Heroines Of Fiction - William Dean Howells

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he saw a Lucy Ashton in the plain air of day, where many Lucy Ashtons dwell and have dwelt, and not less importantly he saw Jeanie Deans; but it was more in his way to see such as Jeanie than to see such as Lucy, and I cannot help thinking it was less an achievement to have fixed her presence lastingly in the reader's consciousness.

      Such as she is, however, she stands foremost, I believe, in the critical appreciation of Scott's heroines, and it will be useless to oppose the figure of Effie Deans as somewhat unfairly overshadowed by her. Jeanie has the great weight of moral sentiment on her side; and yet I have a fancy that Scott himself, if he could really have been got at, would have owned he thought it a little finer to keep Effie impenitently true to herself throughout than to show Jeanie equal to the burden which her sister's lightness cast upon her. At any rate, it seems to me an effect of great mastery (once more surprising than now) to let us see that Effie was always the same nature, in the shame of her unlawful motherhood, in the stress of her trial for the crime against her child's life which she was guiltless of, in the horror of the scaffold to which she was unjustly doomed, and in the rebound from the danger and disgrace when Jeanie's devotion had won her release from both. She was wrought upon by the passing facts, but not changed in her nature by them, as Jeanie was not changed in hers. We judge one another so inadequately and unfairly in the actual world, however, that beings of the imaginary world must not expect better treatment. There as here, the light nature will be condemned for the deeds done in it as if they were done in a serious nature, and a serious nature will be honored for truth to itself as if it had overcome in this the weakness of a light nature. Especially among all peoples of Anglo- Saxon birth and breeding will the same inflexible measure of morality be applied, and the characterization of one who has done nobly will be thought greater than that of one who has not done nobly.

      II

      In this I hope I am not giving the notion that I wish to undervalue the character of Jeanie Deans as a piece of art. I value it above that of any other woman, except Lucy Ashton, or except Effie Deans, in all Scott's romances; but that is saying less than I should like in praise of it. Her character grows upon you, as no doubt it grew upon Scott himself, who must have found that he had something constantly greater and truer in hand than he first imagined. The simple girl matures slowly into shapeliness and strength, much as the straggling story of "The Heart of Midlothian" itself does, and it is not till her young sister's misfortune and the suspicion of child-murder begins to blacken about the hapless Effie that Jeanie shows the force of a heroine. She stands nearest the Covenanter conscience of their "dour" old father, and she stands between his conscience and her sister's blame when it comes to that, with a hold upon the reader's heart that tightens to suffocation at that awful moment in court when her helpless truth gives away her sister's life.

      The intensity of this feeling for her increases rather than lessens after Effie's sentence, when Jeanie goes up to London, alone and unfriended, to sue for the King's mercy. It is finely shown how she does not change, but enlarges in character to the measure of her tremendous mission. Through all her difficulties and dangers, and in every demand upon her truth to herself and faith in her sister's innocence of the crime which Effie is doomed to die for, she is still the same plain Scotch country body that we saw her at first, of a presence which the author is too wise to flatter. "She was short, and rather too stoutly made for her size, her gray eyes, light- colored hair, a round, good-humored face, much tanned by the sun; and her only peculiar charm was an air of inexpressible serenity, which a good conscience, kind feelings, contented temper and the regular discharge of all her duties, spread over her features." In this figure she visits the Duke of Argyle, the embodiment to her unworldliness of all worldly greatness under royalty, and wins his promise to help her see the King. Not only her calm, wholesome goodness, her sore-tried love for her sister, and her innocent naivete appear in the interview, but there are charming hints of the Scotch canniness which qualifies and quickens her virtues, if it is indeed not one of them.

      '"I wad hae putten on a cap, sir,' said Jeanie, when Argyle bids her go dressed as she is to the audience he has got for her, ' but your honor knows it isna the fashion of my country for single women; and I judged that being sae mony hundred miles frae home, your Grace's heart wad warm to the tartan,' looking at the comer of her plaid. 'You judged quite right,' said the Duke. ' Macallumore's heart will be as cold as death can make it, when it does not warm to the tartan. Now, go away, and do not be out of the way when I send.' 'There is little fear of that, sir. . . . But if I might say to your gracious honor, that if ye ever condescend to speak to ony ane that is of greater degree than yoursel', though maybe it isna civil in me to say sae, just if ye wad think there canna be any sic odds as between poor Jeanie Deans of St. Leonard's and the Duke of Argyle; and so dinna be chappit back or cast down by the first rough answer!' 'I am not apt,' said the Duke, laughing, ' to mind rough answers much. ... I will do my best, but God has the hearts of kings in His own hand.' "

      The incidents of Jeanie's audience with Caroline, whom the girl does not know for the Queen till the end, when Caroline gives her a little needle-book for remembrance, are of note too common for reproduction; but I like so much a pretty touch in her ensuing conversation with Argyle, that I wish I could believe myself the first to feel it. "'And that leddy was the Queen hersel'?' said Jeanie. 'I misdoubted it when I saw your honor didna put on your hat.' 'It was certainly Queen Caroline. . . . Have you no curiosity to see what is in the little pocket-book?' ' Do you think the pardon icill be in it?' said Jeanie with the eager animation of hope. ' Why, no. . . . They seldom carry these things about them . . . and besides, her Majesty told you it was the King, not she, who was to grant it.' ' That is true,' said Jeanie, ' but I am so confused in my mind.

      In such slight things, such casual, lateral touches, the master shows himself rather than in what Scott called "the big bow-bow," and abandoned himself to, alas! so much, because the big bow-bow is so pleasing. A student of human nature will find more of Jeanie in these than in the signal moments of the story where she has the heroine's official part to play; as he will find more of Effie in her flying with her lover, when her pardon comes, without staying Jeanie's return, than in the incidents of her imprisonment and trial. It is from a yet deeper and bolder knowledge of the heart that the author ventures to show, when Effie is married and comes back a lady of rank to visit poor Jeanie, that they both perceive how little they have in common, and willingly part again. Still, that is a great scene, a piece of mighty drama, at the trial, when Jeanie is called to testify concerning Effie under the atrocious law which judged the mother guilty of her child's death if this happened because she had not sought the needed help in the hour of her agony and dishonor. It was the hope of the defense that Effie might be shown to have trusted Jeanie with her secret, and "the poor prisoner instantly started up, and stretched herself half-way over the bar, toward the side at which her sister was to enter. And when, slowly following the official, the witness advanced to the foot of the table, Effie, with the whole expression of her countenance altered from that of confused shame and dismay to an eager, imploring and almost ecstatic earnestness of entreaty, with outstretched hand, hair streaming back, eyes raised eagerly to her sister's face and glistening through tears, exclaimed, in a tone that went to the heart of all who heard her,' O, Jeanie, Jeanie, save me, save me!' . . . Old Deans drew himself still further back under cover of the bench so that . . . his venerable form was no longer visible." Fairbrother, Effie's counsel, "saw the necessity of letting the witness compose herself. In his heart he suspected that she came to bear false witness in her sister's cause. . . . He asked whether she had not remarked her sister's state of health to be altered. 'And she told you the cause of it, my dear, I suppose? . . . Take courage,— speak out.' 'I asked her,' replied Jeanie, 'what ailed her', 'Very well—take your own time—and what was the answer she made?' . . . Jeanie was silent, and looked deadly pale. It was not that she ai any one instant entertained an idea of the possibility of prevarication—it was the natural hesitation to extinguish the last spark of hope that remained for her sister. 'Take courage, young woman,' said Fairbrother. 'I asked what she said ailed her when you inquired.' 'Nothing,' answered Jeanie, with a faint voice which was yet distinctly heard in the most distant corner of the courtroom, such an awful and profound silence had been preserved. . . . Fairbrother's countenance fell. . . . ' Nothing? True, you mean nothing at first, but when you asked her again, did she not tell you what ailed her?' The question was put in a tone meant to make her comprehend the importance of her answer. . . With less pause than

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