The men in Julia Kavanagh's books have led secluded lives, or they are extremely reserved—very hard nuts indeed to crack for the ingenuous, inexperienced girls on whom they bestow their lordly affection. One does not pity Nathalie, who certainly brings her troubles on herself; but in the subsequent book, sweet little Adèle is too bright a bit of sunshine to be sacrificed to such a being as William Osborne.
The old château in which Adèle has spent her short life is in the north-east of France; its luxuriant but neglected garden, full of lovely light and shade, its limpid lake, and the old French servants, are delightfully fresh. The chapters which describe these are exquisite reading—a gentle idyll glowing with sunshine, and with a leisureful charm that makes one resent the highly coloured intrusion of the Osborne family, though the Osborne women afford an effective contrast. Adèle is scantily educated, but she is always delightful, though we are never allowed to forget that she is descended from the ancient family of de Courcelles. She is thoroughly amiable and much enduring, in spite of an occasional waywardness.
Fresh and full of beauty as these novels are, with their sweet pure-heartedness, their truth and restful peace, they cannot compare with the admirable short sketches of the quiet side of French life by the same writer. The scenes in which the characters of these short stories are set, show the truth of Julia Kavanagh's observation, as well as the quality of her style; they are quite as beautiful as some of Guy de Maupassant's little gem-like Norman stories, but they are perfectly free from cynicism, although she truly shows the greedy grasping nature of the Norman peasant. The gifts of this writer are intensified, and more incisively shown, in these sketches because they contain few superfluous words and conversations. Julia Kavanagh must have revelled in the creation of such tales as "By the Well," and its companions; they are steeped in joyous brightness, toned here and there with real pathos as in "Clément's Love" and "Annette's Love-Story," in the collection called "Forget-me-nots."
Such a story as "By the Well" would nowadays be considered a lovely idyll, and, by critics able to appreciate its breadth and finished detail, a Meissonier in point of execution: it glows with true colour.
Fifine Delpierre is not a decked-out peasant heroine; she is a bare-footed, squalid, half-clothed, half-starved little girl, when we first see her beside the well. This is the scene that introduces her.
"It has a roof, as most wells have in Normandy, a low thatched roof, shaggy, brown, and old, but made rich and gorgeous when the sun shines upon it by many a tuft of deep green fern, and many a cluster of pink sedum and golden stonecrop. Beneath that roof, in perpetual shade and freshness, lies the low round margin, built of heavy ill-jointed stones, grey and discoloured with damp and age; and within this ... spreads an irregular but lovely fringe of hart's-tongue. The long glossy leaves of a cool pale green grow in the clefts of the inner wall, so far as the eye can reach, stretching and vanishing into the darkness, at the bottom of which you see a little tremulous circle of watery light. This well is invaluable to the Lenuds, for, as they pass by the farm the waters of the little river grow brackish and unfit for use. So long ago, before they were rich, the Lenuds having discovered this spring through the means of a neighbouring mason, named Delpierre, got him to sink and make the well, in exchange for what is called a servitude in French legal phrase; that is to say, that he and his were to have the use of the well for ever and ever. Bitter strife was the result of this agreement. The feud lasted generations, during which the Lenuds throve and grew rich, and the Delpierres got so poor, that, at the time when this story opens, the last had just died leaving a widow and three children in bitter destitution. Maître Louis Lenud, for the Parisian Monsieur had not yet reached Manneville, immediately availed himself of this fact to bolt and bar the postern-door through which his enemy had daily invaded the courtyard to go to the well....
"'It was easily done, and it cost me nothing—not a sou,' exultingly thought Maître Louis Lenud, coming to this conclusion for the hundredth time on a warm evening in July. The evening was more than warm, it was sultry; yet Maître Louis sat by the kitchen fire watching his old servant, Madeleine, as she got onion soup ready for the evening meal, utterly careless of the scorching blaze which shot up the deep dark funnel of the chimney. Pierre, his son, unable to bear this additional heat, stood in the open doorway, waiting with the impatience of eighteen for his supper, occasionally looking out on the farmyard, grey and quiet at this hour, but oftener casting a glance within. The firelight danced about the stone kitchen, now lighting up the armoire in the corner, with cupids and guitars, and shepherds' pipes and tabors, and lovers' knots carved on its brown oak panels; now showing the lad the bright copper saucepans, hung in rows upon the walls; now revealing the stern grim figure of his father, with his heavy grey eyebrows and his long Norman features both harsh and acute; and very stern could Maître Louis look, though he wore a faded blue blouse, an old handkerchief round his neck, and on his head a white cotton nightcap, with a stiff tassel to it; now suddenly subsiding and leaving all in the dim uncertain shadows of twilight.
"During one of these grey intervals, the long-drawling Norman voice of Maître Louis spoke: