Jane Clayton

“ Jane Clayton wondered if the man knew where he was bound. She did not know that in his capacity as cook he had that day been rowed up this very stream to a little village where he had bartered with the natives for such provisions as they had for sale, and that he had there arranged the details of his plan for the adventure upon which they were now setting forth.
Jane escapes from the Kincaid
Even though the moon was full, the surface of the small river was quite dark. The giant trees overhung its narrow banks, meeting in a great arch above the center of the river. ”

“ At length Clayton arose and laid his hand gently upon Professor Porter’s bent old shoulder.
“I shall go with you, of course,” he said.
“I knew that you would offer—that you would wish to go, Mr. Clayton; but you must not. Jane is beyond human assistance now. What was once my dear little girl shall not lie alone and friendless in the awful jungle.
“The same vines and leaves will cover us, the same rains beat upon us; and when the spirit of her mother is abroad, it will find us together in death, as it has always found us in life. ”

“ Little did John Clayton imagine when he fashioned that crude but mighty portal that one day, twenty years later, it would shield a fair American girl, then unborn, from the teeth and talons of a man-eater.
For fully twenty minutes the brute alternately sniffed and tore at the door, occasionally giving voice to a wild, savage cry of baffled rage. At length, however, she gave up the attempt, and Jane heard her returning toward the window, beneath which she paused for an instant, and then launched her great weight against the timeworn lattice. ”

“ Could she love Clayton? She could see no reason why she could not. Jane was not coldly calculating by nature, but training, environment and heredity had all combined to teach her to reason even in matters of the heart.
That she had been carried off her feet by the strength of the young giant when his great arms were about her in the distant African forest, and again today, in the Wisconsin woods, seemed to her only attributable to a temporary mental reversion to type on her part—to the psychological appeal of the primeval man to the primeval woman in her nature. ”

“ Mo-sar advanced and halted before her. Into his cunning mind had entered a plan to trick her. If it succeeded it would prove easier than taking her by force, and then his eyes fell upon Jane Clayton and he almost gasped in astonishment and admiration, but he caught himself and returned to the business of the moment. ”

“ Clayton heard that this was a sure omen of death, and though he had ever laughed at it as an old woman’s whim, he shuddered now as he saw it in her, and bowing his head upon the pillow, he wept like a child. For a moment Richard Delafield stood gazing upon the apparently dying girl and the weeping man, who seemed wholly incapable of action; then rousing himself, he went in quest of the black women, commanding them in a voice they dared not disobey to come at once to the sick-room. ”

“ Mechanically Clayton did her bidding, but there was no response.
Jane Porter shuddered. "The mysterious jungle," she murmured. "The terrible jungle. It renders even the manifestations of friendship terrifying."
"We had best return to the shelter," said Clayton. "You will be at least a little safer there. I am no protection whatever," he added bitterly.
"Do not say that, William," she hastened to urge, acutely sorry for the wound her words had caused. "You have done the best you could. You have been noble, and self-sacrificing, and brave. It is no fault of yours that you are not a superman. ”

“ We must reach the camp before the returning raiders."
Unsuspicious of the man's true character, Jane Clayton saw nothing peculiar in his plans, or in his specious explanation of his former friendship for the raider, and so she grasped with alacrity the seeming hope for safety which he proffered her, and turning about she set out with Albert Werper toward the hostile camp in which she so lately had been a prisoner. ”

“ There is only one way to keep him in safety, and that is to chain him to a tree. The poor dear is SO impractical.”
“I have it!” suddenly exclaimed Clayton. “You can use a revolver, can’t you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I have one. With it you and Esmeralda will be comparatively safe in this cabin while I am searching for your father and Mr. Philander. Come, call the woman and I will hurry on. They can’t have gone far.”
Jane did as he suggested and when he saw the door close safely behind them Clayton turned toward the jungle. ”

“ Clayton would feel, when he heard the sad news! Almost every week I was weighed, feeling each time a good deal chagrined to find that I was not losing flesh as fast as a person in a decline would naturally do. In this state of affairs, I one day came across a little sketch of Hannah More, in which her early disappointment was described, and forthwith I likened myself to her, and taking courage from her example, I finally concluded that if I could not have the doctor I could at least write for the newspapers, and some day I might perhaps be able to make a book. ”

“ Jane shot a quick glance at Clayton.
“It seems vastly more reasonable,” said Professor Porter.
“I do not agree with you,” objected Mr. Philander. “He had ample opportunity to harm us himself, or to lead his people against us. Instead, during our long residence here, he has been uniformly consistent in his role of protector and provider.”
“That is true,” interjected Clayton, “yet we must not overlook the fact that except for himself the only human beings within hundreds of miles are savage cannibals. ”

“ But upon only one were her brightest glances and her most winsome smiles lavished, and that was George Clayton, a young man from South Carolina, who was said to be very wealthy. He was too honorable to join in the intrigues of his companions, and when at last he became attracted by the witching eyes and dashing manners of Arabella Greenleaf, he went boldly to Madame Duvant and asked permission to see the young lady in the parlor. ”

“ Jane Austen is likely to live longer than George Eliot, because she conveyed her message, less momentous though it were, with a finer and a firmer art. Jane Austen's subjects seem, at the first glance, to be of very small account. From English middle-class society she selects a group of people who are in no regard remarkable, and thereafter concerns herself chiefly with the simple question of who will ultimately marry whom. But by sedulously dwelling on the non-essentials of life, she contrives to remind the reader of its vast essentials. ”

“ He died here in this cabin and this poor thing upon the floor is all that is mortal of him.”
“Then this must have been Lady Greystoke,” said Jane reverently, indicating the poor mass of bones upon the bed.
“The beautiful Lady Alice,” replied Clayton, “of whose many virtues and remarkable personal charms I often have heard my mother and father speak. Poor woman,” he murmured sadly.
With deep reverence and solemnity the bodies of the late Lord and Lady Greystoke were buried beside their little African cabin, and between them was placed the tiny skeleton of the baby of Kala, the ape. ”

“ Then in his ear the tempter whispered, “Why need these things be? She is not yet out of danger. A little relaxation of care on your part, and Richard Delafield will never call her his.”
Only for a moment, however, did Dr. Clayton listen, and 321then laying his head upon the pillow beside that of Rose, who, wearied with her story, had fallen asleep, he wept as he had never wept before, not even when he saw creeping over her the shadow of death. Turn which way he would, there was naught before him save the darkness of despair ”

“ When, therefore, it is desired to depict a character by direct comment on his actions or his personality, there is a great advantage in allowing the comment to be made by one of the other characters in the story, instead of by the author himself in an attitude of assumed omniscience. Jane Austen deftly exhibits this subtler phase of the expedient in many admirable passages. ”

“ Whether or not realistic fiction shrinks from the unpleasant depends also on the particular nature of the realist. Zola’s realism certainly does not; Jane Austen’s decidedly does. You will find far less shrinking from the unpleasant, of one sort, in Poe, of another sort, in Catulle Mendès––both of them romantics––than in the novels of Jane Austen. What is the use, then, of Professor Perry’s definition of realism, since it remains open to so many exceptions? And in his chapter on romance the critic does not even attempt to formulate a definition. ”

“ Most of the great novelists have made, like Jane Austen, a special study of some particular field. Hawthorne is an authority on Puritan New England, Thackeray on London high society, Henry James on cosmopolitan super-civilization. It would seem, therefore, that a young author, while keeping his observation fresh for all experience, should devote especial notice to experience of some particular phase of life. But along comes Mr. Rudyard Kipling, with his world-engirdling knowledge, to jostle us out of faith in too narrow a focus of attention. ”

“ If she lived, would it not be in a measure owing to the efficient means he had employed—and why should he wish to save her? Would he not rather see her dead? It was an evil spirit which counselled with him thus, but ere long the noble nature of Richard Delafield conquered, and when at last her eyes unclosed, and turned towards Dr. Clayton, whose name she breathed, asking for her bridal dress, he looked on calmly while his rival kissed her again and again, telling her she should yet wear it and be his bride, but when he saw how she shuddered at these words, feebly answering, “No, no. ”

“ She was a dull girl, and it took her some time to understand what Jane had really said to her.
"Why, why—" she stammered, "you have always done as you were told before, and—I'll tell mother," she added, an ugly frown distorting her face. "She'll not allow you to be impertinent to me, you know."
"It is quite impossible for me to be impertinent to you, Gwendolen," said Jane, drawing up her little figure superbly. "One cannot be impertinent to one's equals. I'll hook up your frock for you, if you like, because you are my cousin, and I ought on that account to be willing to be civil to you. ”

“ She leaned back in her chair and fixed her clear eyes upon her uncle. Manifestly he was astounded by her reply.
"Why, why, why—upon my word!" he stammered at length. "I am—er—shocked to hear you speak in that manner. What—er—what, in short, do you mean?"
"I should rather go away and earn my living," said Jane desperately. "I suppose Aunt Agatha has told you what I said to her in the schoolroom to-night; but I meant it; I shouldn't mind being a nursery governess in the least, and"—forlornly—"it is all I am good for."
"Tut, tut!" remonstrated Mr. Aubrey-Blythe with some sternness. ”

“ Her patrician countenance assumed a peculiar, sickly, mottled pink colour. "To-morrow, at ten, in the library," she said coldly. "And, Jane, as Parks will be occupied with my toilet, I should like you to assist Gwendolen. You may go down now. Susan will put this disgracefully untidy room to rights. Cecil and Percy, you will go to bed at once—at once! do you hear?"
"Yes, mother," piped the two small scions of the house of Aubrey-Blythe in a respectfully subdued chorus. ”

“ In this way Tante Modeste surmounted all difficulties, and the next morning Lady Jane, completely enveloped in a little pink domino, with a tiny pink mask carefully fastened over her rosy face, and her blue eyes wide with delight and wonder sparkling through the two holes, was lifted into the milk cart with the brood of little Paichoux, and with many good-byes to poor forlorn Pepsie and to Tony, who was standing dejectedly on one leg, the happy child was rattled away in the bright sunlight, through the merry, noisy crowd, to that center of every delight, Canal Street, on Mardi-gras. ”

“ Am I not right?"
"I said I should rather be a nursery governess," said Jane doggedly. "I can do that; I have taught Percy and Cecil ever since Miss Craddock went away, and——"
Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe rose abruptly. "No, Jane—I beg— Keep your seat, if you please. I will send Mr. Towle to you at once. You are, of course, at liberty to do as you wish in the matter. But as your eldest surviving male relative I most strongly advise that you listen to his suit patiently and give him the answer that he wishes and—er—expects." ”

“ You won't like it. Me an' Mary gits along pretty fair; but she won't stan' another girl around. Many's the time she's said so to me, right in this kitchen."
Jane hastily hung up the tea towels; her ears were burning under the loose waves of her hair.
"I'll help m'self to what I want to eat," Mrs. Whittaker was saying amiably; "I know where everythin' is, an' you don't need to stay 'round here on my account. If you was wantin' to change yer place when your week's out I know a real nice woman down the street 'at ain't got a girl. ”

“ Jane set her small white teeth. "I'll not go back to Aunt Agatha," she murmured passionately. "I am strong—far stronger than I look. I can work."
"Very good," said Bertha Forbes, who was merely a lonely, good-hearted woman, when she was off duty. "I'll help you get a place."
But the stars in their courses seemed to fight against Jane. There were numbers of persons indeed who were looking for a "refined young woman, English preferred," to act as nursery governess ”

“ And so, although Jane frowned upon John on every suitable occasion, John the more determinedly smiled upon Jane, and she, being young and lovely and, after all, a mere woman, grew (quite stealthily) prettier and sweeter and more worthy to be smiled upon with every passing hour. And this despite the vinegar and gall which she was forced to mingle with her daily food partaken of in the Belknap kitchen under the glowering eyes of Mary MacGrotty. ”