884, made no great stir; but it was a charming and thoroughly well-
done piece of fiction, revealing marked ability in character study, and
a comprehension of English society. The theme chosen, the slowly
generating love between a brilliant young actress and a middle-aged
man of letters, is developed with delicate idealism, with sympathy
and imagination. The writer of the later and greater novels is fore-
shadowed if not fully confessed in the tale; which in its pleasant
ending, and its absence of definite special pleading, declares itself a
younger book. To some, the fact that “Miss Bretherton' is a straight-
away love story will make it all the better. But to one who under-
stands Mrs. Ward's intellectual and artistic growth, the book will be
seen to be tentative.
By the publication of 'Robert Elsmere) four years later, in 1888,
its writer defined her position and gave a clear idea of her quality.
The book made a deep impression. The fact that it dealt with the
religious problem, tracing in the person of the hero the intellectual
change undergone by a mind open to modern scholarship and thought,
gave it for many the glamour of the dangerous, and no doubt helped
its vogue. It was a story which people took sides for or against, and
fought over. But Robert Elsmere) would never have achieved more
than a critical success if it had been nothing but an able polemic
against orthodox views. It was far more: a vital story full of human
nature, intensely felt, strong in its characterization, and in some of
its scenes finely dramatic,—this last implied in the fact that the
novel was dramatized. Elsmere is not a lay figure to carry a thesis,
but an honest human brother, yearning for the truth. His wife is
an admirable picture of the sweet, strong, restricted conservatism of
a certain type of nature. And Rose and Langham — to mention only
two more personages of the drama are real and attractive creations.
The nobility of intention in this, the first of Mrs. Ward's full-length
social studies depicting the tragedy of the inner life, must be felt by
every receptive reader. The charge of didacticism commonly pre-
ferred against this novel has some justification, though the artistic
impulse was present in large measure,— indeed prevailed in the work.
And in the next book, "The History of David Grieve,' given to
the public after another four years had intervened (1892), the human
elements are broader, the life limned more varied, and hence the
impression that the author has a nut to crack is not so strong. Yet
David's experience, like Robert's, with all its difference of birth, po-
sition, training, and influences, is one of the soul: the evolution of
personal faith may be said to be the main motive of the tale. The
-
## p. 15643 (#597) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15643
art of it is finer, the interpretation of humanity richer. The story is
a sombre one,– Mrs. Ward's work as a whole, and progressively, may
be so described, — but it is far from pessimistic. The teaching is that
men and women may conquer through soul stress; that the world is
an arena for the most momentous of all things,-character training.
Parts of David Grieve' have a convincing fervor and sweep, and
an imaginativeness of conception, which denote the writer's highest
accomplishment. The opening sketches of English country life, as
David and his sister grow up together, and the storm-and-stress phase
of his development, are superbly conceived and carried through.
the Parisian episode particularly, the Bohemianism of the situation,
which in some hands would have been excuse for sensational vul-
garity, is touched with a romantic idealism, lifting it to a far higher
plane, and making the scenes typical, elemental. Mrs. Ward never
drew a more distinct, impressive figure than that of David's fierce,
strange, deep-hearted sister Louie. But aside from particulars, and
judging the novel as a whole, the later works are perhaps superior.
Since (David Grieve,' Mrs. Ward's stories have represented polit-
ical, social, and economic, instead of religious interests. The love
motive is always given due place, and the display of character in a
certain milieu is steadily the intention. Marcella'- --a volume which
dates from 1894 — is a truthful and noble study of woman nature: the
novelist's sex should be grateful to her for portraying in this and the
companion story, (Sir George Tressady,' the organic development of
so rich and representative an English gentlewoman as Marcella. She
is taken in the vealy stage, when her ideals involve much foolish-
ness, young selfishness, and false romanticism. She irritates and even
antagonizes at first. But under the fructifying and clarifying influ-
ences of love and life, she works out into a splendid creature, and one
feels that the evolution is absolutely consistent. Marcella was always
Marcella potentially, after all. Very seldom has the nobleman in
politics and as land-owner been done with so much clearness and
justness as in Aldous Raeburn, Marcella's lover. The parliamentary
and socialistic scenes are drawn with knowledge and power, by a
writer sensitive to the most significant drift of thought of our day.
Modern London in its most important streams of influence is photo-
graphed with rare fidelity in this very strong broad story, and the
photographic reality is softened by artistic selection and the imagi-
native instinct. The quivering humanitarianism with which Mrs.
Ward portrays the struggles and hardships of the English poor is
another admirable trait.
In the year between Marcella' and (Tressady,' came the most
relentlessly realistic of all this author's works,- the novelette called
'The Story of Bessie Costrell. One can but think that Mrs. Ward's
a
## p. 15644 (#598) ##########################################
15644
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
-
mood in making it was one of temporary exasperation and gloom;' for
the tale - a sordid bit of peasant life, whose ugly dénouement does
not seem inevitable — leaves the reader depressed and dubious, with
cui bono? on his lips, — which cannot be said of any of the longer
stories. As a work of art, it is one of the closest knit and best con-
structed things she has written; and the impression it makes is as
powerful as it is unpleasant.
In (Sir George Tressady) (1896), Mrs. Ward returned to her true
métier, and furnished another proof of her mature grasp on art and
life. The book compels interest in several ways. It reveals Mar-
cella as Lady Maxwell; a superb woman of the social world, a regal
leader of men, who wields an influence all the more potent in that it
is social and indirect, not professional or of the polls; reveals her as
she walks unscathed through an intimacy with Tressady, perilous for
any woman save one of exceptional dignity and purity. Then the
relation of Tressady to his pretty, shallow little wife is a subtle
study of mismated temperaments, whose unhappiness is logical and
self-sought, since the two rushed into marriage with no serious appre-
ciation of what it is and should be. Another facet of life reflected
in the story is a phase of the labor-capital conflict. Tressady's posi-
tion as a mine-owner brings up one of the burning modern questions,
and his tragic death in the mine explosion seems the only solution of
the trouble. Socio-political activities, whose phenomena have been
well assimilated by this writer, form the warp and woof of a novel
which one trusts in its scenes and characters. One is assured that
it is real, for under its absolute contemporaneity are working the ele-
mental springs of human action. Mrs. Ward has done nothing more
complete and satisfying to the æsthetic and moral senses than this
fiction.
The scope and ability of such work set it apart from the run of
stories which cheapen the very name fiction, and justify the use for
it of the half-contemptuous epithet “light literature. ” Mrs. Ward is
serious-minded certainly, and regards her art as important. This,
even if it involves a deficient sense of humor, as some of her critics
claim, is welcome in a day when amusement is often bought too
dear!
Mrs. Ward's birth, education, and social environment fit her to do
this large, serious work. Born Mary Arnold, she is the granddaughter
of Dr. Arnold of Rugby, the niece of Matthew Arnold, the wife of a
cultivated editor and essayist. Her natal place was the Tasmanian
Hobart Town, with its extra-insular view-point: she was reared in a
social atmosphere in the best sense stimulating, and productive of
fine thought and enlightened activities. Like George Eliot, her contact
with literature and life has been broad and fruitful, her outlook has
## p. 15645 (#599) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15645
not felt the restriction of a limited nature. Her scholarship was indi-
cated a dozen years ago by the admirable translation of the Journal'
of the French thinker, Amiel. Mrs. Ward has done two important
and serviceable things: she has proved that the content of fiction
is wide enough to include politics and religion as legitimate artistic
material; and she has drawn modern women who have brains as well
as hearts, and the capacity to keep even step with men in the higher
social activities. She has done this as George Meredith and Ibsen
have done it, and has shown thereby that she grasps one meaning of
the late nineteenth century. The New Woman is a dubious phrase;
but after all, the type exists in its purity and power, and demands
expression in literature. Mrs. Ward is a woman of the world who
comprehends the gravest issues of the time; she is a woman of books
without being a blue-stocking. She is a banner-bearer of the current
analytic school. She believes in the aristocracy of intellect, the inter-
est in character-building. In her art she has not forgotten that the
heart counts for more than the head; that love is eternally in fiction,
because it is in life, a grand mainspring of action. "After all,” she
says in Miss Bretherton,' “beauty and charm and sex have in all
ages been too much for the clever people who try to reckon without
them. ”
MARCELLA IN PEASANT SOCIETY
From Marcella. Copyright 1894, by Macmillan & Co.
OM
N THE afternoon of the day which intervened between the
Maxwells' call and her introduction to the court, Marcella
walked as usual down to the village. She was teeming
with plans for her new kingdom, and could not keep herself out
of it. And an entry in one of the local papers had suggested to
.
her that Hurd might possibly find work in a parish some miles
from Mellor. She must go and send him off there.
When Mrs. Hurd opened the door to her, Marcella was aston-
ished to perceive behind her the forms of several other persons
filling up the narrow space of the usually solitary cottage - in
fact, a tea-party.
"Oh, çome in, miss,” said Mrs. Hurd, - with some embar-
rassment, as though it occurred to her that her visitor might
legitimately wonder to find a person of her penury entertain-
ing company. Then lowering her voice, she hurriedly explained:
“There's Mrs. Brunt come in this afternoon to help me wi' the
washin', while I finished my score of plait for the woman who
## p. 15646 (#600) ##########################################
15646
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
a
takes 'em into town to-morrow. And there's old Patton an' his
wife - you know 'em, miss ? - them as lives in the parish houses
— —
top o' the common. He's walked out a few steps to-day. It's
not often he's able, and when I see him through the door I said
to 'em, If you'll come in an' take a cheer, I dessay them tea-
leaves ’ull stan' another wettin': I haven't got nothink else. And
there's Mrs. Jellison: she came in along o' the Pattons. You can't
say her no, - she's a queer one. Do you know her, miss ? »
"Oh, bless yer, yes, yes. She knows me! ” said a high, jocular
voice, making Mrs. Hurd start: “she couldn't be long hereabouts
without makkin' eëaste to know me. You coom in, miss. We're
not afraid o' you
- Lor' bless you! ”
Mrs. Hurd stood aside for her visitor to pass in, looking round
her the while, in some perplexity, to see whether there was
spare chair and room to place it. She was a delicate, willowy
woman, still young in figure, with a fresh color belied by the
gray circles under the eyes and the pinched sharpness of the
features. The upper lip, which was pretty and childish, was
raised a little over the teeth; the whole expression of the slightly
open mouth was unusually soft and sensitive. On the whole,
Minta Hurd was liked in the village, though she was thought a
trifle fine. The whole family, indeed, "kept theirsels to their-
sels,” and to find Mrs. Hurd with company was unusual. Her
name, of course, was short for Araminta.
Marcella laughed as she caught Mrs. Jellison's remarks, and
made her way in, delighted. For the present, these village peo-
ple affected her like figures in poetry or drama. She
She saw them
with the eye of the imagination through a medium provided
by socialistic discussion, or by certain phases of modern art;
and the little scene of Mrs. Hurd's tea-party took for her in an
instant the dramatic zest and glamour.
“Look here, Mrs. Jellison,” she said, going up to her, “I was
just going to leave these apples for your grandson. Perhaps
you'll take them, now you're here. They're quite sweet, though
they look green. They're the best we've got, the gardener
says. ”
“Oh, they are, are they? ” said Mrs. Jellison, composedly
looking up at her. "Well, put 'em down, miss. I daresay he'll
eat 'em. He eats most things, and don't want no doctor's stuff
nayther, though his mother do keep on at me for spoilin' his
stummuck. "
»
(
))
((
## p. 15647 (#601) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15647
»
“You are just fond of that boy, aren't you, Mrs. Jellison ? ”
said Marcella, taking a wooden stool, — the only piece of furni-
ture left in the tiny cottage on which it was possible to sit, - and
squeezing herself into a corner by the fire, whence she com-
manded the whole group. "No! don't you turn Mr. Patton out
of that chair, Mrs. Hurd, or I shall have to go away. ”
For Mrs. Hurd, in her anxiety, was whispering in old Patton's
ear that it might be well for him to give up her one wooden
arm-chair, in which he was established, to Miss Boyce. But he,
being old, deaf, and rheumatic, was slow to move, and Marcella's
peremptory gesture bade her leave him in peace.
"Well, it's you that's the young 'un, ain't it, miss? ” said Mrs.
Jellison cheerfully. “Poor old Patton! he do get slow on his
legs, don't you, Patton ? But there, there's no helping it when
you're turned of eighty. ”
And she turned upon him a bright, philosophic eye; being
herself a young thing not much over seventy, and energetic ac-
cordingly. Mrs. Jellison passed for the village wit, and was at
least talkative and excitable beyond her fellows.
« Well, you don't seem to mind getting old, Mrs. Jellison,” said
Marcella, smiling at her.
The eyes of all the old people round their tea-table were
by now drawn irresistibly to Miss Boyce in the chimney corner,-
to her slim grace, and the splendor of her large black hat and
feathers. The new squire's daughter had so far taken them
by surprise. Some of them, however, were by now in the second
stage of critical observation,- none the less critical because fur-
tive and inarticulate.
"Ah ? ” said Mrs. Jellison interrogatively, with a high, long-
drawn note peculiar to her. “Well, I've never found you get
forrarder wi' snarlin' over what you can't help. And there's
mercies. When you've had a husband in his bed for fower year,
miss, and he's took at last, you'll know. ”
She nodded emphatically. Marcella laughed.
"I know you were very fond of him, Mrs. Jellison, and looked
after him very well too. "
"Oh, I don't say nothin' about that,” said Mrs. Jellison hastily.
“But all the same you kin reckon it up, and see for yoursen.
Fower year - an' fire up-stairs, an' fire down-stairs, an' fire all
night, an' soomthin' allus wanted. An' he such an objeck afore
he died! It do seem like a holiday now to sit a bit. ”
>
>
## p. 15648 (#602) ##########################################
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MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
And she crossed her hands on her lap with a long breath of
content. A lock of gray hair had escaped from her bonnet,
across her wrinkled forehead, and gave her a half-careless rakish
air. Her youth of long ago- a youth of mad spirits, and of an
extraordinary capacity for physical enjoyment - seemed at times
to pierce to the surface again, even through her load of years.
But in general she had a dreamy, sunny look, as of one fed with
humorous fancies, but disinclined often to the trouble of com-
municating them.
“Well, I missed my daughter, I kin tell you,” said Mrs.
Brunt with a sigh, “though she took a deal more lookin' after
nor your good man, Mrs. Jellison. ”
Mrs. Brunt was a gentle, pretty old woman, who lived in
another of the village almshouses, next door to the Pattons, and
was always ready to help her neighbors in their domestic toils.
Her last remaining daughter, the victim of a horrible spinal dis-
ease, had died some nine or ten months before the Boyces arrived
at Mellor. Marcella had already heard the story several times;
but it was part of her social gift that she was a good listener to
such things even at the twentieth hearing.
«You wouldn't have her back, though,” she said gently, turn-
ing towards the speaker.
“No, I wouldn't have her back, miss,” said Mrs. Brunt, rais-
ing her hand to brush away a tear,– partly the result of feeling,
-
partly of a long-established habit. « But I do miss her nights
terrible! Mother, ain't it ten o'clock ? -- mother, look at the
clock, do; — mother! ain't it time for my stuff, mother ? oh, I do
hope it is. '
That was her stuff, miss, to make her sleep. And
when she'd got it, she'd groan — you'd think she couldn't be
-
asleep, and yet she was, dead-like — for two hours.
I didn't get
no rest with her, and now I don't seem to get no rest without
her. "
And again Mrs. Brunt put her hand up to her eyes.
"Ah, you were allus one for toilin' an' frettin',” said Mrs. Jel-
lison calmly. "A body must get through wi' it when it's there,
but I don't hold wi' thinkin' about it when it's done. ”
"I know one,” said old Patton slyly, “that fretted about her
darter when it didn't do her no good. ”
He had not spoken so far, but had sat with his hands on his
stick, a spectator of the women's humors. He was a little hunched
man, twisted and bent double with rheumatic gout,- the fruit of
(
(
>
## p. 15649 (#603) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15649
now
seventy years of field work. His small face was almost lost, dog-
like, under shaggy hair and overgrown eyebrows, both snow-white.
He had a look of irritable eagerness, seldom however expressed
in words. A sudden passion in the faded blue eyes; a quick spot
of red in his old cheeks: these Marcella had often noticed in him,
as though the flame of some inner furnace leapt. He had been
a Radical and a rebel once in old rick-burning days, long before
he lost the power in his limbs, and came down to be thankful
for one of the parish almshouses. To his social betters he was
a quiet and peaceable old man, well aware of the cakes
and ale to be got by good manners; but in the depths of him
there were reminiscences and the ghosts of passions, which were
still stirred sometimes by causes not always intelligible to the
bystander.
He had rarely, however, physical energy enough to bring any
emotion even of mere worry at his physical ills — to the birth.
The pathetic silence of age enwrapped him more and more. Still
he could gibe the women sometimes, especially Mrs. Jellison, who
was in general too clever for her company.
“Oh, you may talk, Patton! ” said Mrs. Jellison with a little
flash of excitement. " You do like to have your talk, don't you !
Well, I dare say I was orkard with Isabella. I won't go for to
say I wasn't orkard, for I was. She should ha' used me to 't
before, if she wor took that way. She and I had just settled
down comfortable after my old man went; and I didn't see no
sense in it, an' I don't now. She might ha' let the men alone.
She'd seen enough o' the worrit of 'em. ”
"Well, she did well for hersen," said Mrs. Brunt, with the
same gentle melancholy. “She married a stiddy man
as 'ull
keep her well all her time, and never let her want for noth-
ink. ”
"A sour, wooden-faced chap as iver I knew,” said Mrs. Jelli-
son grudgingly. "I don't have nothink to say to him, nor he
to me. He thinks hissen the Grand Turk, he do, since they
gi'en him his uniform, and made him full keeper. A nassty,
domineerin' sort, I calls him. He's allus makin' bad blood wi'
the yoong fellers when he don't need. It's the way he's got wi'
him. But I don't make no account of him, an' I let him see 't. ”
All the tea-party grinned except Mrs. Hurd. The village was
well acquainted with the feud between Mrs. Jellison and her
son-in-law, George Westall, who had persuaded Isabella Jellison,
XXVI–979
>
## p. 15650 (#604) ##########################################
15650
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
(
at the mature age of thirty-five, to leave her mother and marry
him; and was now one of Lord Maxwell's keepers, with good pay,
and an excellent cottage some little way out of the village. Mrs.
Jellison had never forgiven her daughter for deserting her, and
was on lively terms of hostility with her son-in-law: but their
only child, little Johnnie, had found the soft spot in his grand-
mother; and her favorite excitement in life, now that he was
four years old, was to steal him from his parents and feed him
on the things of which Isabella most vigorously disapproved.
Mrs. Hurd, as has been said, did not smile. At the mention
of Westall, she got up hastily and began to put away the tea
things.
Marcella meanwhile had been sitting thoughtful.
“You say Westall makes bad blood with the young men, Mrs.
Jellison ? ” she said, looking up. "Is there much poaching in this
village now, do you think ? »
There was a dead silence. Mrs. Hurd was at the other end
of the cottage with her back to Marcella; at the question, her
hands paused an instant in their work. The eyes of all the old
people — of Patton and his wife, of Mrs. Jellison, and pretty Mrs.
Brunt -- were fixed on the speaker; but nobody said a word, not
even Mrs. Jellison. Marcella colored.
"Oh, you needn't suppose – ” she said, throwing her beautiful
«
head back, “you needn't suppose that I care about the game,
or that I would ever be mean enough to tell anything that was
told me. I know it does cause a great deal of quarreling and
bad blood. I believe it does here - and I should like to know
more about it. I want to make up my mind what to think. Of
course, my father has got his land and his own opinions. And
Lord Maxwell has too. But I am not bound to think like either
of them,- I should like you to understand that. It seems to me
right about all such things that people should inquire, and find
out for themselves. ”
Still silence. Mrs. Jellison's mouth twitched, and she threw a
sly provocative glance at old Patton, as though she would have
liked to poke him in the ribs. But she was not going to help
him out; and at last the one male in the company found himself
obliged to clear his throat for reply.
“We're old folks, most on us, miss, 'cept Mrs. Hurd. We
don't hear talk o' things now like as we did when we
younger. If you ast Mr. Harden, he'll tell you, I dessay. ”
were
>
## p. 15651 (#605) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
WARD
15651
Patton allowed himself an inward chuckle. Even Mrs. Jelli-
son, he thought, must admit that he knew a thing or two as to
the best way of dealing with the gentry.
But Marcella fixed him with her bright frank eyes.
“I had rather ask in the village,” she said. “If
"If you don't
know how it is now, Mr. Patton, tell me how it used to be when
you were young. Was the preserving very strict about here?
Were there often fights with the keepers, long ago ? - in my
grandfather's days ? And do you think men poached because
they were hungry, or because they wanted sport ? ”
Patton looked at her fixedly a moment, undecided: then her
strong nervous youth seemed to exercise a kind of compulsion on
him; perhaps too the pretty courtesy of her manner. He cleared
his throat again, and tried to forget Mrs. Jellison, who would be
sure to let him hear of it again, whatever he said.
“Well, I can't answer for 'em, miss, I'm sure; but if you
ast me, I b’lieve ther's a bit o' boath in it. Yer see it's not in
human natur, when a man's young and 's got his blood up, as
he shouldn't want ter have his sport with the wild creeturs. Per-
haps he see 'em when he's going to the wood with a wood cart,
or he cooms across 'em in the turnips, — wounded birds, you
understan', miss, perhaps the day after the gentry 'as been
,
bangin' at 'em all day. An' he don't see, not for the life of him,
why he shouldn't have 'em. Ther's been lots an' lots for the rich
folks, an' he don't see why ee shouldn't have a few arter they've
enjoyed theirselves. And mebbe he's eleven shillin' a week,-
an' two-threy little chillen,- you understan', miss ? ”
“Of course I understand! ” said Marcella eagerly, her dark
cheek Aushing. “Of course I do! But there's a good deal of
game given away in these parts, isn't there? I know Lord Max-
well does, and they say Lord Winterbourne gives all his laborers
rabbits, almost as many as they want. "
Her questions wound old Patton up as though he had been
a disused clock. He began to feel a whirr among his creaking
wheels, a shaking of all his rusty mind.
"Perhaps they do, miss,” he said; and his wife saw that he
was beginning to tremble. "I dessay they do—I don't say
nothink agen it though theer's none of it cooms my way. But
that isn't all the rights on it nayther; no, that it ain't. The
laborin' man ee's glad enough to get a hare or a rabbit for his
eatin'; but there's more in it nor that, miss. Ee's allus in the
»
## p. 15652 (#606) ##########################################
15652
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
fields, that's where it is; ee can't help seein' the hares and the
rabbits a-comin' in and out o' the woods, if it were iver so. Ee
knows ivery run of ivery one on 'em; if a hare's started furthest
corner o'ť field, he can tell yer whar she'll git in by, because
he's allus there, you see, miss, an' it's the only thing he's got to
take his mind off like. And then he sets a snare or two, -- an'
he gits very sharp at settin' on 'em,- an' he'll go out nights
for the sport of it. Ther isn't many things ee's got to liven
him up; an' he takes his chances o’goin' to jail; it's wuth it,
ee thinks. »
The old man's hands on his stick shook more and more visi-
bly. Bygones of his youth had come back to him.
“Oh, I know! I know ! ” cried Marcella, with an accent half
of indignation, half of despair. It's the whole wretched system.
It spoils those who've got, and those who haven't got. And
there'll be no mending it till the people get the land back again,
and till the rights on it are common to all. ”
"My! she do speak up, don't she ? ” said Mrs. Jellison, grin-
ning again at her companions. Then stooping forward with one
of her wild movements, she caught Marcella's arm: “I'd like to
hear yer tell that to Lord Maxwell, miss. I likes a roompus, I
do. ”
Marcella flushed and laughed.
“I wouldn't mind saying that or anything else to Lord Max-
well,” she said proudly. "I'm not ashamed of anything I think. ”
“No, I'll bet you ain't," said Mrs. Jellison, withdrawing her
hand. “Now then, Patton, you say what you thinks. You ain't
got no vote now you're in the parish houses — I minds that.
The quality don't trouble you at 'lection times.
man, Muster Wharton, as is goin' round so free, promisin' yer the
sun out o' the sky, iv yer'll only vote for him, so th' men say
ee don't coom an’ set down along o' you an' me, an' cocker of us
up as he do Joe Simmons or Jim Hurd here. But that don't
matter. Yur thinkin's yur own, any way. "
But she nudged him in vain. Patton had suddenly run down, ,
and there was no more to be got out of him.
Not only had nerves and speech failed him as they were wont,
but in his cloudy soul there had risen, even while Marcella was
speaking, the inevitable suspicion which dogs the relations of the
poor towards the richer class. This young lady, with her strange
talk, was the new squire's daughter. And the village had already
>
This yoong
»
## p. 15653 (#607) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15653
(
a
made up its mind that Richard Boyce was a poor sort, and
hard sort” too, in his landlord capacity. He wasn't going to be
any improvement on his brother -- not a haporth! What was the
good of this young woman talking as she did, when there were
three summonses as he, Patton, heard tell — just taken out by
the sanitary inspector against Mr. Boyce for bad cottages ? And
not a farthing given away in the village neither, except perhaps
the bits of food that the young lady herself brought down to
the village now and then,- for which no one, in truth, felt any
cause to be particularly grateful. Besides, what did she mean
by asking questions about the poaching? Old Patton knew as
well as anybody else in the village, that during Robert Boyce's
last days, and after the death of his sportsman son, the Mellor
estate had become the haunt of poachers from far and near; and
that the trouble had long since spread into the neighboring prop-
erties, so that the Winterbourne and Maxwell keepers regarded
it their most arduous business to keep watch on the men of
Mellor. Of course the young woman knew it all; and she
and her father wanted to know more. That was why she talked.
Patton hardened himself against the creeping ways of the qual-
ity.
“I don't think naught,” he said roughly, in answer to Mrs.
Jellison. “Thinkin' won't come atwixt me and the parish coffin
when I'm took. I've no call to think, I tell yer. ”
Marcella's chest heaved with indignant feeling.
“Oh, but Mr. Patton! ” she cried, leaning forward to him,
“won't it comfort you a bit, even if you can't live to see it, to
think there's a better time coming ? There must be. People
can't go on like this always, - hating each other and trampling on
each other. They're beginning to see it now, they are! When I
was living in London, the persons I was with talked and thought
of it all day. Some day, whenever the people choose, - for
they've got the power now they've got the vote,- there'll be
land for everybody; and in every village there'll be a council to
manage things, and the laborer will count for just as much as
the squire and the parson, and he'll be better educated and bet-
ter fed, and care for many things he doesn't care for now. But
all the same, if he wants sport and shooting, it will be there for
him to get. For everybody will have a chance and a turn, and
there'll be no bitterness between classes, and no hopeless pining
and misery as there is now! ”
»
((
## p. 15654 (#608) ##########################################
15654
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
The girl broke off, catching her breath. It excited her to say
these things to these people, to these poor tottering old things
who had lived out their lives to the end under the pressure of
an iron system, and had no lien on the future, whatever paradise
it might bring. Again, the situation had something foreseen
and dramatic in it. She saw herself, as the preacher, sitting on
her stool beside the poor grate; she realized as a spectator the
figures of the women and the old man played on by the firelight,
the white, bare, damp-stained walls of the cottage, and in the
background the fragile though still comely form of Minta Hurd,
who was standing with her back to the dresser and her head
bent forward, listening to the talk, while her fingers twisted the
straw she plaited eternally from morning till night for a wage of
about is. 3d. a week.
Her mind was all aflame with excitement and defiance,
defiance of her father, Lord Maxwell, Aldous Raeburn. Let him
come, her friend, and see for himself what she thought it right
to do and say in this miserable village. Her soul challenged
him, longed to provoke him! Well, she was soon to meet him,
and in a new and more significant relation and environment.
literary genealogy Mrs. Humphry Ward belongs by taste, sympathy,
and birthright of power. She is one of the few contemporaneous
novel-writers whose work is in a sound tradition, and has enough
of lofty purpose and artistic conscientiousness to call for careful con-
sideration. Had Mrs. Ward failed, she would deserve respect for her
## p. 15642 (#596) ##########################################
15642
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
high aim, in a day when tyros turn off pseudo-fiction as easily as
they do business letters.
Mrs. Ward's first story, Miss Bretherton,' which appeared in
1884, made no great stir; but it was a charming and thoroughly well-
done piece of fiction, revealing marked ability in character study, and
a comprehension of English society. The theme chosen, the slowly
generating love between a brilliant young actress and a middle-aged
man of letters, is developed with delicate idealism, with sympathy
and imagination. The writer of the later and greater novels is fore-
shadowed if not fully confessed in the tale; which in its pleasant
ending, and its absence of definite special pleading, declares itself a
younger book. To some, the fact that “Miss Bretherton' is a straight-
away love story will make it all the better. But to one who under-
stands Mrs. Ward's intellectual and artistic growth, the book will be
seen to be tentative.
By the publication of 'Robert Elsmere) four years later, in 1888,
its writer defined her position and gave a clear idea of her quality.
The book made a deep impression. The fact that it dealt with the
religious problem, tracing in the person of the hero the intellectual
change undergone by a mind open to modern scholarship and thought,
gave it for many the glamour of the dangerous, and no doubt helped
its vogue. It was a story which people took sides for or against, and
fought over. But Robert Elsmere) would never have achieved more
than a critical success if it had been nothing but an able polemic
against orthodox views. It was far more: a vital story full of human
nature, intensely felt, strong in its characterization, and in some of
its scenes finely dramatic,—this last implied in the fact that the
novel was dramatized. Elsmere is not a lay figure to carry a thesis,
but an honest human brother, yearning for the truth. His wife is
an admirable picture of the sweet, strong, restricted conservatism of
a certain type of nature. And Rose and Langham — to mention only
two more personages of the drama are real and attractive creations.
The nobility of intention in this, the first of Mrs. Ward's full-length
social studies depicting the tragedy of the inner life, must be felt by
every receptive reader. The charge of didacticism commonly pre-
ferred against this novel has some justification, though the artistic
impulse was present in large measure,— indeed prevailed in the work.
And in the next book, "The History of David Grieve,' given to
the public after another four years had intervened (1892), the human
elements are broader, the life limned more varied, and hence the
impression that the author has a nut to crack is not so strong. Yet
David's experience, like Robert's, with all its difference of birth, po-
sition, training, and influences, is one of the soul: the evolution of
personal faith may be said to be the main motive of the tale. The
-
## p. 15643 (#597) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15643
art of it is finer, the interpretation of humanity richer. The story is
a sombre one,– Mrs. Ward's work as a whole, and progressively, may
be so described, — but it is far from pessimistic. The teaching is that
men and women may conquer through soul stress; that the world is
an arena for the most momentous of all things,-character training.
Parts of David Grieve' have a convincing fervor and sweep, and
an imaginativeness of conception, which denote the writer's highest
accomplishment. The opening sketches of English country life, as
David and his sister grow up together, and the storm-and-stress phase
of his development, are superbly conceived and carried through.
the Parisian episode particularly, the Bohemianism of the situation,
which in some hands would have been excuse for sensational vul-
garity, is touched with a romantic idealism, lifting it to a far higher
plane, and making the scenes typical, elemental. Mrs. Ward never
drew a more distinct, impressive figure than that of David's fierce,
strange, deep-hearted sister Louie. But aside from particulars, and
judging the novel as a whole, the later works are perhaps superior.
Since (David Grieve,' Mrs. Ward's stories have represented polit-
ical, social, and economic, instead of religious interests. The love
motive is always given due place, and the display of character in a
certain milieu is steadily the intention. Marcella'- --a volume which
dates from 1894 — is a truthful and noble study of woman nature: the
novelist's sex should be grateful to her for portraying in this and the
companion story, (Sir George Tressady,' the organic development of
so rich and representative an English gentlewoman as Marcella. She
is taken in the vealy stage, when her ideals involve much foolish-
ness, young selfishness, and false romanticism. She irritates and even
antagonizes at first. But under the fructifying and clarifying influ-
ences of love and life, she works out into a splendid creature, and one
feels that the evolution is absolutely consistent. Marcella was always
Marcella potentially, after all. Very seldom has the nobleman in
politics and as land-owner been done with so much clearness and
justness as in Aldous Raeburn, Marcella's lover. The parliamentary
and socialistic scenes are drawn with knowledge and power, by a
writer sensitive to the most significant drift of thought of our day.
Modern London in its most important streams of influence is photo-
graphed with rare fidelity in this very strong broad story, and the
photographic reality is softened by artistic selection and the imagi-
native instinct. The quivering humanitarianism with which Mrs.
Ward portrays the struggles and hardships of the English poor is
another admirable trait.
In the year between Marcella' and (Tressady,' came the most
relentlessly realistic of all this author's works,- the novelette called
'The Story of Bessie Costrell. One can but think that Mrs. Ward's
a
## p. 15644 (#598) ##########################################
15644
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
-
mood in making it was one of temporary exasperation and gloom;' for
the tale - a sordid bit of peasant life, whose ugly dénouement does
not seem inevitable — leaves the reader depressed and dubious, with
cui bono? on his lips, — which cannot be said of any of the longer
stories. As a work of art, it is one of the closest knit and best con-
structed things she has written; and the impression it makes is as
powerful as it is unpleasant.
In (Sir George Tressady) (1896), Mrs. Ward returned to her true
métier, and furnished another proof of her mature grasp on art and
life. The book compels interest in several ways. It reveals Mar-
cella as Lady Maxwell; a superb woman of the social world, a regal
leader of men, who wields an influence all the more potent in that it
is social and indirect, not professional or of the polls; reveals her as
she walks unscathed through an intimacy with Tressady, perilous for
any woman save one of exceptional dignity and purity. Then the
relation of Tressady to his pretty, shallow little wife is a subtle
study of mismated temperaments, whose unhappiness is logical and
self-sought, since the two rushed into marriage with no serious appre-
ciation of what it is and should be. Another facet of life reflected
in the story is a phase of the labor-capital conflict. Tressady's posi-
tion as a mine-owner brings up one of the burning modern questions,
and his tragic death in the mine explosion seems the only solution of
the trouble. Socio-political activities, whose phenomena have been
well assimilated by this writer, form the warp and woof of a novel
which one trusts in its scenes and characters. One is assured that
it is real, for under its absolute contemporaneity are working the ele-
mental springs of human action. Mrs. Ward has done nothing more
complete and satisfying to the æsthetic and moral senses than this
fiction.
The scope and ability of such work set it apart from the run of
stories which cheapen the very name fiction, and justify the use for
it of the half-contemptuous epithet “light literature. ” Mrs. Ward is
serious-minded certainly, and regards her art as important. This,
even if it involves a deficient sense of humor, as some of her critics
claim, is welcome in a day when amusement is often bought too
dear!
Mrs. Ward's birth, education, and social environment fit her to do
this large, serious work. Born Mary Arnold, she is the granddaughter
of Dr. Arnold of Rugby, the niece of Matthew Arnold, the wife of a
cultivated editor and essayist. Her natal place was the Tasmanian
Hobart Town, with its extra-insular view-point: she was reared in a
social atmosphere in the best sense stimulating, and productive of
fine thought and enlightened activities. Like George Eliot, her contact
with literature and life has been broad and fruitful, her outlook has
## p. 15645 (#599) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15645
not felt the restriction of a limited nature. Her scholarship was indi-
cated a dozen years ago by the admirable translation of the Journal'
of the French thinker, Amiel. Mrs. Ward has done two important
and serviceable things: she has proved that the content of fiction
is wide enough to include politics and religion as legitimate artistic
material; and she has drawn modern women who have brains as well
as hearts, and the capacity to keep even step with men in the higher
social activities. She has done this as George Meredith and Ibsen
have done it, and has shown thereby that she grasps one meaning of
the late nineteenth century. The New Woman is a dubious phrase;
but after all, the type exists in its purity and power, and demands
expression in literature. Mrs. Ward is a woman of the world who
comprehends the gravest issues of the time; she is a woman of books
without being a blue-stocking. She is a banner-bearer of the current
analytic school. She believes in the aristocracy of intellect, the inter-
est in character-building. In her art she has not forgotten that the
heart counts for more than the head; that love is eternally in fiction,
because it is in life, a grand mainspring of action. "After all,” she
says in Miss Bretherton,' “beauty and charm and sex have in all
ages been too much for the clever people who try to reckon without
them. ”
MARCELLA IN PEASANT SOCIETY
From Marcella. Copyright 1894, by Macmillan & Co.
OM
N THE afternoon of the day which intervened between the
Maxwells' call and her introduction to the court, Marcella
walked as usual down to the village. She was teeming
with plans for her new kingdom, and could not keep herself out
of it. And an entry in one of the local papers had suggested to
.
her that Hurd might possibly find work in a parish some miles
from Mellor. She must go and send him off there.
When Mrs. Hurd opened the door to her, Marcella was aston-
ished to perceive behind her the forms of several other persons
filling up the narrow space of the usually solitary cottage - in
fact, a tea-party.
"Oh, çome in, miss,” said Mrs. Hurd, - with some embar-
rassment, as though it occurred to her that her visitor might
legitimately wonder to find a person of her penury entertain-
ing company. Then lowering her voice, she hurriedly explained:
“There's Mrs. Brunt come in this afternoon to help me wi' the
washin', while I finished my score of plait for the woman who
## p. 15646 (#600) ##########################################
15646
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
a
takes 'em into town to-morrow. And there's old Patton an' his
wife - you know 'em, miss ? - them as lives in the parish houses
— —
top o' the common. He's walked out a few steps to-day. It's
not often he's able, and when I see him through the door I said
to 'em, If you'll come in an' take a cheer, I dessay them tea-
leaves ’ull stan' another wettin': I haven't got nothink else. And
there's Mrs. Jellison: she came in along o' the Pattons. You can't
say her no, - she's a queer one. Do you know her, miss ? »
"Oh, bless yer, yes, yes. She knows me! ” said a high, jocular
voice, making Mrs. Hurd start: “she couldn't be long hereabouts
without makkin' eëaste to know me. You coom in, miss. We're
not afraid o' you
- Lor' bless you! ”
Mrs. Hurd stood aside for her visitor to pass in, looking round
her the while, in some perplexity, to see whether there was
spare chair and room to place it. She was a delicate, willowy
woman, still young in figure, with a fresh color belied by the
gray circles under the eyes and the pinched sharpness of the
features. The upper lip, which was pretty and childish, was
raised a little over the teeth; the whole expression of the slightly
open mouth was unusually soft and sensitive. On the whole,
Minta Hurd was liked in the village, though she was thought a
trifle fine. The whole family, indeed, "kept theirsels to their-
sels,” and to find Mrs. Hurd with company was unusual. Her
name, of course, was short for Araminta.
Marcella laughed as she caught Mrs. Jellison's remarks, and
made her way in, delighted. For the present, these village peo-
ple affected her like figures in poetry or drama. She
She saw them
with the eye of the imagination through a medium provided
by socialistic discussion, or by certain phases of modern art;
and the little scene of Mrs. Hurd's tea-party took for her in an
instant the dramatic zest and glamour.
“Look here, Mrs. Jellison,” she said, going up to her, “I was
just going to leave these apples for your grandson. Perhaps
you'll take them, now you're here. They're quite sweet, though
they look green. They're the best we've got, the gardener
says. ”
“Oh, they are, are they? ” said Mrs. Jellison, composedly
looking up at her. "Well, put 'em down, miss. I daresay he'll
eat 'em. He eats most things, and don't want no doctor's stuff
nayther, though his mother do keep on at me for spoilin' his
stummuck. "
»
(
))
((
## p. 15647 (#601) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15647
»
“You are just fond of that boy, aren't you, Mrs. Jellison ? ”
said Marcella, taking a wooden stool, — the only piece of furni-
ture left in the tiny cottage on which it was possible to sit, - and
squeezing herself into a corner by the fire, whence she com-
manded the whole group. "No! don't you turn Mr. Patton out
of that chair, Mrs. Hurd, or I shall have to go away. ”
For Mrs. Hurd, in her anxiety, was whispering in old Patton's
ear that it might be well for him to give up her one wooden
arm-chair, in which he was established, to Miss Boyce. But he,
being old, deaf, and rheumatic, was slow to move, and Marcella's
peremptory gesture bade her leave him in peace.
"Well, it's you that's the young 'un, ain't it, miss? ” said Mrs.
Jellison cheerfully. “Poor old Patton! he do get slow on his
legs, don't you, Patton ? But there, there's no helping it when
you're turned of eighty. ”
And she turned upon him a bright, philosophic eye; being
herself a young thing not much over seventy, and energetic ac-
cordingly. Mrs. Jellison passed for the village wit, and was at
least talkative and excitable beyond her fellows.
« Well, you don't seem to mind getting old, Mrs. Jellison,” said
Marcella, smiling at her.
The eyes of all the old people round their tea-table were
by now drawn irresistibly to Miss Boyce in the chimney corner,-
to her slim grace, and the splendor of her large black hat and
feathers. The new squire's daughter had so far taken them
by surprise. Some of them, however, were by now in the second
stage of critical observation,- none the less critical because fur-
tive and inarticulate.
"Ah ? ” said Mrs. Jellison interrogatively, with a high, long-
drawn note peculiar to her. “Well, I've never found you get
forrarder wi' snarlin' over what you can't help. And there's
mercies. When you've had a husband in his bed for fower year,
miss, and he's took at last, you'll know. ”
She nodded emphatically. Marcella laughed.
"I know you were very fond of him, Mrs. Jellison, and looked
after him very well too. "
"Oh, I don't say nothin' about that,” said Mrs. Jellison hastily.
“But all the same you kin reckon it up, and see for yoursen.
Fower year - an' fire up-stairs, an' fire down-stairs, an' fire all
night, an' soomthin' allus wanted. An' he such an objeck afore
he died! It do seem like a holiday now to sit a bit. ”
>
>
## p. 15648 (#602) ##########################################
15648
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
And she crossed her hands on her lap with a long breath of
content. A lock of gray hair had escaped from her bonnet,
across her wrinkled forehead, and gave her a half-careless rakish
air. Her youth of long ago- a youth of mad spirits, and of an
extraordinary capacity for physical enjoyment - seemed at times
to pierce to the surface again, even through her load of years.
But in general she had a dreamy, sunny look, as of one fed with
humorous fancies, but disinclined often to the trouble of com-
municating them.
“Well, I missed my daughter, I kin tell you,” said Mrs.
Brunt with a sigh, “though she took a deal more lookin' after
nor your good man, Mrs. Jellison. ”
Mrs. Brunt was a gentle, pretty old woman, who lived in
another of the village almshouses, next door to the Pattons, and
was always ready to help her neighbors in their domestic toils.
Her last remaining daughter, the victim of a horrible spinal dis-
ease, had died some nine or ten months before the Boyces arrived
at Mellor. Marcella had already heard the story several times;
but it was part of her social gift that she was a good listener to
such things even at the twentieth hearing.
«You wouldn't have her back, though,” she said gently, turn-
ing towards the speaker.
“No, I wouldn't have her back, miss,” said Mrs. Brunt, rais-
ing her hand to brush away a tear,– partly the result of feeling,
-
partly of a long-established habit. « But I do miss her nights
terrible! Mother, ain't it ten o'clock ? -- mother, look at the
clock, do; — mother! ain't it time for my stuff, mother ? oh, I do
hope it is. '
That was her stuff, miss, to make her sleep. And
when she'd got it, she'd groan — you'd think she couldn't be
-
asleep, and yet she was, dead-like — for two hours.
I didn't get
no rest with her, and now I don't seem to get no rest without
her. "
And again Mrs. Brunt put her hand up to her eyes.
"Ah, you were allus one for toilin' an' frettin',” said Mrs. Jel-
lison calmly. "A body must get through wi' it when it's there,
but I don't hold wi' thinkin' about it when it's done. ”
"I know one,” said old Patton slyly, “that fretted about her
darter when it didn't do her no good. ”
He had not spoken so far, but had sat with his hands on his
stick, a spectator of the women's humors. He was a little hunched
man, twisted and bent double with rheumatic gout,- the fruit of
(
(
>
## p. 15649 (#603) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15649
now
seventy years of field work. His small face was almost lost, dog-
like, under shaggy hair and overgrown eyebrows, both snow-white.
He had a look of irritable eagerness, seldom however expressed
in words. A sudden passion in the faded blue eyes; a quick spot
of red in his old cheeks: these Marcella had often noticed in him,
as though the flame of some inner furnace leapt. He had been
a Radical and a rebel once in old rick-burning days, long before
he lost the power in his limbs, and came down to be thankful
for one of the parish almshouses. To his social betters he was
a quiet and peaceable old man, well aware of the cakes
and ale to be got by good manners; but in the depths of him
there were reminiscences and the ghosts of passions, which were
still stirred sometimes by causes not always intelligible to the
bystander.
He had rarely, however, physical energy enough to bring any
emotion even of mere worry at his physical ills — to the birth.
The pathetic silence of age enwrapped him more and more. Still
he could gibe the women sometimes, especially Mrs. Jellison, who
was in general too clever for her company.
“Oh, you may talk, Patton! ” said Mrs. Jellison with a little
flash of excitement. " You do like to have your talk, don't you !
Well, I dare say I was orkard with Isabella. I won't go for to
say I wasn't orkard, for I was. She should ha' used me to 't
before, if she wor took that way. She and I had just settled
down comfortable after my old man went; and I didn't see no
sense in it, an' I don't now. She might ha' let the men alone.
She'd seen enough o' the worrit of 'em. ”
"Well, she did well for hersen," said Mrs. Brunt, with the
same gentle melancholy. “She married a stiddy man
as 'ull
keep her well all her time, and never let her want for noth-
ink. ”
"A sour, wooden-faced chap as iver I knew,” said Mrs. Jelli-
son grudgingly. "I don't have nothink to say to him, nor he
to me. He thinks hissen the Grand Turk, he do, since they
gi'en him his uniform, and made him full keeper. A nassty,
domineerin' sort, I calls him. He's allus makin' bad blood wi'
the yoong fellers when he don't need. It's the way he's got wi'
him. But I don't make no account of him, an' I let him see 't. ”
All the tea-party grinned except Mrs. Hurd. The village was
well acquainted with the feud between Mrs. Jellison and her
son-in-law, George Westall, who had persuaded Isabella Jellison,
XXVI–979
>
## p. 15650 (#604) ##########################################
15650
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
(
at the mature age of thirty-five, to leave her mother and marry
him; and was now one of Lord Maxwell's keepers, with good pay,
and an excellent cottage some little way out of the village. Mrs.
Jellison had never forgiven her daughter for deserting her, and
was on lively terms of hostility with her son-in-law: but their
only child, little Johnnie, had found the soft spot in his grand-
mother; and her favorite excitement in life, now that he was
four years old, was to steal him from his parents and feed him
on the things of which Isabella most vigorously disapproved.
Mrs. Hurd, as has been said, did not smile. At the mention
of Westall, she got up hastily and began to put away the tea
things.
Marcella meanwhile had been sitting thoughtful.
“You say Westall makes bad blood with the young men, Mrs.
Jellison ? ” she said, looking up. "Is there much poaching in this
village now, do you think ? »
There was a dead silence. Mrs. Hurd was at the other end
of the cottage with her back to Marcella; at the question, her
hands paused an instant in their work. The eyes of all the old
people — of Patton and his wife, of Mrs. Jellison, and pretty Mrs.
Brunt -- were fixed on the speaker; but nobody said a word, not
even Mrs. Jellison. Marcella colored.
"Oh, you needn't suppose – ” she said, throwing her beautiful
«
head back, “you needn't suppose that I care about the game,
or that I would ever be mean enough to tell anything that was
told me. I know it does cause a great deal of quarreling and
bad blood. I believe it does here - and I should like to know
more about it. I want to make up my mind what to think. Of
course, my father has got his land and his own opinions. And
Lord Maxwell has too. But I am not bound to think like either
of them,- I should like you to understand that. It seems to me
right about all such things that people should inquire, and find
out for themselves. ”
Still silence. Mrs. Jellison's mouth twitched, and she threw a
sly provocative glance at old Patton, as though she would have
liked to poke him in the ribs. But she was not going to help
him out; and at last the one male in the company found himself
obliged to clear his throat for reply.
“We're old folks, most on us, miss, 'cept Mrs. Hurd. We
don't hear talk o' things now like as we did when we
younger. If you ast Mr. Harden, he'll tell you, I dessay. ”
were
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MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
WARD
15651
Patton allowed himself an inward chuckle. Even Mrs. Jelli-
son, he thought, must admit that he knew a thing or two as to
the best way of dealing with the gentry.
But Marcella fixed him with her bright frank eyes.
“I had rather ask in the village,” she said. “If
"If you don't
know how it is now, Mr. Patton, tell me how it used to be when
you were young. Was the preserving very strict about here?
Were there often fights with the keepers, long ago ? - in my
grandfather's days ? And do you think men poached because
they were hungry, or because they wanted sport ? ”
Patton looked at her fixedly a moment, undecided: then her
strong nervous youth seemed to exercise a kind of compulsion on
him; perhaps too the pretty courtesy of her manner. He cleared
his throat again, and tried to forget Mrs. Jellison, who would be
sure to let him hear of it again, whatever he said.
“Well, I can't answer for 'em, miss, I'm sure; but if you
ast me, I b’lieve ther's a bit o' boath in it. Yer see it's not in
human natur, when a man's young and 's got his blood up, as
he shouldn't want ter have his sport with the wild creeturs. Per-
haps he see 'em when he's going to the wood with a wood cart,
or he cooms across 'em in the turnips, — wounded birds, you
understan', miss, perhaps the day after the gentry 'as been
,
bangin' at 'em all day. An' he don't see, not for the life of him,
why he shouldn't have 'em. Ther's been lots an' lots for the rich
folks, an' he don't see why ee shouldn't have a few arter they've
enjoyed theirselves. And mebbe he's eleven shillin' a week,-
an' two-threy little chillen,- you understan', miss ? ”
“Of course I understand! ” said Marcella eagerly, her dark
cheek Aushing. “Of course I do! But there's a good deal of
game given away in these parts, isn't there? I know Lord Max-
well does, and they say Lord Winterbourne gives all his laborers
rabbits, almost as many as they want. "
Her questions wound old Patton up as though he had been
a disused clock. He began to feel a whirr among his creaking
wheels, a shaking of all his rusty mind.
"Perhaps they do, miss,” he said; and his wife saw that he
was beginning to tremble. "I dessay they do—I don't say
nothink agen it though theer's none of it cooms my way. But
that isn't all the rights on it nayther; no, that it ain't. The
laborin' man ee's glad enough to get a hare or a rabbit for his
eatin'; but there's more in it nor that, miss. Ee's allus in the
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## p. 15652 (#606) ##########################################
15652
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
fields, that's where it is; ee can't help seein' the hares and the
rabbits a-comin' in and out o' the woods, if it were iver so. Ee
knows ivery run of ivery one on 'em; if a hare's started furthest
corner o'ť field, he can tell yer whar she'll git in by, because
he's allus there, you see, miss, an' it's the only thing he's got to
take his mind off like. And then he sets a snare or two, -- an'
he gits very sharp at settin' on 'em,- an' he'll go out nights
for the sport of it. Ther isn't many things ee's got to liven
him up; an' he takes his chances o’goin' to jail; it's wuth it,
ee thinks. »
The old man's hands on his stick shook more and more visi-
bly. Bygones of his youth had come back to him.
“Oh, I know! I know ! ” cried Marcella, with an accent half
of indignation, half of despair. It's the whole wretched system.
It spoils those who've got, and those who haven't got. And
there'll be no mending it till the people get the land back again,
and till the rights on it are common to all. ”
"My! she do speak up, don't she ? ” said Mrs. Jellison, grin-
ning again at her companions. Then stooping forward with one
of her wild movements, she caught Marcella's arm: “I'd like to
hear yer tell that to Lord Maxwell, miss. I likes a roompus, I
do. ”
Marcella flushed and laughed.
“I wouldn't mind saying that or anything else to Lord Max-
well,” she said proudly. "I'm not ashamed of anything I think. ”
“No, I'll bet you ain't," said Mrs. Jellison, withdrawing her
hand. “Now then, Patton, you say what you thinks. You ain't
got no vote now you're in the parish houses — I minds that.
The quality don't trouble you at 'lection times.
man, Muster Wharton, as is goin' round so free, promisin' yer the
sun out o' the sky, iv yer'll only vote for him, so th' men say
ee don't coom an’ set down along o' you an' me, an' cocker of us
up as he do Joe Simmons or Jim Hurd here. But that don't
matter. Yur thinkin's yur own, any way. "
But she nudged him in vain. Patton had suddenly run down, ,
and there was no more to be got out of him.
Not only had nerves and speech failed him as they were wont,
but in his cloudy soul there had risen, even while Marcella was
speaking, the inevitable suspicion which dogs the relations of the
poor towards the richer class. This young lady, with her strange
talk, was the new squire's daughter. And the village had already
>
This yoong
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MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15653
(
a
made up its mind that Richard Boyce was a poor sort, and
hard sort” too, in his landlord capacity. He wasn't going to be
any improvement on his brother -- not a haporth! What was the
good of this young woman talking as she did, when there were
three summonses as he, Patton, heard tell — just taken out by
the sanitary inspector against Mr. Boyce for bad cottages ? And
not a farthing given away in the village neither, except perhaps
the bits of food that the young lady herself brought down to
the village now and then,- for which no one, in truth, felt any
cause to be particularly grateful. Besides, what did she mean
by asking questions about the poaching? Old Patton knew as
well as anybody else in the village, that during Robert Boyce's
last days, and after the death of his sportsman son, the Mellor
estate had become the haunt of poachers from far and near; and
that the trouble had long since spread into the neighboring prop-
erties, so that the Winterbourne and Maxwell keepers regarded
it their most arduous business to keep watch on the men of
Mellor. Of course the young woman knew it all; and she
and her father wanted to know more. That was why she talked.
Patton hardened himself against the creeping ways of the qual-
ity.
“I don't think naught,” he said roughly, in answer to Mrs.
Jellison. “Thinkin' won't come atwixt me and the parish coffin
when I'm took. I've no call to think, I tell yer. ”
Marcella's chest heaved with indignant feeling.
“Oh, but Mr. Patton! ” she cried, leaning forward to him,
“won't it comfort you a bit, even if you can't live to see it, to
think there's a better time coming ? There must be. People
can't go on like this always, - hating each other and trampling on
each other. They're beginning to see it now, they are! When I
was living in London, the persons I was with talked and thought
of it all day. Some day, whenever the people choose, - for
they've got the power now they've got the vote,- there'll be
land for everybody; and in every village there'll be a council to
manage things, and the laborer will count for just as much as
the squire and the parson, and he'll be better educated and bet-
ter fed, and care for many things he doesn't care for now. But
all the same, if he wants sport and shooting, it will be there for
him to get. For everybody will have a chance and a turn, and
there'll be no bitterness between classes, and no hopeless pining
and misery as there is now! ”
»
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MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
The girl broke off, catching her breath. It excited her to say
these things to these people, to these poor tottering old things
who had lived out their lives to the end under the pressure of
an iron system, and had no lien on the future, whatever paradise
it might bring. Again, the situation had something foreseen
and dramatic in it. She saw herself, as the preacher, sitting on
her stool beside the poor grate; she realized as a spectator the
figures of the women and the old man played on by the firelight,
the white, bare, damp-stained walls of the cottage, and in the
background the fragile though still comely form of Minta Hurd,
who was standing with her back to the dresser and her head
bent forward, listening to the talk, while her fingers twisted the
straw she plaited eternally from morning till night for a wage of
about is. 3d. a week.
Her mind was all aflame with excitement and defiance,
defiance of her father, Lord Maxwell, Aldous Raeburn. Let him
come, her friend, and see for himself what she thought it right
to do and say in this miserable village. Her soul challenged
him, longed to provoke him! Well, she was soon to meet him,
and in a new and more significant relation and environment.
