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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 7467 ***
+
+
+
+
+THE NEWCOMES
+
+MEMOIRS OF A MOST RESPECTABLE FAMILY
+
+
+Edited by Arthur Pendennis, Esq.
+
+By William Makepeace Thackeray
+
+
+Contents
+
+ THE NEWCOMES
+ CHAPTER I.  The Overture—After which the Curtain rises upon a Drinking Chorus
+ CHAPTER II.  Colonel Newcome’s Wild Oats
+ CHAPTER III.  Colonel Newcome’s Letter-box
+ CHAPTER IV.  In which the Author and the Hero resume their Acquaintance
+ CHAPTER V.  Clive’s Uncles
+ CHAPTER VI.  Newcome Brothers
+ CHAPTER VII.  In which Mr. Clive’s School-days are over
+ CHAPTER VIII.  Mrs. Newcome at Home (a Small Early Party)
+ CHAPTER IX.  Miss Honeyman’s
+ CHAPTER X.  Ethel and her Relations
+ CHAPTER XI.  At Mrs. Ridley’s
+ CHAPTER XII.  In which everybody is asked to Dinner
+ CHAPTER XIII.  In which Thomas Newcome sings his Last Song
+ CHAPTER XIV.  Park Lane
+ CHAPTER XV.  The Old Ladies
+ CHAPTER XVI.  In which Mr. Sherrick lets his House in Fitzroy Square
+ CHAPTER XVII.  A School of Art
+ CHAPTER XVIII.  New Companions
+ CHAPTER XIX.  The Colonel at Home
+ CHAPTER XX.  Contains more Particulars of the Colonel and his Brethren
+ CHAPTER XXI.  Is Sentimental, but Short
+ CHAPTER XXII.  Describes a Visit to Paris; with Accidents and Incidents in London
+ CHAPTER XXIII.  In which we hear a Soprano and a Contralto
+ CHAPTER XXIV.  In which the Newcome Brothers once more meet together in Unity
+ CHAPTER XXV.  Is passed in a Public-house
+ CHAPTER XXVI.  In which Colonel Newcome’s Horses are sold
+ CHAPTER XXVII.  Youth and Sunshine
+ CHAPTER XXVIII.  In which Clive begins to see the World
+ CHAPTER XXIX.  In which Barnes comes a-wooing
+ CHAPTER XXX.  A Retreat
+ CHAPTER XXXI.  Madame la Duchesse
+ CHAPTER XXXII.  Barnes’s Courtship
+ CHAPTER XXXIII.  Lady Kew at the Congress
+ CHAPTER XXXIV.  The End of the Congress of Baden
+ CHAPTER XXXV.  Across the Alps
+ CHAPTER XXXVI.  In which M. de Florac is promoted
+ CHAPTER XXXVII.  Returns to Lord Kew
+ CHAPTER XXXVIII.  In which Lady Kew leaves his Lordship quite convalescent
+ CHAPTER XXXIX.  Amongst the Painters
+ CHAPTER XL.  Returns from Rome to Pall Mall
+ CHAPTER XLI.  An Old Story
+ CHAPTER XLII.  Injured Innocence
+ CHAPTER XLIII.  Returns to some Old Friends
+ CHAPTER XLIV.  In which Mr. Charles Honeyman appears in an Amiable Light
+ CHAPTER XLV.  A Stag of Ten
+ CHAPTER XLVI.  The Hotel de Florac
+ CHAPTER XLVII.  Contains two or three Acts of a Little Comedy
+ CHAPTER XLVIII.  In which Benedick is a Married Man
+ CHAPTER XLIX.  Contains at least six more Courses and two Desserts
+ CHAPTER L.  Clive in New Quarters
+ CHAPTER LI.  An Old Friend
+ CHAPTER LII.  Family Secrets
+ CHAPTER LIII.  In which Kinsmen fall out
+ CHAPTER LIV.  Has a Tragical Ending
+ CHAPTER LV.  Barnes’s Skeleton Closet
+ CHAPTER LVI.  Rosa quo locorum sera moratur
+ CHAPTER LVII.  Rosebury and Newcome
+ CHAPTER LVIII.  “One more Unfortunate”
+ CHAPTER LIX.  In which Achilles loses Briseis
+ CHAPTER LX.  In which we write to the Colonel
+ CHAPTER LXI.  In which we are introduced to a New Newcome
+ CHAPTER LXII.  Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome
+ CHAPTER LXIII.  Mrs. Clive at Home
+ CHAPTER LXIV.  Absit Omen
+ CHAPTER LXV.  In which Mrs. Clive comes into her Fortune
+ CHAPTER LXVI.  In which the Colonel and the Newcome Athenæum are both lectured
+ CHAPTER LXVII.  Newcome and Liberty
+ CHAPTER LXVIII.  A Letter and a Reconciliation
+ CHAPTER LXIX.  The Election
+ CHAPTER LXX.  Chiltern Hundreds
+ CHAPTER LXXI.  In which Mrs. Clive Newcome’s Carriage is ordered
+ CHAPTER LXXII.  Belisarius
+ CHAPTER LXXIII.  In which Belisarius returns from Exile
+ CHAPTER LXXIV.  In which Clive begins the World
+ CHAPTER LXXV.  Founder’s Day at the Grey Friars
+ CHAPTER LXXVI.  Christmas at Rosebury
+ CHAPTER LXXVII.  The Shortest and Happiest in the Whole History
+ CHAPTER LXXVIII.  In which the Author goes on a Pleasant Errand
+ CHAPTER LXXIX.  In which Old Friends come together
+ CHAPTER LXXX.  In which the Colonel says “Adsum” when his Name is called
+
+
+
+
+THE NEWCOMES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+The Overture—After which the Curtain rises upon a Drinking Chorus
+
+
+A crow, who had flown away with a cheese from a dairy-window, sate
+perched on a tree looking down at a great big frog in a pool underneath
+him. The frog’s hideous large eyes were goggling out of his head in a
+manner which appeared quite ridiculous to the old blackamoor, who
+watched the splay-footed slimy wretch with that peculiar grim humour
+belonging to crows. Not far from the frog a fat ox was browsing; whilst
+a few lambs frisked about the meadow, or nibbled the grass and
+buttercups there.
+
+Who should come in to the farther end of the field but a wolf? He was
+so cunningly dressed up in sheep’s clothing, that the very lambs did
+not know Master Wolf; nay, one of them, whose dam the wolf had just
+eaten, after which he had thrown her skin over his shoulders, ran up
+innocently towards the devouring monster, mistaking him for her mamma.
+
+“He, he!” says a fox, sneaking round the hedge-paling, over which the
+tree grew, whereupon the crow was perched looking down on the frog, who
+was staring with his goggle eyes fit to burst with envy, and croaking
+abuse at the ox. “How absurd those lambs are! Yonder silly little
+knock-kneed baah-ling does not know the old wolf dressed in the sheep’s
+fleece. He is the same old rogue who gobbled up little Red Riding
+Hood’s grandmother for lunch, and swallowed little Red Riding Hood for
+supper. _Tirez la bobinette et la chevillette cherra_. He, he!”
+
+An owl that was hidden in the hollow of the tree woke up. “Oho, Master
+Fox,” says she, “I cannot see you, but I smell you! If some folks like
+lambs, other folks like geese,” says the owl.
+
+“And your ladyship is fond of mice,” says the fox.
+
+“The Chinese eat them,” says the owl, “and I have read that they are
+very fond of dogs,” continued the old lady.
+
+“I wish they would exterminate every cur of them off the face of the
+earth,” said the fox.
+
+“And I have also read, in works of travel, that the French eat frogs,”
+continued the owl. “Aha, my friend Crapaud! are you there? That was a
+very pretty concert we sang together last night!”
+
+“If the French devour my brethren, the English eat beef,” croaked out
+the frog,—“great, big, brutal, bellowing oxen.”
+
+“Ho, whoo!” says the owl, “I have heard that the English are
+toad-eaters too!”
+
+“But who ever heard of them eating an owl or a fox, madam?” says
+Reynard, “or their sitting down and taking a crow to pick?” adds the
+polite rogue, with a bow to the old crow who was perched above them
+with the cheese in his mouth. “We are privileged animals, all of us; at
+least, we never furnish dishes for the odious orgies of man.”
+
+“I am the bird of wisdom,” says the owl; “I was the companion of Pallas
+Minerva: I am frequently represented in the Egyptian monuments.”
+
+“I have seen you over the British barn-doors,” said the fox, with a
+grin. “You have a deal of scholarship, Mrs. Owl. I know a thing or two
+myself; but am, I confess it, no scholar—a mere man of the world—a
+fellow that lives by his wits—a mere country gentleman.”
+
+“You sneer at scholarship,” continues the owl, with a sneer on her
+venerable face. “I read a good deal of a night.”
+
+“When I am engaged deciphering the cocks and hens at roost,” says the
+fox.
+
+“It’s a pity for all that you can’t read; that board nailed over my
+head would give you some information.”
+
+“What does it say?” says the fox.
+
+“I can’t spell in the daylight,” answered the owl; and, giving a yawn,
+went back to sleep till evening in the hollow of her tree.
+
+“A fig for her hieroglyphics!” said the fox, looking up at the crow in
+the tree. “What airs our slow neighbour gives herself! She pretends to
+all the wisdom; whereas, your reverences, the crows, are endowed with
+gifts far superior to these benighted old big-wigs of owls, who blink
+in the darkness, and call their hooting singing. How noble it is to
+hear a chorus of crows! There are twenty-four brethren of the Order of
+St. Corvinus, who have builded themselves a convent near a wood which I
+frequent; what a droning and a chanting they keep up! I protest their
+reverences’ singing is nothing to yours! You sing so deliciously in
+parts, do for the love of harmony favour me with a solo!”
+
+While this conversation was going on, the ox was thumping the grass;
+the frog was eyeing him in such a rage at his superior proportions,
+that he would have spurted venom at him if he could, and that he would
+have burst, only that is impossible, from sheer envy; the little
+lambkin was lying unsuspiciously at the side of the wolf in fleecy
+hosiery, who did not as yet molest her, being replenished with the
+mutton her mamma. But now the wolf’s eyes began to glare, and his sharp
+white teeth to show, and he rose up with a growl, and began to think he
+should like lamb for supper.
+
+“What large eyes you have got!” bleated out the lamb, with rather a
+timid look.
+
+“The better to see you with, my dear.”
+
+“What large teeth you have got!”
+
+“The better to——”
+
+At this moment such a terrific yell filled the field, that all its
+inhabitants started with terror. It was from a donkey, who had somehow
+got a lion’s skin, and now came in at the hedge, pursued by some men
+and boys with sticks and guns.
+
+When the wolf in sheep’s clothing heard the bellow of the ass in the
+lion’s skin, fancying that the monarch of the forest was near, he ran
+away as fast as his disguise would let him. When the ox heard the noise
+he dashed round the meadow-ditch, and with one trample of his hoof
+squashed the frog who had been abusing him. When the crow saw the
+people with guns coming, he instantly dropped the cheese out of his
+mouth, and took to wing. When the fox saw the cheese drop, he
+immediately made a jump at it (for he knew the donkey’s voice, and that
+his asinine bray was not a bit like his royal master’s roar), and
+making for the cheese, fell into a steel trap, which snapped off his
+tail; without which he was obliged to go into the world, pretending,
+forsooth, that it was the fashion not to wear tails any more; and that
+the fox-party were better without ’em.
+
+Meanwhile, a boy with a stick came up, and belaboured Master Donkey
+until he roared louder than ever. The wolf, with the sheep’s clothing
+draggling about his legs, could not run fast, and was detected and shot
+by one of the men. The blind old owl, whirring out of the hollow tree,
+quite amazed at the disturbance, flounced into the face of a ploughboy,
+who knocked her down with a pitchfork. The butcher came and quietly led
+off the ox and the lamb; and the farmer, finding the fox’s brush in the
+trap, hung it up over his mantelpiece, and always bragged that he had
+been in at his death.
+
+“What a farrago of old fables is this! What a dressing up in old
+clothes!” says the critic. (I think I see such a one—a Solomon that
+sits in judgment over us authors and chops up our children.) “As sure
+as I am just and wise, modest, learned, and religious, so surely I have
+read something very like this stuff and nonsense about jackasses and
+foxes before. That wolf in sheep’s clothing?—do I not know him? That
+fox discoursing with the crow?—have I not previously heard of him? Yes,
+in Lafontaine’s fables: let us get the Dictionary and the Fable and the
+Biographie Universelle, article Lafontaine, and confound the impostor.”
+
+“Then in what a contemptuous way,” may Solomon go on to remark, “does
+this author speak of human nature! There is scarce one of these
+characters he represents but is a villain. The fox is a flatterer; the
+frog is an emblem of impotence and envy; the wolf in sheep’s clothing a
+bloodthirsty hypocrite, wearing the garb of innocence; the ass in the
+lion’s skin a quack trying to terrify, by assuming the appearance of a
+forest monarch (does the writer, writhing under merited castigation,
+mean to sneer at critics in this character? We laugh at the impertinent
+comparison); the ox, a stupid commonplace; the only innocent being in
+the writer’s (stolen) apologue is a fool—the idiotic lamb, who does not
+know his own mother!” And then the critic, if in a virtuous mood, may
+indulge in some fine writing regarding the holy beauteousness of
+maternal affection.
+
+Why not? If authors sneer, it is the critic’s business to sneer at them
+for sneering. He must pretend to be their superior, or who would care
+about his opinion? And his livelihood is to find fault. Besides, he is
+right sometimes; and the stories he reads, and the characters drawn in
+them, are old, sure enough. What stories are new? All types of all
+characters march through all fables: tremblers and boasters; victims
+and bullies; dupes and knaves; long-eared Neddies, giving themselves
+leonine airs; Tartuffes wearing virtuous clothing; lovers and their
+trials, their blindness, their folly and constancy. With the very first
+page of the human story do not love and lies too begin? So the tales
+were told ages before Aesop; and asses under lions’ manes roared in
+Hebrew; and sly foxes flattered in Etruscan; and wolves in sheep’s
+clothing gnashed their teeth in Sanskrit, no doubt. The sun shines
+to-day as he did when he first began shining; and the birds in the tree
+overhead, while I am writing, sing very much the same note they have
+sung ever since there were finches. Nay, since last he besought
+good-natured friends to listen once a month to his talking, a friend of
+the writer has seen the New World, and found the (featherless) birds
+there exceedingly like their brethren of Europe. There may be nothing
+new under and including the sun; but it looks fresh every morning, and
+we rise with it to toil, hope, scheme, laugh, struggle, love, suffer,
+until the night comes and quiet. And then will wake Morrow and the eyes
+that look on it; and so _da capo_.
+
+This, then, is to be a story, may it please you, in which jackdaws will
+wear peacocks’ feathers, and awaken the just ridicule of the peacocks;
+in which, while every justice is done to the peacocks themselves, the
+splendour of their plumage, the gorgeousness of their dazzling necks,
+and the magnificence of their tails, exception will yet be taken to the
+absurdity of their rickety strut, and the foolish discord of their pert
+squeaking; in which lions in love will have their claws pared by sly
+virgins; in which rogues will sometimes triumph, and honest folks, let
+us hope, come by their own; in which there will be black crape and
+white favours; in which there will be tears under orange-flower
+wreaths, and jokes in mourning-coaches; in which there will be dinners
+of herbs with contentment and without, and banquets of stalled oxen
+where there is care and hatred—ay, and kindness and friendship too,
+along with the feast. It does not follow that all men are honest
+because they are poor; and I have known some who were friendly and
+generous, although they had plenty of money. There are some great
+landlords who do not grind down their tenants; there are actually
+bishops who are not hypocrites; there are liberal men even among the
+Whigs, and the Radicals themselves are not all aristocrats at heart.
+But who ever heard of giving the Moral before the Fable? Children are
+only led to accept the one after their delectation over the other: let
+us take care lest our readers skip both; and so let us bring them on
+quickly—our wolves and lambs, our foxes and lions, our roaring donkeys,
+our billing ringdoves, our motherly partlets, and crowing chanticleers.
+
+There was once a time when the sun used to shine brighter than it
+appears to do in this latter half of the nineteenth century; when the
+zest of life was certainly keener; when tavern wines seemed to be
+delicious, and tavern dinners the perfection of cookery; when the
+perusal of novels was productive of immense delight, and the monthly
+advent of magazine-day was hailed as an exciting holiday; when to know
+Thompson, who had written a magazine-article, was an honour and a
+privilege; and to see Brown, the author of the last romance, in the
+flesh, and actually walking in the Park with his umbrella and Mrs.
+Brown, was an event remarkable, and to the end of life to be perfectly
+well remembered; when the women of this world were a thousand times
+more beautiful than those of the present time; and the houris of the
+theatres especially so ravishing and angelic, that to see them was to
+set the heart in motion, and to see them again was to struggle for half
+an hour previously at the door of the pit; when tailors called at a
+man’s lodgings to dazzle him with cards of fancy waistcoats; when it
+seemed necessary to purchase a grand silver dressing-case, so as to be
+ready for the beard which was not yet born (as yearling brides provide
+lace caps, and work rich clothes, for the expected darling); when to
+ride in the Park on a ten-shilling hack seemed to be the height of
+fashionable enjoyment, and to splash your college tutor as you were
+driving down Regent Street in a hired cab the triumph of satire; when
+the acme of pleasure seemed to be to meet Jones of Trinity at the
+Bedford, and to make an arrangement with him, and with King of Corpus
+(who was staying at the Colonnade), and Martin of Trinity Hall (who was
+with his family in Bloomsbury Square), to dine at the Piazza, go to the
+play and see Braham in Fra Diavolo, and end the frolic evening by
+partaking of supper and a song at the “Cave of Harmony.”—It was in the
+days of my own youth, then, that I met one or two of the characters who
+are to figure in this history, and whom I must ask leave to accompany
+for a short while, and until, familiarised with the public, they can
+make their own way. As I recall them the roses bloom again, and the
+nightingales sing by the calm Bendemeer.
+
+Going to the play, then, and to the pit, as was the fashion in those
+honest days, with some young fellows of my own age, having listened
+delighted to the most cheerful and brilliant of operas, and laughed
+enthusiastically at the farce, we became naturally hungry at twelve
+o’clock at night, and a desire for welsh-rabbits and good old
+glee-singing led us to the “Cave of Harmony,” then kept by the
+celebrated Hoskins, among whose friends we were proud to count.
+
+We enjoyed such intimacy with Mr. Hoskins that he never failed to greet
+us with a kind nod; and John the waiter made room for us near the
+President of the convivial meeting. We knew the three admirable
+glee-singers, and many a time they partook of brandy-and-water at our
+expense. One of us gave his call dinner at Hoskins’s, and a merry time
+we had of it. Where are you, O Hoskins, bird of the night? Do you
+warble your songs by Acheron, or troll your choruses by the banks of
+black Avernus?
+
+The goes of stout, the “Chough and Crow,” the welsh-rabbit, the
+“Red-Cross Knight,” the hot brandy-and-water (the brown, the strong!),
+the “Bloom is on the Rye” (the bloom isn’t on the rye any more!)—the
+song and the cup, in a word, passed round merrily; and, I daresay, the
+songs and bumpers were encored. It happened that there was a very small
+attendance at the “Cave” that night, and we were all more sociable and
+friendly because the company was select. The songs were chiefly of the
+sentimental class; such ditties were much in vogue at the time of which
+I speak.
+
+There came into the “Cave” a gentleman with a lean brown face and long
+black mustachios, dressed in very loose clothes, and evidently a
+stranger to the place. At least he had not visited it for a long time.
+He was pointing out changes to a lad who was in his company; and,
+calling for sherry-and-water, he listened to the music, and twirled his
+mustachios with great enthusiasm.
+
+At the very first glimpse of me the boy jumped up from the table,
+bounded across the room, ran to me with his hands out, and, blushing,
+said, “Don’t you know me?”
+
+It was little Newcome, my school-fellow, whom I had not seen for six
+years, grown a fine tall young stripling now, with the same bright blue
+eyes which I remembered when he was quite a little boy.
+
+“What the deuce brings you here?” said I.
+
+He laughed and looked roguish. “My father—that’s my father—would come.
+He’s just come back from India. He says all the wits used to come
+here,—Mr. Sheridan, Captain Morris, Colonel Hanger, Professor Porson. I
+told him your name, and that you used to be very kind to me when I
+first went to Smithfield. I’ve left now; I’m to have a private tutor. I
+say, I’ve got such a jolly pony. It’s better fun than old Smile.”
+
+Here the whiskered gentleman, Newcome’s father, pointing to a waiter to
+follow him with his glass of sherry-and-water, strode across the room
+twirling his mustachios, and came up to the table where we sate, making
+a salutation with his hat in a very stately and polite manner, so that
+Hoskins himself was, as it were, obliged to bow; the glee-singers
+murmured among themselves (their eyes rolling over their glasses
+towards one another as they sucked brandy-and water), and that
+mischievous little wag, little Nadab the Improvisatore (who had just
+come in), began to mimic him, feeling his imaginary whiskers, after the
+manner of the stranger, and flapping about his pocket-handkerchief in
+the most ludicrous manner. Hoskins checked this ribaldry by sternly
+looking towards Nadab, and at the same time called upon the gents to
+give their orders, the waiter being in the room, and Mr. Bellew about
+to sing a song.
+
+Newcome’s father came up and held out his hand to me. I dare say I
+blushed, for I had been comparing him to the admirable Harley in the
+Critic, and had christened him Don Ferolo Whiskerandos.
+
+He spoke in a voice exceedingly soft and pleasant, and with a
+cordiality so simple and sincere, that my laughter shrank away ashamed,
+and gave place to a feeling much more respectful and friendly. In
+youth, you see, one is touched by kindness. A man of the world may, of
+course, be grateful or not as he chooses.
+
+“I have heard of your kindness, sir,” says he, “to my boy. And whoever
+is kind to him is kind to me. Will you allow me to sit down by you? and
+may I beg you to try my cheroots?” We were friends in a minute—young
+Newcome snuggling by my side, his father opposite, to whom, after a
+minute or two of conversation, I presented my three college friends.
+
+“You have come here, gentlemen, to see the wits,” says the Colonel.
+“Are there any celebrated persons in the room? I have been
+five-and-thirty years from home, and want to see all that is to be
+seen.”
+
+King of Corpus (who was an incorrigible wag) was on the point of
+pulling some dreadful long-bow, and pointing out a halfdozen of people
+in the room, as R. and H. and L., etc., the most celebrated wits of
+that day; but I cut King’s shins under the table, and got the fellow to
+hold his tongue.
+
+“_Maxima debetur pueris_,” says Jones (a fellow of very kind feeling,
+who has gone into the Church since), and, writing on his card to
+Hoskins, hinted to him that a boy was in the room, and a gentleman, who
+was quite a greenhorn: hence that the songs had better be carefully
+selected.
+
+And so they were. A ladies’ school might have come in, and, but for the
+smell of the cigars and brandy-and-water, have taken no harm by what
+happened. Why should it not always be so? If there are any “Caves of
+Harmony” now, I warrant Messieurs the landlords, their interests would
+be better consulted by keeping their singers within bounds. The very
+greatest scamps like pretty songs, and are melted by them; so are
+honest people. It was worth a guinea to see the simple Colonel, and his
+delight at the music. He forgot all about the distinguished wits whom
+he had expected to see in his ravishment over the glees.
+
+“I say, Clive, this is delightful. This is better than your aunt’s
+concert with all the Squallinis, hey? I shall come here often.
+Landlord, may I venture to ask those gentlemen if they will take any
+refreshment? What are their names?” (to one of his neighbours). “I was
+scarcely allowed to hear any singing before I went out, except an
+oratorio, where I fell asleep; but this, by George, is as fine as
+Incledon!” He became quite excited over his sherry-and-water—(“I’m
+sorry to see you, gentlemen, drinking brandy-pawnee,” says he; “it
+plays the deuce with our young men in India.”) He joined in all the
+choruses with an exceedingly sweet voice. He laughed at “The Derby Ram”
+so that it did you good to hear him; and when Hoskins sang (as he did
+admirably) “The Old English Gentleman,” and described, in measured
+cadence, the death of that venerable aristocrat, tears trickled down
+the honest warrior’s cheek, while he held out his hand to Hoskins and
+said, “Thank you, sir, for that song; it is an honour to human nature.”
+On which Hoskins began to cry too.
+
+And now young Nadab, having been cautioned, commenced one of those
+surprising feats of improvisation with which he used to charm
+audiences. He took us all off, and had rhymes pat about all the
+principal persons in the room: King’s pins (which he wore very
+splendid), Martin’s red waistcoat, etc. The Colonel was charmed with
+each feat, and joined delighted with the chorus—“Ritolderol ritolderol
+ritolderolderay” (_bis_). And when, coming to the Colonel himself, he
+burst out—
+
+“A military gent I see—And while his face I scan,
+I think you’ll all agree with me—He came from Hindostan.
+And by his side sits laughing free—A youth with curly head,
+I think you’ll all agree with me—That he was best in bed.
+Ritolderol,” etc.
+
+
+—the Colonel laughed immensely at this sally, and clapped his son,
+young Clive, on the shoulder. “Hear what he says of you, sir? Clive,
+best be off to bed, my boy—ho, ho! No, no. We know a trick worth two of
+that. ‘We won’t go home till morning, till daylight does appear.’ Why
+should we? Why shouldn’t my boy have innocent pleasure? I was allowed
+none when I was a young chap, and the severity was nearly the ruin of
+me. I must go and speak with that young man—the most astonishing thing
+I ever heard in my life. What’s his name? Mr. Nadab? Mr. Nadab, sir,
+you have delighted me. May I make so free as to ask you to come and
+dine with me to-morrow at six? Colonel Newcome, if you please, Nerot’s
+Hotel, Clifford Street. I am always proud to make the acquaintance of
+men of genius, and you are one, or my name is not Newcome!”
+
+“Sir, you do me hhonour,” says Mr. Nadab, pulling up his shirt-collar,
+“and perhaps the day will come when the world will do me justice,—may I
+put down your hhonoured name for my book of poems?”
+
+“Of course, my dear sir,” says the enthusiastic Colonel; “I’ll send
+them all over India. Put me down for six copies, and do me the favour
+to bring them to-morrow when you come to dinner.”
+
+And now Mr. Hoskins asking if any gentleman would volunteer a song,
+what was our amazement when the simple Colonel offered to sing himself,
+at which the room applauded vociferously; whilst methought poor Clive
+Newcome hung down his head, and blushed as red as a peony. I felt for
+the young lad, and thought what my own sensations would have been if,
+in that place, my own uncle, Major Pendennis, had suddenly proposed to
+exert his lyrical powers.
+
+The Colonel selected the ditty of “Wapping Old Stairs” (a ballad so
+sweet and touching that surely any English poet might be proud to be
+the father of it), and he sang this quaint and charming old song in an
+exceedingly pleasant voice, with flourishes and roulades in the old
+Incledon manner, which has pretty nearly passed away. The singer gave
+his heart and soul to the simple ballad, and delivered Molly’s gentle
+appeal so pathetically that even the professional gentlemen hummed and
+buzzed—a sincere applause; and some wags who were inclined to jeer at
+the beginning of the performance, clinked their glasses and rapped
+their sticks with quite a respectful enthusiasm. When the song was
+over, Clive held up his head too; after the shock of the first verse,
+looked round with surprise and pleasure in his eyes; and we, I need not
+say, backed our friend, delighted to see him come out of his queer
+scrape so triumphantly. The Colonel bowed and smiled with very pleasant
+good-nature at our plaudits. It was like Dr. Primrose preaching his
+sermon in the prison. There was something touching in the naivete and
+kindness of the placid and simple gentleman.
+
+Great Hoskins, placed on high, amidst the tuneful choir, was pleased to
+signify his approbation, and gave his guest’s health in his usual
+dignified manner. “I am much obliged to you, sir,” says Mr. Hoskins;
+“the room ought to be much obliged to you: I drink your ’ealth and
+song, sir;” and he bowed to the Colonel politely over his glass of
+brandy-and-water, of which he absorbed a little in his customer’s
+honour. “I have not heard that song,” he was kind enough to say,
+“better performed since Mr. Incledon sung it. He was a great singer,
+sir, and I may say, in the words of our immortal Shakspeare, that, take
+him for all in all, we shall not look upon his like again.”
+
+The Colonel blushed in his turn, and turning round to his boy with an
+arch smile, said, “I learnt it from Incledon. I used to slip out from
+Grey Friars to hear him, Heaven bless me, forty years ago; and I used
+to be flogged afterwards, and serve me right too. Lord! Lord! how the
+time passes!” He drank off his sherry-and-water, and fell back in his
+chair; we could see he was thinking about his youth—the golden time—the
+happy, the bright, the unforgotten. I was myself nearly two-and-twenty
+years of age at that period, and felt as old as, ay, older than the
+Colonel.
+
+Whilst he was singing his ballad, there had walked, or rather reeled,
+into the room, a gentleman in a military frock-coat and duck trousers
+of dubious hue, with whose name and person some of my readers are
+perhaps already acquainted. In fact it was my friend Captain Costigan,
+in his usual condition at this hour of the night.
+
+Holding on by various tables, the Captain had sidled up, without
+accident to himself or any of the jugs and glasses round about him, to
+the table where we sat, and had taken his place near the writer, his
+old acquaintance. He warbled the refrain of the Colonel’s song, not
+inharmoniously; and saluted its pathetic conclusion with a subdued
+hiccup and a plentiful effusion of tears. “Bedad, it is a beautiful
+song,” says he, “and many a time I heard poor Harry Incledon sing it.”
+
+“He’s a great character,” whispered that unlucky King of Corpus to his
+neighbour the Colonel; “was a Captain in the army. We call him the
+General. Captain Costigan, will you take something to drink?”
+
+“Bedad, I will,” says the Captain, “and I’ll sing ye a song tu.”
+
+And, having procured a glass of whisky-and-water from the passing
+waiter, the poor old man, settling his face into a horrid grin, and
+leering, as he was wont when he gave what he called one of his prime
+songs, began his music.
+
+The unlucky wretch, who scarcely knew what he was doing or saying,
+selected one of the most outrageous performances of his _répertoire_,
+fired off a tipsy howl by way of overture, and away he went. At the end
+of the second verse the Colonel started up, clapping on his hat,
+seizing his stick, and looking as ferocious as though he had been going
+to do battle with a Pindaree.
+
+“Silence!” he roared out.
+
+“Hear, hear!” cried certain wags at a farther table. “Go on, Costigan!”
+said others.
+
+“Go on!” cries the Colonel, in his high voice trembling with anger.
+“Does any gentleman say ‘Go On?’ Does any man who has a wife and
+sisters, or children at home, say ‘Go on’ to such disgusting ribaldry
+as this? Do you dare, sir, to call yourself a gentleman, and to say
+that you hold the King’s commission, and to sit down amongst Christians
+and men of honour, and defile the ears of young boys with this wicked
+balderdash?”
+
+“Why do you bring young boys here, old boy?” cries a voice of the
+malcontents.
+
+“Why? Because I thought I was coming to a society of gentlemen,” cried
+out the indignant Colonel. “Because I never could have believed that
+Englishmen could meet together and allow a man, and an old man, so to
+disgrace himself. For shame, you old wretch! Go home to your bed, you
+hoary old sinner! And for my part, I’m not sorry that my son should
+see, for once in his life, to what shame and degradation and dishonour,
+drunkenness and whisky may bring a man. Never mind the change,
+sir!—Curse the change!” says the Colonel, facing the amazed waiter.
+“Keep it till you see me in this place again; which will be never—by
+George, never!” And shouldering his stick, and scowling round at the
+company of scared bacchanalians, the indignant gentleman stalked away,
+his boy after him.
+
+Clive seemed rather shamefaced; but I fear the rest of the company
+looked still more foolish.
+
+“Aussi que diable venait—il faire dans cette galere?” says King of
+Corpus to Jones of Trinity; and Jones gave a shrug of his shoulders,
+which were smarting, perhaps; for that uplifted cane of the Colonel’s
+had somehow fallen on the back of every man in the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+Colonel Newcome’s Wild Oats
+
+
+As the young gentleman who has just gone to bed is to be the hero of
+the following pages, we had best begin our account of him with his
+family history, which luckily is not very long.
+
+When pigtails still grew on the backs of the British gentry, and their
+wives wore cushions on their heads, over which they tied their own
+hair, and disguised it with powder and pomatum: when Ministers went in
+their stars and orders to the House of Commons, and the orators of the
+Opposition attacked nightly the noble lord in the blue ribbon: when Mr.
+Washington was heading the American rebels with a courage, it must be
+confessed, worthy of a better cause: there came up to London, out of a
+northern county, Mr. Thomas Newcome, afterwards Thomas Newcome, Esq.,
+and sheriff of London, afterwards Mr. Alderman Newcome, the founder of
+the family whose name has given the title to this history. It was but
+in the reign of George III. that Mr. Newcome first made his appearance
+in Cheapside; having made his entry into London on a waggon, which
+landed him and some bales of cloth, all his fortune, in Bishopsgate
+Street; though if it could be proved that the Normans wore pigtails
+under William the Conqueror, and Mr. Washington fought against the
+English under King Richard in Palestine, I am sure some of the present
+Newcomes would pay the Heralds’ Office handsomely, living, as they do,
+amongst the noblest of the land, and giving entertainments to none but
+the very highest nobility and _élite_ of the fashionable and diplomatic
+world, as you may read any day in the newspapers. For though these
+Newcomes have got a pedigree from the College, which is printed in
+Budge’s Landed Aristocracy of Great Britain, and which proves that the
+Newcome of Cromwell’s army, the Newcome who was among the last six who
+were hanged by Queen Mary for Protestantism, were ancestors of this
+house; of which a member distinguished himself at Bosworth Field; and
+the founder, slain by King Harold’s side at Hastings, had been
+surgeon-barber to King Edward the Confessor; yet, between ourselves, I
+think that Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome, does not believe a word of
+the story, any more than the rest of the world does, although a number
+of his children bear names out of the Saxon Calendar.
+
+Was Thomas Newcome a foundling—a workhouse child out of that village
+which has now become a great manufacturing town, and which bears his
+name? Such was the report set about at the last election, when Sir
+Brian, in the Conservative interest contested the borough; and Mr.
+Yapp, the out-and-out Liberal candidate, had a picture of the old
+workhouse placarded over the town as the birthplace of the Newcomes;
+with placards ironically exciting freemen to vote for Newcome and
+_union_—Newcome and the _parish_ interests, etc. Who cares for these
+local scandals? It matters very little to those who have the good
+fortune to be invited to Lady Ann Newcome’s parties whether her
+beautiful daughters can trace their pedigrees no higher than to the
+alderman their grandfather; or whether, through the mythic ancestral
+barber-surgeon, they hang on to the chin of Edward, Confessor and King.
+
+Thomas Newcome, who had been a weaver in his native village, brought
+the very best character for honesty, thrift, and ingenuity with him to
+London, where he was taken into the house of Hobson Brothers,
+cloth-factors; afterwards Hobson and Newcome. This fact may suffice to
+indicate Thomas Newcome’s story. Like Whittington and many other London
+apprentices, he began poor and ended by marrying his master’s daughter,
+and becoming sheriff and alderman of the City of London.
+
+But it was only _en secondes noces_ that he espoused the wealthy, and
+religious, and eminent (such was the word applied to certain professing
+Christians in those days) Sophia Alethea Hobson—a woman who,
+considerably older than Mr. Newcome, had the advantage of surviving him
+many years. Her mansion at Clapham was long the resort of the most
+favoured amongst the religious world. The most eloquent expounders; the
+most gifted missionaries, the most interesting converts from foreign
+islands, were to be found at her sumptuous table, spread with the
+produce of her magnificent gardens. Heaven indeed blessed those gardens
+with plenty, as many reverend gentlemen remarked; there were no finer
+grapes, peaches, or pineapples in all England. Mr. Whitfield himself
+christened her; and it was said generally in the City, and by her
+friends, that Miss Hobson’s two Christian names, Sophia and Alethea,
+were two Greek words, which, being interpreted, meant wisdom and truth.
+She, her villa and gardens, are now no more; but Sophia Terrace, Upper
+and Lower Alethea Road, and Hobson’s Buildings, Square, etc., show
+every quarter-day that the ground sacred to her (and freehold) still
+bears plenteous fruit for the descendants of this eminent woman.
+
+We are, however, advancing matters. When Thomas Newcome had been some
+time in London, he quitted the house of Hobson, finding an opening,
+though in a much smaller way, for himself. And no sooner did his
+business prosper, than he went down into the north, like a man, to a
+pretty girl whom he had left there, and whom he had promised to marry.
+What seemed an imprudent match (for his wife had nothing but a pale
+face, that had grown older and paler with long waiting) turned out a
+very lucky one for Newcome. The whole countryside was pleased to think
+of the prosperous London tradesman returning to keep his promise to the
+penniless girl whom he had loved in the days of his own poverty; the
+great country clothiers, who knew his prudence and honesty, gave him
+much of their business when he went back to London. Susan Newcome would
+have lived to be a rich woman had not fate ended her career within a
+year after her marriage, when she died giving birth to a son.
+
+Newcome had a nurse for the child, and a cottage at Clapham, hard by
+Mr. Hobson’s house, where he had often walked in the garden of a
+Sunday, and been invited to sit down to take a glass of wine. Since he
+had left their service, the house had added a banking business, which
+was greatly helped by the Quakers and their religious connection; and
+Newcome, keeping his account there, and gradually increasing his
+business, was held in very good esteem by his former employers, and
+invited sometimes to tea at the Hermitage; for which entertainments he
+did not, in truth, much care at first, being a City man, a good deal
+tired with his business during the day, and apt to go to sleep over the
+sermons, expoundings, and hymns, with which the gifted preachers,
+missionaries, etc., who were always at the Hermitage, used to wind up
+the evening, before supper. Nor was he a supping man (in which case he
+would have found the parties pleasanter, for in Egypt itself there were
+not more savoury fleshpots than at Clapham); he was very moderate in
+his meals, of a bilious temperament, and, besides, obliged to be in
+town early in the morning, always setting off to walk an hour before
+the first coach.
+
+But when his poor Susan died, Miss Hobson, by her father’s demise,
+having now become a partner in the house, as well as heiress to the
+pious and childless Zachariah Hobson, her uncle: Mr. Newcome, with his
+little boy in his hand, met Miss Hobson as she was coming out of
+meeting one Sunday; and the child looked so pretty (Mr. N. was a very
+personable, fresh-coloured man himself; he wore powder to the end, and
+top-boots and brass buttons, in his later days, after he had been
+sheriff indeed, one of the finest specimens of the old London
+merchant); Miss Hobson, I say, invited him and little Tommy into the
+grounds of the Hermitage; did not quarrel with the innocent child for
+frisking about in the hay on the lawn, which lay basking in the Sabbath
+sunshine, and at the end of the visit gave him a large piece of
+pound-cake, a quantity of the finest hothouse grapes, and a tract in
+one syllable. Tommy was ill the next day; but on the next Sunday his
+father was at meeting.
+
+He became very soon after this an awakened man; and the tittling and
+tattling, and the sneering and gossiping, all over Clapham, and the
+talk on ’Change, and the pokes in the waistcoat administered by the
+wags to Newcome,—“Newcome, give you joy, my boy;” “Newcome, new partner
+in Hobson’s;” “Newcome, just take in this paper to Hobson’s, they’ll do
+it, I warrant,” etc. etc.; and the groans of the Rev. Gideon Bawls, of
+the Rev. Athanasius O’Grady, that eminent convert from Popery, who,
+quarrelling with each other, yea, striving one against another, had yet
+two sentiments in common, their love for Miss Hobson, their dread,
+their hatred of the worldly Newcome; all these squabbles and jokes, and
+pribbles and prabbles, look you, may be omitted. As gallantly as he had
+married a woman without a penny, as gallantly as he had conquered his
+poverty and achieved his own independence, so bravely he went in and
+won the great City prize with a fortune of a quarter of a million. And
+every one of his old friends, and every honest-hearted fellow who likes
+to see shrewdness, and honesty, and courage succeed, was glad of his
+good fortune, and said, “Newcome, my boy” (or “Newcome, my buck,” if
+they were old City cronies, and very familiar), “I give you joy.”
+
+Of course Mr. Newcome might have gone into Parliament: of course before
+the close of his life he might have been made a baronet: but he
+eschewed honours senatorial or blood-red hands. “It wouldn’t do,” with
+his good sense he said; “the Quaker connection wouldn’t like it.” His
+wife never cared about being called Lady Newcome. To manage the great
+house of Hobson Brothers and Newcome; to attend to the interests of the
+enslaved negro; to awaken the benighted Hottentot to a sense of the
+truth; to convert Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Papists; to arouse the
+indifferent and often blasphemous mariner; to guide the washerwoman in
+the right way; to head all the public charities of her sect, and do a
+thousand secret kindnesses that none knew of; to answer myriads of
+letters, pension endless ministers, and supply their teeming wives with
+continuous baby-linen; to hear preachers daily bawling for hours, and
+listen untired on her knees after a long day’s labour, while florid
+rhapsodists belaboured cushions above her with wearisome benedictions;
+all these things had this woman to do, and for near fourscore years she
+fought her fight womanfully: imperious but deserving to rule, hard but
+doing her duty, severe but charitable, and untiring in generosity as in
+labour; unforgiving in one instance—in that of her husband’s eldest
+son, Thomas Newcome; the little boy who had played on the hay, and whom
+at first she had loved very sternly and fondly.
+
+Mr. Thomas Newcome, the father of his wife’s twin boys, the junior
+partner of the house of Hobson Brothers and Co., lived several years
+after winning the great prize about which all his friends so
+congratulated him. But he was, after all, only the junior partner of
+the house. His wife was manager in Threadneedle Street and at home—when
+the clerical gentlemen prayed they importuned Heaven for that sainted
+woman a long time before they thought of asking any favour for her
+husband. The gardeners touched their hats, the clerks at the bank
+brought him the books, but they took their orders from her, not from
+him. I think he grew weary of the prayer-meetings, he yawned over the
+sufferings of the negroes, and wished the converted Jews at Jericho.
+About the time the French Emperor was meeting with his Russian reverses
+Mr. Newcome died: his mausoleum is in Clapham Churchyard, near the
+modest grave where his first wife reposes.
+
+When his father married, Mr. Thomas Newcome, jun., and Sarah his nurse
+were transported from the cottage where they had lived in great comfort
+to the palace hard by, surrounded by lawns and gardens, pineries,
+graperies, aviaries, luxuries of all kinds. This paradise, five miles
+from the Standard at Cornhill, was separated from the outer world by a
+thick hedge of tall trees, and an ivy-covered porter’s-gate, through
+which they who travelled to London on the top of the Clapham coach
+could only get a glimpse of the bliss within. It was a serious
+paradise. As you entered at the gate, gravity fell on you; and decorum
+wrapped you in a garment of starch. The butcher-boy who galloped his
+horse and cart madly about the adjoining lanes and common, whistled
+wild melodies (caught up in abominable playhouse galleries), and joked
+with a hundred cook-maids, on passing that lodge fell into an
+undertaker’s pace, and delivered his joints and sweetbreads silently at
+the servants’ entrance. The rooks in the elms cawed sermons at morning
+and evening; the peacocks walked demurely on the terraces; the
+guinea-fowls looked more Quaker-like than those savoury birds usually
+do. The lodge-keeper was serious, and a clerk at a neighbouring chapel.
+The pastors who entered at the gate, and greeted his comely wife and
+children, fed the little lambkins with tracts. The head-gardener was a
+Scotch Calvinist, after the strictest order, only occupying himself
+with the melons and pines provisionally, and until the end of the
+world, which event, he could prove by infallible calculations, was to
+come off in two or three years at farthest. Wherefore, he asked, should
+the butler brew strong ale to be drunken three years hence; or the
+housekeeper (a follower of Joanna Southcote) make provisions of fine
+linen and lay up stores of jams? On a Sunday (which good old Saxon word
+was scarcely known at the Hermitage) the household marched away in
+separate couples or groups to at least half a dozen of religious
+edifices, each to sit under his or her favourite minister, the only man
+who went to church being Thomas Newcome, accompanied by Tommy his
+little son, and Sarah his nurse, who was, I believe, also his aunt, or
+at least his mother’s first cousin. Tommy was taught hymns, very soon
+after he could speak, appropriate to his tender age, pointing out to
+him the inevitable fate of wicked children, and giving him the earliest
+possible warning and description of the punishment of little sinners.
+He repeated these poems to his stepmother after dinner, before a great
+shining mahogany table, covered with grapes, pineapples, plum-cake,
+port wine, and Madeira, and surrounded by stout men in black, with
+baggy white neckcloths, who took the little man between their knees,
+and questioned him as to his right understanding of the place whither
+naughty boys were bound. They patted his head with their fat hands if
+he said well, or rebuked him if he was bold, as he often was.
+
+Nurse Sarah or Aunt Sarah would have died had she remained many years
+in that stifling garden of Eden. She could not bear to part from the
+child whom her mistress and kinswoman had confided to her (the women
+had worked in the same room at Newcome’s, and loved each other always,
+when Susan became a merchant’s lady, and Sarah her servant). She was
+nobody in the pompous new household but Master Tommy’s nurse. The
+honest soul never mentioned her relationship to the boy’s mother, nor
+indeed did Mr. Newcome acquaint his new family with that circumstance.
+The housekeeper called her an Erastian: Mrs. Newcome’s own serious maid
+informed against her for telling Tommy stories of Lancashire witches,
+and believing in the same. The black footman (madam’s maid and the
+butler were of course privately united) persecuted her with his
+addresses, and was even encouraged by his mistress, who thought of
+sending him as a missionary to the Niger. No little love, and fidelity,
+and constancy did honest Sarah show and use during the years she passed
+at the Hermitage, and until Tommy went to school. Her master, with many
+private prayers and entreaties, in which he passionately recalled his
+former wife’s memory and affection, implored his friend to stay with
+him; and Tommy’s fondness for her and artless caresses, and the scrapes
+he got into, and the howls he uttered over the hymns and catechisms
+which he was bidden to learn (by Rev. T. Clack,, of Highbury College,
+his daily tutor, who was commissioned to spare not the rod, neither to
+spoil the child), all these causes induced Sarah to remain with her
+young master until such time as he was sent to school.
+
+Meanwhile an event of prodigious importance, a wonderment, a blessing
+and a delight, had happened at the Hermitage. About two years after
+Mrs. Newcome’s marriage, the lady being then forty-three years of age,
+no less than two little cherubs appeared in the Clapham Paradise—the
+twins, Hobson Newcome and Brian Newcome, called after their uncle and
+late grandfather, whose name and rank they were destined to perpetuate.
+And now there was no reason why young Newcome should not go to school.
+Old Mr. Hobson and his brother had been educated at that school of Grey
+Friars, of which mention has been made in former works and to Grey
+Friars Thomas Newcome was accordingly sent, exchanging—O ye Gods! with
+what delight!—the splendour of Clapham for the rough, plentiful fare of
+the place, blacking his master’s shoes with perfect readiness, till he
+rose in the school, and the time came when he should have a fag of his
+own: tibbing out and receiving the penalty therefore: bartering a black
+eye, per bearer, against a bloody nose drawn at sight, with a
+schoolfellow, and shaking hands the next day; playing at cricket,
+hockey, prisoners’ base, and football, according to the season; and
+gorging himself and friends with tarts when he had money (and of this
+he had plenty) to spend. I have seen his name carved upon the Gown
+Boys’ arch: but he was at school long before my time; his son showed me
+the name when we were boys together, in some year when George the
+Fourth was king.
+
+The pleasures of this school-life were such to Tommy Newcome, that he
+did not care to go home for a holiday: and indeed, by insubordination
+and boisterousness; by playing tricks and breaking windows; by
+marauding upon the gardener’s peaches and the housekeeper’s jam; by
+upsetting his two little brothers in a go-cart (of which wanton and
+careless injury the present Baronet’s nose bears marks to this very
+day); by going to sleep during the sermons, and treating reverend
+gentlemen with levity, he drew down on himself the merited wrath of his
+stepmother; and many punishments in this present life, besides those of
+a future and much more durable kind, which the good lady did not fail
+to point out that he must undoubtedly inherit. His father, at Mrs.
+Newcome’s instigation, certainly whipped Tommy for upsetting his little
+brothers in the go-cart; but upon being pressed to repeat the whipping
+for some other peccadillo performed soon after, Mr. Newcome refused at
+once, using a wicked, worldly expression, which well might shock any
+serious lady; saying, in fact, that he would be deed if he beat the boy
+any more, and that he got flogging enough at school, in which opinion
+Master Tommy fully coincided.
+
+The undaunted woman, his stepmother, was not to be made to forgo her
+plans for the boy’s reform by any such vulgar ribaldries; and Mr.
+Newcome being absent in the City on his business, and Tommy refractory
+as usual, she summoned the serious butler and the black footman (for
+the lashings of whose brethren she felt an unaffected pity) to operate
+together in the chastisement of this young criminal. But he dashed so
+furiously against the butler’s shins as to draw blood from his comely
+limbs, and to cause that serious and overfed menial to limp and suffer
+for many days after; and, seizing the decanter, he swore he would
+demolish blacky’s ugly face with it: nay, he threatened to discharge it
+at Mrs. Newcome’s own head before he would submit to the coercion which
+she desired her agents to administer.
+
+High words took place between Mr. and Mrs. Newcome that night on the
+gentleman’s return home from the City, and on his learning the events
+of the morning. It is to be feared he made use of further oaths, which
+hasty ejaculations need not be set down in this place; at any rate, he
+behaved with spirit and manliness as master of the house, vowed that if
+any servant laid a hand on the child, he would thrash him first and
+then discharge him; and I dare say expressed himself with bitterness
+and regret that he had married a wife who would not be obedient to her
+husband, and had entered a house of which he was not suffered to be the
+master. Friends were called in—the interference, the supplications, of
+the Clapham clergy, some of whom dined constantly at the Hermitage,
+prevailed to allay this domestic quarrel; and no doubt the good sense
+of Mrs. Newcome—who, though imperious, was yet not unkind; and who,
+excellent as she was, yet could be brought to own that she was
+sometimes in fault—induced her to make at least a temporary submission
+to the man whom she had placed at the head of her house, and whom it
+must be confessed she had vowed to love and honour. When Tommy fell ill
+of the scarlet fever, which afflicting event occurred presently after
+the above dispute, his own nurse, Sarah, could not have been more
+tender, watchful, and affectionate than his stepmother showed herself
+to be. She nursed him through his illness; allowed his food and
+medicine to be administered by no other hand; sat up with the boy
+through a night of his fever, and uttered not one single reproach to
+her husband (who watched with her) when the twins took the disease
+(from which we need not say they happily recovered); and though young
+Tommy, in his temporary delirium, mistaking her for Nurse Sarah,
+addressed her as his dear Fat Sally—whereas no whipping-post to which
+she ever would have tied him could have been leaner than Mrs.
+Newcome—and, under this feverish delusion, actually abused her to her
+face; calling her an old cat, an old Methodist, and, jumping up in his
+little bed, forgetful of his previous fancy, vowing that he would put
+on his clothes and run away to Sally. Sally was at her northern home by
+this time, with a liberal pension which Mr. Newcome gave her, and which
+his son and his son’s son after him, through all their difficulties and
+distresses, always found means to pay.
+
+What the boy threatened in his delirium he had thought of, no doubt,
+more than once in his solitary and unhappy holidays. A year after he
+actually ran away, not from school, but from home; and appeared one
+morning, gaunt and hungry, at Sarah’s cottage two hundred miles away
+from Clapham, who housed the poor prodigal, and killed her calf for
+him—washed him, with many tears and kisses, and put him to bed and to
+sleep; from which slumber he was aroused by the appearance of his
+father, whose sure instinct, backed by Mrs. Newcome’s own quick
+intelligence, had made him at once aware whither the young runaway had
+fled. The poor father came horsewhip in hand—he knew of no other law or
+means to maintain his authority; many and many a time had his own
+father, the old weaver, whose memory he loved and honoured, strapped
+and beaten him. Seeing this instrument in the parent’s hand, as Mr.
+Newcome thrust out the weeping trembling Sarah and closed the door upon
+her, Tommy, scared out of a sweet sleep and a delightful dream of
+cricket, knew his fate; and, getting up out of bed, received his
+punishment without a word. Very likely the father suffered more than
+the child; for when the punishment was over, the little man, yet
+trembling and quivering with the pain, held out his little bleeding
+hand and said, “I can—I can take it from you, sir;” saying which his
+face flushed, and his eyes filled, for the first time; whereupon the
+father burst into a passion of tears, and embraced the boy and kissed
+him, besought and prayed him to be rebellious no more—flung the whip
+away from him and swore, come what would, he would never strike him
+again. The quarrel was the means of a great and happy reconciliation.
+The three dined together in Sarah’s cottage. Perhaps the father would
+have liked to walk that evening in the lanes and fields where he had
+wandered as a young fellow: where he had first courted and first kissed
+the young girl he loved—poor child—who had waited for him so faithfully
+and fondly, who had passed so many a day of patient want and meek
+expectance, to be repaid by such a scant holiday and brief fruition.
+
+Mrs. Newcome never made the slightest allusion to Tom’s absence after
+his return, but was quite gentle and affectionate with him, and that
+night read the parable of the Prodigal in a very low and quiet voice.
+
+This, however, was only a temporary truce. War very soon broke out
+again between the impetuous lad and his rigid domineering
+mother-in-law. It was not that he was very bad, or she perhaps more
+stern than other ladies, but the two could not agree. The boy sulked
+and was miserable at home. He fell to drinking with the grooms in the
+stables. I think he went to Epsom races, and was discovered after that
+act of rebellion. Driving from a most interesting breakfast at
+Roehampton (where a delightful Hebrew convert had spoken, oh! so
+graciously!), Mrs. Newcome—in her state-carriage, with her bay
+horses—met Tom, her son-in-law, in a tax-cart, excited by drink, and
+accompanied by all sorts of friends, male and female. John the black
+man was bidden to descend from the carriage and bring him to Mrs.
+Newcome. He came; his voice was thick with drink. He laughed wildly: he
+described a fight at which he had been present. It was not possible
+that such a castaway as this should continue in a house where her two
+little cherubs were growing up in innocence and grace.
+
+The boy had a great fancy for India; and Orme’s History, containing the
+exploits of Clive and Lawrence, was his favourite book of all in his
+father’s library. Being offered a writership, he scouted the idea of a
+civil appointment, and would be contented with nothing but a uniform. A
+cavalry cadetship was procured for Thomas Newcome; and the young man’s
+future career being thus determined, and his stepmother’s unwilling
+consent procured, Mr. Newcome thought fit to send his son to a tutor
+for military instruction, and removed him from the London school, where
+in truth he had made but very little progress in the humaner letters.
+The lad was placed with a professor who prepared young men for the
+army, and received rather a better professional education than fell to
+the lot of most young soldiers of his day. He cultivated the
+mathematics and fortification with more assiduity than he had ever
+bestowed on Greek and Latin, and especially made such a progress in the
+French tongue as was very uncommon among the British youth his
+contemporaries.
+
+In the study of this agreeable language, over which young Newcome spent
+a great deal of his time, he unluckily had some instructors who were
+destined to bring the poor lad into yet further trouble at home. His
+tutor, an easy gentleman, lived at Blackheath, and, not far from
+thence, on the road to Woolwich, dwelt the little Chevalier de Blois,
+at whose house the young man much preferred to take his French lessons
+rather than to receive them under his tutor’s own roof.
+
+For the fact was that the little Chevalier de Blois had two pretty
+young daughters, with whom he had fled from his country along with
+thousands of French gentlemen at the period of revolution and
+emigration. He was a cadet of a very ancient family, and his brother,
+the Marquis de Blois, was a fugitive like himself, but with the army of
+the princes on the Rhine, or with his exiled sovereign at Mittau. The
+Chevalier had seen the wars of the great Frederick: what man could be
+found better to teach young Newcome the French language and the art
+military? It was surprising with what assiduity he pursued his studies.
+Mademoiselle Léonore, the Chevalier’s daughter, would carry on her
+little industry very undisturbedly in the same parlour with her father
+and his pupil. She painted card-racks: laboured at embroidery; was
+ready to employ her quick little brain or fingers in any way by which
+she could find means to add a few shillings to the scanty store on
+which this exiled family supported themselves in their day of
+misfortune. I suppose the Chevalier was not in the least unquiet about
+her, because she was promised in marriage to the Comte de Florac, also
+of the emigration—a distinguished officer like the Chevalier, than whom
+he was a year older—and, at the time of which we speak, engaged in
+London in giving private lessons on the fiddle. Sometimes on a Sunday
+he would walk to Blackheath with that instrument in his hand, and pay
+his court to his young _fiancée_, and talk over happier days with his
+old companion-in-arms. Tom Newcome took no French lessons on a Sunday.
+He passed that day at Clapham generally, where, strange to say, he
+never said a word about Mademoiselle de Blois.
+
+What happens when two young folks of eighteen, handsome and ardent,
+generous and impetuous, alone in the world, or without strong
+affections to bind them elsewhere,—what happens when they meet daily
+over French dictionaries, embroidery frames, or indeed upon any
+business whatever? No doubt Mademoiselle Léonore was a young lady
+perfectly _bien élevée_, and ready, as every well-elevated young
+Frenchwoman should be, to accept a husband of her parents’ choosing;
+but while the elderly M. de Florac was fiddling in London, there was
+that handsome young Tom Newcome ever present at Blackheath. To make a
+long matter short, Tom declared his passion, and was for marrying
+Léonore off hand, if she would but come with him to the little Catholic
+chapel at Woolwich. Why should they not go out to India together and be
+happy ever after?
+
+The innocent little amour may have been several months in transaction,
+and was discovered by Mrs. Newcome, whose keen spectacles nothing could
+escape. It chanced that she drove to Blackheath to Tom’s tutor’s. Tom
+was absent taking his French and drawing lesson of M. de Blois. Thither
+Tom’s stepmother followed him, and found the young man sure enough with
+his instructor over his books and plans of fortification. Mademoiselle
+and her card-screens were in the room, but behind those screens she
+could not hide her blushes and confusion from Mrs. Newcome’s sharp
+glances. In one moment the banker’s wife saw the whole affair—the whole
+mystery which had been passing for months under poor M. de Blois’ nose,
+without his having the least notion of the truth.
+
+Mrs. Newcome said she wanted her son to return home with her upon
+private affairs; and before they had reached the Hermitage a fine
+battle had ensued between them. His mother had charged him with being a
+wretch and a monster, and he had replied fiercely, denying the
+accusation with scorn, and announcing his wish instantly to marry the
+most virtuous, the most beautiful of her sex. To marry a Papist! This
+was all that was wanted to make poor Tom’s cup of bitterness run over.
+Mr. Newcome was called in, and the two elders passed a great part of
+the night in an assault upon the lad. He was grown too tall for the
+cane; but Mrs. Newcome thonged him with the lash of her indignation for
+many an hour that evening.
+
+He was forbidden to enter, M. de Blois’ house, a prohibition at which
+the spirited young fellow snapped his fingers, and laughed in scorn.
+Nothing, he swore, but death should part him from the young lady. On
+the next day his father came to him alone and plied him with
+entreaties, but he was as obdurate as before. He would have her;
+nothing should prevent him. He cocked his hat and walked out of the
+lodge-gate, as his father, quite beaten by the young man’s obstinacy,
+with haggard face and tearful eyes, went his own way into town. He was
+not very angry himself: in the course of their talk overnight the boy
+had spoken bravely and honestly, and Newcome could remember how, in his
+own early life, he too had courted and loved a young lass. It was Mrs.
+Newcome the father was afraid of. Who shall depict her wrath at the
+idea that a child of her house was about to marry a Popish girl?
+
+So young Newcome went his way to Blackheath, bent upon falling
+straightway down upon his knees before Léonore, and having the
+Chevalier’s blessing. That old fiddler in London scarcely seemed to him
+to be an obstacle: it seemed monstrous that a young creature should be
+given away to a man older than her own father. He did not know the law
+of honour, as it obtained amongst French gentlemen of those days, or
+how religiously their daughters were bound by it.
+
+But Mrs. Newcome had been beforehand with him, and had visited the
+Chevalier de Blois almost at cockcrow. She charged him insolently with
+being privy to the attachment between the young people; pursued him
+with vulgar rebukes about beggary, Popery, and French adventurers. Her
+husband had to make a very contrite apology afterwards for the language
+which his wife had thought fit to employ. “You forbid me,” said the
+Chevalier, “you forbid Mademoiselle de Blois to marry your son, Mr.
+Thomas! No, madam, she comes of a race which is not accustomed to ally
+itself with persons of your class; and is promised to a gentleman whose
+ancestors were dukes and peers when Mr. Newcome’s were blacking shoes!”
+Instead of finding his pretty blushing girl on arriving at Woolwich,
+poor Tom only found his French master, livid with rage and quivering
+under his _ailes de pigeon_. We pass over the scenes that followed; the
+young man’s passionate entreaties, and fury and despair. In his own
+defence, and to prove his honour to the world, M. de Blois determined
+that his daughter should instantly marry the Count. The poor girl
+yielded without a word, as became her; and it was with this marriage
+effected almost before his eyes, and frantic with wrath and despair,
+that young Newcome embarked for India, and quitted the parents whom he
+was never more to see.
+
+Tom’s name was no more mentioned at Clapham. His letters to his father
+were written to the City; very pleasant they were, and comforting to
+the father’s heart. He sent Tom liberal private remittances to India,
+until the boy wrote to say that he wanted no more. Mr. Newcome would
+have liked to leave Tom all his private fortune, for the twins were
+only too well cared for; but he dared not on account of his terror of
+Sophia Alethea, his wife; and he died, and poor Tom was only secretly
+forgiven.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+Colonel Newcome’s Letter-box
+
+I.
+
+“With the most heartfelt joy, my dear Major, I take up my pen to
+announce to you the happy arrival of the Ramchunder, and the _dearest
+and handsomest_ little boy who, I am sure, ever came from India. Little
+Clive is in _perfect health_. He speaks English _wonderfully_ well. He
+cried when he parted from Mr. Sneid, the supercargo, who most kindly
+brought him from Southampton in a postchaise, but these tears in
+childhood are _of very brief duration!_ The voyage, Mr. Sneid states,
+was most favourable, occupying only four months and eleven days. How
+different from that more lengthened and dangerous passage of eight
+months, and almost perpetual sea-sickness, in which my poor dear sister
+Emma went to Bengal, to become the wife of the best of husbands and the
+mother of the dearest of little boys, and to enjoy these inestimable
+blessings for so brief an interval! She has quitted this wicked and
+wretched world for one where all is peace. The misery and ill-treatment
+which she endured from Captain Case her first odious husband, were, I
+am sure, amply repaid, my dear Colonel, by your subsequent affection.
+If the most sumptuous dresses which London, even Paris, could supply,
+jewellery the most costly, and elegant lace, and _everything lovely and
+fashionable_, could content a woman, these, I am sure, during the last
+four years of her life, the poor girl had. Of what avail are they when
+this scene of vanity is closed?
+
+“Mr. Sneid announces that the passage was most favourable. They stayed
+a week at the Cape, and three days at St. Helena, where they visited
+Bonaparte’s tomb (another instance of the vanity of all things!), and
+their voyage was enlivened off Ascension by the taking of some
+delicious turtle!
+
+“You may be sure that _the most liberal sum_ which you have placed to
+my credit with the Messrs. Hobson and Co. shall be faithfully expended
+on my dear little charge. Mrs. Newcome can scarcely be called his
+grandmamma, I suppose; and I daresay her Methodistical ladyship will
+not care to see the daughter and grandson of a clergyman of the Church
+of England! My brother Charles took leave to wait upon her when he
+presented your last _most generous_ bill at the bank. She received him
+_most rudely_, and said a fool and his money are soon parted; and when
+Charles said, ‘Madam, I am the brother of the late Mrs. Major Newcome,’
+‘Sir,’ says she, ‘I judge nobody; but from all accounts, you are the
+brother of a very vain, idle, thoughtless, extravagant woman; and
+Thomas Newcome was as foolish about his wife as about his money.’ Of
+course, unless Mrs. N. writes to invite dear Clive, I shall not think
+of sending him to Clapham.
+
+“It is such hot weather that I cannot wear the _beautiful shawl_ you
+have sent me, and shall keep it _in lavender_ till next winter! My
+brother, who thanks you for your continuous bounty, will write next
+month, and report progress as to his dear pupil. Clive will add a
+postscript of his own, and I am, my dear Major, with a thousand thanks
+for your kindness to me,—Your grateful and affectionate Martha
+Honeyman.”
+
+In a round hand and on lines ruled with pencil:—
+
+“Dearest Papa i am very well i hope you are Very Well. M Sneed brought
+me in a postchaise i like Mr. Sneed very much. i like Aunt Martha i
+like Hannah. There are no ships here i am your affectionate son Clive
+Newcome.”
+
+II.
+
+Rue St. Dominique, St. Germain, Paris,
+
+Nov. 15, 1820,
+
+“Long separated from the country which was the home of my youth, I
+carried from her tender recollections, and bear her always a lively
+gratitude. The Heaven has placed me in a position very different from
+that in which I knew you. I have been the mother of many children. My
+husband has recovered a portion of the property which the Revolution
+tore from us; and France, in returning to its legitimate sovereign,
+received once more the nobility which accompanied his august house into
+exile. We, however, preceded His Majesty, more happy than many of our
+companions. Believing further resistance to be useless; dazzled,
+perhaps, by the brilliancy of that genius which restored order,
+submitted Europe, and governed France; M. de Florac, in the first days,
+was reconciled to the Conqueror of Marengo and Austerlitz, and held a
+position in his Imperial Court. This submission, at first attributed to
+infidelity, has subsequently been pardoned to my husband. His
+sufferings during the Hundred Days made to pardon his adhesion to him
+who was Emperor. My husband is now an old man. He was of the disastrous
+campaign of Moscow, as one of the chamberlains of Napoleon. Withdrawn
+from the world, he gives his time to his feeble health—to his family—to
+Heaven.
+
+“I have not forgotten a time before those days, when, according to
+promises given by my father, I became the wife of M. de Florac.
+Sometimes I have heard of your career. One of my parents, M. de F., who
+took service in the English India, has entertained me of you; he
+informed me how yet a young man you won laurels at Argom and Bhartpour;
+how you escaped to death at Laswari. I have followed them, sir, on the
+map. I have taken part in your victories and your glory. Ah! I am not
+so cold, but my heart has trembled for your dangers; not so aged, but I
+remember the young man who learned from the pupil of Frederick the
+first rudiments of war. Your great heart, your love of truth, your
+courage were your own. None had to teach you those qualities, of which
+a good God had endowed you, My good father is dead since many years.
+He, too, was permitted to see France before to die.
+
+“I have read in the English journals not only that you are married, but
+that you have a son. Permit me to send to your wife, to your child,
+these accompanying tokens of an old friendship. I have seen that
+Mistress Newcome was widow, and am not sorry of it. My friend, I hope
+there was not that difference of age between your wife and you that I
+have known in other unions. I pray the good God to bless yours. I hold
+you always in my memory. As I write, the past comes back to me. I see a
+noble young man, who has a soft voice, and brown eyes. I see the
+Thames, and the smiling plains of Blackheath. I listen and pray at my
+chamber-door as my father talks to you in our little cabinet of
+studies. I look from my window, and see you depart.
+
+“My son’s are men: one follows the profession of arms, one has embraced
+the ecclesiastical state; my daughter is herself a mother. I remember
+this was your birthday; I have made myself a little _fête_ in
+celebrating it, after how many years of absence, of silence! Comtesse
+De Florac. (_Née L. de Blois._)”
+
+III.
+
+“My Dear Thomas,—Mr. Sneid, supercargo of the Ramchunder, East
+Indiaman, handed over to us yesterday your letter, and, to-day, I have
+purchased three thousand three hundred and twenty-three pounds 6 and
+8d. three per cent Consols, in our joint names (H. and B. Newcome),
+held for your little boy. Mr. S. gives a very favourable account of the
+little man, and left him in perfect health two days since, at the house
+of his aunt, Miss Honeyman. We have placed 200 pounds to that lady’s
+credit, at your desire.
+
+“Lady Anne is charmed with the present which she received yesterday,
+and says the white shawl is a great deal too handsome. My mother is
+also greatly pleased with hers, and has forwarded, by the coach to
+Brighton, to-day, a packet of books, tracts, etc., suited for his
+tender age, for your little boy. She heard of you lately from the Rev.
+T. Sweatenham on his return from India. He spoke of your kindness,—and
+of the hospitable manner in which you had received him at your house,
+and alluded to you in a very handsome way in the course of the
+thanksgiving that evening. I dare say my mother will ask your little
+boy to the Hermitage; and when we have a house of our own, I am sure
+Anne and I will be very happy to see him. Yours affectionately, B.
+Newcome. _Major Newcome_.”
+
+IV.
+
+“My Dear Colonel,—Did I not know the generosity of your heart, and the
+bountiful means which Heaven has put at your disposal in order to
+gratify that noble disposition; were I not certain that the small sum I
+required will permanently place me beyond the reach of the difficulties
+of life, and will infallibly be repaid before six months are over,
+believe me I never would have ventured upon that bold step which our
+friendship (carried on epistolarily as it has been), our relationship,
+and your admirable disposition, have induced me to venture to take.
+
+“That elegant and commodious chapel, known as Lady Whittlesea’s,
+Denmark Street, Mayfair, being for sale, I have determined on venturing
+my all in its acquisition, and in laying, as I hope, the foundation of
+a competence for myself and excellent sister. What is a lodging-house
+at Brighton but an uncertain maintenance? The mariner on the sea before
+those cliffs is no more sure of wind and wave, or of fish to his
+laborious net, than the Brighton house-owner (bred in affluence she may
+have been, and used to unremitting plenty) to the support of the casual
+travellers who visit the city. On one day they come in shoals, it is
+true, but where are they on the next? For many months my poor sister’s
+first floor was a desert, until occupied by your noble little boy, my
+nephew and pupil. Clive is everything that a father’s, an uncle’s (who
+loves him as a father), a pastor’s, a teacher’s affections could
+desire. He is not one of those premature geniuses whose much-vaunted
+infantine talents disappear along with adolescence; he is not, I
+frankly own, more advanced in his classical and mathematical studies
+than some children even younger than himself; but he has acquired the
+rudiments of health; he has laid in a store of honesty and good-humour,
+which are not less likely to advance him in life than mere science and
+language, than the _as in præsenti_, or the _pons asinorum_.
+
+“But I forget, in thinking of my dear little friend and pupil, the
+subject of this letter—namely, the acquisition of the proprietary
+chapel to which I have alluded, and the hopes, nay, certainty of a
+fortune, if aught below is certain, which that acquisition holds out.
+What is a curacy, but a synonym for starvation? If we accuse the
+Eremites of old of wasting their lives in unprofitable wildernesses,
+what shall we say to many a hermit of Protestant, and so-called
+civilised times, who hides his head in a solitude in Yorkshire, and
+buries his probably fine talents in a Lincolnshire fen? Have I genius?
+Am I blessed with gifts of eloquence to thrill and soothe, to arouse
+the sluggish, to terrify the sinful, to cheer and convince the timid,
+to lead the blind groping in darkness, and to trample the audacious
+sceptic in the dust? My own conscience, besides a hundred testimonials
+from places of popular, most popular worship, from reverend prelates,
+from distinguished clergy, tells me I have these gifts. A voice within
+me cries, ‘Go forth, Charles Honeyman, fight the good fight; wipe the
+tears of the repentant sinner; sing of hope to the agonised criminal;
+whisper courage, brother, courage, at the ghastly deathbed, and strike
+down the infidel with the lance of evidence and the shield of reason!’
+In a pecuniary point of view I am confident, nay, the calculations may
+be established as irresistibly as an algebraic equation, that I can
+realise, as incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s chapel, the sum of _not
+less_ than one thousand pounds per annum. Such a sum, with economy (and
+without it what sum were sufficient?), will enable me to provide amply
+for my wants, to discharge my obligations to you, to my sister, and
+some other creditors, very, very unlike you, and to place Miss Honeyman
+in a home more worthy of her than that which she now occupies, only to
+vacate it at the beck of every passing stranger!
+
+“My sister does not disapprove of my plan, into which enter some
+modifications which I have not, as yet, submitted to her, being anxious
+at first that they should be sanctioned by you. From the income of the
+Whittlesea chapel I propose to allow Miss Honeyman the sum of two
+hundred pounds per annum, _paid quarterly_. This, with her private
+property, which she has kept more thriftily than her unfortunate and
+confiding brother guarded his (for whenever I had a guinea a tale of
+distress would melt it into half a sovereign), will enable Miss
+Honeyman to live in a way becoming my father’s daughter.
+
+“Comforted with this provision as my sister will be, I would suggest
+that our dearest young Clive should be transferred from her petticoat
+government, and given up to the care of his affectionate uncle and
+tutor. His present allowance will most liberally suffice for his
+expenses, board, lodging, and education while under my roof, and I
+shall be able to exert a paternal, a pastoral influence over his
+studies, his conduct, and his _highest welfare_, which I cannot so
+conveniently exercise at Brighton, where I am but Miss Honeyman’s
+stipendiary, and where I often have to submit in cases where I know,
+for dearest Clive’s own welfare, it is I, and not my sister, should be
+paramount.
+
+“I have given then to a friend, the Rev. Marcus Flather a draft for two
+hundred and fifty pounds sterling, drawn upon you at your agent’s in
+Calcutta, which sum will go in liquidation of dear Clive’s first year’s
+board with me, or, upon my word of honour as a gentleman and clergyman,
+shall be paid back at three months after sight, if you will draw upon
+me. As I never—no, were it my last penny in the world—would dishonour
+your draft, I implore you, my dear Colonel, not to refuse mine. My
+credit in this city, where credit is _everything_, and the awful future
+so little thought of, my engagements to Mr. Flather, my own prospects
+in life, and the comfort of my dear sister’s declining years, all—all
+depend upon this bold, this _eventful_ measure. My ruin or my earthly
+happiness lies entirely in your hands. Can I doubt which way your kind
+heart will lead you, and that you will come to the aid of your
+affectionate brother-in-law? Charles Honeyman.”
+
+“_P.S._—Our little Clive has been to London on a visit to his uncles
+and to the Hermitage, Clapham, to pay his duty to his step-grandmother,
+the wealthy Mrs. Newcome. I pass over words disparaging of myself which
+the child in his artless prattles subsequently narrated. She was very
+gracious to _him_, and presented him with a five-pound note, a copy of
+Kirk White’s Poems, and a work called ‘Little Henry and his Bearer,’
+relating to India, and the excellent Catechism of our Church. Clive is
+full of humour, and I enclose you a rude scrap representing the
+bishopess of Clapham, as she is called,—the other figure is a rude
+though entertaining sketch of some other droll personage.
+
+“_Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, &c._”
+
+V.
+
+“My Dear Colonel;—The Rev. Marcus Flather has just written me a letter
+at which I am greatly shocked and perplexed, informing me that my
+brother Charles has given him a draft upon you for two hundred and
+fifty pounds, when goodness knows it is not you but we who are many,
+many hundred pounds debtors to you. Charles has explained that he drew
+the bill at your desire, that you wrote to say you would be glad to
+serve him in any way, and that the money is wanted to make his fortune.
+Yet I don’t know—poor Charles is always going to make his fortune and
+has never done it. That school which he bought, and for which you and
+me between us paid the purchase-money, turned out no good, and the only
+pupils left at the end of the first half-year were two woolly-headed
+poor little mulattos, whose father was in gaol at St. Kitt’s, and whom
+I kept actually in my own second-floor back room whilst the lawyers
+were settling things, and Charles was away in France, and until my
+dearest little Clive came to live with me.
+
+“Then, as he was too small for a great school, I thought Clive could
+not do better than stay with his old aunt and have his Uncle Charles
+for a tutor, who is one of the finest scholars in the world. I wish you
+could hear him in the pulpit. His delivery is grander and more
+impressive than any divine now in England. His sermons you have
+subscribed for, and likewise his book of elegant poems, which are
+pronounced to be _very fine_.
+
+“When he returned from Calais, and those horrid lawyers had left off
+worriting him, I thought as his frame was much shattered and he was too
+weak to take a curacy, that he could not do better than become Clive’s
+tutor, and agreed to pay him out of your handsome donation of £250 for
+Clive, a sum of one hundred pounds per year, so that, when the board of
+the two and Clive’s clothing are taken into consideration, I think you
+will see that no great profit is left to Miss Martha Honeyman.
+
+“Charles talks to me of his new church in London, and of making me some
+grand allowance. The poor boy is very affectionate, and always building
+castles in the air, and of having Clive to live with him in London.
+_Now this mustn’t be, and I won’t hear of it._ Charles is too kind to
+be a schoolmaster, and Master Clive laughs at him. It was only the
+other day, after his return from his grandmamma’s, regarding which I
+wrote you, per Burrampooter, the 23rd ult., that I found a picture of
+Mrs. Newcome and Charles too, and of both their spectacles, quite like.
+I put it away, but some rogue, I suppose, has stolen it. He has done me
+and Hannah too. Mr. Speck, the artist, laughed and took it home, and
+says he is a wonder at drawing.
+
+“Instead, then, of allowing Clive to go with Charles to London next
+month, where my brother is bent on going, I shall send Clivey to Dr.
+Timpany’s school, Marine Parade, of which I hear the best account, but
+I hope you will think of soon sending him to a great school. My father
+always said it was the best place for boys, and I have a brother to
+whom my poor mother spared the rod, and who, I fear, has turned out but
+a spoilt child.
+
+“I am, dear Colonel, your most faithful servant, Martha Honeyman.”
+
+“_Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, C. B._”
+
+VI.
+
+“My Dear Brother,—I hasten to inform you of a calamity which, though it
+might be looked for in the course of nature, has occasioned deep grief
+not only in our family but in this city. This morning, at half-past
+four o’clock, our beloved and respected mother, Sophia Alethea Newcome,
+expired, at the advanced age of eighty-three years. On the night of
+Tuesday-Wednesday, the 12–13th, having been engaged reading and writing
+in her library until a late hour, and having dismissed the servants,
+whom she never would allow to sit up for her, as well as my brother and
+his wife, who always are in the habit of retiring early, Mrs. Newcome
+extinguished the lamps, took a bedchamber candle to return to her room,
+and must have fallen on the landing, where she was discovered by the
+maids, sitting with her head reclining against the balustrades, and
+endeavouring to staunch a wound in her forehead, which was bleeding
+profusely, having struck in a fall against the stone step of the stair.
+
+“When Mrs. Newcome was found she was speechless, but still sensible,
+and medical aid being sent for, she was carried to bed. Mr. Newcome and
+Lady Anne both hurried to her apartment, and she knew them, and took
+the hands of each, but paralysis had probably ensued in consequence of
+the shock of the fall; nor was her voice ever heard, except in
+inarticulate moanings, since the hour on the previous evening when she
+gave them her blessing and bade them good-night. Thus perished this
+good and excellent woman, the truest Christian, the most charitable
+friend to the poor and needful, the head of this great house of
+business, the best and most affectionate of mothers.
+
+“The contents of her will have long been known to us, and that document
+was dated one month after our lamented father’s death. Mr. Thomas
+Newcome’s property being divided equally amongst his three sons, the
+property of his second wife naturally devolves upon her own issue, my
+brother Brian and myself. There are very heavy legacies to servants and
+to charitable and religious institutions, of which, in life, she was
+the munificent patroness; and I regret, my dear brother, that no
+memorial to you should have been left by my mother, because she often
+spoke of you latterly in terms of affection, and on the very day on
+which she died, commenced a letter to your little boy, which was left
+unfinished on the library table. My brother said that on that same day,
+at breakfast, she pointed to a volume of Orme’s Hindostan, the book,
+she said, which set poor dear Tom wild to go to India, I know you will
+be pleased to hear of these proofs of returning goodwill and affection
+in one who often spoke latterly of her early regard for you. I have no
+more time, under the weight of business which this present affliction
+entails, than to say that I am yours, dear brother, very sincerely, H.
+Newcome.”
+
+“_Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, etc._”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+In which the Author and the Hero resume their Acquaintance
+
+
+If we are to narrate the youthful history not only of the hero of this
+tale, but of the hero’s father, we shall never have done with nursery
+biography. A gentleman’s grandmother may delight in fond recapitulation
+of her darling’s boyish frolics and early genius; but shall we weary
+our kind readers by this infantile prattle, and set down the revered
+British public for an old woman? Only to two or three persons in all
+the world are the reminiscences of a man’s early youth interesting: to
+the parent who nursed him; to the fond wife or child mayhap afterwards
+who loves him; to himself always and supremely—whatever may be his
+actual prosperity or ill-fortune, his present age, illness,
+difficulties, renown, or disappointments, the dawn of his life still
+shines brightly for him, the early griefs and delights and attachments
+remain with him ever faithful and dear. I shall ask leave to say,
+regarding the juvenile biography of Mr. Clive Newcome, of whose history
+I am the chronicler, only so much as is sufficient to account for some
+peculiarities of his character, and for his subsequent career in the
+world.
+
+Although we were schoolfellows, my acquaintance with young Newcome at
+the seat of learning where we first met was very brief and casual. He
+had the advantage of being six years the junior of his present
+biographer, and such a difference of age between lads at a public
+school puts intimacy out of the question—a junior ensign being no more
+familiar with the Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards, or a
+barrister on his first circuit with my Lord Chief Justice on the bench,
+than the newly breeched infant in the Petties with a senior boy in a
+tailed coat. As we “knew each other at home,” as our school phrase was,
+and our families being somewhat acquainted, Newcome’s maternal uncle,
+the Rev. Charles Honeyman (the highly gifted preacher, and incumbent of
+Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel, Denmark Street, Mayfair), when he brought the
+child, after the Christmas vacation of 182-, to the Grey Friars’
+school, recommended him in a neat complimentary speech to my
+superintendence and protection. My uncle, Major Pendennis, had for a
+while a seat in the chapel of this sweet and popular preacher, and
+professed, as a great number of persons of fashion did, a great
+admiration for him—an admiration which I shared in my early youth, but
+which has been modified by maturer judgment.
+
+Mr. Honeyman told me, with an air of deep respect, that his young
+nephew’s father, Colonel Thomas Newcome, C.B., was a most gallant and
+distinguished officer in the Bengal establishment of the Honourable
+East India Company;—and that his uncles, the Colonel’s half-brothers,
+were the eminent bankers, heads of the firm of Hobson Brothers and
+Newcome, Hobson Newcome, Esquire, Bryanstone Square, and Marblehead,
+Sussex, and Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome and Park Lane, “whom to
+name,” says Mr. Honeyman, with the fluent eloquence with which he
+decorated the commonest circumstances of life, “is to designate two of
+the merchant princes of the wealthiest city the world has ever known;
+and one, if not two, of the leaders of that aristocracy which rallies
+round the throne of the most elegant and refined of European
+sovereigns.” I promised Mr. Honeyman to do what I could for the boy;
+and he proceeded to take leave of his little nephew in my presence in
+terms equally eloquent, pulling out a long and very slender green
+purse, from which he extracted the sum of two-and-sixpence, which he
+presented to the child, who received the money with rather a queer
+twinkle in his blue eyes.
+
+After that day’s school, I met my little _protégé_ in the neighbourhood
+of the pastrycook’s, regaling himself with raspberry-tarts. “You must
+not spend all that money, sir, which your uncle gave you,” said I
+(having perhaps even at that early age a slightly satirical turn), “in
+tarts and ginger-beer.”
+
+The urchin rubbed the raspberry-jam off his mouth, and said, “It don’t
+matter, sir, for I’ve got lots more.”
+
+“How much?” says the Grand Inquisitor: for the formula of interrogation
+used to be, when a new boy came to the school, “What’s your name? Who’s
+your father? and how much money have you got?”
+
+The little fellow pulled such a handful of sovereigns out of his pocket
+as might have made the tallest scholar feel a pang of envy. “Uncle
+Hobson,” says he, “gave me two; Aunt Hobson gave me one—no, Aunt Hobson
+gave me thirty shillings; Uncle Newcome gave me three pound; and Aunt
+Anne gave me one pound five; and Aunt Honeyman sent me ten shillings in
+a letter. And Ethel wanted to give me a pound, only I wouldn’t have it,
+you know; because Ethel’s younger than me, and I have plenty.”
+
+“And who is Ethel?” asks the senior boy, smiling at the artless youth’s
+confessions.
+
+“Ethel is my cousin,” replies little Newcome; “Aunt Anne’s daughter.
+There’s Ethel and Alice, and Aunt Anne wanted the baby to be called
+Boadicea, only uncle wouldn’t; and there’s Barnes and Egbert and little
+Alfred; only he don’t count, he’s quite a baby you know. Egbert and me
+was at school at Timpany’s; he’s going to Eton next half. He’s older
+than me, but I can lick him.”
+
+“And how old is Egbert?” asks the smiling senior.
+
+“Egbert’s ten, and I’m nine, and Ethel’s seven,” replies the little
+chubby-faced hero, digging his hands deep into his trousers’ pockets,
+and jingling all the sovereigns there. I advised him to let me be his
+banker; and, keeping one out of his many gold pieces, he handed over
+the others, on which he drew with great liberality till his whole stock
+was expended. The school hours of the upper and under boys were
+different at that time; the little fellows coming out of their hall
+half an hour before the Fifth and Sixth Forms; and many a time I used
+to find my little blue jacket in waiting, with his honest square face,
+and white hair, and bright blue eyes, and I knew that he was come to
+draw on his bank. Ere long one of the pretty blue eyes was shut up, and
+a fine black one substituted in its place. He had been engaged, it
+appeared, in a pugilistic encounter with a giant of his own Form, whom
+he had worsted in the combat. “Didn’t I pitch into him, that’s all?”
+says he in the elation of victory; and when I asked whence the quarrel
+arose, he stoutly informed me that “Wolf minor, his opponent, had been
+bullying a little boy, and that he (the gigantic Newcome) wouldn’t
+stand it.”
+
+So, being called away from the school, I said farewell and God bless
+you to the brave little man, who remained a while at the Grey Friars,
+where his career and troubles had only just begun.
+
+Nor did we meet again until I was myself a young man occupying chambers
+in the Temple, when our rencontre took place in the manner already
+described.
+
+Poor Costigan’s outrageous behaviour had caused my meeting with my
+schoolfellow of early days to terminate so abruptly and unpleasantly,
+that I scarce expected to see Clive again, or at any rate to renew my
+acquaintance with the indignant East Indian warrior who had quitted our
+company in such a huff. Breakfast, however, was scarcely over in my
+chambers the next morning, when there came a knock at the outer door,
+and my clerk introduced “Colonel Newcome and Mr. Newcome.”
+
+Perhaps the (joint) occupant of the chambers in Lamb Court, Temple,
+felt a little pang of shame at hearing the name of the visitors; for,
+if the truth must be told, I was engaged pretty much as I had been
+occupied on the night previous, and was smoking a cigar over the
+_Times_ newspaper. How many young men in the Temple smoke a cigar after
+breakfast as they read the _Times?_ My friend and companion of those
+days, and all days, Mr. George Warrington, was employed with his short
+pipe, and was not in the least disconcerted at the appearance of the
+visitors, as he would not have been had the Archbishop of Canterbury
+stepped in.
+
+Little Clive looked curiously about our queer premises, while the
+Colonel shook me cordially by the hand. No traces of yesterday’s wrath
+were visible on his face, but a friendly smile lighted his bronzed
+countenance, as he too looked round the old room with its dingy
+curtains and prints and bookcases, its litter of proof-sheets, blotted
+manuscripts, and books for review, empty soda-water bottles,
+cigar-boxes, and what not.
+
+“I went off in a flame of fire last night,” says the Colonel, “and
+being cooled this morning, thought it but my duty to call on Mr.
+Pendennis and apologise for my abrupt behaviour. The conduct of that
+tipsy old Captain—what is his name?—was so abominable, that I could not
+bear that Clive should be any longer in the same room with him, and I
+went off without saying a word of thanks or good-night to my son’s old
+friend. I owe you a shake of the hand for last night, Mr. Pendennis.”
+And, so saying, he was kind enough to give me his hand a second time.
+
+“And this is the abode of the Muses, is it, sir?” our guest went on. “I
+know your writings very well. Clive here used to send me the _Pall Mall
+Gazette_ every month.”
+
+“We took it at Smiffle, regular,” says Clive. “Always patronise Grey
+Friars men.” “Smiffle,” it must be explained, is a fond abbreviation
+for Smithfield, near to which great mart of mutton and oxen our school
+is situated, and old Cistercians often playfully designate their place
+of education by the name of the neighbouring market.
+
+“Clive sent me the _Gazette_ every month; and I read your romance of
+‘Walter Lorraine’ in my boat as I was coming down the river to
+Calcutta.”
+
+“Have Pen’s immortal productions made their appearance on board
+Bengalee budgerows; and are their leaves floating on the yellow banks
+of Jumna?” asks Warrington, that sceptic, who respects no work of
+modern genius.
+
+“I gave your book to Mrs. Timmins, at Calcutta,” says the Colonel
+simply. “I daresay you have heard of _her_. She is one of the most
+dashing women in all India. She was delighted with your work; and I can
+tell you it is not with every man’s writing that Mrs. Timmins is
+pleased,” he added, with a knowing air.
+
+“It’s capital,” broke in Clive. “I say, that part, you know, where
+Walter runs away with Neæra, and the General can’t pursue them, though
+he has got the postchaise at the door, because Tim O’Toole has hidden
+his wooden leg! By Jove, it’s capital!—All the funny part—I don’t like
+the sentimental stuff, and suicide, and that; and as for poetry, I hate
+poetry.”
+
+“Pen’s is not first chop,” says Warrington. “I am obliged to take the
+young man down from time to time, Colonel Newcome. Otherwise he would
+grow so conceited there would be no bearing him.”
+
+“I say,” says Clive.
+
+“What were you about to remark?” asks Mr. Warrington, with an air of
+great interest.
+
+“I say, Pendennis,” continued the artless youth, “I thought you were a
+great swell. When we used to read about the grand parties in the _Pall
+Mall Gazette_, the fellows used to say you were at every one of them,
+and you see, I thought you must have chambers in the Albany, and lots
+of horses to ride, and a valet and a groom, and a cab at the very
+least.”
+
+“Sir,” says the Colonel, “I hope it is not your practice to measure and
+estimate gentlemen by such paltry standards as those. A man of letters
+follows the noblest calling which any man can pursue. I would rather be
+the author of a work of genius, than be Governor-General of India. I
+admire genius. I salute it wherever I meet it. I like my own profession
+better than any in the world, but then it is because I am suited to it.
+I couldn’t write four lines in verse, no, not to save me from being
+shot. A man cannot have all the advantages of life. Who would not be
+poor if he could be sure of possessing genius, and winning fame and
+immortality, sir? Think of Dr. Johnson, what a genius he had, and where
+did he live? In apartments that, I daresay, were no better than these,
+which, I am sure, gentlemen, are most cheerful and pleasant,” says the
+Colonel, thinking he had offended us. “One of the great pleasures and
+delights which I had proposed to myself on coming home was to be
+allowed to have the honour of meeting with men of learning and genius,
+with wits, poets, and historians, if I may be so fortunate; and of
+benefiting by their conversation. I left England too young to have that
+privilege. In my father’s house money was thought of, I fear, rather
+than intellect; neither he nor I had the opportunities which I wish you
+to have; and I am surprised you should think of reflecting upon Mr.
+Pendennis’s poverty, or of feeling any sentiment but respect and
+admiration when you enter the apartments of the poet and the literary
+man. I have never been in the rooms of a literary man before,” the
+Colonel said, turning away from his son to us: “excuse me, is that—that
+paper really a proof-sheet?” We handed over to him that curiosity,
+smiling at the enthusiasm of the honest gentleman who could admire what
+to us was as unpalatable as a tart to a pastrycook.
+
+Being with men of letters, he thought proper to make his conversation
+entirely literary; and in the course of my subsequent more intimate
+acquaintance with him, though I knew he had distinguished himself in
+twenty actions, he never could be brought to talk of his military feats
+or experience, but passed them by, as if they were subjects utterly
+unworthy of notice.
+
+I found he believed Dr. Johnson to be the greatest of men: the Doctor’s
+words were constantly in his mouth; and he never travelled without
+Boswell’s Life. Besides these, he read Cæsar and Tacitus, “with
+translations, sir, with translations—I’m thankful that I kept some of
+my Latin from Grey Friars;” and he quoted sentences from the Latin
+Grammar, _à propos_ of a hundred events of common life, and with
+perfect simplicity and satisfaction to himself. Besides the above-named
+books, the Spectator, Don Quixote, and Sir Charles Grandison formed a
+part of his travelling library. “I read these, sir,” he used to say,
+“because I like to be in the company of gentlemen; and Sir Roger de
+Coverley, and Sir Charles Grandison, and Don Quixote are the finest
+gentlemen in the world.” And when we asked him his opinion of
+Fielding,—
+
+“Tom Jones, sir; Joseph Andrews, sir!” he cried, twirling his
+mustachios. “I read them when I was a boy, when I kept other bad
+company, and did other low and disgraceful things, of which I’m ashamed
+now. Sir, in my father’s library I happened to fall in with those
+books; and I read them in secret, just as I used to go in private and
+drink beer, and fight cocks, and smoke pipes with Jack and Tom, the
+grooms in the stables. Mrs. Newcome found me, I recollect, with one of
+those books; and thinking it might be by Mrs. Hannah More, or some of
+that sort, for it was a grave-looking volume: and though I wouldn’t lie
+about that or anything else—never did, sir; never, before heaven, have
+I told more than three lies in my life—I kept my own counsel; I say,
+she took it herself to read one evening; and read on gravely—for she
+had no more idea of a joke than I have of Hebrew—until she came to the
+part about Lady B—— and Joseph Andrews; and then she shut the book,
+sir; and you should have seen the look she gave me! I own I burst out
+a-laughing, for I was a wild young rebel, sir. But she was in the
+right, sir, and I was in the wrong. A book, sir, that tells the story
+of a parcel of servants, of a pack of footmen and ladies’-maids
+fuddling in alehouses! Do you suppose I want to know what my kitmutgars
+and cousomahs are doing? I am as little proud as any man in the world:
+but there must be distinction, sir; and as it is my lot and Clive’s lot
+to be a gentleman, I won’t sit in the kitchen and boose in the
+servants’-hall. As for that Tom Jones—that fellow that sells himself,
+sir—by heavens, my blood boils when I think of him! I wouldn’t sit down
+in the same room with such a fellow, sir. If he came in at that door, I
+would say, ‘How dare you, you hireling ruffian, to sully with your
+presence an apartment where my young friend and I are conversing
+together? where two gentlemen, I say, are taking their wine after
+dinner? How dare you, you degraded villain?’ I don’t mean you, sir.
+I—I—I beg your pardon.”
+
+The Colonel was striding about the room in his loose garments, puffing
+his cigar fiercely anon, and then waving his yellow bandana; and it was
+by the arrival of Larkins, my clerk, that his apostrophe to Tom Jones
+was interrupted; he, Larkins, taking care not to show his amazement,
+having been schooled not to show or feel surprise at anything he might
+see or hear in our chambers.
+
+“What is it, Larkins?” said I. Larkins’ other master had taken his
+leave some time before, having business which called him away, and
+leaving me with the honest Colonel, quite happy with his talk and
+cigar.
+
+“It’s Brett’s man,” says Larkins.
+
+I confounded Brett’s man, and told the boy to bid him call again. Young
+Larkins came grinning back in a moment, and said:
+
+“Please, sir, he says his orders is not to go away without the money.”
+
+“Confound him again,” I cried. “Tell him I have no money in the house.
+He must come to-morrow.”
+
+As I spoke, Clive was looking in wonder, and the Colonel’s countenance
+assumed an appearance of the most dolorous sympathy. Nevertheless, as
+with a great effort, he fell to talking about Tom Jones again, and
+continued:
+
+“No, sir, I have no words to express my indignation against such a
+fellow as Tom Jones. But I forgot that I need not speak. The great and
+good Dr. Johnson has settled that question. You remember what he said
+to Mr. Boswell about Fielding?”
+
+“And yet Gibbon praises him, Colonel,” said the Colonel’s interlocutor,
+“and that is no small praise. He says that Mr. Fielding was of the
+family that drew its origin from the Counts of Hapsburg; but——”
+
+“Gibbon! Gibbon was an infidel, and I would not give the end of this
+cigar for such a man’s opinion. If Mr. Fielding was a gentleman by
+birth, he ought to have known better; and so much the worse for him
+that he did not. But what am I talking of, wasting your valuable time?
+No more smoke, thank you. I must away into the City, but would not pass
+the Temple without calling on you, and thanking my boy’s old protector.
+You will have the kindness to come and dine with us—to-morrow, the next
+day, your own day? Your friend is going out of town? I hope, on his
+return, to have the pleasure of making his further acquaintance. Come,
+Clive.”
+
+Clive, who had been deep in a volume of Hogarth’s engravings during the
+above discussion, or rather oration of his father’s, started up and
+took leave, beseeching me, at the same time, to come soon and see his
+pony; and so, with renewed greetings, we parted.
+
+I was scarcely returned to my newspaper again, when the knocker of our
+door was again agitated, and the Colonel ran back, looking very much
+agitated and confused.
+
+“I beg pardon,” says he; “I think I left my—my——” Larkins had quitted
+the room by this time, and then he began more unreservedly. “My dear
+young friend,” says he, “a thousand pardons for what I am going to say,
+but, as Clive’s friend, I know I may take that liberty. I have left the
+boy in the court. I know the fate of men of letters and genius: when we
+were here just now, there came a single knock—a demand—that, that you
+did not seem to be momentarily able to meet. Now do, do pardon the
+liberty, and let me be your banker. You said you were engaged in a new
+work: it will be a masterpiece, I am sure, if it’s like the last. Put
+me down for twenty copies, and allow me to settle with you in advance.
+I may be off, you know. I’m a bird of passage—a restless old soldier.”
+
+“My dear Colonel,” said I, quite touched and pleased by this extreme
+kindness, “my dun was but the washerwoman’s boy, and Mrs. Brett is in
+my debt, if I am not mistaken. Besides, I already have a banker in your
+family.”
+
+“In my family, my dear Sir?”
+
+“Messrs. Newcome, in Threadneedle Street, are good enough to keep my
+money for me when I have any, and I am happy to say they have some of
+mine in hand now. I am almost sorry that I am not in want, in order
+that I might have the pleasure of receiving a kindness from you.” And
+we shook hands for the fourth time that morning, and the kind gentleman
+left me to rejoin his son.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+Clive’s Uncles
+
+
+The dinner so hospitably offered by the Colonel was gladly accepted,
+and followed by many more entertainments at the cost of that
+good-natured friend. He and an Indian chum of his lived at this time at
+Nerot’s Hotel, in Clifford Street, where Mr. Clive, too, found the good
+cheer a great deal more to his taste than the homely, though plentiful,
+fare at Grey Friars, at which, of course, when boys, we all turned up
+our noses, though many a poor fellow, in the struggles of after-life,
+has looked back with regret very likely to that well-spread youthful
+table. Thus my intimacy with the father and the son grew to be
+considerable, and a great deal more to my liking than my relations with
+Clive’s City uncles, which have been mentioned in the last chapter, and
+which were, in truth, exceedingly distant and awful.
+
+If all the private accounts kept by those worthy bankers were like
+mine, where would have been Newcome Hall and Park Lane, Marblehead and
+Bryanstone Square? I used, by strong efforts of self-denial, to
+maintain a balance of two or three guineas untouched at the bank, so
+that my account might still remain open; and fancied the clerks and
+cashiers grinned when I went to draw for money. Rather than face that
+awful counter, I would send Larkins, the clerk, or Mrs. Flanagan, the
+laundress. As for entering the private parlour at the back, wherein
+behind the glazed partition I could see the bald heads of Newcome
+Brothers engaged with other capitalists or peering over the newspaper,
+I would as soon have thought of walking into the Doctor’s own library
+at Grey Friars, or of volunteering to take an armchair in a dentist’s
+studio, and have a tooth out, as of entering into that awful precinct.
+My good uncle, on the other hand, the late Major Pendennis, who kept
+naturally but a very small account with Hobsons’, would walk into the
+parlour and salute the two magnates who governed there with the ease
+and gravity of a Rothschild. “My good fellow,” the kind old gentleman
+would say to his nephew and pupil, “_il faut se faire valoir_. I tell
+you, sir, your bankers like to keep every gentleman’s account. And it’s
+a mistake to suppose they are only civil to their great moneyed
+clients. Look at me. I go in to them and talk to them whenever I am in
+the City. I hear the news of ’Change, and carry it to our end of the
+town. It looks well, sir, to be well with your banker; and at our end
+of London, perhaps, I can do a good turn for the Newcomes.”
+
+It is certain that in his own kingdom of Mayfair and St. James’s my
+revered uncle was at least the bankers’ equal. On my coming to London,
+he was kind enough to procure me invitations to some of Lady Anne
+Newcome’s evening parties in Park Lane, as likewise to Mrs. Newcome’s
+entertainments in Bryanstone Square; though, I confess, of these
+latter, after a while, I was a lax and negligent attendant. “Between
+ourselves, my good fellow,” the shrewd old Mentor of those days would
+say, “Mrs. Newcome’s parties are not altogether select; nor is she a
+lady of the very highest breeding; but it gives a man a good air to be
+seen at his banker’s house. I recommend you to go for a few minutes
+whenever you are asked.” And go I accordingly did sometimes, though I
+always fancied, rightly or wrongly, from Mrs. Newcome’s manner to me,
+that she knew I had but thirty shillings left at the bank. Once and
+again, in two or three years, Mr. Hobson Newcome would meet me, and ask
+me to fill a vacant place that day or the next evening at his table;
+which invitation I might accept or otherwise. But one does not eat a
+man’s salt, as it were, at these dinners. There is nothing sacred in
+this kind of London hospitality. Your white waistcoat fills a gap in a
+man’s table, and retires filled for its service of the evening. “Gad,”
+the dear old Major used to say, “if we were not to talk freely of those
+we dine with, how mum London would be! Some of the pleasantest evenings
+I have ever spent have been when we have sate after a great dinner, _en
+petit comité_, and abused the people who are gone. You have your turn,
+_mon cher;_ but why not? Do you suppose I fancy my friends haven’t
+found out _my_ little faults and peculiarities? And as I can’t help it,
+I let myself be executed, and offer up my oddities _de bonne grâce.
+Entre nous_, Brother Hobson Newcome is a good fellow, but a vulgar
+fellow; and his wife—his wife exactly suits him.”
+
+Once a year Lady Anne Newcome (about whom my Mentor was much more
+circumspect; for I somehow used to remark that as the rank of persons
+grew higher, Major Pendennis spoke of them with more caution and
+respect)—once or twice in a year Lady Anne Newcome opened her saloons
+for a concert and a ball, at both of which the whole street was crowded
+with carriages, and all the great world, and some of the small, were
+present. Mrs. Newcome had her ball too, and her concert of English
+music, in opposition to the Italian singers of her sister-in-law. The
+music of her country, Mrs. N. said, was good enough for _her_.
+
+The truth must be told, that there was no love lost between the two
+ladies. Bryanstone Square could not forget the superiority of Park
+Lane’s rank; and the catalogue of grandees at dear Anne’s parties
+filled dear Maria’s heart with envy. There are people upon whom rank
+and worldly goods make such an impression, that they naturally fall
+down on their knees and worship the owners; there are others to whom
+the sight of Prosperity is offensive, and who never see Dives’ chariot
+but to growl and hoot at it. Mrs. Newcome, as far as my humble
+experience would lead me to suppose, is not only envious, but proud of
+her envy. She mistakes it for honesty and public spirit. _She_ will not
+bow down to kiss the hand of a haughty aristocracy. She is a merchant’s
+wife and an attorney’s daughter. There is no pride about her. Her
+brother-in-law, poor dear Brian—considering everybody knows everything
+in London, was there ever such a delusion as his?—was welcome, after
+banking-hours, to forsake his own friends for his wife’s fine
+relations, and to dangle after lords and ladies in Mayfair. She had no
+such absurd vanity—not she. She imparted these opinions pretty
+liberally to all her acquaintances in almost all her conversations. It
+was clear that the two ladies were best apart. There are some folks who
+will see insolence in persons of rank, as there are others who will
+insist; that all clergymen are hypocrites, all reformers villains, all
+placemen plunderers, and so forth; and Mrs. Newcome never, I am sure,
+imagined that she had a prejudice, or that she was other than an
+honest, independent, high-spirited woman. Both of the ladies had
+command over their husbands, who were of soft natures easily led by
+woman, as, in truth, are all the males of this family. Accordingly,
+when Sir Brian Newcome voted for the Tory candidate in the City, Mr.
+Hobson Newcome plumped for the Reformer. While Brian, in the House of
+Commons, sat among the mild Conservatives, Hobson unmasked traitors and
+thundered at aristocratic corruption, so as to make the Marylebone
+Vestry thrill with enthusiasm. When Lady Anne, her husband, and her
+flock of children fasted in Lent, and declared for the High Church
+doctrines, Mrs. Hobson had paroxysms of alarm regarding the progress of
+Popery, and shuddered out of the chapel where she had a pew, because
+the clergyman there, for a very brief season, appeared to preach in a
+surplice.
+
+Poor bewildered Honeyman! it was a sad day for you, when you appeared
+in your neat pulpit with your fragrant pocket-handkerchief (and your
+sermon likewise all millefleurs), in a trim, prim, freshly mangled
+surplice, which you thought became you! How did you look aghast, and
+pass your jewelled hand through your curls, as you saw Mrs. Newcome,
+who had been as good as five-and-twenty pounds a year to you, look up
+from her pew, seize hold of Mr. Newcome, fling open the pew-door, drive
+out with her parasol her little flock of children, bewildered but not
+ill-pleased to get away from the sermon, and summon John from the back
+seats to bring away the bag of prayer-books! Many a good dinner did
+Charles Honeyman lose by assuming that unlucky ephod. Why did the
+high-priest of his diocese order him to put it on? It was delightful to
+view him afterwards, and the airs of martyrdom which he assumed. Had
+they been going to tear him to pieces with wild beasts next day, he
+could scarcely have looked more meek, or resigned himself more
+pathetically to the persecutors. But I am advancing matters. At this
+early time of which I write, a period not twenty years since, surplices
+were not even thought of in conjunction with sermons: clerical
+gentlemen have appeared in them, and under the heavy hand of
+persecution have sunk down in their pulpits again, as Jack pops back
+into his box. Charles Honeyman’s elegant discourses were at this time
+preached in a rich silk Master of Arts’ gown, presented to him, along
+with a teapot full of sovereigns, by his affectionate congregation at
+Leatherhead.
+
+But that I may not be accused of prejudice in describing Mrs. Newcome
+and her family, and lest the reader should suppose that some slight
+offered to the writer by this wealthy and virtuous banker’s lady was
+the secret reason for this unfavourable sketch of her character, let me
+be allowed to report, as accurately as I can remember them, the words
+of a kinsman of her own, —— Giles, Esquire, whom I had the honour of
+meeting at her table, and who, as we walked away from Bryanstone
+Square, was kind enough to discourse very freely about the relatives
+whom he had just left.
+
+“That was a good dinner, sir,” said Mr. Giles, puffing the cigar which
+I offered to him, and disposed to be very social and communicative.
+“Hobson Newcome’s table is about as good a one as any I ever put my
+legs under. You didn’t have twice of turtle, sir, I remarked that—I
+always do, at that house especially, for I know where Newcome gets it.
+We belong to the same livery in the City, Hobson and I, the
+Oystermongers’ Company, sir, and we like our turtle good, I can tell
+you—good, and a great deal of it, you say. Hay, hay, not so bad!
+
+“I suppose you’re a young barrister, sucking lawyer, or that sort of
+thing. Because you was put at the end of the table and nobody took
+notice of you. That’s my place too; I’m a relative and Newcome asks me
+if he has got a place to spare. He met me in the City to-day, and says,
+‘Tom,’ says he, ‘there’s some dinner in the Square at half-past seven:
+I wish you would go and fetch Louisa, whom we haven’t seen this ever so
+long.’ Louisa is my wife, sir—Maria’s sister—Newcome married that gal
+from my house. ‘No, no,’ says I, ‘Hobson; Louisa’s engaged nursing
+number eight’—that’s our number, sir. The truth is, between you and me,
+sir, my missis won’t come any more at no price. She can’t stand it;
+Mrs. Newcome’s dam patronising airs is enough to choke off anybody.
+‘Well, Hobson, my boy,’ says I, ‘a good dinner’s a good dinner; and
+I’ll come though Louisa won’t, that is, can’t.’”
+
+While Mr. Giles, who was considerably enlivened by claret, was
+discoursing thus candidly, his companion was thinking how he, Mr.
+Arthur Pendennis, had been met that very afternoon on the steps of the
+Megatherium Club by Mr. Newcome, and had accepted that dinner which
+Mrs. Giles, with more spirit, had declined. Giles continued
+talking—“I’m an old stager, I am. I don’t mind the rows between the
+women. I believe Mrs. Newcome and Lady Newcome’s just as bad too; I
+know Maria is always driving at her one way or the other, and calling
+her proud and aristocratic, and that; and yet my wife says Maria, who
+pretends to be such a Radical, never asks us to meet the Baronet and
+his lady. ‘And why should she, Loo, my dear?’ says I. ‘I don’t want to
+meet Lady Newcome, nor Lord Kew, nor any of ’em.’ Lord Kew, ain’t it an
+odd name? Tearing young swell, that Lord Kew: tremendous wild fellow.”
+
+“I was a clerk in that house, sir, as a young man; I was there in the
+old woman’s time, and Mr. Newcome’s—the father of these young men—as
+good a man as ever stood on ’Change.” And then Mr. Giles, warming with
+his subject, enters at large into the history of the house. “You see,
+sir,” says he, “the banking-house of Hobson Brothers, or Newcome
+Brothers, as the partners of the firm really are, is not one of the
+leading banking firms of the City of London, but a most respectable
+house of many years’ standing, and doing a most respectable business,
+especially in the Dissenting connection.” After the business came into
+the hands of the Newcome Brothers, Hobson Newcome, Esq., and Sir Brian
+Newcome, Bart., M.P., Mr. Giles shows how a considerable West End
+connection was likewise established, chiefly through the aristocratic
+friends and connections of the above-named Bart.
+
+But the best man of business, according to Mr. Giles, whom the firm of
+Hobson Brothers ever knew, better than her father and uncle, better
+than her husband Sir T. Newcome, better than her sons and successors
+above mentioned, was the famous Sophia Alethea Hobson, afterwards
+Newcome—of whom might be said what Frederick the Great said of his
+sister, that she was _sexu fœmina, vir ingenio_—in sex a woman, and in
+mind a man. Nor was she, my informant told me, without even manly
+personal characteristics: she had a very deep and gruff voice, and in
+her old age a beard which many a young man might envy; and as she came
+into the bank out of her carriage from Clapham, in her dark green
+pelisse with fur trimmings, in her grey beaver hat, beaver gloves, and
+great gold spectacles, not a clerk in that house did not tremble before
+her, and it was said she only wanted a pipe in her mouth considerably
+to resemble the late Field-Marshal Prince Blucher.
+
+Her funeral was one of the most imposing sights ever witnessed in
+Clapham. There was such a crowd you might have thought it was a
+Derby-day. The carriages of some of the greatest City firms, and the
+wealthiest Dissenting houses; several coaches full of ministers of all
+denominations, including the Established Church; the carriage of the
+Right Honourable the Earl of Kew, and that of his daughter, Lady Anne
+Newcome, attended that revered lady’s remains to their final
+resting-place. No less than nine sermons were preached at various
+places of public worship regarding her end. She fell upstairs at a very
+advanced age, going from the library to the bedroom, after all the
+household was gone to rest, and was found by the maids in the morning,
+inarticulate, but still alive, her head being cut frightfully with the
+bedroom candle with which she was retiring to her apartment. “And,”
+said Mr. Giles with great energy, “besides the empty carriages at that
+funeral, and the parson in black, and the mutes and feathers and that,
+there were hundreds and hundreds of people who wore no black, and who
+weren’t present; and who wept for their benefactress, I can tell you.
+She had her faults, and many of ’em; but the amount of that woman’s
+charities are unheard of, sir—unheard of,—and they are put to the
+credit side of her account up yonder.
+
+“The old lady had a will of her own,” my companion continued. “She
+would try and know about everybody’s business out of business hours:
+got to know from the young clerks what chapels they went to, and from
+the clergymen whether they attended regular; kept her sons, years after
+they were grown men, as if they were boys at school—and what was the
+consequence? They had a quarrel with Sir Thomas Newcome’s own son, a
+harum-scarum lad, who ran away, and then was sent to India; and,
+between ourselves, Mr. Hobson and Mr. Brian both, the present Baronet,
+though at home they were as mum as Quakers at a meeting, used to go out
+on the sly, sir, and be off to the play, sir, and sowed their wild oats
+like any other young men, sir, like any other young men. Law bless me,
+once, as I was going away from the Haymarket, if I didn’t see Mr.
+Hobson coming out of the Opera, in tights and an opera-hat, sir, like
+‘Froggy would wooing go,’ of a Saturday-night, too, when his ma thought
+him safe in bed in the City! I warrant he hadn’t _his opera-hat_ on
+when he went to chapel with her ladyship the next morning—that very
+morning, as sure as my name’s John Giles.
+
+“When the old lady was gone, Mr. Hobson had no need of any more
+humbugging, but took his pleasure freely. Fighting, tandems,
+four-in-hand, anything. He and his brother—his elder brother by a
+quarter of an hour—were always very good friends; but after Mr. Brian
+married, and there was only court-cards at his table, Mr. Hobson
+couldn’t stand it. They weren’t of his suit, he said; and for some time
+he said he wasn’t a marrying man—quite the contrary; but we all come to
+our fate, you know, and his time came as mine did. You know we married
+sisters? It was thought a fine match for Polly Smith, when she married
+the great Mr. Newcome; but I doubt whether my old woman at home hasn’t
+had the best of it, after all; and if ever you come Bernard Street way
+on a Sunday, about six o’clock, and would like a slice of beef and a
+glass of port, I hope you’ll come and see us.”
+
+Do not let us be too angry with Colonel Newcome’s two most respectable
+brothers, if for some years they neglected their Indian relative, or
+held him in slight esteem. Their mother never pardoned him, or at least
+by any actual words admitted his restoration to favour. For many years,
+as far as they knew, poor Tom was an unrepentant prodigal, wallowing in
+bad company, and cut off from all respectable sympathy. Their father
+had never had the courage to acquaint them with his more true, and
+kind, and charitable version of Tom’s story. So he passed at home for
+no better than a black sheep; his marriage with a penniless young lady
+did not tend to raise him in the esteem of his relatives at Clapham; it
+was not until he was a widower, until he had been mentioned several
+times in the _Gazette_ for distinguished military service, until they
+began to speak very well of him in Leadenhall Street, where the
+representatives of Hobson Brothers were of course East India
+proprietors, and until he remitted considerable sums of money to
+England, that the bankers his brethren began to be reconciled to him.
+
+I say, do not let us be hard upon them. No people are so ready to give
+a man a bad name as his own kinsfolk; and having made him that present,
+they are ever most unwilling to take it back again. If they give him
+nothing else in the days of his difficulty, he may be sure of their
+pity, and that he is held up as an example to his young cousins to
+avoid. If he loses his money they call him poor fellow, and point
+morals out of him. If he falls among thieves, the respectable Pharisees
+of his race turn their heads aside and leave him penniless and
+bleeding. They clap him on the back kindly enough when he returns,
+after shipwreck, with money in his pocket. How naturally Joseph’s
+brothers made salaams to him, and admired him, and did him honour, when
+they found the poor outcast a prime minister, and worth ever so much
+money! Surely human nature is not much altered since the days of those
+primeval Jews. We would not thrust brother Joseph down a well and sell
+him bodily, but—but if he has scrambled out of a well of his own
+digging, and got out of his early bondage into renown and credit, at
+least we applaud him and respect him, and are proud of Joseph as a
+member of the family.
+
+Little Clive was the innocent and lucky object upon whom the increasing
+affection of the Newcomes for their Indian brother was exhibited. When
+he was first brought home a sickly child, consigned to his maternal
+aunt, the kind old maiden lady at Brighton, Hobson Brothers scarce took
+any notice of the little man, but left him to the entire
+superintendence of his own family. Then there came a large remittance
+from his father, and the child was asked by Uncle Newcome at Christmas.
+Then his father’s name was mentioned in general orders, and Uncle
+Hobson asked little Clive at Midsummer. Then Lord H., a late
+Governor-General, coming home, and meeting the brothers at a grand
+dinner at the Albion, given by the Court of Directors to his late
+Excellency, spoke to the bankers about that most distinguished officer
+their relative; and Mrs. Hobson drove over to see his aunt, where the
+boy was; gave him a sovereign out of her purse, and advised strongly
+that he should be sent to Timpany’s along wit her own boy. Then Clive
+went from one uncle’s house to another; and was liked at both; and much
+preferred ponies to ride, going out after rabbits with the keeper,
+money in his pocket (charge to the debit of Lieut.-Col. T. Newcome),
+and clothes from the London tailor, to the homely quarters and
+conversation of poor kind old Aunt Honeyman at Brighton. Clive’s uncles
+were not unkind; they liked each other; their wives, who hated each
+other, united in liking Clive when they knew him, and petting the
+wayward handsome boy: they were only pursuing the way of the world,
+which huzzas all prosperity, and turns away from misfortune as from
+some contagious disease. Indeed, how can we see a man’s brilliant
+qualities if he is what we call in the shade?
+
+The gentlemen, Clive’s uncles, who had their affairs to mind during the
+day, society and the family to occupy them of evenings and holidays,
+treated their young kinsman, the Indian Colonel’s son, as other wealthy
+British uncles treat other young kinsmen. They received him in his
+vacations kindly enough. They tipped him when he went to school; when
+he had the hooping-cough, a confidential young clerk went round by way
+of Grey Friars Square to ask after him; the sea being recommended to
+him, Mrs. Newcome gave him change of air in Sussex, and transferred him
+to his maternal aunt at Brighton. Then it was _bon jour_. As the
+lodge-gates closed upon him, Mrs. Newcome’s heart shut up too and
+confined itself within the firs, laurels, and palings which bound the
+home precincts. Had not she her own children and affairs? her brood of
+fowls, her Sunday-school, her melon-beds, her rose-garden, her quarrel
+with the parson, etc., to attend to? Mr. Newcome, arriving on a
+Saturday night; hears he is gone, says “Oh!” and begins to ask about
+the new gravel-walk along the cliff, and whether it is completed, and
+if the China pig fattens kindly upon the new feed.
+
+Clive, in the avuncular gig, is driven over the downs to Brighton to
+his maternal aunt there; and there he is a king. He has the best
+bedroom, Uncle Honeyman turning out for him sweetbreads for dinner; no
+end of jam for breakfast; excuses from church on the plea of delicate
+health; his aunt’s maid to see him to bed; his aunt to come smiling in
+when he rings his bell of a morning. He is made much of, and coaxed,
+and dandled and fondled, as if he were a young duke. So he is to Miss
+Honeyman. He is the son of Colonel Newcome, C.B., who sends her shawls,
+ivory chessmen, scented sandalwood workboxes and kincob scarfs; who, as
+she tells Martha the maid, has fifty servants in India; at which Martha
+constantly exclaims, “Lor’, mum, what can he do with ’em, mum?” who,
+when in consequence of her misfortunes she resolved on taking a house
+at Brighton, and letting part of the same furnished, sent her an order
+for a hundred pounds towards the expenses thereof; who gave Mr.
+Honeyman, her brother, a much larger sum of money at the period of his
+calamity. Is it gratitude for past favours? is it desire for more? is
+it vanity of relationship? is it love for the dead sister—or tender
+regard for her offspring which makes Mrs. Martha Honeyman so fond of
+her nephew? I never could count how many causes went to produce any
+given effect or action in a person’s life, and have been for my own
+part many a time quite misled in my own case, fancying some grand, some
+magnanimous, some virtuous reason, for an act of which I was proud,
+when lo! some pert little satirical monitor springs up inwardly,
+upsetting the fond humbug which I was cherishing—the peacock’s tail
+wherein my absurd vanity had clad itself—and says, “Away with this
+boasting! _I_ am the cause of your virtue, my lad. You are pleased that
+yesterday at dinner you refrained from the dry champagne? My name is
+Worldly Prudence, not Self-denial, and _I_ caused you to refrain. You
+are pleased because you gave a guinea to Diddler? I am Laziness, not
+Generosity, which inspired you. You hug yourself because you resisted
+other temptation? Coward! it was because you dared not run the risk of
+the wrong. Out with your peacock’s plumage! walk off in the feathers
+which Nature gave you, and thank Heaven they are not altogether black.”
+In a word, Aunt Honeyman was a kind soul, and such was the splendour of
+Clive’s father, of his gifts, his generosity, his military services,
+and companionship of the battles, that the lad did really appear a
+young duke to her. And Mrs. Newcome was not unkind: and if Clive had
+been really a young duke, I am sure he would have had the best bedroom
+at Marble Hill, and not one of the far-off little rooms in the boys’
+wing; I am sure he would have had jellies and Charlottes Russes,
+instead of mere broth, chicken, and batter-pudding, as fell to his lot;
+and when he was gone (in the carriage, mind you, not in the gig driven
+by a groom), I am sure Mrs. Newcome would have written a letter that
+night to Her Grace the Duchess Dowager his mamma, full of praise of the
+dear child, his graciousness, his beauty, and his wit, and declaring
+that she must love him henceforth and for ever after as _a son of her
+own_. You toss down the page with scorn, and say, “It is not true.
+Human nature is not so bad as this cynic would have it to be. You would
+make no difference between the rich and the poor.” Be it so. You would
+not. But own that your next-door neighbour would. Nor is this, dear
+madam, addressed to you; no, no, we are not so rude as to talk about
+you to your face; but if we may not speak of the lady who has just left
+the room, what is to become of conversation and society?
+
+We forbear to describe the meeting between the Colonel and his son—the
+pretty boy from whom he had parted more than seven years before with
+such pangs of heart; and of whom he had thought ever since with such a
+constant longing affection. Half an hour after the father left the boy,
+and in his grief and loneliness was rowing back to shore, Clive was at
+play with a dozen of other children on the sunny deck of the ship. When
+two bells rang for their dinner, they were all hurrying to the cuddy
+table, and busy over their meal. What a sad repast their parents had
+that day! How their hearts followed the careless young ones home across
+the great ocean! Mothers’ prayers go with them. Strong men, alone on
+their knees, with streaming eyes and broken accents, implore Heaven for
+those little ones, who were prattling at their sides but a few hours
+since. Long after they are gone, careless and happy, recollections of
+the sweet past rise up and smite those who remain: the flowers they had
+planted in their little gardens, the toys they played with, the little
+vacant cribs they slept in as fathers’ eyes looked blessings down on
+them. Most of us who have passed a couple of score of years in the
+world, have had such sights as these to move us. And those who have
+will think none the worse of my worthy Colonel for his tender and
+faithful heart.
+
+With that fidelity which was an instinct of his nature, this brave man
+thought ever of his absent child, and longed after him. He never
+forsook the native servants and nurses who had had charge of the child,
+but endowed them with money sufficient (and indeed little was wanted by
+people of that frugal race) to make all their future lives comfortable.
+No friends went to Europe, nor ship departed, but Newcome sent presents
+and remembrances to the boy, and costly tokens of his love and thanks
+to all who were kind to his son. What a strange pathos seems to me to
+accompany all our Indian story! Besides that official history which
+fills _Gazettes_, and embroiders banners with names of victory; which
+gives moralists and enemies cause to cry out at English rapine; and
+enables patriots to boast of invincible British valour—besides the
+splendour and conquest, the wealth and glory, the crowned ambition, the
+conquered danger, the vast prize, and the blood freely shed in winning
+it—should not one remember the tears, too? Besides the lives of myriads
+of British men, conquering on a hundred fields, from Plassey to Meanee,
+and bathing them cruore nostro: think of the women, and the tribute
+which they perforce must pay to those victorious achievements. Scarce a
+soldier goes to yonder shores but leaves a home and grief in it behind
+him. The lords of the subject province find wives there; but their
+children cannot live on the soil. The parents bring their children to
+the shore, and part from them. The family must be broken up—keep the
+flowers of your home beyond a certain time, and the sickening buds
+wither and die. In America it is from the breast of a poor slave that a
+child is taken. In India it is from the wife, and from under the
+palace, of a splendid proconsul.
+
+The experience of this grief made Newcome’s naturally kind heart only
+the more tender, and hence he had a weakness for children which made
+him the laughing-stock of old maids, old bachelors, and sensible
+persons; but the darling of all nurseries, to whose little inhabitants
+he was uniformly kind: were they the collectors’ progeny in their
+palanquins, or the sergeants’ children tumbling about the cantonment,
+or the dusky little heathens in the huts of his servants round his
+gate.
+
+It is known that there is no part of the world where ladies are more
+fascinating than in British India. Perhaps the warmth of the sun
+kindles flames in the hearts of both sexes, which would probably beat
+quite coolly in their native air: else why should Miss Brown be engaged
+ten days after her landing at Calcutta? or why should Miss Smith have
+half a dozen proposals before she has been a week at the station? And
+it is not only bachelors on whom the young ladies confer their
+affections; they will take widowers without any difficulty; and a man
+so generally liked as Major Newcome, with such a good character, with a
+private fortune of his own, so chivalrous, generous, good-looking,
+eligible in a word, you may be sure would have found a wife easily
+enough, had he any mind for replacing the late Mrs. Casey.
+
+The Colonel, as has been stated, had an Indian chum or companion, with
+whom he shared his lodgings; and from many jocular remarks of this
+latter gentleman (who loved good jokes, and uttered not a few) I could
+gather that the honest widower Colonel Newcome had been often tempted
+to alter his condition, and that the Indian ladies had tried numberless
+attacks upon his bereaved heart, and devised endless schemes of
+carrying it by assault, treason, or other mode of capture. Mrs. Casey
+(his defunct wife) had overcome it by sheer pity and helplessness. He
+had found her so friendless, that he took her into the vacant place,
+and installed her there as he would have received a traveller into his
+bungalow. He divided his meal with her, and made her welcome to his
+best. “I believe Tom Newcome married her,” sly Mr. Binnie used to say,
+“in order that he might have permission to pay her milliner’s bills;”
+and in this way he was amply gratified until the day of her death. A
+feeble miniature of the lady, with yellow ringlets and a guitar, hung
+over the mantelpiece of the Colonel’s bedchamber, where I have often
+seen that work of art; and subsequently, when he and Mr. Binnie took a
+house, there was hung up in the spare bedroom a companion portrait to
+the miniature—that of the Colonel’s predecessor, Jack Casey, who in
+life used to fling plates at his Emma’s head, and who perished from a
+fatal attachment to the bottle. I am inclined to think that Colonel
+Newcome was not much cast down by the loss of his wife, and that they
+lived but indifferently together. Clive used to say in his artless way
+that his father scarcely ever mentioned his mother’s name; and no doubt
+the union was not happy, although Newcome continued piously to
+acknowledge it, long after death had brought it to a termination, by
+constant benefactions and remembrances to the departed lady’s kindred.
+
+Those widows or virgins who endeavoured to fill Emma’s place found the
+door of Newcombe’s heart fast and barred, and assailed it in vain. Miss
+Billing sat down before it with her piano, and, as the Colonel was a
+practitioner on the flute, hoped to make all life one harmonious duet
+with him; but she played her most brilliant sonatas and variations in
+vain; and, as everybody knows, subsequently carried her grand piano to
+Lieutenant and Adjutant Hodgkin’s house, whose name she now bears. The
+lovely widow Wilkins, with two darling little children, stopped at
+Newcome’s hospitable house, on her way to Calcutta; and it was thought
+she might never leave it; but her kind host, as was his wont, crammed
+her children with presents and good things, consoled and entertained
+the fair widow, and one morning, after she had remained three months at
+the station, the Colonel’s palanquins and bearers made their
+appearance, and Elvira Wilkins went away weeping as a widow should. Why
+did she abuse Newcome ever after at Calcutta, Bath, Cheltenham, and
+wherever she went, calling him selfish, pompous, Quixotic, and a
+Bahawder? I could mention half a dozen other names of ladies of most
+respectable families connected with Leadenhall Street, who, according
+to Colonel Newcome’s chum—that wicked Mr. Binnie—had all conspired more
+or less to give Clive Newcome a stepmother.
+
+But he had had an unlucky experience in his own case; and thought
+within himself, “No, I won’t give Clive a stepmother. As Heaven has
+taken his own mother from him, why, I must try to be father and mother
+too to the lad.” He kept the child as long as ever the climate would
+allow of his remaining, and then sent him home. Then his aim was to
+save money for the youngster. He was of a nature so uncontrollably
+generous, that to be sure he spent five rupees where another would save
+them, and make a fine show besides; but it is not a man’s gifts or
+hospitalities that generally injure his fortune. It is on themselves
+that prodigals spend most. And as Newcome had no personal
+extravagances, and the smallest selfish wants; could live almost as
+frugally as a Hindoo; kept his horses not to race but to ride; wore his
+old clothes and uniforms until they were the laughter of his regiment;
+did not care for show, and had no longer an extravagant wife; he
+managed to lay by considerably out of his liberal allowances, and to
+find himself and Clive growing richer every year.
+
+“When Clive has had five or six years at school”—that was his
+scheme—“he will be a fine scholar, and have at least as much classical
+learning as a gentleman in the world need possess. Then I will go to
+England, and we will pass three or four years together, in which he
+will learn to be intimate with me, and, I hope, to like me. I shall be
+his pupil for Latin and Greek, and try and make up for lost time. I
+know there is nothing like a knowledge of the classics to give a man
+good breeding—_Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes emollunt mores, nec
+sinuisse feros_. I shall be able to help him with my knowledge of the
+world, and to keep him out of the way of sharpers and a pack of rogues
+who commonly infest young men. I will make myself his companion, and
+pretend to no superiority; for, indeed, isn’t he my superior? Of course
+he is, with his advantages. _He_ hasn’t been an idle young scamp as I
+was. And we will travel together, first through England, Scotland, and
+Ireland, for every man should know his own country, and then we will
+make the grand tour. Then, by the time he is eighteen, he will be able
+to choose his profession. He can go into the army, and emulate the
+glorious man after whom I named him; or if he prefers the church, or
+the law, they are open to him; and when he goes to the university, by
+which time I shall be in all probability a major-general, I can come
+back to India for a few years, and return by the time he has a wife and
+a home for his old father; or if I die I shall have done the best for
+him, and my boy will be left with the best education, a tolerable small
+fortune, and the blessing of his old father.”
+
+Such were the plans of our kind schemer. How fondly he dwelt on them,
+how affectionately he wrote of them to his boy! How he read books of
+travels and looked over the maps of Europe! and said, “Rome, sir,
+glorious Rome; it won’t be very long, Major, before my boy and I see
+the Colosseum, and kiss the Pope’s toe. We shall go up the Rhine to
+Switzerland, and over the Simplon, the work of the great Napoleon. By
+Jove, sir, think of the Turks before Vienna, and Sobieski clearing
+eighty thousand of ’em off the face of the earth! How my boy will
+rejoice in the picture-galleries there, and in Prince Eugene’s prints!
+You know, I suppose, that Prince Eugene, one of the greatest generals
+in the world, was also one of the greatest lovers of the fine arts.
+_Ingenuas didicisse_, hey, Doctor! you know the rest,—_emollunt mores
+nec_——”
+
+“_Emollunt mores!_ Colonel,” says Doctor McTaggart, who perhaps was too
+canny to correct the commanding officer’s Latin. “Don’t ye noo that
+Prence Eugene was about as savage a Turrk as iver was? Have ye niver
+rad the mimores of the Prants de Leen?”
+
+“Well, he was a great cavalry officer,” answers the Colonel, “and he
+left a great collection of prints—_that_ you know. How Clive will
+delight in them! The boy’s talent for drawing is wonderful, sir,
+wonderful. He sent me a picture of our old school—the very actual
+thing, sir; the cloisters, the school, the head gown-boy going in with
+the rods, and the Doctor himself. It would make you die of laughing!”
+
+He regaled the ladies of the regiment with Clive’s letters, and those
+of Miss Honeyman, which contained an account of the boy. He even bored
+some of his bearers with this prattle; and sporting young men would
+give or take odds that the Colonel would mention Clive’s name, once
+before five minutes, three times in ten minutes, twenty-five times in
+the course of dinner, and so on. But they who laughed at the Colonel
+laughed very kindly; and everybody who knew him, loved him; everybody,
+that is, who loved modesty, and generosity, and honour.
+
+At last the happy time came for which the kind father had been longing
+more passionately than any prisoner for liberty, or schoolboy for
+holiday. Colonel Newcome has taken leave of his regiment, leaving Major
+Tomkinson, nothing loth, in command. He has travelled to Calcutta; and
+the Commander-in-Chief, in general orders, has announced that in giving
+to Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Newcome, C.B., of the Bengal Cavalry,
+leave for the first time, after no less than thirty-four years’ absence
+from home, “he (Sir George Hustler) cannot refrain from expressing his
+sense of the great and meritorious services of this most distinguished
+officer, who has left his regiment in a state of the highest discipline
+and efficiency.” And now the ship has sailed, the voyage is over, and
+once more, after so many long years, the honest soldier’s foot is on
+his native shore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+Newcome Brothers
+
+
+Besides his own boy, whom he worshipped, this kind Colonel had a score,
+at least, of adopted children, to whom he chose to stand in the light
+of a father. He was for ever whirling away in postchaises to this
+school and that, to see Jack Brown’s boys, of the Cavalry; or Mrs.
+Smith’s girls, of the Civil Service; or poor Tom Hicks’s orphan, who
+had nobody to look after him now that the cholera had carried off Tom,
+and his wife too. On board the ship in which he returned from Calcutta
+were a dozen of little children, of both sexes, some of whom he
+actually escorted to their friends before he visited his own; and
+though his heart was longing for his boy at Grey Friars. The children
+at the schools seen, and largely rewarded out of his bounty (his loose
+white trousers had great pockets, always heavy with gold and silver,
+which he jingled when he was not pulling his mustachios—to see the way
+in which he tipped children made one almost long to be a boy again);
+and when he had visited Miss Pinkerton’s establishment, or Doctor
+Ramshorn’s adjoining academy at Chiswick, and seen little Tom Davis or
+little Fanny Holmes the honest fellow would come home and write off
+straightway a long letter to Tom’s or Fanny’s parents, far away in the
+Indian country, whose hearts he made happy by his accounts of their
+children, as he had delighted the children themselves by his affection
+and bounty. All the apple- and orange-women (especially such as had
+babies as well as lollipops at their stalls), all the street-sweepers
+on the road between Nerot’s and the Oriental, knew him, and were his
+pensioners. His brothers in Threadneedle Street cast up their eyes at
+the cheques which he drew.
+
+One of the little people of whom the kind Newcome had taken charge
+luckily dwelt near Portsmouth; and when the faithful Colonel consigned
+Miss Fipps to her grandmother, Mrs. Admiral Fipps, at Southampton, Miss
+Fipps clung to her guardian, and with tears and howls was torn away
+from him. Not until her maiden aunts had consoled her with
+strawberries, which she never before had tasted, was the little Indian
+comforted for the departure of her dear Colonel. Master Cox, Tom Cox’s
+boy, of the Native Infantry, had to be carried asleep from the “George”
+to the mail that night. Master Cox woke up at the dawn wondering, as
+the coach passed through the pleasant green roads of Bromley. The good
+gentleman consigned the little chap to his uncle, Dr. Cox, Bloomsbury
+Square, before he went to his own quarters, and then on the errand on
+which his fond heart was bent.
+
+He had written to his brothers from Portsmouth, announcing his arrival,
+and three words to Clive, conveying the same intelligence. The letter
+was served to the boy along with one bowl of tea and one buttered roll,
+of eighty such which were distributed to fourscore other boys, boarders
+of the same house with our young friend. How the lad’s face must have
+flushed, and his eyes brightened, when he read the news! When the
+master of the house, the Rev. Mr. Popkinson, came into the long-room,
+with a good-natured face, and said, “Newcome, you’re wanted,” he knows
+who is come. He does not heed that notorious bruiser, Old Hodge, who
+roars out, “Confound you, Newcome: I’ll give it you for upsetting your
+tea over my new trousers.” He runs to the room where the stranger is
+waiting for him. We will shut the door, if you please, upon that scene.
+
+If Clive had not been as fine and handsome a young lad as any in that
+school or country, no doubt his fond father would have been just as
+well pleased, and endowed him with a hundred fanciful graces; but in
+truth, in looks and manners he was every thing which his parent could
+desire; and I hope the artist who illustrates this work will take care
+to do justice to his portrait. Mr. Clive himself, let that painter be
+assured, will not be too well pleased if his countenance and figure do
+not receive proper attention. He is not yet endowed with those splendid
+mustachios and whiskers which he has himself subsequently depicted, but
+he is the picture of health, strength, activity, and good-humour. He
+has a good forehead, shaded with a quantity of waving light hair; a
+complexion which ladies might envy; a mouth which seems accustomed to
+laughing; and a pair of blue eyes that sparkle with intelligence and
+frank kindness. No wonder the pleased father cannot refrain from
+looking at him. He is, in a word, just such a youth as has a right to
+be the hero of a novel.
+
+The bell rings for second school, and Mr. Popkinson, arrayed in cap and
+gown, comes in to shake Colonel Newcome by the hand, and to say he
+supposes it’s to be a holiday for Newcome that day. He does not say a
+word about Clive’s scrape of the day before, and that awful row in the
+bedrooms, where the lad and three others were discovered making a
+supper off a pork-pie and two bottles of prime old port from the Red
+Cow public-house in Grey Friars Lane. When the bell has done ringing,
+and all these busy little bees have swarmed into their hive, there is a
+solitude in the place. The Colonel and his son walked the playground
+together, that gravelly flat, as destitute of herbage as the Arabian
+desert, but, nevertheless, in the language of the place called the
+green. They walk the green, and they pace the cloisters, and Clive
+shows his father his own name of Thomas Newcome carved upon one of the
+arches forty years ago. As they talk, the boy gives sidelong glances at
+his new friend, and wonders at the Colonel’s loose trousers, long
+mustachios, and yellow face. He looks very odd, Clive thinks, very odd
+and very kind, and he looks like a gentleman, every inch of him:—not
+like Martin’s father, who came to see his son lately in high-lows, and
+a shocking bad hat, and actually flung coppers amongst the boys for a
+scramble. He bursts out a-laughing at the exquisitely ludicrous idea of
+a gentleman of his fashion scrambling for coppers.
+
+And now, enjoining the boy to be ready against his return (and you may
+be sure Mr. Clive was on the look-out long before his sire appeared),
+the Colonel whirled away in his cab to the City to shake hands with his
+brothers, whom he had not seen since they were demure little men in
+blue jackets, under charge of a serious tutor.
+
+He rushed through the clerks and the banking-house, he broke into the
+parlour where the lords of the establishment were seated. He astonished
+those trim quiet gentlemen by the warmth of his greeting, by the vigour
+of his hand-shake, and the loud high tones of his voice, which
+penetrated the glass walls of the parlour, and might actually be heard
+by the busy clerks in the hall without. He knew Brian from Hobson at
+once—that unlucky little accident in the go-cart having left its mark
+for ever on the nose of Sir Brian Newcome, the elder of the twins. Sir
+Brian had a bald head and light hair, a short whisker cut to his cheek,
+a buff waistcoat, very neat boots and hands. He looked like the
+“Portrait of a Gentleman” at the Exhibition, as the worthy is
+represented: dignified in attitude, bland, smiling, and statesmanlike,
+sitting at a table unsealing letters, with a despatch-box and a silver
+inkstand before him, a column and a scarlet curtain behind, and a park
+in the distance, with a great thunderstorm lowering in the sky. Such a
+portrait, in fact, hangs over the great sideboard at Newcome to this
+day, and above the three great silver waiters, which the gratitude of
+as many Companies has presented to their respected director and
+chairman.
+
+In face, Hobson Newcome, Esq., was like his elder brother, but was more
+portly in person. He allowed his red whiskers to grow wherever nature
+had planted them, on his cheeks and under his chin. He wore thick shoes
+with nails in them, or natty round-toed boots, with tight trousers and
+a single strap. He affected the country gentleman in his appearance.
+His hat had a broad brim, and the ample pockets of his cut-away coat
+were never destitute of agricultural produce, samples of beans or corn,
+which he used to bite and chew even on ’Change, or a whip-lash, or
+balls for horses: in fine, he was a good old country gentleman. If it
+was fine in Threadneedle Street, he would say it was good weather for
+the hay; if it rained, the country wanted rain; if it was frosty, “No
+hunting to-day, Tomkins, my boy,” and so forth. As he rode from
+Bryanstone Square to the City you would take him—and he was pleased to
+be so taken—for a jolly country squire. He was a better man of business
+than his more solemn and stately brother, at whom he laughed in his
+jocular way; and he said rightly, that a gentleman must get up very
+early in the morning who wanted to take him in.
+
+The Colonel breaks into the sanctum of these worthy gentlemen; and each
+receives him in a manner consonant with his peculiar nature. Sir Brian
+regretted that Lady Anne was away from London, being at Brighton with
+the children, who were all ill of the measles. Hobson said, “Maria
+can’t treat you to such good company as my lady could give you, but
+when will you take a day and come and dine with us? Let’s see, to-day’s
+Wednesday; to-morrow we’ve a party. No, we’re engaged.” He meant that
+his table was full, and that he did not care to crowd it; but there was
+no use in imparting this circumstance to the Colonel. “Friday, we dine
+at Judge Budge’s—queer name, Judge Budge, ain’t it? Saturday, I’m going
+down to Marblehead, to look after the hay. Come on Monday, Tom, and
+I’ll introduce you to the missus and the young ’uns.”
+
+“I will bring Clive,” says Colonel Newcome, rather disturbed at this
+reception. “After his illness my sister-in-law was very kind to him.”
+
+“No, hang it, don’t bring boys; there’s no good in boys; they stop the
+talk downstairs, and the ladies don’t want ’em in the drawing-room.
+Send him to dine with the children on Sunday, if you like, and come
+along down with me to Marblehead, and I’ll show you such a crop of hay
+as will make your eyes open. Are you fond of farming?”
+
+“I have not seen my boy for years,” says the Colonel; “I had rather
+pass Saturday and Sunday with him, if you please, and some day we will
+go to Marblehead together.”
+
+“Well, an offer’s an offer. I don’t know any pleasanter thing than
+getting out of this confounded City and smelling the hedges, and
+looking at the crops coming up, and passing the Sunday in quiet.” And
+his own tastes being thus agricultural, the honest gentleman thought
+that everybody else must delight in the same recreation.
+
+“In the winter, I hope we shall see you at Newcome,” says the elder
+brother, blandly smiling. “I can’t give you any tiger-shooting, but
+I’ll promise you that you shall find plenty of pheasants in our
+jungle,” and he laughed very gently at this mild sally.
+
+The Colonel gave him a queer look. “I shall be at Newcome before the
+winter. I shall be there, please God, before many days are over.”
+
+“Indeed!” says the Baronet, with an air of great surprise. “You are
+going down to look at the cradle of our race. I believe the Newcomes
+were there before the Conqueror. It was but a village in our
+grandfather’s time, and it is an immense flourishing town now, for
+which I hope to get—I expect to get—a charter.”
+
+“Do you?” says the Colonel. “I am going down there to see a relation.”
+
+“A relation! What relatives have we there?” cries the Baronet. “My
+children, with the exception of Barnes. Barnes, this is your uncle
+Colonel Thomas Newcome. I have great pleasure, brother, in introducing
+you to my eldest son.”
+
+A fair-haired young gentleman, languid and pale, and arrayed in the
+very height of fashion, made his appearance at this juncture in the
+parlour, and returned Colonel Newcome’s greeting with a smiling
+acknowledgment of his own. “Very happy to see you, I’m sure,” said the
+young man. “You find London very much changed since you were here? Very
+good time to come—the very full of the season.”
+
+Poor Thomas Newcome was quite abashed by this strange reception. Here
+was a man, hungry for affection, and one relation asked him to dinner
+next Monday, and another invited him to shoot pheasants at Christmas.
+Here was a beardless young sprig, who patronised him, and vouchsafed to
+ask him whether he found London was changed.
+
+“I don’t know whether it’s changed,” says the Colonel, biting his
+nails; “I know it’s not what I expected to find it.”
+
+“To-day it’s really as hot as I should thing it must be in India,” says
+young Mr. Barnes Newcome.
+
+“Hot!” says the Colonel, with a grin. “It seems to me you are all cool
+enough here.”
+
+“Just what Sir Thomas de Boots said, sir,” says Barnes, turning round
+to his father. “Don’t you remember when he came home from Bombay? I
+recollect his saying, at Lady Featherstone’s, one dooced hot night, as
+it seemed to us; I recklect his saying that he felt quite cold. Did you
+know him in India, Colonel Newcome? He’s liked at the Horse Guards, but
+he’s hated in his regiment.”
+
+Colonel Newcome here growled a wish regarding the ultimate fate of Sir
+Thomas de Boots, which we trust may never be realised by that
+distinguished cavalry officer.
+
+“My brother says he’s going to Newcome, Barnes, next week,” said the
+Baronet, wishing to make the conversation more interesting to the newly
+arrived Colonel. “He was saying so just when you came in, and I was
+asking him what took him there?”
+
+“Did you ever hear of Sarah Mason?” says the Colonel.
+
+“Really, I never did,” the Baronet answered.
+
+“Sarah Mason? No, upon my word, I don’t think I ever did, said the
+young man.
+
+“Well, that’s a pity too,” the Colonel said, with a sneer. “Mrs. Mason
+is a relation of yours—at least by marriage. She is my aunt or cousin—I
+used to call her aunt, and she and my father and mother all worked in
+the same mill at Newcome together.”
+
+“I remember—God bless my soul—I remember now!” cried the Baronet. “We
+pay her forty pound a year on your account—don’t you know, brother?
+Look to Colonel Newcome’s account—I recollect the name quite well. But
+I thought she had been your nurse, and—and an old servant of my
+father’s.”
+
+“So she was my nurse, and an old servant of my father’s,” answered the
+Colonel. “But she was my mother’s cousin too and very lucky was my
+mother to have such a servant, or to have a servant at all. There is
+not in the whole world a more faithful creature or a better woman.”
+
+Mr. Hobson rather enjoyed his brother’s perplexity, and to see when the
+Baronet rode the high horse, how he came down sometimes, “I am sure it
+does you very great credit,” gasped the courtly head of the firm, “to
+remember a—a humble friend and connexion of our father’s so well.”
+
+“I think, brother, you might have recollected her too,” the Colonel
+growled out. His face was blushing; he was quite angry and hurt at what
+seemed to him Sir Brian’s hardness of heart.
+
+“Pardon me if I don’t see the necessity,” said Sir Brian. “_I_ have no
+relationship with Mrs. Mason, and do not remember ever having seen her.
+Can I do anything for you, brother? Can I be useful to you in any way?
+Pray command me and Barnes here, who after City hours will be delighted
+if he can be serviceable to you—_I_ am nailed to this counter all the
+morning, and to the House of Commons all night;—I will be with you in
+one moment, Mr. Quilter. Good-bye, my dear Colonel. How well India has
+agreed with you! how young you look! the hot winds are nothing to what
+we endure in Parliament.—Hobson,” in a low voice, “you saw about that
+h’m, that power of attorney—and h’m and h’m will call here at twelve
+about that h’m.—I am sorry I must say good-bye—it seems so hard after
+not meeting for so many years.”
+
+“Very,” says the Colonel.
+
+“Mind and send for me whenever you want me, now.”
+
+“Oh, of course,” said the elder brother, and thought when will that
+ever be!
+
+“Lady Anne will be too delighted at hearing of your arrival. Give my
+love to Clive—a remarkable fine boy, Clive—good morning:” and the
+Baronet was gone, and his bald head might presently be seen alongside
+of Mr. Quilter’s confidential grey poll, both of their faces turned
+into an immense ledger.
+
+Mr. Hobson accompanied the Colonel to the door, and shook him cordially
+by the hand as he got into his cab. The man asked whither he should
+drive? and poor Newcome hardly knew where he was or whither he should
+go. “Drive! a—oh—ah—damme, drive me anywhere away from this place!” was
+all he could say; and very likely the cabman thought he was a
+disappointed debtor who had asked in vain to renew a bill. In fact,
+Thomas Newcome had overdrawn his little account. There was no such
+balance of affection in that bank of his brothers, as the simple
+creature had expected to find there.
+
+When he was gone, Sir Brian went back to his parlour, where sate young
+Barnes perusing the paper. “My revered uncle seems to have brought back
+a quantity of cayenne pepper from India, sir,” he said to his father.
+
+“He seems a very kind-hearted simple man,” the Baronet said “eccentric,
+but he has been more than thirty years away from home. Of course you
+will call upon him to-morrow morning. Do everything you can to make him
+comfortable. Whom would he like to meet at dinner? I will ask some of
+the Direction. Ask him, Barnes, for next Wednesday or Saturday—no;
+Saturday I dine with the Speaker. But see that every attention is paid
+him.”
+
+“Does he intend to have our relation up to town, sir? I should like to
+meet Mrs. Mason of all things. A venerable washerwoman, I daresay, or
+perhaps keeps a public-house,” simpered out young Barnes.
+
+“Silence, Barnes; you jest at everything, you young men do—you do.
+Colonel Newcome’s affection for his old nurse does him the greatest
+honour,” said the Baronet, who really meant what he said.
+
+“And I hope my mother will have her to stay a good deal at Newcome. I’m
+sure she must have been a washerwoman, and mangled my uncle in early
+life. His costume struck me with respectful astonishment. He disdains
+the use of straps to his trousers, and is seemingly unacquainted with
+gloves. If he had died in India, would my late aunt have had to perish
+on a funeral pile?” Here Mr. Quilter, entering with a heap of bills,
+put an end to these sarcastic remarks, and young Newcome, applying
+himself to his business (of which he was a perfect master), forgot
+about his uncle till after City hours, when he entertained some young
+gentlemen of Bays’s Club with an account of his newly arrived relative.
+
+Towards the City, whither he wended his way whatever had been the ball
+or the dissipation of the night before, young Barnes Newcome might be
+seen walking every morning, resolutely and swiftly, with his neat
+umbrella. As he passed Charing Cross on his way westwards, his little
+boots trailed slowly over the pavement, his head hung languid (bending
+lower still, and smiling with faded sweetness as he doffed his hat and
+saluted a passing carriage), his umbrella trailed after him. Not a
+dandy on all the Pall Mall pavement seemed to have less to do than he.
+
+Heavyside, a large young officer of the household troops—old Sir Thomas
+de Boots—and Horace Fogey, whom every one knows—are in the window of
+Bays’s, yawning as widely as that window itself. Horses under the
+charge of men in red jackets are pacing up and down St. James’s Street.
+Cabmen on the stand are regaling with beer. Gentlemen with grooms
+behind them pass towards the Park. Great dowager barouches roll along
+emblazoned with coronets, and driven by coachmen in silvery wigs.
+Wistful provincials gaze in at the clubs. Foreigners chatter and show
+their teeth, and look at the ladies in the carriages, and smoke and
+spit refreshingly round about. Policeman X slouches along the pavement.
+It is five o’clock, the noon in Pall Mall.
+
+“Here’s little Newcome coming,” says Mr. Horace Fogey. “He and the
+muffin-man generally make their appearance in public together.”
+
+“Dashed little prig,” says Sir Thomas de Boots, “why the dash did they
+ever let him in here? If I hadn’t been in India, by dash—he should have
+been blackballed twenty times over, by dash.” Only Sir Thomas used
+words far more terrific than dash, for this distinguished cavalry
+officer swore very freely.
+
+“He amuses me; he’s such a mischievous little devil,” says good-natured
+Charley Heavyside.
+
+“It takes very little to amuse you,” remarks Fogey.
+
+“_You_ don’t, Fogey,” answers Charley. “I know every one of your demd
+old stories, that are as old as my grandmother. How-dy-do, Barney?”
+(Enter Barnes Newcome.) “How are the Three per Cents, you little
+beggar? I wish you’d do me a bit of stiff; and just tell your father,
+if I may overdraw my account I’ll vote with him—hanged if I don’t.”
+
+Barnes orders absinthe-and-water, and drinks: Heavyside resuming his
+elegant raillery. “I say, Barney, your name’s Barney, and you’re a
+banker. You must be a little Jew, hey? Vell, how mosh vill you to my
+little pill for?”
+
+“Do hee-haw in the House of Commons, Heavyside,” says the young man
+with a languid air. “That’s your place: you’re returned for it.”
+(Captain the Honourable Charles Heavyside is a member of the
+legislature, and eminent in the House for asinine imitations which
+delight his own, and confuse the other party.) “Don’t bray here. I hate
+the shop out of shop hours.”
+
+“Dash the little puppy,” growls Sir de Boots, swelling in his
+waistband.
+
+“What do they say about the Russians in the City?” says Horace Fogey,
+who has been in the diplomatic service. “Has the fleet left Cronstadt,
+or has it not?”
+
+“How should I know?” asks Barney. “Ain’t it all in the evening paper?”
+
+“That is very uncomfortable news from India, General,” resumes
+Fogey—“there’s Lady Doddington’s carriage, how well she looks—that
+movement of Runjeet-Singh on Peshawur: that fleet on the Irrawaddy. It
+looks doocid queer, let me tell you, and Penguin is not the man to be
+Governor-General of India in a time of difficulty.”
+
+“And Hustler’s not the man to be Commander-in-Chief: dashder old fool
+never lived: a dashed old psalm-singing, blundering old woman,” says
+Sir Thomas, who wanted the command himself.
+
+“_You_ ain’t in the psalm-singing line, Sir Thomas,” says Mr. Barnes;
+“quite the contrary.” In fact, Sir de Boots in his youth used to sing
+with the Duke of York, and even against Captain Costigan, but was
+beaten by that superior bacchanalian artist.
+
+Sir Thomas looks as if to ask what the dash is that to you? but wanting
+still to go to India again, and knowing how strong the Newcomes are in
+Leadenhall Street, he thinks it necessary to be civil to the young cub,
+and swallows his wrath once more into his waistband.
+
+“I’ve got an uncle come home from India—upon my word I have,” says
+Barnes Newcome. “That is why I am so exhausted. I am going to buy him a
+pair of gloves, number fourteen—and I want a tailor for him—not a young
+man’s tailor. Fogey’s tailor rather. I’d take my father’s; but he has
+all his things made in the country—all—in the borough, you know—he’s a
+public man.”
+
+“Is Colonel Newcome, of the Bengal Cavalry, your uncle?” asks Sir
+Thomas de Boots.
+
+“Yes; will you come and meet him at dinner next Wednesday week, Sir
+Thomas? and, Fogey, you come; you know you like a good dinner. You
+don’t know anything against my uncle, do you, Sir Thomas? Have I any
+Brahminical cousins? Need we be ashamed of him?”
+
+“I tell you what, young man, if you were more like him it wouldn’t hurt
+you. He’s an odd man; they call him Don Quixote in India; I suppose
+you’ve read Don Quixote?”
+
+“Never heard of it, upon my word; and why do you wish I should be more
+like him? I don’t wish to be like him at all, thank you.”
+
+“Why, because he is one of the bravest officers that ever lived,”
+roared out the old soldier. “Because he’s one of the kindest fellows;
+because he gives himself no dashed airs, although he has reason to be
+proud if he chose. That’s why, Mr. Newcome.”
+
+“A topper for you, Barney, my boy,” remarks Charles Heavyside, as the
+indignant General walks away gobbling and red. Barney calmly drinks the
+remains of his absinthe.
+
+“I don’t know what that old muff means,” he says innocently, when he
+has finished his bitter draught. “He’s always flying out at me, the old
+turkey-cock. He quarrels with my play at whist, the old idiot, and can
+no more play than an old baby. He pretends to teach me billiards, and
+I’ll give him fifteen in twenty and beat his old head off. Why do they
+let such fellows into clubs? Let’s have a game at piquet till dinner,
+Heavyside. Hallo! That’s my uncle, that tall man with the mustachios
+and the short trousers, walking with that boy of his. I dare say they
+are going to dine in Covent Garden, and going to the play. How-dy-do,
+Nunky?”—and so the worthy pair went up to the card-room, where they
+sate at piquet until the hour of sunset and dinner arrived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+In which Mr. Clive’s School-days are over
+
+
+Our good Colonel had luckily to look forward to a more pleasant meeting
+with his son, than that unfortunate interview with his other near
+relatives. He dismissed his cab at Ludgate Hill, and walked thence by
+the dismal precincts of Newgate, and across the muddy pavement of
+Smithfield, on his way back to the old school where his son was, a way
+which he had trodden many a time in his own early days. There was
+Cistercian Street, and the Red Cow of his youth: there was the quaint
+old Grey Friars Square, with its blackened trees and garden, surrounded
+by ancient houses of the build of the last century, now slumbering like
+pensioners in the sunshine.
+
+Under the great archway of the hospital he could look at the old Gothic
+building: and a black-gowned pensioner or two crawling over the quiet
+square, or passing from one dark arch to another. The boarding-houses
+of the school were situated in the square, hard by the more ancient
+buildings of the hospital. A great noise of shouting, crying, clapping
+forms and cupboards, treble voices, bass voices, poured out of the
+schoolboys’ windows: their life, bustle, and gaiety contrasted
+strangely with the quiet of those old men creeping along in their black
+gowns under the ancient arches yonder, whose struggle of life was over,
+whose hope and noise and bustle had sunk into that grey calm. There was
+Thomas Newcome arrived at the middle of life, standing between the
+shouting boys and the tottering seniors, and in a situation to moralise
+upon both, had not his son Clive, who has espied him from within Mr.
+Hopkinson’s, or let us say at once Hopkey’s house, come jumping down
+the steps to greet his sire. Clive was dressed in his very best; not
+one of those four hundred young gentlemen had a better figure, a better
+tailor, or a neater boot. Schoolfellows, grinning through the bars,
+envied him as he walked away; senior boys made remarks on Colonel
+Newcome’s loose clothes and long mustachios, his brown hands and
+unbrushed hat. The Colonel was smoking a cheroot as he walked; and the
+gigantic Smith, the cock of the school, who happened to be looking
+majestically out of window, was pleased to say that he thought
+Newcome’s governor was a fine manly-looking fellow.
+
+“Tell me about your uncles, Clive,” said the Colonel, as they walked on
+arm in arm.
+
+“What about them, sir?” asks the boy. “I don’t think I know much.”
+
+“You have been to stay with them. You wrote about them. Were they kind
+to you?”
+
+“Oh, yes, I suppose they are very kind. They always tipped me: only you
+know when I go there I scarcely ever see them. Mr. Newcome asks me the
+oftenest—two or three times a quarter when he’s in town, and gives me a
+sovereign regular.”
+
+“Well, he must see you to give you the sovereign,” says Clive’s father,
+laughing.
+
+The boy blushed rather.
+
+“Yes. When it’s time to go back to Smithfield on a Sunday night, I go
+into the dining-room to shake hands, and he gives it me; but he don’t
+speak to me much, you know, and I don’t care about going to Bryanstone
+Square, except for the tip, of course that’s important, because I am
+made to dine with the children, and they are quite little ones; and a
+great cross French governess, who is always crying and shrieking after
+them, and finding fault with them. My uncle generally has his
+dinner-parties on Saturday, or goes out; and aunt gives me ten
+shillings and sends me to the play; that’s better fun than a
+dinner-party.” Here the lad blushed again. “I used,” says he, “when I
+was younger, to stand on the stairs and prig things out of the dishes
+when they came out from dinner, but I’m past that now. Maria (that’s my
+cousin) used to take the sweet things and give ’em to the governess.
+Fancy! she used to put lumps of sugar into her pocket and eat them in
+the schoolroom! Uncle Hobson don’t live in such good society as Uncle
+Newcome. You see, Aunt Hobson, she’s very kind, you know, and all that,
+but I don’t think she’s what you call _comme il faut_.”
+
+“Why, how are you to judge?” asks the father, amused at the lad’s
+candid prattle, “and where does the difference lie?”
+
+“I can’t tell you what it is, or how it is,” the boy answered, “only
+one can’t help seeing the difference. It isn’t rank and that; only
+somehow there are some men gentlemen and some not, and some women
+ladies and some not. There’s Jones now, the fifth form master, every
+man sees _he’s_ a gentleman, though he wears ever so old clothes; and
+there’s Mr. Brown, who oils his hair, and wears rings, and white
+chokers—my eyes! such white chokers!—and yet we call him the handsome
+snob! And so about Aunt Maria, she’s very handsome and she’s very
+finely dressed, only somehow she’s not—she’s not the ticket, you see.”
+
+“Oh, she’s not the ticket,” says the Colonel, much amused.
+
+“Well, what I mean is—but never mind,” says the boy. “I can’t tell you
+what I mean. I don’t like to make fun of her, you know, for after all,
+she is very kind to me; but Aunt Anne is different, and it seems as if
+what she says is more natural; and though she has funny ways of her own
+too, yet somehow she looks grander,”—and here the lad laughed again.
+“And do you know, I often think that as good a lady as Aunt Anne
+herself, is old Aunt Honeyman at Brighton—that is, in all essentials,
+you know. For she is not proud, and she is not vain, and she never says
+an unkind word behind anybody’s back, and she does a deal of kindness
+to the poor without appearing to crow over them, you know; and she is
+not a bit ashamed of letting lodgings, or being poor herself, as
+sometimes I think some of our family——”
+
+“I thought we were going to speak no ill of them?” says the Colonel,
+smiling.
+
+“Well, it only slipped out unawares,” says Clive, laughing; “but at
+Newcome when they go on about the Newcomes, and that great ass, Barnes
+Newcome, gives himself his airs, it makes me die of laughing. That time
+I went down to Newcome, I went to see old Aunt Sarah, and she told me
+everything, and showed me the room where my grandfather—you know; and
+do you know I was a little hurt at first, for I thought we were swells
+till then. And when I came back to school, where perhaps I had been
+giving myself airs, and bragging about Newcome, why, you know, I
+thought it was right to tell the fellows.”
+
+“That’s a man,” said the Colonel, with delight; though had he said,
+“That’s a boy,” he had spoken more correctly. Indeed, how many men do
+we know in the world without caring to know who their fathers were? and
+how many more who wisely do not care to tell us? “That’s a man,” cries
+the Colonel; “never be ashamed of your father, Clive.”
+
+“Ashamed of my father!” says Clive, looking up to him, and walking on
+as proud as a peacock. “I say,” the lad resumed, after a pause—
+
+“Say what you say,” said the father.
+
+“Is that all true what’s in the Peerage—in the Baronetage, about Uncle
+Newcome and Newcome; about the Newcome who was burned at Smithfield;
+about the one that was at the battle of Bosworth; and the old old
+Newcome who was bar—that is, who was surgeon to Edward the Confessor,
+and was killed at Hastings? I am afraid it isn’t; and yet I should like
+it to be true.”
+
+“I think every man would like to come of an ancient and honourable
+race,” said the Colonel, in his honest way. “As you like your father to
+be an honourable man, why not your grandfather, and his ancestors
+before him? But if we can’t inherit a good name, at least we can do our
+best to leave one, my boy; and that is an ambition which, please God,
+you and I will both hold by.”
+
+With this simple talk the old and young gentleman beguiled their way,
+until they came into the western quarter of the town, where the junior
+member of the firm of Newcome Brothers had his house—a handsome and
+roomy mansion in Bryanstone Square. Colonel Newcome was bent on paying
+a visit to his sister-in-law, and as he knocked at the door, where the
+pair were kept waiting some little time, he could remark through the
+opened windows of the dining-room, that a great table was laid and
+every preparation made for a feast.
+
+“My brother said he was engaged to dinner to-day,” said the Colonel.
+“Does Mrs. Newcome give parties when he is away?”
+
+“She invites all the company,” answered Clive. “My uncle never asks any
+one without aunt’s leave.”
+
+The Colonel’s countenance fell. He has a great dinner, and does not ask
+his own brother! Newcome thought. Why, if he had come to me in India
+with all his family, he might have stayed for a year, and I should have
+been offended if he had gone elsewhere.
+
+A hot menial, in a red waistcoat, came and opened the door; and without
+waiting for preparatory queries, said, “Not at home.”
+
+“It’s my father, John,” said Clive; “my aunt will see Colonel Newcome.”
+
+“Missis not at home,” said the man. “Missis is gone in carriage—Not at
+this door!—Take them things down the area steps, young man!” bawls out
+the domestic. This latter speech was addressed to a pastrycook’s boy,
+with a large sugar temple and many conical papers containing delicacies
+for dessert. “Mind the hice is here in time; or there’ll be a blow-up
+with your governor,”—and John struggled back, closing the door on the
+astonished Colonel.
+
+“Upon my life, they actually shut the door in our faces,” said the poor
+gentleman.
+
+“The man is very busy, sir. There’s a great dinner. I’m sure my aunt
+would not refuse you,” Clive interposed. “She is very kind. I suppose
+it’s different here to what it is in India, here are the children in
+the square,—those are the girls in blue,—that’s the French governess,
+the one with the mustachios and the yellow parasol. How d’ye do, Mary?
+How d’ye do, Fanny? This is my father,—this is your uncle.”
+
+“Mesdemoiselles! Je vous défends de parler à qui que ce soit hors du
+Squar!” screams out the lady of the mustachios; and she strode forward
+to call back her young charges.
+
+The Colonel addressed her in very good French. “I hope you will permit
+me to make acquaintance with my nieces,” he said, “and with their
+instructress, of whom my son has given me such a favourable account.”
+
+“Hem!” said Mademoiselle Lebrun, remembering the last fight she and
+Clive had had together, and a portrait of herself (with enormous
+whiskers) which the young scapegrace had drawn. “Monsieur is very good.
+But one cannot too early inculcate _retenue_ and decorum to young
+ladies in a country where demoiselles seem for ever to forget that they
+are young ladies of condition. I am forced to keep the eyes of lynx
+upon these young persons, otherwise heaven knows what would come to
+them. Only yesterday, my back is turned for a moment, I cast my eyes on
+a book, having but little time for literature, monsieur—for literature,
+which I adore—when a cry makes itself to hear. I turn myself, and what
+do I see? Mesdemoiselles, your nieces, playing at criquette, with the
+Messieurs Smees—sons of Doctor Smees—young galopins, monsieur!” All
+this was shrieked with immense volubility and many actions of the hand
+and parasol across the square-railings to the amused Colonel, at whom
+the little girls peered through the bars.
+
+“Well, my dears, I should like to have a game at cricket with you,
+too,” says the kind gentleman, reaching them each a brown hand.
+
+“You, monsieur, c’est different—a man of your age! Salute monsieur,
+your uncle, mesdemoiselles. You conceive, monsieur, that I also must be
+cautious when I speak to a man so distinguished in a public squar.” And
+she cast down her great eyes and hid those radiant orbs from the
+Colonel.
+
+Meanwhile, Colonel Newcome, indifferent to the direction which Miss
+Lebrun’s eyes took, whether towards his hat or his boots, was surveying
+his little nieces with that kind expression which his face always wore
+when it was turned towards children. “Have you heard of your uncle in
+India?” he asked them.
+
+“No,” says Maria.
+
+“Yes,” says Fanny. “You know mademoiselle said” (mademoiselle at this
+moment was twittering her fingers, and, as it were, kissing them in the
+direction of a grand barouche that was advancing along the Square)—“you
+know mademoiselle said that if we were _méchantes_ we should be sent to
+our uncle in India. I think I should like to go with you.”
+
+“O you silly child!” cries Maria.
+
+“Yes I should, if Clive went too,” says little Fanny.
+
+“Behold madam, who arrives from her promenade!” Miss Lebrun exclaimed;
+and, turning round, Colonel Newcome had the satisfaction of beholding,
+for the first time, his sister-in-law.
+
+A stout lady, with fair hair and a fine bonnet and pelisse (who knows
+what were the fine bonnets and pelisses of the year 183-?), was
+reclining in the barouche, the scarlet-plush integuments of her
+domestics blazing before and behind her. A pretty little foot was on
+the cushion opposite to her; feathers waved in her bonnet; a book was
+in her lap; an oval portrait of a gentleman reposed on her voluminous
+bosom. She wore another picture of two darling heads, with pink cheeks
+and golden hair, on one of her wrists, with many more chains,
+bracelets, bangles, and knick-knacks. A pair of dirty gloves marred the
+splendour of this appearance; a heap of books from the library strewed
+the back seat of the carriage, and showed that her habits were
+literary. Springing down from his station behind his mistress, the
+youth clad in the nether garments of red sammit discharged thunderclaps
+on the door of Mrs. Newcome’s house, announcing to the whole Square
+that his mistress had returned to her abode. Since the fort saluted the
+Governor-General at ———, Colonel Newcome had never heard such a
+cannonading.
+
+Clive, with a queer twinkle of his eyes, ran towards his aunt.
+
+She bent over the carriage languidly towards him. She liked him. “What,
+you, Clive?” she said. “How come you away from school of a Thursday,
+sir?”
+
+“It is a holiday,” says he. “My father is come; and he is come to see
+you.”
+
+She bowed her head with an expression of affable surprise and majestic
+satisfaction. “Indeed, Clive!” she was good enough to exclaim and with
+an air which seemed to say, “Let him come up and be presented to me.”
+The honest gentleman stepped forward and took off his hat and bowed,
+and stood bareheaded. She surveyed him blandly, and with infinite grace
+put forward one of the pudgy little hands in one of the dirty gloves.
+Can you fancy a twopenny-halfpenny baroness of King Francis’s time
+patronising Bayard? Can you imagine Queen Guinever’s lady’s-maid’s
+lady’s maid being affable to Sir Lancelot? I protest there is nothing
+like the virtue of English women.
+
+“You have only arrived to-day, and you came to see me? That was very
+kind. N’est-ce pas que c’était bong de Mouseer le Collonel,
+mademoiselle? Madamaselle Lebrun, le Collonel Newcome, mong frère.” (In
+a whisper, “My children’s governess and my friend, a most superior
+woman.”) “Was it not kind of Colonel Newcome to come to see me? Have
+you had a pleasant voyage? Did you come by St. Helena? Oh, how I envy
+you seeing the tomb of that great man! Nous parlong de Napolleong,
+mademoiselle, dong voter père a été le Général favvory.”
+
+“O Dieu! que n’ai je pu le voir,” interjaculates mademoiselle. “Lui
+dont parle l’univers, dont mon père m’a si souvent parlé!” but this
+remark passes quite unnoticed by mademoiselle’s friend, who continues:
+
+“Clive, donnez-moi voter bras. These are two of my girls. My boys are
+at school. I shall be so glad to introduce them to their uncle. _This_
+naughty boy might never have seen you, but that we took him home to
+Marblehead, after the scarlet fever, and made him well, didn’t we,
+Clive? And we are all very fond of him, and you must not be jealous of
+his love for his aunt. We feel that we quite know you through him, and
+we know that you know us, and we hope you will _like_ us. Do you think
+your pa will like us, Clive? Or perhaps you will like Lady Anne best?
+Yes; you have been to her first, of course? Not been? Oh! because she
+is not in town.” Leaning fondly on the arm of Clive, mademoiselle
+standing grouped with the children hard by while John, with his hat
+off, stood at the opened door, Mrs. Newcome slowly uttered the above
+remarkable remarks to the Colonel, on the threshold of her house, which
+she never asked him to pass.
+
+“If you will come in to us at about ten this evening,” she then said,
+“you will find some men, not undistinguished, who honour me of an
+evening. Perhaps they will be interesting to you, Colonel Newcome, as
+you are newly arrived in Europe. Not men of worldly rank, necessarily,
+although some of them are amongst the noblest of Europe. But my maxim
+is, that genius is an illustration, and merit is better than any
+pedigree. You have heard of Professor Bodgers? Count Poski? Doctor
+McGuffog, who is called in his native country the Ezekiel of
+Clackmannan? Mr. Shaloony, the great Irish patriot? our papers have
+told you of _him_. These and some more I have been good enough to
+promise me a visit to-night. A stranger coming to London could scarcely
+have a better opportunity of seeing some of our great illustrations of
+science and literature. And you will meet our own family—not Sir
+Brian’s, who—who have other society and amusements—but mine. I hope Mr.
+Newcome and myself will never forget _them_. We have a few friends at
+dinner, and now I must go in and consult with Mrs. Hubbard, my
+housekeeper. Good-bye for the present. Mind, not later than ten, as Mr.
+Newcome must be up betimes in the morning, and our parties break up
+early. When Clive is a little older, I dare say we shall see him, too.
+_Good_-bye!” And again the Colonel was favoured with a shake of the
+glove, and the lady and her suite sailed up the stair, and passed in at
+the door.
+
+She had not the faintest idea but that the hospitality which she was
+offering to her kinsman was of the most cordial and pleasant kind. She
+fancied everything she did was perfectly right and graceful. She
+invited her husband’s clerks to come through the rain at ten o’clock
+from Kentish Town; she asked artists to bring their sketch-books from
+Kensington, or luckless pianists to trudge with their music from
+Brompton. She rewarded them with a smile and a cup of tea, and thought
+they were made happy by her condescension. If, after two or three of
+these delightful evenings, they ceased to attend her receptions, she
+shook her little flaxen head, and sadly intimated that Mr. A. was
+getting into bad courses, or feared that Mr. B. found merely
+_intellectual_ parties too quiet for him. Else, what young man in his
+senses could refuse such entertainment and instruction?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+Mrs. Newcome at Home (a Small Early Party)
+
+
+To push on in the crowd, every male or female struggler must use his
+shoulders. If a better place than yours presents itself just beyond
+your neighbour, elbow him and take it. Look how a steadily purposed man
+or woman at court, at a ball, or exhibition, wherever there is a
+competition and a squeeze, gets the best place; the nearest the
+sovereign, if bent on kissing the royal hand; the closest to the grand
+stand, if minded to go to Ascot; the best view and hearing of the Rev.
+Mr. Thumpington, when all the town is rushing to hear that exciting
+divine; the largest quantity of ice, champagne, and seltzer, cold pâté,
+or other his or her favourite flesh-pot, if gluttonously minded, at a
+supper whence hundreds of people come empty away. A woman of the world
+will marry her daughter and have done with her; get her carriage and be
+at home and asleep in bed; whilst a timid mamma has still her girl in
+the nursery, or is beseeching the servants in the cloakroom to look for
+her shawls, with which some one else has whisked away an hour ago. What
+a man has to do in society is to assert himself. Is there a good place
+at table? Take it. At the Treasury or the Home Office? Ask for it. Do
+you want to go to a party to which you are not invited? Ask to be
+asked. Ask A., ask B., ask Mrs. C., ask everybody you know: you will be
+thought a bore; but you will have your way. What matters if you are
+considered obtrusive, provided that you obtrude? By pushing steadily,
+nine hundred and ninety-nine people in a thousand will yield to you.
+Only command persons, and you may be pretty sure that a good number
+will obey. How well your money will have been laid out, O gentle
+reader, who purchase this; and, taking the maxim to heart, follow it
+through life! You may be sure of success. If your neighbour’s foot
+obstructs you, stamp on it; and do you suppose he won’t take it away?
+
+The proofs of the correctness of the above remarks I show in various
+members of the Newcome family. Here was a vulgar little woman, not
+clever nor pretty, especially; meeting Mr. Newcome casually, she
+ordered him to marry her, and he obeyed; as he obeyed her in everything
+else which she chose to order through life. Meeting Colonel Newcome on
+the steps of her house, she orders him to come to her evening party;
+and though he has not been to an evening party for five-and-thirty
+years—though he has not been to bed the night before—though he has no
+mufti-coat except one sent him out by Messrs. Stultz to India in the
+year 1821—he never once thinks of disobeying Mrs. Newcome’s order, but
+is actually at her door at five minutes past ten, having arrayed
+himself to the wonderment of Clive, and left the boy to talk with his
+friend and fellow-passenger, Mr. Binnie, who has just arrived from
+Portsmouth, who has dined with him, and who, by previous arrangement,
+has taken up his quarters at the same hotel.
+
+This Stultz coat, a blue swallow-tail, with yellow buttons, now wearing
+a tinge of their native copper, a very high velvet collar on a level
+with the tips of the Captain’s ears, with a high waist, indicated by
+two lapelles, and a pair of buttons high up in the wearer’s back, a
+white waistcoat and scarlet under-waistcoat, and a pair of the
+never-failing duck trousers, complete Thomas Newcome’s costume, along
+with the white hat in which we have seen him in the morning, and which
+was one of two dozen purchased by him some years since at public
+outcry, Burrumtollah. We have called him Captain purposely, while
+speaking of his coat, for he held that rank when the garment came out
+to him; and having been in the habit of considering it a splendid coat
+for twelve years past, he has not the least idea of changing his
+opinion.
+
+The Doctor McGuffog, Professor Bodgers, Count Poski, and all the lions
+present at Mrs. Newcome’s _réunion_ that evening, were completely
+eclipsed by Colonel Newcome. The worthy soul, who cared not the least
+about adorning himself, had a handsome diamond brooch of the year
+1801—given him by poor Jack Cutler, who was knocked over by his side at
+Argaum—and wore this ornament in his desk for a thousand days and
+nights at a time; in his shirt-frill, on such parade evenings as he
+considered Mrs. Newcome’s to be. The splendour of this jewel, and of
+his flashing buttons, caused all eyes to turn to him. There were many
+pairs of mustachios present, those of Professor Schnurr, a very
+corpulent martyr, just escaped from Spandau, and of Maximilien
+Tranchard, French exile and apostle of liberty, were the only whiskers
+in the room capable of vying in interest with Colonel Newcome’s. Polish
+chieftains were at this time so common in London, that nobody (except
+one noble Member for Marylebone, once a year, the Lord Mayor) took any
+interest in them. The general opinion was, that the stranger was the
+Wallachian Boyar, whose arrival at Mivart’s the _Morning Post_ had just
+announced. Mrs. Miles, whose delicious every other Wednesdays in
+Montague Square are supposed by some to be rival entertainments to Mrs.
+Newcome’s alternate Thursdays in Bryanstone Square, pinched her
+daughter Mira, engaged in a polyglot conversation with Herr Schnurr,
+nor Signor Carabossi, the guitarist, and Monsieur Pivier, the celebrated
+French chess-player, to point out the Boyar. Mira Miles wished she knew
+a little Moldavian, not so much that she might speak it, but that she
+might be heard to speak it. Mrs. Miles, who had not had the educational
+advantages of her daughter, simpered up with “Madame Newcome pas
+ici—votre excellence nouvellement arrivé—avez vous fait ung bong
+voyage? Je reçois chez moi Mercredi prochaing; lonnure de vous
+voir—Madamasel Miles ma fille;” and, Mira, now reinforcing her mamma,
+poured in a glib little oration in French, somewhat to the astonishment
+of the Colonel, who began to think, however, that perhaps French was
+the language of the polite world, into which he was now making his very
+first _entrée_.
+
+Mrs. Newcome had left her place at the door of her drawing-room, to
+walk through her rooms with Rummun Loll, the celebrated Indian
+merchant, otherwise His Excellency Rummun Loll, otherwise his Highness
+Rummun Loll, the chief proprietor of the diamond-mines in Golconda,
+with a claim of three millions and a-half upon the East India
+Company—who smoked his hookah after dinner when the ladies were gone,
+and in whose honour (for his servants always brought a couple or more
+of hookahs with them) many English gentlemen made themselves sick,
+while trying to emulate the same practice. Mr. Newcome had been obliged
+to go to bed himself in consequence of the uncontrollable nausea
+produced by the chillum; and Doctor McGuffog, in hopes of converting
+His Highness, had puffed his till he was as black in the face as the
+interesting Indian—and now, having hung on his arm—always in the dirty
+gloves—flirting a fan whilst His Excellency consumed betel out of a
+silver box; and having promenaded him and his turban, and his shawls,
+and his kincab pelisse, and his lacquered moustache, and keen brown
+face; and opal eyeballs, through her rooms, the hostess came back to
+her station at the drawing-room door.
+
+As soon as His Excellency saw the Colonel, whom he perfectly well knew,
+His Highness’s princely air was exchanged for one of the deepest
+humility. He bowed his head and put his two hands before his eyes, and
+came creeping towards him submissively, to the wonderment of Mrs.
+Miles; who was yet more astonished when the Moldavian magnate exclaimed
+in perfectly good English, “What, Rummun, you here?”
+
+The Rummun, still bending and holding his hands before him, uttered a
+number of rapid sentences in the Hindustani language, which Colonel
+Newcome received twirling his mustachios with much hauteur. He turned
+on his heel rather abruptly and began to speak to Mrs. Newcome, who
+smiled and thanked him for coming on his first night after his return.
+
+The Colonel said, “To whose house should he first come but to his
+brother’s?” How Mrs. Newcome wished she could have had room for him at
+dinner! And there was room after all, for Mr. Shaloony was detained at
+the House. The most interesting conversation. The Indian Prince was so
+intelligent!
+
+“The Indian what?” asks Colonel Newcome. The heathen gentleman had gone
+off, and was seated by one of the handsomest young women in the room,
+whose fair face was turned towards him, whose blond ringlets touched
+his shoulder, and who was listening to him as eagerly as Desdemona
+listened to Othello.
+
+The Colonel’s rage was excited as he saw the Indian’s behaviour. He
+curled his mustachios up to his eyes in his wrath. “You don’t mean that
+that man calls himself a Prince? That a fellow who wouldn’t sit down in
+an officer’s presence is——”
+
+“How do you do, Mr. Honeyman?—Eh, bong soir, Monsieur—You are very
+late, Mr. Pressly.—What, Barnes! is it possible that you do me the
+honour to come all the way from Mayfair to Marylebone? I thought you
+young men of fashion never crossed Oxford Street. Colonel Newcome, this
+is your nephew.”
+
+“How do you do, sir?” says Barnes, surveying the Colonel’s costume with
+inward wonder, but without the least outward manifestation of surprise.
+“I suppose you dined here to meet the black Prince. I came to ask him
+and my uncle to meet you at dinner on Wednesday. Where’s my uncle,
+ma’am?”
+
+“Your uncle is gone to bed ill. He smoked one of those hookahs which
+the Prince brings, and it has made him very unwell indeed, Barnes. How
+is Lady Anne? Is Lord Kew in London? Is your sister better for Brighton
+air? I see your cousin is appointed Secretary of Legation. Have you
+good accounts of your aunt Lady Fanny?”
+
+“Lady Fanny is as well as can be expected, and the baby is going on
+perfectly well, thank you,” Barnes said drily; and his aunt,
+obstinately gracious with him, turned away to some other new comet.
+
+“It’s interesting, isn’t it, sir,” says Barnes, turning to the Colonel,
+“to see such union in families? Whenever I come here, my aunt trots out
+all my relations; and I send a man round in the mornin to ask how they
+all are. So Uncle Hobson is gone to bed sick with a hookah? I know
+there was a deuce of a row made when I smoked at Marblehead. You are
+promised to us for Wednesday, please. Is there anybody you would like
+to meet? Not our friend the Rummun? How the girls crowd round him! By
+Gad, a fellow who’s rich in London may have the pick of any gal—not
+here—not in this sort of thing; I mean in society, you know,” says
+Barnes confidentially, “I’ve seen the old dowagers crowdin round that
+fellow, and the girls snugglin up to his india-rubber face. He’s known
+to have two wives already in India; but, by Gad, for a settlement, I
+believe some of ’em here would marry—I mean of the girls in society.”
+
+“But isn’t this society?” asked the Colonel.
+
+“Oh, of course. It’s very good society and that sort of thing—but it’s
+not, you know—you understand. I give you my honour there are not three
+people in the room one meets anywhere, except the Rummun. What is he at
+home, sir? I know he ain’t a Prince, you know, any more than I am.”
+
+“I believe he is a rich man now,” said the Colonel. “He began from very
+low beginnings, and odd stories are told about the origin of his
+fortune.”
+
+“That may be,” says the young man; “of course, as businessmen, that’s
+not our affair. But has he got the fortune? He keeps a large account
+with us; and, I think, wants to have larger dealings with us still. As
+one of the family we may ask you to stand by us, and tell us anything
+you know. My father has asked him down to Newcome, and we’ve taken him
+up; wisely or not I can’t say. I think otherwise; but I’m quite young
+in the house, and of course the elders have the chief superintendence.”
+The young man of business had dropped his drawl or his languor, and was
+speaking quite unaffectedly; good-naturedly, and selfishly. Had you
+talked to him for a week, you could not have made him understand the
+scorn and loathing with which the Colonel regarded him. Here was a
+young fellow as keen as the oldest curmudgeon; a lad with scarce a
+beard to his chin, that would pursue his bond as rigidly as Shylock.
+“If he is like this at twenty, what will he be at fifty?” groaned the
+Colonel. “I’d rather Clive were dead than have him such a heartless
+woriding as this.” And yet the young man was not ungenerous, not
+untruth-telling, not unserviceable. He thought his life was good
+enough. It was as good as that of other folks he lived with. You don’t
+suppose he had any misgivings, provided he was in the City early enough
+in the morning; or slept badly, unless he indulged too freely
+over-night; or twinges of conscience that his life was misspent? He
+thought his life a most lucky and reputable one. He had a share in a
+good business, and felt that he could increase it. Some day he would
+marry a good match, with a good fortune; meanwhile he could take his
+pleasure decorously, and sow his wild oats as some of the young
+Londoners sow them, not broadcast after the fashion of careless
+scatter-brained youth, but trimly and neatly, in quiet places, where
+the crop can come up unobserved, and be taken in without bustle or
+scandal. Barnes Newcome never missed going to church, or dressing for
+dinner. He never kept a tradesman waiting for his money. He never drank
+too much, except when other fellows did, and in good company. He never
+was late for business, or huddled over his toilet, however brief had
+been his sleep, or severe his headache. In a word, he was as
+scrupulously whited as any sepulchre in the whole bills of mortality.
+
+Whilst young Barnes and his uncle were thus holding parley, a slim
+gentleman of bland aspect, with a roomy forehead, or what his female
+admirers called “a noble brow,” and a neat white neckcloth tied with
+clerical skill, was surveying Colonel Newcome through his shining
+spectacles, and waiting for an opportunity to address him. The Colonel
+remarked the eagerness with which the gentleman in black regarded him,
+and asked Mr. Barnes who was the padre? Mr. Barnes turned his eyeglass
+towards the spectacles, and said “he didn’t know any more than the
+dead; he didn’t know two people in the room.” The spectacles
+nevertheless made the eyeglass a bow, of which the latter took no sort
+of cognisance. The spectacles advanced; Mr. Newcome fell back with a
+peevish exclamation of “Confound the fellow, what is he coming to speak
+to me for?” He did not choose to be addressed by all sorts of persons
+in all houses.
+
+But he of the spectacles, with an expression of delight in his pale
+blue eyes, and smiles dimpling his countenance, pressed onwards with
+outstretched hands, and it was towards the Colonel he turned these
+smiles and friendly salutations. “Did I hear aright, sir, from Mrs.
+Miles,” he said, “and have I the honour of speaking to Colonel
+Newcome?”
+
+“The same, sir,” says the Colonel; at which the other, tearing off a
+glove of lavender-coloured kid, uttered the words, “Charles Honeyman,”
+and seized the hand of his brother-in-law. “My poor sister’s husband,”
+he continued; “my own benefactor; Clive’s father. How strange are these
+meetings in the mighty world! How I rejoice to see you, and know you!”
+
+“You are Charles, are you?” cries the other. “I am very glad, indeed,
+to shake you by the hand, Honeyman. Clive and I should have beat up
+your quarters to-day, but we were busy until dinnertime. You put me in
+mind of poor Emma, Charles,” he added, sadly. Emma had not been a good
+wife to him; a flighty silly little woman, who had caused him when
+alive many a night of pain and day of anxiety.
+
+“Poor, poor Emma!” exclaimed the ecclesiastic, casting his eyes towards
+the chandelier, and passing a white cambric pocket-handkerchief
+gracefully before them. No man in London understood the ring business
+or the pocket-handkerchief business better, or smothered his emotion
+more beautifully. “In the gayest moments, in the giddiest throng of
+fashion, the thoughts of the past will rise; the departed will be among
+us still. But this is not the strain wherewith to greet the friend
+newly arrived on our shores. How it rejoices me to behold you in old
+England! How you must have joyed to see Clive!”
+
+“D—— the humbug,” muttered Barnes, who knew him perfectly well. “The
+fellow is always in the pulpit.”
+
+The incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s chapel smiled and bowed to him. “You
+do not recognise me, sir; I have had the honour of seeing you in your
+public capacity in the City, when I have called at the bank, the bearer
+of my brother-in-law’s generous——”
+
+“Never mind that, Honeyman!” cried the Colonel.
+
+“But I _do_ mind, my dear Colonel,” answers Mr. Honeyman. “I should be
+a very bad man, and a very ungrateful brother, if I _ever_ forgot your
+kindness.”
+
+“For God’s sake leave my kindness alone.”
+
+“He’ll never leave it alone as long as he can use it,” muttered Mr.
+Barnes in his teeth; and turning to his uncle, “May I take you home,
+sir? my cab is at the door, and I shall be glad to drive you.” But the
+Colonel said he must talk to his brother-in-law for a while, and Mr.
+Barnes, bowing very respectfully to him, slipped under a dowager’s arm
+in the doorway, and retreated silently downstairs.
+
+Newcome was now thrown entirely upon the clergyman, and the latter
+described the personages present to the stranger, who was curious to
+know how the party was composed. Mrs. Newcome herself would have been
+pleased had she heard Honeyman’s discourse regarding her guests and
+herself. Charles Honeyman so spoke of most persons that you might fancy
+they were listening over his shoulder. Such an assemblage of learning,
+genius, and virtue, might well delight and astonish a stranger. “That
+lady in the red turban, with the handsome daughters, is Lady Budge,
+wife of the eminent judge of that name—everybody was astonished that he
+was not made Chief Justice, and elevated to the Peerage—the only
+objection (as I have heard confidentially) was on the part of a late
+sovereign, who said he never could consent to have a peer of the name
+of Budge. Her ladyship was of humble, I have heard even menial, station
+originally, but becomes her present rank, dispenses the most elegant
+hospitality at her mansion in Connaught Terrace, and is a pattern as a
+wife and a mother. The young man talking to her daughter is a young
+barrister, already becoming celebrated as a contributor to some of our
+principal reviews.”
+
+“Who is that cavalry officer in a white waistcoat talking to the Jew
+with the beard?” asks the Colonel.
+
+“He, he! That cavalry officer is another literary man of celebrity, and
+by profession an attorney. But he has quitted the law for the Muses,
+and it would appear that the Nine are never wooed except by gentlemen
+with mustachios.”
+
+“Never wrote a verse in my life,” says the Colonel, laughing, and
+stroking his own.
+
+“For I remark so many literary gentlemen with that decoration. The Jew
+with the beard, as you call him, is Herr von Lungen, the eminent
+hautboy-player. The three next gentlemen are Mr. Smee, of the Royal
+Academy (who is shaved as you perceive), and Mr. Moyes and Mr. Cropper,
+who are both very hairy about the chin. At the piano, singing,
+accompanied by Mademoiselle Lebrun, is Signor Mezzocaldo, the great
+barytone from Rome. Professor Quartz and Baron Hammerstein, celebrated
+geologists from Germany, are talking with their illustrious _confrère_,
+Sir Robert Craxton, in the door. Do you see yonder that stout gentleman
+with stuff on his shirt? the eloquent Dr. McGuffog, of Edinburgh,
+talking to Dr. Ettore, who lately escaped from the Inquisition at Rome
+in the disguise of a washerwoman, after undergoing the question several
+times, the rack and the thumbscrew. They say that he was to have been
+burned in the Grand Square the next morning; but between ourselves, my
+dear Colonel, I mistrust these stories of converts and martyrs. Did you
+ever see a more jolly-looking man than Professor Schnurr, who was
+locked up in Spielberg, and got out up a chimney, and through a window?
+Had he waited a few months there are very few windows he could have
+passed through. That splendid man in the red fez is Kurbash
+Pasha—another renegade, I deeply lament to say—a hairdresser from
+Marseilles, by name Monsieur Ferehaud, who passed into Egypt, and laid
+aside the _tongs_ for a turban. He is talking with Mr. Palmer, one of
+our most delightful young poets, and with Desmond O’Tara, son of the
+late revered Bishop of Ballinafad, who has lately quitted ours for the
+errors of the Church of Rome. Let me whisper to you that your kinswoman
+is rather a searcher after what we call here _notabilities_. I heard
+talk of one I knew in better days—of one who was the comrade of my
+youth, and the delight of Oxford—poor Pidge of Brasenose, who got the
+Newdigate in my third year, and who, under his present name of Father
+Bartolo, was to have been here in his capuchin dress, with a beard and
+bare feet; but I presume he could not get permission from his Superior.
+That is Mr. Huff, the political economist, talking with Mr. Macduff,
+the Member for Glenlivat. That is the coroner for Middlesex conversing
+with the great surgeon Sir Cutler Sharp, and that pretty laughing girl
+talking with them is no other than the celebrated Miss Pinnnifer, whose
+novel of Ralph the Resurrectionist created such a sensation after it
+was abused in the _Trimestrial Review_. It was a little bold
+certainly—I just looked at it at my club—after hours devoted to parish
+duty a clergyman is sometimes allowed, you know, _desipere in
+loco_—there are descriptions in it certainly startling—ideas about
+marriage not exactly orthodox; but the poor child wrote the book
+actually in the nursery, and all England was ringing with it before Dr.
+Pinnifer, her father, knew who was the author. That is the Doctor
+asleep in the corner by Miss Rudge, the American authoress, who I dare
+say is explaining to him the difference between the two Governments. My
+dear Mrs. Newcome, I am giving my brother-in-law a little sketch of
+some of the celebrities who are crowding your salon to-night. What a
+delightful evening you have given us!”
+
+“I try to do my best, Colonel Newcome,” said the lady of the house. “I
+hope many a night we may see you here; and, as I said this morning,
+Clive, when he is of an age to appreciate this kind of entertainment.
+Fashion I do not worship. You may meet that amongst other branches of
+our family; but genius and talent I do reverence. And if I can be the
+means—the _humble_ means—to bring men of genius together—mind to
+associate with mind—men of all nations to mingle in _friendly unison_—I
+shall not have lived _altogether_ in vain. They call us women of the
+world frivolous, Colonel Newcome. So some may be; I do not say there
+are not in our own family persons who worship mere worldly rank, and
+think but of fashion and gaiety; but such, I trust, will never be the
+objects in life of me and my children. We are but merchants; we seek to
+be _no more_. If I can look around me and see as I do”—(she waves her
+fan round, and points to the illustrations scintillating round the
+room)—“and see as I do now—a Poski, whose name is ever connected with
+Polish history—an Ettore, who has exchanged a tonsure and a rack for
+our own free country—a Hammerstein, and a Quartz, a Miss Rudge, our
+Transatlantic sister (who I trust will not mention _this_ modest salon
+in her forthcoming work on Europe), and Miss Pinnifer, whose genius I
+acknowledge, though I deplore her opinions; if I can gather together
+travellers, poets, and painters, princes and distinguished soldiers
+from the East, and clergymen remarkable for their eloquence, my humble
+aim is attained, and Maria Newcome is not altogether useless in her
+generation. Will you take a little refreshment? Allow _your sister_ to
+go down to the dining-room supported by your _gallant_ arm.” She looked
+round to the admiring congregation, whereof Honeyman, as it were acted
+as clerk, and flirting her fan, and flinging up her little head.
+Consummate Virtue walked down on the arm of the Colonel.
+
+The refreshment was rather meagre. The foreign artists generally dashed
+downstairs, and absorbed all the ices, creams, etc. To those coming
+late there were chicken-bones, table-cloths puddled with melted ice,
+glasses hazy with sherry, and broken bits of bread. The Colonel said he
+never supped; and he and Honeyman walked away together, the former to
+bed, the latter, I am sorry to say, to his club; for he was a dainty
+feeder, and loved lobster, and talk late at night, and a comfortable
+little glass of something wherewith to conclude the day.
+
+He agreed to come to breakfast with the Colonel, who named eight or
+nine for the meal. Nine Mr. Honeyman agreed to with a sigh. The
+incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s chapel seldom rose before eleven. For,
+to tell the truth, no French abbot of Louis XV. was more lazy and
+luxurious, and effeminate, than our polite bachelor preacher.
+
+One of Colonel Newcome’s fellow-passengers from India was Mr. James
+Binnie of the Civil Service, a jolly young bachelor of two- or
+three-and-forty, who, having spent half of his past life in Bengal, was
+bent upon enjoying the remainder in Britain or in Europe, if a
+residence at home should prove agreeable to him. The Nabob of books and
+tradition is a personage no longer to be found among us. He is neither
+as wealthy nor as wicked as the jaundiced monster of romances and
+comedies, who purchases the estates of broken-down English gentlemen,
+with rupees tortured out of bleeding rajahs, who smokes a hookah in
+public, and in private carries about a guilty conscience, diamonds of
+untold value, and a diseased liver; who has a vulgar wife, with a
+retinue of black servants whom she maltreats, and a gentle son and
+daughter with good impulses and an imperfect education, desirous to
+amend their own and their parents’ lives, and thoroughly ashamed of the
+follies of the old people. If you go to the house of an Indian
+gentleman now, he does not say, “Bring more curricles,” like the famous
+Nabob of Stanstead Park. He goes to Leadenhall Street in an omnibus,
+and walks back from the City for exercise. I have known some who have
+had maid-servants to wait on them at dinner. I have met scores who look
+as florid and rosy as any British squire who has never left his
+paternal beef and acres. They do not wear nankeen jackets in summer.
+Their livers are not out of order any more; and as for hookahs, I dare
+swear there are not two now kept alight within the bills of mortality;
+and that retired Indians would as soon think of smoking them, as their
+wives would of burning themselves on their husbands’ bodies at the
+cemetery, Kensal Green, near to the Tyburnian quarter of the city which
+the Indian world at present inhabits. It used to be Baker Street and
+Harley Street; it used to be Portland Place, and in more early days
+Bedford Square, where the Indian magnates flourished; districts which
+have fallen from their pristine state of splendour now, even as Agra,
+and Benares, and Lucknow, and Tippoo Sultan’s city are fallen.
+
+After two-and-twenty years’ absence from London, Mr. Binnie returned to
+it on the top of the Gosport coach with a hatbox and a little
+portmanteau, a pink fresh-shaven face, a perfect appetite, a suit of
+clothes like everybody else’s, and not the shadow of a black servant.
+He called a cab at the White Horse Cellar, and drove to Nerot’s Hotel,
+Clifford Street; and he gave the cabman eightpence, making the fellow,
+who grumbled, understand that Clifford Street was not two hundred yards
+from Bond Street, and that he was paid at the rate of five shillings
+and fourpence per mile—calculating the mile at only sixteen hundred
+yards. He asked the waiter at what time Colonel Newcome had ordered
+dinner, and finding there was an hour on his hands before the meal,
+walked out to examine the neighbourhood for a lodging where he could
+live more quietly than in a hotel. He called it a hotel. Mr. Binnie was
+a North Briton, his father having been a Writer to the Signet, in
+Edinburgh, who had procured his son a writership in return for
+electioneering services done to an East Indian Director. Binnie had his
+retiring pension, and, besides, had saved half his allowances ever
+since he had been in India. He was a man of great reading, no small
+ability, considerable accomplishment, excellent good sense and good
+humour. The ostentatious said he was a screw; but he gave away more
+money than far more extravagant people: he was a disciple of David Hume
+(whom he admired more than any other mortal), and the serious denounced
+him as a man of dangerous principles, though there were, among the
+serious, men much more dangerous than James Binnie.
+
+On returning to his hotel, Colonel Newcome found this worthy gentleman
+installed in his room in the best arm-chair sleeping cosily; the
+evening paper laid decently over his plump waistcoat, and his little
+legs placed on an opposite chair. Mr. Binnie woke up briskly when the
+Colonel entered. “It is you, you gad-about, is it?” cried the civilian.
+“How has the beau monde of London treated the Indian Adonis? Have you
+made a sensation, Newcome? Gad, Tom, I remember you a buck of bucks
+when that coat first came out to Calcutta—just a Barrackpore
+Brummell—in Lord Minto’s reign, was it, or when Lord Hastings was
+satrap over us?”
+
+“A man must have one good coat,” says the Colonel; “I don’t profess to
+be a dandy; but get a coat from a good tailor, and then have done with
+it.” He still thought his garment was as handsome as need be.
+
+“Done with it—ye’re never done with it!” cries the civilian.
+
+“An old coat is an old friend, old Binnie. I don’t want to be rid of
+one or the other. How long did you and my boy sit up together—isn’t he
+a fine lad, Binnie? I expect you are going to put him down for
+something handsome in your will.”
+
+“See what it is to have a real friend now, Colonel! I sate up for ye,
+or let us say more correctly, I waited for you—because I knew you would
+want to talk about that scapegrace of yours. And if I had gone to bed,
+I should have had you walking up to No. 28, and waking me out of my
+first rosy slumber. Well, now confess; avoid not. Haven’t ye fallen in
+love with some young beauty on the very first night of your arrival in
+your sister’s salong, and selected a mother-in-law for young
+Scapegrace?”
+
+“Isn’t he a fine fellow, James?” says the Colonel, lighting a cheroot
+as he sits on the table. Was it joy, or the bedroom candle with which
+he lighted his cigar, which illuminated his honest features so, and
+made them so to shine?
+
+“I have been occupied, sir, in taking the lad’s moral measurement: and
+have pumped him as successfully as ever I cross-examined a rogue in my
+court. I place his qualities thus:—Love of approbation sixteen.
+Benevolence fourteen. Combativeness fourteen. Adhesiveness two.
+Amativeness is not yet of course fully developed, but I expect will be
+prodeegiously strong. The imaginative and reflective organs are very
+large—those, of calculation weak. He may make a poet or a painter, or
+you may make a sojer of him, though worse men than him’s good enough
+for that—but a bad merchant, a lazy lawyer, and a miserable
+mathematician. He has wit and conscientiousness, so ye mustn’t think of
+making a clergyman of him.”
+
+“Binnie!” says the Colonel gravely, “you are always sneering at the
+cloth.”
+
+“When I think that, but for my appointment to India, I should have been
+a luminary of the faith and a pillar of the church! grappling with the
+ghostly enemy in the pulpit, and giving out the psawm. Eh, sir, what a
+loss Scottish Divinity has had in James Binnie!” cries the little
+civilian with his most comical face. “But that is not the question. My
+opinion, Colonel, is, that young Scapegrace will give you a deal of
+trouble; or would, only you are so absurdly proud of him that you think
+everything he does is perfaction. He’ll spend your money for you: he’ll
+do as little work as need be. He’ll get into scrapes with the sax. He’s
+almost as simple as his father, and that is to say that any rogue will
+cheat him; and he seems to me to have got your obstinate habit of
+telling the truth, Colonel, which may prevet his getting on in the
+world, but on the other hand will keep him from going very wrong. So
+that, though there is every fear for him, there’s some hope and some
+consolation.”
+
+“What do you think of his Latin and Greek?” asks the Colonel. Before
+going out to his party, Newcome had laid a deep scheme with Binnie, and
+it had been agreed that the latter should examine the young fellow in
+his humanities.
+
+“Wall,” cries the Scot, “I find that the lad knows as much about Greek
+and Latin as I knew myself when I was eighteen years of age.”
+
+“My dear Binnie, is it possible? You, the best scholar in all India!”
+
+“And which amounted to exactly nothing. He has acquired in five years,
+and by the admirable seestem purshood at your public schools, just
+about as much knowledge of the ancient languages as he could get by
+three months’ application at home. Mind ye, I don’t say he would apply;
+it is most probable he would do no such thing. But at the cost of—how
+much? two hundred pounds annually—for five years—he has acquired about
+five-and-twenty guineas’ worth of classical leeterature—enough, I dare
+say, to enable him to quote Horace respectably through life, and what
+more do ye want from a young man of his expectations? I think I should
+send him into the army, that’s the best place for him—there’s the least
+to do, and the handsomest clothes to wear. _Acce segnum!_” says the
+little wag, daintily taking up the tail of his friend’s coat.
+
+“There’s never any knowing whether you are in jest or in earnest,
+Binnie,” the puzzled Colonel said.
+
+“How should you know, when I don’t know myself?” answered the
+Scotchman. “In earnest now, Tom Newcome, I think your boy is as fine a
+lad as I ever set eyes on. He seems to have intelligence and good
+temper. He carries his letter of recommendation in his countenance; and
+with the honesty—and the rupees, mind ye—which he inherits from his
+father, the deuce is in it if he can’t make his way. What time’s the
+breakfast? Eh, but it was a comfort this morning not to hear the
+holystoning on the deck. We ought to go into lodgings, and not fling
+our money out of the window of this hotel. We must make the young chap
+take us about and show us the town in the morning, Tom. I had but three
+days of it five-and-twenty years ago, and I propose to reshoome my
+observations to-morrow after breakfast. We’ll just go on deck and see
+how’s her head before we turn in, eh, Colonel?” and with this the jolly
+gentleman nodded over his candle to his friend, and trotted off to bed.
+
+The Colonel and his friend were light sleepers and early risers, like
+most men that come from the country where they had both been so long
+sojourning, and were awake and dressed long before the London waiters
+had thought of quitting their beds. The housemaid was the only being
+stirring in the morning when little Mr. Binnie blundered over her pail
+as she was washing the deck. Early as he was, his fellow-traveller had
+preceded him. Binnie found the Colonel in his sitting-room arrayed in
+what are called in Scotland his stocking-feet, already puffing the
+cigar, which in truth was seldom out of his mouth at any hour of the
+day.
+
+He had a couple of bedrooms adjacent to this sitting-room, and when
+Binnie, as brisk and rosy about the gills as chanticleer, broke out in
+a morning salutation, “Hush,” says the Colonel, putting a long finger
+up to his mouth, and advancing towards him as noiselessly as a ghost.
+
+“What’s in the wind now?” asks the little Scot; “and what for have ye
+not got your shoes on?”
+
+“Clive’s asleep,” says the Colonel, with a countenance full of extreme
+anxiety.
+
+“The darling boy slumbers, does he?” said the wag; “mayn’t I just step
+in and look at his beautiful countenance whilst he’s asleep, Colonel?”
+
+“You may if you take off those confounded creaking shoes,” the other
+answered, quite gravely; and Binnie turned away to hide his jolly round
+face, which was screwed up with laughter.
+
+“Have ye been breathing a prayer over your rosy infant’s slumbers,
+Tom?” asks Mr. Binnie.
+
+“And if I have, James Binnie,” the Colonel said gravely, and his sallow
+face blushing somewhat, “if I have, I hope I’ve done no harm. The last
+time I saw him asleep was nine years ago, a sickly little pale-faced
+boy in his little cot, and now, sir, that I see him again, strong and
+handsome, and all that a fond father can wish to see a boy, I should be
+an ungrateful villain, James, if I didn’t—if I didn’t do what you said
+just now, and thank God Almighty for restoring him to me.”
+
+Binnie did not laugh any more. “By George, Tom Newcome,” said he,
+“you’re just one of the saints of the earth. If all men were like you
+there’d be an end of both our trades; there would be no fighting and no
+soldiering, no rogues and no magistrates to catch them.” The Colonel
+wondered at his friend’s enthusiasm, who was not used to be
+complimentary; indeed what so usual with him as that simple act of
+gratitude and devotion about which his comrade spoke to him? To ask a
+blessing for his boy was as natural to him as to wake with the sunrise,
+or to go to rest when the day was over. His first and his last thought
+was always the child.
+
+The two gentlemen were home in time enough to find Clive dressed, and
+his uncle arrived for breakfast. The Colonel said a grace over that
+meal: the life was begun which he had longed and prayed for, and the
+son smiling before his eyes who had been in his thoughts for so many
+fond years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+Miss Honeyman’s
+
+
+In Steyne Gardens, Brighton, the lodging-houses are among the most
+frequented in that city of lodging-houses. These mansions have
+bow-windows in front, bulging out with gentle prominences, and
+ornamented with neat verandahs, from which you can behold the tide of
+humankind as it flows up and down the Steyne, and that blue ocean over
+which Britannia is said to rule, stretching brightly away eastward and
+westward. The chain-pier, as every body knows, runs intrepidly into the
+sea, which sometimes, in fine weather, bathes its feet with laughing
+wavelets, and anon, on stormy days, dashes over its sides with roaring
+foam. Here, for the sum of twopence, you can go out to sea and pace
+this vast deck without need of a steward with a basin. You can watch
+the sun setting in splendour over Worthing, or illuminating with its
+rising glories the ups and downs of Rottingdean. You see the citizen
+with his family inveigled into the shallops of the mercenary native
+mariner, and fancy that the motion cannot be pleasant; and how the
+hirer of the boat, _otium et oppidi laudat rura sui_, haply sighs for
+ease, and prefers Richmond or Hampstead. You behold a hundred
+bathing-machines put to sea; and your naughty fancy depicts the
+beauties splashing under their white awnings. Along the rippled sands
+(stay, are they rippled sands or shingly beach?) the prawn-boy seeks
+the delicious material of your breakfast. Breakfast-meal in London
+almost unknown, greedily devoured in Brighton! In yon vessels now
+nearing the shore the sleepless mariner has ventured forth to seize the
+delicate whiting, the greedy and foolish mackerel, and the homely sole.
+Hark to the twanging horn! it is the early coach going out to London.
+Your eye follows it, and rests on the pinnacles built by the beloved
+GEORGE. See the worn-out London roué pacing the pier, inhaling the sea
+air, and casting furtive glances under the bonnets of the pretty girls
+who trot here before lessons! Mark the bilious lawyer, escaped for a
+day from Pump Court, and sniffing the fresh breezes before he goes back
+to breakfast and a bag full of briefs at the Albion! See that pretty
+string of prattling schoolgirls, from the chubby-cheeked, flaxen-headed
+little maiden just toddling by the side of the second teacher, to the
+arch damsel of fifteen, giggling and conscious of her beauty, whom Miss
+Griffin, the stern head-governess, awfully reproves! See Tomkins with a
+telescope and marine jacket; young Nathan and young Abrams, already
+bedizened in jewellery, and rivalling the sun in oriental splendour;
+yonder poor invalid crawling along in her chair; yonder jolly fat lady
+examining the Brighton pebbles (I actually once saw a lady buy one),
+and her children wondering at the sticking-plaister portraits with gold
+hair, and gold stocks, and prodigious high-heeled boots, miracles of
+art, and cheap at seven-and-sixpence! It is the fashion to run down
+George IV., but what myriads of Londoners ought to thank him for
+inventing Brighton! One of the best of physicians our city has ever
+known, is kind, cheerful, merry Doctor Brighton. Hail, thou purveyor of
+shrimps and honest prescriber of Southdown mutton! There is no mutton
+so good as Brighton mutton; no flys so pleasant as Brighton flys; nor
+any cliff so pleasant to ride on; no shops so beautiful to look at as
+the Brighton gimcrack shops, and the fruit shops, and the market. I
+fancy myself in Mrs. Honeyman’s lodgings in Steyne Gardens, and in
+enjoyment of all these things.
+
+If the gracious reader has had losses in life, losses not so bad as to
+cause absolute want, or inflict upon him or her the bodily injury of
+starvation, let him confess that the evils of this poverty are by no
+means so great as his timorous fancy depicted. Say your money has been
+invested in West Diddlesex bonds, or other luckless speculations—the
+news of the smash comes; you pay your outlying bills with the balance
+at the banker’s; you assemble your family and make them a fine speech;
+the wife of your bosom goes round and embraces the sons and daughters
+_seriatim;_ nestling in your own waistcoat finally, in possession of
+which, she says (with tender tears and fond quotations from Holy Writ,
+God bless her!), and of the darlings round about, lies all _her_
+worldly treasure: the weeping servants are dismissed, their wages paid
+in full, and with a present of prayer- and hymn-books from their
+mistress; your elegant house in Harley Street is to let, and you
+subside into lodgings in Pentonville, or Kensington, or Brompton. How
+unlike the mansion where you paid taxes and distributed elegant
+hospitality for so many years!
+
+You subside into lodgings, I say, and you find yourself very tolerably
+comfortable. I am not sure that in her heart your wife is not happier
+than in what she calls her happy days. She will be somebody hereafter:
+she was nobody in Harley Street: that is, everybody else in her
+visiting-book, take the names all round, was as good as she. They had
+the very same entrees, plated ware, men to wait, etc., at all the
+houses where you visited in the street. Your candlesticks might be
+handsomer (and indeed they had a very fine effect upon the
+dinner-table), but then Mr. Jones’s silver (or electro-plated) dishes
+were much finer. You had more carriages at your door on the evening of
+your delightful soirées than Mrs. Brown (there is no phrase more
+elegant, and to my taste, than that in which people are described as
+“seeing a great deal of carriage company”); but yet Mrs. Brown, from
+the circumstance of her being a baronet’s niece, took precedence of
+your dear wife at most tables. Hence the latter charming woman’s scorn
+at the British baronetcy, and her many jokes at the order. In a word,
+and in the height of your social prosperity, there was always a lurking
+dissatisfaction, and a something bitter, in the midst of the fountain
+of delights at which you were permitted to drink.
+
+There is no good (unless your taste is that way) in living in a society
+where you are merely the equal of everybody else. Many people give
+themselves extreme pains to frequent company where all around them are
+their superiors, and where, do what you will, you must be subject to
+continual mortification—(as, for instance, when Marchioness X. forgets
+you, and you can’t help thinking that she cuts you on purpose; when
+Duchess Z. passes by in her diamonds, etc.). The true pleasure of life
+is to live with your inferiors. Be the cock of your village; the queen
+of your coterie; and, besides very great persons, the people whom Fate
+has specially endowed with this kindly consolation are those who have
+seen what are called better days—those who have had losses. I am like
+Cæsar, and of a noble mind: if I cannot be first in Piccadilly, let me
+try Hatton Garden, and see whether I cannot lead the ton there. If I
+cannot take the lead at White’s or the Travellers’, let me be president
+of the Jolly Bandboys at the Bag of Nails, and blackball everybody who
+does not pay me honour. If my darling Bessy cannot go out of a
+drawing-room until a baronet’s niece (ha! ha! a baronet’s niece,
+forsooth!) has walked before her, let us frequent company where we
+shall be the first; and how can we be the first unless we select our
+inferiors for our associates? This kind of pleasure is to be had by
+almost everybody, and at scarce any cost. With a shilling’s-worth of
+tea and muffins you can get as much adulation and respect as many
+people cannot purchase with a thousand pounds’ worth of plate and
+profusion, hired footmen, turning their houses topsy-turvy, and suppers
+from Gunter’s. Adulation!—why, the people who come to you give as good
+parties as you do. Respect!—the very menials, who wait behind your
+supper-table, waited at a duke’s yesterday, and actually patronise you!
+O you silly spendthrift! you can buy flattery for twopence, and you
+spend ever so much money in entertaining your equals and betters, and
+nobody admires you!
+
+Now Aunt Honeyman was a woman of a thousand virtues; cheerful, frugal,
+honest, laborious, charitable, good-humoured, truth-telling, devoted to
+her family, capable of any sacrifice for those she loved; and when she
+came to have losses of money, Fortune straightway compensated her by
+many kindnesses which no income can supply. The good old lady admired
+the word gentlewoman of all others in the English vocabulary, and made
+all around her feel that such was her rank. Her mother’s father was a
+naval captain; her father had taken pupils, got a living, sent his son
+to college, dined with the squire, published his volume of sermons, was
+liked in his parish, where Miss Honeyman kept house for him, was
+respected for his kindness and famous for his port wine; and so died,
+leaving about two hundred pounds a year to his two children, nothing to
+Clive Newcome’s mother who had displeased him by her first marriage (an
+elopement with Ensign Casey) and subsequent light courses. Charles
+Honeyman spent his money elegantly in wine-parties at Oxford, and
+afterwards in foreign travel;—spent his money and as much of Miss
+Honeyman’s as that worthy soul would give him. She was a woman of
+spirit and resolution. She brought her furniture to Brighton (believing
+that the whole place still fondly remembered her grandfather, Captain
+Nokes, who had resided there and his gallantry in Lord Rodney’s action
+with the Count de Grasse), took a house, and let the upper floors to
+lodgers.
+
+The little brisk old lady brought a maid-servant out of the country
+with her, who was daughter to her father’s clerk, and had learned her
+letters and worked her first sampler under Miss Honeyman’s own eye,
+whom she adored all through her life. No Indian begum rolling in
+wealth, no countess mistress of castles and townhouses, ever had such a
+faithful toady as Hannah Hicks was to her mistress. Under Hannah was a
+young lady from the workhouse, who called Hannah “Mrs. Hicks, mum,” and
+who bowed in awe as much before that domestic as Hannah did before Miss
+Honeyman. At five o’clock in summer, at seven in winter (for Miss
+Honeyman, a good economist, was chary of candlelight), Hannah woke up
+little Sally, and these three women rose. I leave you to imagine what a
+row there was in the establishment if Sally appeared with flowers under
+her bonnet, gave signs of levity or insubordination, prolonged her
+absence when sent forth for the beer, or was discovered in flirtation
+with the baker’s boy or the grocer’s young man. Sally was frequently
+renewed. Miss Honeyman called all her young persons Sally; and a great
+number of Sallies were consumed in her house. The qualities of the
+Sally for the time-being formed a constant and delightful subject of
+conversation between Hannah and her mistress. The few friends who
+visited Miss Honeyman in her back-parlour had _their_ Sallies, in
+discussing whose peculiarities of disposition these good ladies passed
+the hours agreeably over their tea.
+
+Many persons who let lodgings in Brighton have been servants
+themselves—are retired housekeepers, tradesfolk, and the like. With
+these surrounding individuals Hannah treated on a footing of equality,
+bringing to her mistress accounts of their various goings on; “how No.
+6 was let; how No. 9 had not paid his rent again; how the first floor
+at 27 had game almost every day, and made-dishes from Mutton’s; how the
+family who had taken Mrs. Bugsby’s had left as usual after the very
+first night, the poor little infant blistered all over with bites on
+its little dear face; how the Miss Learys was going on shameful with
+the two young men, actially in their setting-room, mum, where one of
+them offered Miss Laura Leary a cigar; how Mrs. Cribb _still_ went
+cuttin’ pounds and pounds of meat off the lodgers’ jints, emptying
+their tea-caddies, actially reading their letters. Sally had been told
+so by Polly the Cribb’s maid, who was kep, how that poor child was kep,
+hearing language perfectly hawful!” These tales and anecdotes, not
+altogether redounding to their neighbours’ credit, Hannah copiously
+collected and brought to her mistress’s tea-table, or served at her
+frugal little supper when Miss Honeyman, the labours of the day over,
+partook of that cheerful meal. I need not say that such horrors as
+occurred at Mrs. Bugsby’s never befell in Mrs. Honeyman’s
+establishment. Every room was fiercely swept and sprinkled, and watched
+by cunning eyes which nothing could escape; curtains were taken down,
+mattresses explored, every bone in bed dislocated and washed as soon as
+a lodger took his departure. And as for cribbing meat or sugar, Sally
+might occasionally abstract a lump or two, or pop a veal-cutlet into
+her mouth while bringing the dishes downstairs:—Sallies would—giddy
+creatures bred in workhouses; but Hannah might be entrusted with untold
+gold and uncorked brandy; and Miss Honeyman would as soon think of
+cutting a slice off Hannah’s nose and devouring it, as of poaching on
+her lodgers’ mutton. The best mutton-broth, the best veal-cutlets, the
+best necks of mutton and French beans, the best fried fish and plumpest
+partridges, in all Brighton, were to be had at Miss Honeyman’s—and for
+her favourites the best Indian curry and rice, coming from a
+distinguished relative, at present an officer in Bengal. But very few
+were admitted to this mark of Miss Honeyman’s confidence. If a family
+did not go to church they were not in favour: if they went to a
+Dissenting meeting she had no opinion of them at all. Once there came
+to her house a quiet Staffordshire family who ate no meat on Fridays,
+and whom Miss Honeyman pitied as belonging to the Romish superstition;
+but when they were visited by two corpulent gentlemen in black, one of
+whom wore a purple underwaistcoat, before whom the Staffordshire lady
+absolutely sank down on her knees as he went into the
+drawing-room,—Miss Honeyman sternly gave warning to these idolaters.
+She would have no Jesuits in her premises. She showed Hannah the
+picture in Howell’s Medulla of the martyrs burning at Smithfield: who
+said, “Lord bless you, mum,” and hoped it was a long time ago. She
+called on the curate: and many and many a time, for years after,
+pointed out to her friends, and sometimes to her lodgers, the spot on
+the carpet where the poor benighted creature had knelt down. So she
+went on, respected by all her friends, by all her tradesmen, by herself
+not a little, talking of her previous “misfortunes” with amusing
+equanimity; as if her father’s parsonage-house had been a palace of
+splendour, and the one-horse chaise (with the lamps for evenings) from
+which she had descended, a noble equipage. “But I know it is for the
+best, Clive,” she would say to her nephew in describing those
+grandeurs, “and, thank heaven, can be resigned in that station in life
+to which it has pleased God to call me.”
+
+The good lady was called the Duchess by her fellow-tradesfolk in the
+square in which she lived. (I don’t know what would have come to her
+had she been told she was a tradeswoman!) Her butchers, bakers, and
+market-people paid her as much respect as though she had been a
+grandee’s housekeeper out of Kemp Town. Knowing her station, she yet
+was kind to those inferior beings. She held affable conversations with
+them, she patronised Mr. Rogers, who was said to be worth a hundred
+thousand—two-hundred-thousand pounds (or lbs. was it?), and who said,
+“Law bless the old Duchess, she do make as much of a pound of veal
+cutlet as some would of a score of bullocks, but you see she’s a lady
+born and a lady bred: she’d die before she’d owe a farden, and she’s
+seen better days, you know.” She went to see the grocer’s wife on an
+interesting occasion, and won the heart of the family by tasting their
+candle. Her fishmonger (it was fine to hear her talk of “my
+fishmonger”) would sell her a whiting as respectfully as if she had
+called for a dozen turbots and lobsters. It was believed by those good
+folks that her father had been a Bishop at the very least; and the
+better days which she had known were supposed to signify some almost
+unearthly prosperity. “I have always found, Hannah,” the simple soul
+would say, “that people know their place, or can be very very easily
+made to find it if they lose it; and if a gentlewoman does not forget
+herself, her inferiors will not forget that she is a gentlewoman.” “No
+indeed, mum, and I’m sure they would do no such thing, mum,” says
+Hannah, who carries away the teapot for her own breakfast (to be
+transmitted to Sally for her subsequent refection), whilst her mistress
+washes her cup and saucer, as her mother had washed her own china many
+scores of years ago.
+
+If some of the surrounding lodging-house keepers, as I have no doubt
+they did, disliked the little Duchess for the airs which she gave
+herself, as they averred; they must have envied her too her superior
+prosperity, for there was scarcely ever a card in her window, whilst
+those ensigns in her neighbours’ houses would remain exposed to the
+flies and the weather, and disregarded by passers-by for months
+together. She had many regular customers, or what should be rather
+called constant friends. Deaf old Mr. Cricklade came every winter for
+fourteen years, and stopped until the hunting was over; an invaluable
+man, giving little trouble, passing all day on horseback, and all night
+over his rubber at the club. The Misses Barkham, Barkhambury, Tunbridge
+Wells, whose father had been at college with Mr. Honeyman, came
+regularly in June for sea air, letting Barkhambury for the summer
+season. Then, for many years, she had her nephew, as we have seen; and
+kind recommendations from the clergymen of Brighton, and a constant
+friend in the celebrated Dr. Goodenough of London, who had been her
+father’s private pupil, and of his college afterwards, who sent his
+patients from time to time down to her, and his fellow-physician, Dr.
+H——, who on his part would never take any fee from Miss Honeyman,
+except a packet of India curry-powder, a ham cured as she only knew how
+to cure them, and once a year, or so, a dish of her tea.
+
+“Was there ever such luck as that confounded old Duchess’s?” says Mr.
+Gawler, coal-merchant and lodging-house keeper, next door but two,
+whose apartments were more odious in some respects than Mrs. Bugsby’s
+own. “Was there ever such devil’s own luck, Mrs. G.? It’s only a
+fortnight ago as I read in the _Sussex Advertiser_ the death of Miss
+Barkham, of Barkhambury, Tunbridge Wells, and thinks I, there’s a spoke
+in your wheel, you stuck-up little old Duchess, with your cussed airs
+and impudence. And she ain’t put her card up three days; and look yere,
+yere’s two carriages, two maids, three children, one of them wrapped up
+in a Hinjar shawl—man hout a livery,—looks like a foring cove I
+think—lady in satin pelisse, and of course they go to the Duchess, be
+hanged to her! Of course it’s our luck, nothing ever was like our luck.
+I’m blowed if I don’t put a pistol to my ’ead, and end it, Mrs. G.
+There they go in—three, four, six, seven on ’em, and the man. That’s
+the precious child’s physic I suppose he’s a-carryin’ in the basket.
+Just look at the luggage. I say! There’s a bloody hand on the first
+carriage. It’s a baronet, is it? I ’ope your ladyship’s very well; and
+I ’ope Sir John will soon be down yere to join his family.” Mr. Gawler
+makes sarcastic bows over the card in his bow-window whilst making this
+speech. The little Gawlers rush on to the drawing-room verandah
+themselves to examine the new arrivals.
+
+“This is Mrs. Honeyman’s?” asks the gentleman designated by Mr. Gawler
+as “the foring cove,” and hands in a card on which the words, “Miss
+Honeyman, 110, Steyne Gardens. J. Goodenough,” are written in that
+celebrated physician’s handwriting. “We want five bet-rooms, six bets,
+two or dree sitting-rooms. Have you got dese?”
+
+“Will you speak to my mistress?” says Hannah. And if it is a fact that
+Miss Honeyman does happen to be in the front parlour looking at the
+carriages, what harm is there in the circumstance, pray? Is not Gawler
+looking, and the people next door? Are not half a dozen little boys
+already gathered in the street (as if they started up out of the
+trap-doors for the coals), and the nursery maids in the stunted little
+garden, are not they looking through the bars of the square? “Please to
+speak to mistress,” says Hannah, opening the parlour-door, and with a
+curtsey, “A gentleman about the apartments, mum.”
+
+“Five bet-rooms,” says the man, entering. “Six bets, two or dree
+sitting-rooms? We gome from Dr. Goodenough.”
+
+“Are the apartments for you, sir?” says the little Duchess, looking up
+at the large gentleman.
+
+“For my lady,” answers the man.
+
+“Had you not better take off your hat?” asks the Duchess, pointing out
+of one of her little mittens to “the foring cove’s” beaver, which he
+has neglected to remove.
+
+The man grins, and takes off the hat. “I beck your bardon, ma’am,” says
+he. “Have you fife bet-rooms?” etc. The doctor has cured the German of
+an illness, as well as his employers, and especially recommended Miss
+Honeyman to Mr. Kuhn.
+
+“I have such a number of apartments. My servant will show them to you.”
+And she walks back with great state to her chair by the window, and
+resumes her station and work there.
+
+Mr. Kuhn reports to his mistress, who descends to inspect the
+apartments, accompanied through them by Hannah. The rooms are
+pronounced to be exceedingly neat and pleasant, and exactly what are
+wanted for the family. The baggage is forthwith ordered to be brought
+from the carriages. The little invalid wrapped in his shawl is brought
+upstairs by the affectionate Mr. Kuhn, who carries him as gently as if
+he had been bred all his life to nurse babies. The smiling Sally (the
+Sally for the time-being happens to be a very fresh pink-cheeked pretty
+little Sally) emerges from the kitchen and introduces the young ladies,
+the governess, the maids, to their apartments. The eldest, a slim
+black-haired young lass of thirteen, frisks about the rooms, looks at
+all the pictures, runs in and out of the verandah, tries the piano, and
+bursts out laughing at its wheezy jingle (it had been poor Emma’s
+piano, bought for her on her seventeenth birthday, three weeks before
+she ran away with the ensign; her music is still in the stand by it:
+the Rev. Charles Honeyman has warbled sacred melodies over it, and Miss
+Honeyman considers it a delightful instrument), kisses her languid
+little brother laid on the sofa, and performs a hundred gay and agile
+motions suited to her age.
+
+“Oh, what a piano! Why, it is as cracked as Miss Quigley’s voice!”
+
+“My dear!” says mamma. The little languid boy bursts out into a jolly
+laugh.
+
+“What funny pictures, mamma! Action with Count de Grasse; the death of
+General Wolfe; a portrait of an officer, an old officer in blue, like
+grandpapa; Brazen Nose College, Oxford: what a funny name!”
+
+At the idea of Brazen Nose College, another laugh comes from the
+invalid. “I suppose they’ve all got _brass noses_ there,” he says; and
+explodes at this joke. The poor little laugh ends in a cough, and
+mamma’s travelling-basket, which contains everything, produces a bottle
+of syrup, labelled “Master A. Newcome. A teaspoonful to be taken when
+the cough is troublesome.”
+
+“‘Oh, the delightful sea! the blue, the fresh, the ever free,’” sings
+the young lady, with a shake. (I suppose the maritime song from which
+she quoted was just written at this time.) “How much better this is
+than going home and seeing those horrid factories and chimneys! I love
+Doctor Goodenough for sending us here. What a sweet house it is!
+Everybody is happy in it, even Miss Quigley is happy, mamma. What nice
+rooms! What pretty chintz! What a—oh, what a—comfortable sofa!” and she
+falls down on the sofa, which, truth to say, was the Rev. Charles
+Honeyman’s luxurious sofa from Oxford, presented to him by young Cibber
+Wright of Christchurch, when that gentleman-commoner was eliminated
+from the University.
+
+“The person of the house,” mamma says, “hardly comes up to Dr.
+Goodenough’s description of her. He says he remembers her a pretty
+little woman when her father was his private tutor.”
+
+“She has grown very much since,” says the girl. And an explosion takes
+place from the sofa, where the little man is always ready to laugh at
+any joke, or anything like a joke, uttered by himself or by any of his
+family or friends. As for Doctor Goodenough, he says laughing has saved
+that boy’s life.
+
+“She looks quite like a maid,” continues the lady. “She has hard hands,
+and she called me mum always. I was quite disappointed in her.” And she
+subsides into a novel, with many of which kind of works, and with other
+volumes, and with workboxes, and with wonderful inkstands, portfolios,
+portable days of the month, scent-bottles, scissor-cases, gilt
+miniature easels displaying portraits, and countless gimcracks of
+travel, the rapid Kuhn has covered the tables in the twinkling of an
+eye.
+
+The person supposed to be the landlady enters the room at this
+juncture, and the lady rises to receive her. The little wag on the sofa
+puts his arm round his sister’s neck, and whispers, “I say, Eth, isn’t
+she a pretty girl? I shall write to Doctor Goodenough and tell him how
+much she’s grown.” Convulsions follow this sally, to the surprise of
+Hannah, who says, “Pooty little dear!—what time will he have his
+dinner, mum?”
+
+“Thank you, Mrs. Honeyman, at two o’clock,” says the lady with a bow of
+her head. “There is a clergyman of your name in London; is he a
+relation?” The lady in her turn is astonished, for the tall person
+breaks out into a grin, and says, “Law, mum, you’re speakin’ of Master
+Charles. He’s in London.”
+
+“Indeed!—of Master Charles?”
+
+“And you take me for missis, mum. I beg your pardon, mum,” cries
+Hannah. The invalid hits his sister in the side with a weak little
+fist. If laughter can cure, _Salva est res_. Doctor Goodenough’s
+patient is safe. “Master Charles is missis’s brother, mum. I’ve got no
+brother, mum—never had no brother. Only one son, who’s in the police,
+mum, thank you. And law bless me, I was going to forget! If you please,
+mum, missis says, if you are quite rested, she will pay her duty to
+you, mum.”
+
+“Oh, indeed,” says the lady, rather stiffly; and, taking this for an
+acceptance of her mistress’s visit, Hannah retires.
+
+“This Miss Honeyman seems to be a great personage,” says the lady. “If
+people let lodgings, why do they give themselves such airs?”
+
+“We never saw Monsieur de Boigne at Boulogne, mamma,” interposes the
+girl.
+
+“Monsieur de Boigne, my dear Ethel! Monsieur de Boigne is very well.
+But—” here the door opens, and in a large cap bristling with ribbons,
+with her best chestnut front, and her best black silk gown, on which
+her gold watch shines very splendidly, little Miss Honeyman makes her
+appearance, and a dignified curtsey to her lodger.
+
+That lady vouchsafes a very slight inclination of the head indeed,
+which she repeats when Miss Honeyman says, “I am glad to hear your
+ladyship is pleased with the apartments.”
+
+“Yes, they will do very well, thank you,” answers the latter person,
+gravely.
+
+“And they have such a beautiful view of the sea!” cries Ethel.
+
+“As if all the houses hadn’t a view of the sea, Ethel! The price has
+been arranged, I think? My servants will require a comfortable room to
+dine in—by themselves, ma’am, if you please. My governess and the
+younger children will dine together. My daughter dines with me—and my
+little boy’s dinner will be ready at two o’clock precisely, if you
+please. It is now near one.”
+
+“Am I to understand——” interposed Miss Honeyman.
+
+“Oh! I have no doubt we shall understand each other, ma’am,” cried Lady
+Anne Newcome (whose noble presence the acute reader has no doubt ere
+this divined and saluted). “Doctor Goodenough has given me a most
+satisfactory account of you—more satisfactory perhaps than—than you are
+aware of.” Perhaps Lady Anne’s sentence was not going to end in a very
+satisfactory way for Miss Honeyman; but, awed by a peculiar look of
+resolution in the little lady, her lodger of an hour paused in whatever
+offensive remark she might have been about to make. “It is as well that
+I at last have the pleasure of seeing you, that I may state what I
+want, and that we may, as you say, understand each other. Breakfast and
+tea, if you please, will be served in the same manner as dinner. And
+you will have the kindness to order fresh milk every morning for my
+little boy—ass’s milk—Doctor Goodenough has ordered ass’s milk.
+Anything further I want I will communicate through the person who spoke
+to you—Kuhn, Mr. Kuhn; and that will do.”
+
+A heavy shower of rain was descending at this moment, and little Mrs.
+Honeyman looking at her lodger, who had sate down and taken up her
+book, said, “Have your ladyship’s servants unpacked your trunks?”
+
+“What on earth, madam, have you—has that to do with the question?”
+
+“They will be put to the trouble of packing again, I fear. I cannot
+provide—three times five are fifteen—fifteen separate meals for seven
+persons—besides those of my own family. If your servants cannot eat
+with mine, or in my kitchen, they and their mistress must go elsewhere.
+And the sooner the better, madam, the sooner the better!” says Mrs.
+Honeyman, trembling with indignation, and sitting down in a chair
+spreading her silks.
+
+“Do you know who I am?” asks Lady Anne, rising.
+
+“Perfectly well, madam,” says the other. “And had I known, you should
+never have come into my house, that’s more.”
+
+“Madam!” cries the lady, on which the poor little invalid, scared and
+nervous, and hungry for his dinner, began to cry from his sofa.
+
+“It will be a pity that the dear little boy should be disturbed. Dear
+little child, I have often heard of him, and of you, miss,” says the
+little householder, rising. “I will get you some dinner, my dear, for
+Clive’s sake. And meanwhile your ladyship will have the kindness to
+seek for some other apartments—for not a bit shall my fire cook for any
+one else of your company.” And with this the indignant little landlady
+sailed out of the room.
+
+“Gracious goodness! Who is the woman?” cries Lady Anne. “I never was so
+insulted in my life.”
+
+“Oh, mamma, it was you began!” says downright Ethel. “That is—Hush,
+Alfred dear!—Hush, my darling!”
+
+“Oh, it was mamma began! I’m so hungry! I’m so hungry!” howled the
+little man on the sofa—or off it rather—for he was now down on the
+ground, kicking away the shawls which enveloped him.
+
+“What is it, my boy? What is it, my blessed darling? You _shall_ have
+your dinner! Give her all, Ethel. There are the keys of my desk—there’s
+my watch—there are my rings. Let her take my all. The monster! the
+child must live! It can’t go away in such a storm as this. Give me a
+cloak, a parasol, anything—I’ll go forth and get a lodging. I’ll beg my
+bread from house to house—if this fiend refuses me. Eat the biscuits,
+dear! A little of the syrup, Alfred darling; it’s very nice, love! and
+come to your old mother—your poor old mother.”
+
+Alfred roared out, “No—it’s not n-ice: it’s n-a-a-asty! I won’t have
+syrup. I _will_ have dinner.” The mother, whose embraces the child
+repelled with infantine kicks, plunged madly at the bells, rang them
+all four vehemently, and ran downstairs towards the parlour, whence
+Miss Honeyman was issuing.
+
+The good lady had not at first known the names of her lodgers, but had
+taken them in willingly enough on Dr. Goodenough’s recommendation. And
+it was not until one of the nurses entrusted with the care of Master
+Alfred’s dinner informed Miss Honeyman of the name of her guest, that
+she knew she was entertaining Lady Anne Newcome; and that the pretty
+girl was the fair Miss Ethel; the little sick boy, the little Alfred of
+whom his cousin spoke, and of whom Clive had made a hundred little
+drawings in his rude way, as he drew everybody. Then bidding Sally run
+off to St. James’s Street for a chicken—she saw it put on the spit, and
+prepared a bread sauce, and composed a batter-pudding as she only knew
+how to make batter-puddings. Then she went to array herself in her best
+clothes, as we have seen,—as we have heard rather (Goodness forbid that
+we should see Miss Honeyman arraying herself, or penetrate that chaste
+mystery, her toilette!)—then she came to wait upon Lady Anne, not a
+little flurried as to the result of that queer interview; then she
+whisked out of the drawing-room as before has been shown; and, finding
+the chicken roasted to a turn, the napkin and tray ready spread by
+Hannah the neat-handed, she was bearing them up to the little patient
+when the frantic parent met her on the stair.
+
+“Is it—is it for my child?” cried Lady Anne, reeling against the
+bannister.
+
+“Yes, it’s for the child,” says Miss Honeyman, tossing up her head.
+“But nobody else has anything in the house.”
+
+“God bless you—God bless you! A mother’s bl-l-essings go with you,”
+gurgled the lady, who was not, it must be confessed, a woman of strong
+moral character.
+
+It was good to see the little man eating the fowl. Ethel, who had never
+cut anything in her young existence, except her fingers now and then
+with her brother’s and her governess’s penknives, bethought her of
+asking Miss Honeyman to carve the chicken. Lady Anne, with clasped
+hands and streaming eyes, sate looking on at the ravishing scene.
+
+“Why did you not let us know you were Clive’s aunt?” Ethel asked,
+putting out her hand. The old lady took hers very kindly, and said,
+“Because you didn’t give me time. And do you love Clive, my dear?”
+
+The reconciliation between Miss Honeyman and her lodger was perfect.
+Lady Anne wrote a quire of notepaper off to Sir Brian for that day’s
+post—only she was too late, as she always was. Mr. Kuhn perfectly
+delighted Miss Honeyman that evening by his droll sayings, jokes, and
+pronunciation, and by his praises of Master Glife, as he called him. He
+lived out of the house, did everything for everybody, was never out of
+the way when wanted, and never in the way when not wanted. Ere long
+Miss Honeyman got out a bottle of the famous Madeira which her Colonel
+sent her, and treated him to a glass in her own room. Kuhn smacked his
+lips and held out the glass again. The honest rogue knew good wine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+Ethel and her Relations
+
+
+For four-and-twenty successive hours Lady Anne Newcome was perfectly in
+raptures with her new lodgings, and every person and thing which they
+contained. The drawing-rooms were fitted with the greatest taste; the
+dinner was exquisite. Were there ever such delicious veal-cutlets, such
+verdant French beans? “Why do we have those odious French cooks, my
+dear, with their shocking principles—the principles of all Frenchmen
+are shocking—and the dreadful bills they bring us in; and their
+consequential airs and graces? I am determined to part with Brignol. I
+have written to your father this evening to give Brignol warning. When
+did he ever give us veal-cutlets? What can be nicer?”
+
+“Indeed they were very good,” said Miss Ethel, who had mutton five
+times a week at one o’clock. “I am so glad you like the house, and
+Clive, and Mrs. Honeyman.”
+
+“Like her! the dear little old woman. I feel as if she had been my
+friend all my life! I feel quite drawn towards her. What a wonderful
+coincidence that Dr. Goodenough should direct us to this very house! I
+have written to your father about it. And to think that I should have
+written to Clive at this very house, and quite forgotten Mrs.
+Honeyman’s name—and such an odd name too. I forget everything,
+everything! You know I forgot your Aunt Louisa’s husband’s name; and
+when I was godmother to her baby, and the clergyman said, ‘What is the
+infant’s name?’ I said, ‘Really I forget.’ And so I did. He was a
+London clergyman, but I forget at what church. Suppose it should be
+this very Mr. Honeyman! It may have been, you know, and then the
+coincidence would be still more droll. That tall, old, nice-looking,
+respectable person, with a mark on her nose, the housekeeper—what is
+her name?—seems a most invaluable person. I think I shall ask her to
+come to us. I am sure she would save me I don’t know how much money
+every week; and I am certain Mrs. Trotter is making a fortune by us. I
+shall write to your papa, and ask him permission to ask this person.”
+Ethel’s mother was constantly falling in love with her new
+acquaintances; their man-servants and their maid-servants, their horses
+and ponies, and the visitor within their gates. She would ask strangers
+to Newcome, hug and embrace them on Sunday; not speak to them on
+Monday; and on Tuesday behave so rudely to them, that they were gone
+before Wednesday. Her daughter had had so many governesses—all darlings
+during the first week, and monsters afterwards—that the poor child
+possessed none of the accomplishments of her age. She could not play on
+the piano; she could not speak French well; she could not tell you when
+gunpowder was invented: she had not the faintest idea of the date of
+the Norman Conquest, or whether the earth went round the sun, or vice
+versa. She did not know the number of counties in England, Scotland,
+and Wales, let alone Ireland; she did not know the difference between
+latitude and longitude. She had had so many governesses: their accounts
+differed: poor Ethel was bewildered by a multiplicity of teachers, and
+thought herself a monster of ignorance. They gave her a book at a
+Sunday School, and little girls of eight years old answered questions
+of which she knew nothing. The place swam before her. She could not see
+the sun shining on their fair flaxen heads and pretty faces. The rosy
+little children holding up their eager hands, and crying the answer to
+this question and that, seemed mocking her. She seemed to read in the
+book, “O Ethel, you dunce, dunce, dunce!” She went home silent in the
+carriage, and burst into bitter tears on her bed. Naturally a haughty
+girl of the highest spirit, resolute and imperious, this little visit
+to the parish school taught Ethel lessons more valuable than ever so
+much arithmetic and geography. Clive has told me a story of her in her
+youth, which, perhaps, may apply to some others of the youthful female
+aristocracy. She used to walk, with other select young ladies and
+gentlemen, their nurses and governesses, in a certain reserved plot of
+ground railed off from Hyde Park, whereof some of the lucky dwellers in
+the neighbourhood of Apsley House have a key. In this garden, at the
+age of nine or thereabout, she had contracted an intimate friendship
+with the Lord Hercules O’Ryan.—as every one of my gentle readers knows,
+one of the sons of the Marquis of Ballyshannon. The Lord Hercules was a
+year younger than Miss Ethel Newcome, which may account for the passion
+which grew up between these young persons; it being a provision in
+nature that a boy always falls in love with a girl older than himself,
+or rather, perhaps, that a girl bestows her affections on a little boy,
+who submits to receive them.
+
+One day Sir Brian Newcome announced his intention to go to Newcome that
+very morning, taking his family, and of course Ethel, with him. She was
+inconsolable. “What will Lord Hercules do when he finds I am gone?” she
+asked of her nurse.
+
+The nurse endeavouring to soothe her, said, “Perhaps his lordship would
+know nothing about the circumstance.” “He will,” said Miss
+Ethel—“_he’ll read it in the newspaper_.” My Lord Hercules, it is to be
+hoped, strangled this infant passion in the cradle; having long since
+married Isabella, only daughter of ——— Grains, Esq., of Drayton
+Windsor, a partner in the great brewery of Foker and Co.
+
+When Ethel was thirteen years old, she had grown to be such a tall
+girl, that she overtopped her companions by a head or more, and morally
+perhaps, also, felt herself too tall for their society. “Fancy myself,”
+she thought, “dressing a doll like Lily Putland or wearing a pinafore
+like Lucy Tucker!” She did not care for their sports. She could not
+walk with them: it seemed as if every one stared; nor dance with them
+at the academy, nor attend the Cours de Littérature Universelle et de
+Science Compréhensive of the professor then the mode—the smallest girls
+took her up in the class. She was bewildered by the multitude of things
+they bade her learn. At the youthful little assemblies of her sex,
+when, under the guide of their respected governesses, the girls came to
+tea at six o’clock, dancing, charades, and so forth, Ethel herded not
+with the children of her own age, nor yet with the teachers who sit
+apart at these assemblies, imparting to each other their little wrongs;
+but Ethel romped with the little children—the rosy little trots—and
+took them on her knees, and told them a thousand stories. By these she
+was adored, and loved like a mother almost, for as such the hearty
+kindly girl showed herself to them; but at home she was alone,
+_farouche_ and intractable, and did battle with the governesses, and
+overcame them one after another. I break the promise of a former page,
+and am obliged to describe the youthful days of more than one person
+who is to take a share in this story. Not always doth the writer know
+whither the divine Muse leadeth him. But of this be sure—she is as
+inexorable as Truth. We must tell our tale as she imparts it to us, and
+go on or turn aside at her bidding.
+
+Here she ordains that we should speak of other members of the family,
+whose history we chronicle, and it behoves us to say a word regarding
+the Earl of Kew, the head of the noble house into which Sir Brian
+Newcome had married.
+
+When we read in the fairy stories that the King and Queen, who lived
+once upon a time, build a castle of steel, defended by moats and
+sentinels innumerable, in which they place their darling only child,
+the Prince or Princess, whose birth has blessed them after so many
+years of marriage, and whose christening feast has been interrupted by
+the cantankerous humour of that notorious old fairy who always persists
+in coming, although she has not received any invitation to the
+baptismal ceremony: when Prince Prettyman is locked up in the steel
+tower, provided only with the most wholesome food, the most edifying
+educational works, and the most venerable old tutor to instruct and to
+bore him, we know, as a matter of course, that the steel bolts and
+brazen bars one day will be of no avail, the old tutor will go off in a
+doze, and the moats and drawbridges will either be passed by His Royal
+Highness’s implacable enemies, or crossed by the young scapegrace
+himself, who is determined to outwit his guardians, and see the wicked
+world. The old King and Queen always come in and find the chambers
+empty, the saucy heir-apparent flown, the porter and sentinels drunk,
+the ancient tutor asleep; they tear their venerable wigs in anguish,
+they kick the major-domo downstairs, they turn the duenna out of
+doors—the toothless old dragon! There is no resisting fate. The
+Princess will slip out of window by the rope-ladder; the Prince will be
+off to pursue his pleasures, and sow his wild oats at the appointed
+season. How many of our English princes have been coddled at home by
+their fond papas and mammas, walled up in inaccessible castles, with a
+tutor and a library, guarded by cordons of sentinels, sermoners, old
+aunts, old women from the world without, and have nevertheless escaped
+from all these guardians, and astonished the world by their
+extravagance and their frolics? What a wild rogue was that Prince
+Harry, son of the austere sovereign who robbed Richard the Second of
+his crown,—the youth who took purses on Gadshill, frequented Eastcheap
+taverns with Colonel Falstaff and worse company, and boxed Chief
+Justice Gascoigne’s ears! What must have been the venerable Queen
+Charlotte’s state of mind when she heard of the courses of _her_
+beautiful young Prince; of his punting at gambling-tables; of his
+dealings with horse-jockeys; of his awful doings with Perdita? Besides
+instances taken from our Royal Family, could we not draw examples from
+our respected nobility? There was that young Lord Warwick, Mr.
+Addison’s stepson. We know that his mother was severe, and his
+stepfather a most eloquent moralist, yet the young gentleman’s career
+was shocking, positively shocking. He boxed the watch; he fuddled
+himself at taverns; he was no better than a Mohock. The chronicles of
+that day contain accounts of many a mad prank which he played, as we
+have legends of a still earlier date of the lawless freaks of the wild
+Prince and Poins. Our people has never looked very unkindly on these
+frolics. A young nobleman, full of life and spirits, generous of his
+money, jovial in his humour, ready with his sword, frank, handsome,
+prodigal, courageous, always finds favour. Young Scapegrace rides a
+steeplechase or beats a bargeman, and the crowd applauds him. Sages and
+seniors shake their heads, and look at him not unkindly; even stern old
+female moralists are disarmed at the sight of youth and gallantry, and
+beauty. I know very well that Charles Surface is a sad dog, and Tom
+Jones no better than he should be; but, in spite of such critics as Dr.
+Johnson and Colonel Newcome, most of us have a sneaking regard for
+honest Tom, and hope Sophia will be happy, and Tom will end well at
+last.
+
+Five-and-twenty years ago the young Earl of Kew came upon the town,
+which speedily rang with the feats of his lordship. He began life time
+enough to enjoy certain pleasures from which our young aristocracy of
+the present day seem, alas! to be cut off. So much more peaceable and
+polished do we grow, so much does the spirit of the age appear to
+equalise all ranks; so strongly has the good sense of society, to which
+in the end gentlemen of the very highest fashion must bow, put its veto
+upon practices and amusements with which our fathers were familiar. At
+that time the Sunday newspapers contained many and many exciting
+reports of boxing-matches. Bruising was considered a fine manly old
+English custom. Boys at public schools fondly perused histories of the
+noble science, from the redoubtable days of Broughton and Slack, to the
+heroic times of Dutch Sam and the Game Chicken. Young gentlemen went
+eagerly to Moulsey to see the Slasher punch the Pet’s head, or the
+Negro beat the Jew’s nose to a jelly. The island rang as yet with the
+tooting horns and rattling teams of mail-coaches; a gay sight was the
+road in merry England in those days, before steam-engines arose and
+flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To travel in coaches, to drive
+coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar with inns along
+the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the
+pretty chambermaid under the chin, were the delight of men who were
+young not very long ago. Who ever thought of writing to the Times then?
+“Biffin,” I warrant, did not grudge his money, and “A Thirsty Soul”
+paid cheerfully for his drink. The road was an institution, the ring
+was an institution. Men rallied round them; and, not without a kind
+conservatism, expatiated upon the benefits with which they endowed the
+country, and the evils which would occur when they should be no
+more:—decay of English spirit, decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed
+of horses, and so forth, and so forth. To give and take a black eye was
+not unusual nor derogatory in a gentleman; to drive a stage-coach the
+enjoyment, the emulation of generous youth. Is there any young fellow
+of the present time who aspires to take the place of a stoker? You see
+occasionally in Hyde Park one dismal old drag with a lonely driver.
+Where are you, charioteers? Where are you, O rattling Quicksilver, O
+swift Defiance? You are passed by racers stronger and swifter than you.
+Your lamps are out, and the music of your horns has died away.
+
+Just at the ending of that old time, Lord Kew’s life began. That kindly
+middle-aged gentleman whom his county knows that good landlord, and
+friend of all his tenantry round about; that builder of churches, and
+indefatigable visitor of schools; that writer of letters to the farmers
+of his shire, so full of sense and benevolence; who wins prizes at
+agricultural shows, and even lectures at county town institutes in his
+modest, pleasant way, was the wild young Lord Kew of a quarter of a
+century back; who kept racehorses, patronised boxers, fought a duel,
+thrashed a Life Guardsman, gambled furiously at Crockford’s, and did
+who knows what besides?
+
+His mother, a devout lady, nursed her son and his property carefully
+during the young gentleman’s minority: keeping him and his younger
+brother away from all mischief, under the eyes of the most careful
+pastors and masters. She learnt Latin with the boys, she taught them to
+play on the piano: she enraged old Lady Kew, the children’s
+grandmother, who prophesied that her daughter-in-law would make
+milksops of her sons, to whom the old lady was never reconciled until
+after my lord’s entry at Christchurch, where he began to distinguish
+himself very soon after his first term. He drove tandems, kept hunters,
+gave dinners, scandalised the Dean, screwed up the tutor’s door, and
+agonised his mother at home by his lawless proceedings. He quitted the
+University after a very brief sojourn at that seat of learning. It may
+be the Oxford authorities requested his lordship to retire; let bygones
+be bygones. His youthful son, the present Lord Walham, is now at
+Christchurch, reading with the greatest assiduity. Let us not be too
+particular in narrating his father’s unedifying frolics of a quarter of
+a century ago.
+
+Old Lady Kew, who, in conjunction with Mrs. Newcome, had made the
+marriage between Mr. Brian Newcome and her daughter, always despised
+her son-in-law; and being a frank, open person, uttering her mind
+always, took little pains to conceal her opinion regarding him or any
+other individual. “Sir Brian Newcome,” she would say, “is one of the
+most stupid and respectable of men; Anne is clever, but has not a grain
+of common sense. They make a very well assorted couple. Her flightiness
+would have driven any man crazy who had an opinion of his own. She
+would have ruined any poor man of her own rank; as it is, I have given
+her a husband exactly suited for her. He pays the bills, does not see
+how absurd she is, keeps order in the establishment, and checks her
+follies. She wanted to marry her cousin, Tom Poyntz, when they were
+both very young, and proposed to die of a broken heart when I arranged
+her match with Mr. Newcome. A broken fiddlestick! she would have ruined
+Tom Poyntz in a year; and has no more idea of the cost of a leg of
+mutton, than I have of algebra.”
+
+The Countess of Kew loved Brighton, and preferred living there even at
+the season when Londoners find such especial charms in their own city.
+“London after Easter,” the old lady said, “was intolerable. Pleasure
+becomes a business, then so oppressive, that all good company is
+destroyed by it. Half the men are sick with the feasts which they eat
+day after day. The women are thinking of the half-dozen parties they
+have to go to in the course of the night. The young girls are thinking
+of their partners and their toilettes. Intimacy becomes impossible, and
+quiet enjoyment of life. On the other hand, the crowd of _bourgeois_
+has not invaded Brighton. The drive is not blocked up by flys full of
+stockbrokers’ wives and children; and you can take the air in your
+chair upon the chain-pier, without being stifled by the cigars of the
+odious shop-boys from London.” So Lady Kew’s name was usually amongst
+the earliest which the Brighton newspapers recorded amongst the
+arrivals.
+
+Her only unmarried daughter, Lady Julia, lived with her ladyship. Poor
+Lady Julia had suffered early from a spine disease, which had kept her
+for many years to her couch. Being always at home, and under her
+mother’s eyes, she was the old lady’s victim, her pincushion, into
+which Lady Kew plunged a hundred little points of sarcasm daily. As
+children are sometimes brought before magistrates, and their poor
+little backs and shoulders laid bare, covered with bruises and lashes
+which brutal parents have inflicted, so, I dare say, if there had been
+any tribunal or judge, before whom this poor patient lady’s heart could
+have been exposed, it would have been found scarred all over with
+numberless ancient wounds, and bleeding from yesterday’s castigation.
+Old Lady Kew’s tongue was a dreadful thong which made numbers of people
+wince. She was not altogether cruel, but she knew the dexterity with
+which she wielded her lash, and liked to exercise it. Poor Lady Julia
+was always at hand, when her mother was minded to try her powers.
+
+Lady Kew had just made herself comfortable at Brighton, when her little
+grandson’s illness brought Lady Anne Newcome and her family down to the
+sea. Lady Kew was almost scared back to London again, or blown over the
+water to Dieppe. She had never had the measles. “Why did not Anne carry
+the child to some other place? Julia, you will on no account go and see
+that little pestiferous swarm of Newcomes, unless you want to send me
+out of the world—which I dare say you do, for I am a dreadful plague to
+you, I know, and my death would be a release to you.”
+
+“You see Doctor H., who visits the child every day,” cries poor
+Pincushion; “you are not afraid when he comes.”
+
+“Doctor H.? Doctor H. comes to cure me, or to tell me the news, or to
+flatter me, or to feel my pulse and to pretend to prescribe, or to take
+his guinea; of course Dr. H. must go to see all sorts of people in all
+sorts of diseases. You would not have me be such a brute as to order
+him not to attend my own grandson? I forbid you to go to Anne’s house.
+You will send one of the men every day to inquire. Let the groom
+go—yes, Charles—he will not go into the house. He will ring the bell
+and wait outside. He had better ring the bell at the area—I suppose
+there is an area—and speak to the servants through the bars, and bring
+us word how Alfred is.” Poor Pincushion felt fresh compunctions; she
+had met the children, and kissed the baby, and held kind Ethel’s hand
+in hers, that day, as she was out in her chair. There was no use,
+however, to make this confession. Is she the only good woman or man of
+whom domestic tyranny has made a hypocrite?
+
+Charles, the groom, brings back perfectly favourable reports of Master
+Alfred’s health that day, which Doctor H., in the course of his visit,
+confirms. The child is getting well rapidly; eating like a little ogre.
+His cousin Lord Kew has been to see him. He is the kindest of men, Lord
+Kew; he brought the little man Tom and Jerry with the pictures. The boy
+is delighted with the pictures.
+
+“Why has not Kew come to see me? When did he come? Write him a note,
+and send for him instantly, Julia. Did you know he was here?”
+
+Julia says, that she had but that moment read in the Brighton papers
+the arrival of the Earl of Kew and the Honourable J. Belsize at the
+Albion.
+
+“I am sure they are here for some mischief,” cries the old lady,
+delighted. “Whenever George and John Belsize are together, I know there
+is some wickedness planning. What do you know, Doctor? I see by your
+face you know something. Do tell it me, that I may write it to his
+odious psalm-singing mother.”
+
+Doctor H.’s face does indeed wear a knowing look. He simpers and says,
+“I did see Lord Kew driving this morning, first with the Honourable Mr.
+Belsize, and afterwards”—here he glances towards Lady Julia, as if to
+say, “Before an unmarried lady, I do not like to tell your ladyship
+with whom I saw Lord Kew driving, after he had left the Honourable Mr.
+Belsize, who went to play a match with Captain Huxtable at tennis.”
+
+“Are you afraid to speak before Julia?” cries the elder lady. “Why,
+bless my soul, she is forty years old, and has heard everything that
+can be heard. Tell me about Kew this instant, Doctor H.”
+
+The Doctor blandly acknowledges that Lord Kew had been driving Madame
+Pozzoprofondo, the famous contralto of the Italian Opera, in his
+phaeton, for two hours, in the face of all Brighton.
+
+“Yes, Doctor,” interposes Lady Julia, blushing; “but Signor
+Pozzoprofondo was in the carriage too—a-a-sitting behind with the
+groom. He was indeed, mamma.”
+
+“Julia, _vous n’êtes qu’une bête_,” says Lady Kew, shrugging her
+shoulders, and looking at her daughter from under her bushy black
+eyebrows. Her ladyship, a sister of the late lamented Marquis of
+Steyne, possessed no small share of the wit and intelligence, and a
+considerable resemblance to the features, of that distinguished
+nobleman.
+
+Lady Kew bids her daughter take a pen and write:—
+
+“_Monsieur le Mauvais Sujet_,—Gentlemen who wish to take the sea air in
+private, or to avoid their relations, had best go to other places than
+Brighton, where their names are printed in the newspapers. If you are
+not drowned in a pozzo—”
+
+“Mamma!” interposes the secretary.
+
+“—in a pozzo-profondo, you will please come to dine with two old women,
+at half-past seven. You may bring Mr. Belsize, and must tell us a
+hundred stories.—Yours, etc., L. Kew.”
+
+Julia wrote all the letter as her mother dictated it, save only one
+sentence, and the note was sealed and despatched to my Lord Kew, who
+came to dinner with Jack Belsize. Jack Belsize liked to dine with Lady
+Kew. He said, “she was an old dear, and the wickedest old woman in all
+England;” and he liked to dine with Lady Julia, who was “a poor
+suffering dear, and the best woman in all England.” Jack Belsize liked
+every one, and every one liked him.
+
+Two evenings afterwards the young men repeated their visit to Lady Kew,
+and this time Lord Kew was loud in praises of his cousins of the house
+of Newcome.
+
+“Not of the eldest, Barnes, surely, my dear?” cries Lady Kew.
+
+“No, confound him! not Barnes.”
+
+“No, d—— it, not Barnes. I beg your pardon, Lady Julia,” broke in Jack
+Belsize. “I can get on with most men; but that little Barney is too
+odious a little snob.”
+
+“A little what—Mr. Belsize?”
+
+“A little snob, ma’am. I have no other word, though he is your
+grandson. I never heard him say a good word of any mortal soul, or do a
+kind action.”
+
+“Thank you, Mr. Belsize,” says the lady.
+
+“But the others are capital. There is that little chap who has just had
+the measles—he’s a clear little brick. And as for Miss Ethel——”
+
+“Ethel is a trump, ma’am,” says Lord Kew, slapping his hand on his
+knee.
+
+“Ethel is a brick, and Alfred is a trump, I think you say,” remarks
+Lady Kew, nodding approval; “and Barnes is a snob. This is very
+satisfactory to know.”
+
+“We met the children out to-day,” cries the enthusiastic Kew, “as I was
+driving Jack in the drag, and I got out and talked to ’em.”
+
+“Governess an uncommonly nice woman—oldish, but—I beg your pardon, Lady
+Julia,” cries the inopportune Jack Belsize—“I’m always putting my foot
+in it.”
+
+“Putting your foot into what? Go on, Kew.”
+
+“Well, we met the whole posse of children; and the little fellow wanted
+a drive, and I said I would drive him and Ethel too, if she would come.
+Upon my word she is as pretty a girl as you can see on a summer’s day.
+And the governess said ‘No,’ of course. Governesses always do. But I
+said I was her uncle, and Jack paid her such a fine compliment, that
+the young woman was mollified, and the children took their seats beside
+me, and Jack went behind.”
+
+“Where Monsieur Pozzoprofondo sits, _bon_.”
+
+“We drove on to the Downs, and we were nearly coming to grief. My
+horses are young, and when they get on the grass they are as if they
+were mad. It was very wrong; I know it was.”
+
+“D——d rash,” interposes Jack. “He had nearly broken all our necks.”
+
+“And my brother Frank would have been Lord Kew,” continued the young
+Earl, with a quiet smile. “What an escape for him! The horses ran
+away—ever so far—and I thought the carriage must upset. The poor little
+boy, who has lost his pluck in the fever, began to cry; but that young
+girl, though she was as white as a sheet, never gave up for a moment,
+and sate in her place like a man. We met nothing, luckily; and I pulled
+the horses in after a mile or two, and I drove ’em into Brighton as
+quiet as if I had been driving a hearse. And that little trump of an
+Ethel, what do you think she said? She said, ‘I was not frightened, but
+you must not tell mamma.’ My aunt, it appears, was in a dreadful
+commotion—I ought to have thought of that.”
+
+“Lady Anne is a ridiculous old dear. I beg your pardon, Lady Kew,” here
+breaks in Jack the apologiser.
+
+“There is a brother of Sir Brian Newcome’s staying with them,” Lord Kew
+proceeds; “an East India Colonel—a very fine-looking old boy.”
+
+“Smokes awfully, row about it in the hotel. Go on, Kew; beg your——”
+
+“This gentleman was on the look-out for us, it appears, for when we
+came in sight he despatched a boy who was with him, running like a
+lamplighter back to my aunt, to say all was well. And he took little
+Alfred out of the carriage, and then helped out Ethel, and said, ‘My
+dear, you are too pretty to scold; but you have given us all a _belle
+peur_.’ And then he made me and Jack a low bow, and stalked into the
+lodgings.”
+
+“I think you do deserve to be whipped, both of you,” cries Lady Kew.
+
+“We went up and made our peace with my aunt, and were presented in form
+to the Colonel and his youthful cub.”
+
+“As fine a fellow as ever I saw: and as fine a boy as ever I saw,”
+cries Jack Belsize. “The young chap is a great hand at drawing—upon my
+life the best drawings I ever saw. And he was making a picture for
+little What-d’you-call-’em. And Miss Newcome was looking over them. And
+Lady Anne pointed out the group to me, and said how pretty it was. She
+is uncommonly sentimental, you know, Lady Anne.”
+
+“My daughter Anne is the greatest fool in the three kingdoms,” cried
+Lady Kew, looking fiercely over her spectacles. And Julia was
+instructed to write that night to her sister, and desire that Ethel
+should be sent to see her grandmother:—Ethel, who rebelled against her
+grandmother, and always fought on her Aunt Julia’s side, when the
+weaker was oppressed by the older and stronger lady.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+At Mrs. Ridley’s
+
+
+Saint Peter of Alcantara, as I have read in a life of St. Theresa,
+informed that devout lady that he had passed forty years of his life
+sleeping only an hour and a half each day; his cell was but four feet
+and a half long, so that he never lay down: his pillow was a wooden log
+in the stone wall: he ate but once in three days: he was for three
+years in a convent of his order without knowing any one of his brethren
+except by the sound of their voices, for he never during this period
+took his eyes off the ground: he always walked barefoot, and was but
+skin and bone when he died. The eating only once in three days, so he
+told his sister Saint, was by no means impossible, if you began the
+regimen in your youth. To conquer sleep was the hardest of all
+austerities which he practised:—I fancy the pious individual so
+employed, day after day, night after night, on his knees, or standing
+up in devout meditation in the cupboard—his dwelling-place; bareheaded
+and barefooted, walking over rocks, briars, mud, sharp stones (picking
+out the very worst places, let us trust, with his downcast eyes), under
+the bitter snow, or the drifting rain, or the scorching sunshine—I
+fancy Saint Peter of Alcantara, and contrast him with such a personage
+as the Incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel, Mayfair.
+
+His hermitage is situated in Walpole Street, let us say, on the second
+floor of a quiet mansion, let out to hermits by a nobleman’s butler,
+whose wife takes care of the lodgings. His cells consist of a
+refectory, a dormitory, and an adjacent oratory where he keeps his
+shower-bath and boots—the pretty boots trimly stretched on boot-trees
+and blacked to a nicety (not varnished) by the boy who waits on him.
+The barefooted business may suit superstitious ages and gentlemen of
+Alcantara, but does not become Mayfair and the nineteenth century. If
+St. Pedro walked the earth now with his eyes to the ground he would
+know fashionable divines by the way in which they were shod. Charles
+Honeyman’s is a sweet foot. I have no doubt as delicate and plump and
+rosy as the white hand with its two rings, which he passes in
+impassioned moments through his slender flaxen hair.
+
+A sweet odour pervades his sleeping apartment—not that peculiar and
+delicious fragrance with which the Saints of the Roman Church are said
+to gratify the neighbourhood where they repose—but oils, redolent of
+the richest perfumes of Macassar, essences (from Truefitt’s or
+Delcroix’s) into which a thousand flowers have expressed their sweetest
+breath, await his meek head on rising; and infuse the
+pocket-handkerchief with which he dries and draws so many tears. For he
+cries a good deal in his sermons, to which the ladies about him
+contribute showers of sympathy.
+
+By his bedside are slippers lined with blue silk and worked of an
+ecclesiastical pattern, by some of the faithful who sit at his feet.
+They come to him in anonymous parcels: they come to him in silver
+paper: boys in buttons (pages who minister to female grace!) leave them
+at the door for the Rev. C. Honeyman, and slip away without a word.
+Purses are sent to him—penwipers—a portfolio with the Honeyman arms;
+yea, braces have been known to reach him by the post (in his days of
+popularity); and flowers, and grapes, and jelly when he was ill, and
+throat comforters, and lozenges for his dear bronchitis. In one of his
+drawers is the rich silk cassock presented to him by his congregation
+at Leatherhead (when the young curate quitted that parish for London
+duty), and on his breakfast-table the silver teapot, once filled with
+sovereigns and presented by the same devotees. The devo-teapot he has,
+but the sovereigns, where are they?
+
+What a different life this is from our honest friend of Alcantara, who
+eats once in three days! At one time if Honeyman could have drunk tea
+three times in an evening, he might have had it. The glass on his
+chimneypiece is crowded with invitations, not merely cards of ceremony
+(of which there are plenty), but dear little confidential notes from
+sweet friends of his congregation. “Ob, dear Mr. Honeyman,” writes
+Blanche, “what a sermon that was! I cannot go to bed to-night without
+thanking you for it.” “Do, _do_, dear Mr. Honeyman,” writes Beatrice,
+“lend me that delightful sermon. And can you come and drink tea with me
+and Selina, and my aunt? Papa and mamma dine out, but you know I am
+always your faithful Chesterfield Street.” And so on. He has all the
+domestic accomplishments; he plays on the violoncello: he sings a
+delicious second, not only in sacred but in secular music. He has a
+thousand anecdotes, laughable riddles, droll stories (of the utmost
+correctness, you understand) with which he entertains females of all
+ages; suiting his conversation to stately matrons, deaf old dowagers
+(who can hear his clear voice better than the loudest roar of their
+stupid sons-in-law), mature spinsters, young beauties dancing through
+the season, even rosy little slips out of the nursery, who cluster
+round his beloved feet. Societies fight for him to preach their charity
+sermon. You read in the papers, “The Wapping Hospital for Wooden-legged
+Seamen.—On Sunday the 23rd, Sermons will be preached in behalf of this
+charity, by the Lord Bishop of Tobago in the morning, in the afternoon
+by the Rev. C. Honeyman, A.M., Incumbent of,” etc. “Clergymen’s
+Grandmothers’ Fund.—Sermons in aid of this admirable institution will
+be preached on Sunday, 4th May, by the Very Rev. the Dean of Pimlico,
+and the Rev. C. Honeyman, A.M.” When the Dean of Pimlico has his
+illness, many people think Honeyman will have the Deanery; that he
+ought to have it, a hundred female voices vow and declare: though it is
+said that a right reverend head at headquarters shakes dubiously when
+his name is mentioned for preferment. His name is spread wide, and not
+only women but men come to hear him. Members of Parliament, even
+Cabinet Ministers, sit under him. Lord Dozeley of course is seen in a
+front pew: where was a public meeting without Lord Dozeley? The men
+come away from his sermons and say, “It’s very pleasant, but I don’t
+know what the deuce makes all you women crowd so to hear the man.” “Oh,
+Charles! if you would but go oftener!” sighs Lady Anna Maria. “Can’t
+you speak to the Home Secretary? Can’t you do something for him?” “We
+can ask him to dinner next Wednesday if you like,” Says Charles. “They
+say he’s a pleasant fellow out of the wood. Besides there is no use in
+doing anything for him,” Charles goes on. “He can’t make less than a
+thousand a year out of his chapel, and that is better than anything any
+one can give him. A thousand a year, besides the rent of the
+wine-vaults below the chapel.”
+
+“Don’t, Charles!” says his wife, with a solemn look. “Don’t ridicule
+things in that way.
+
+“Confound it! there are wine-vaults under the chapel!” answers
+downright Charles. “I saw the name, Sherrick and Co.; offices, a green
+door, and a brass plate. It’s better to sit over vaults with wine in
+them than coffins. I wonder whether it’s the Sherrick with whom Kew and
+Jack Belsize had that ugly row?”
+
+“What ugly row?—don’t say ugly row. It is not a nice word to hear the
+children use. Go on, my darlings. What was the dispute of Lord Kew and
+Mr. Belsize, and this Mr. Sherrick?”
+
+“It was all about pictures, and about horses, and about money, and
+about one other subject which enters into every row that I ever heard
+of.”
+
+“And what is that, dear?” asks the innocent lady, hanging on her
+husband’s arm, and quite pleased to have led him to church and brought
+him thence. “And what is it, that enters into every row, as you call
+it, Charles?”
+
+“A woman, my love,” answers the gentleman, behind whom we have been in
+imagination walking out from Charles Honeyman’s church on a Sunday in
+June: as the whole pavement blooms with artificial flowers and fresh
+bonnets; as there is a buzz and cackle all around regarding the sermon;
+as carriages drive off; as lady-dowagers walk home; as prayer-books and
+footmen’s sticks gleam in the sun; as little boys with baked mutton and
+potatoes pass from the courts; as children issue from the public-houses
+with pots of beer; as the Reverend Charles Honeyman, who has been
+drawing tears in the sermon, and has seen, not without complacent
+throbs, a Secretary of State in the pew beneath him, divests himself of
+his rich silk cassock in the vestry, before he walks away to his
+neighbouring hermitage—where have we placed it?—in Walpole Street. I
+wish St. Pedro of Alcantara could have some of that shoulder of mutton
+with the baked potatoes, and a drink of that frothing beer. See, yonder
+trots little Lord Dozeley, who has been asleep for an hour with his
+head against the wood, like St. Pedro of Alcantara.
+
+An East Indian gentleman and his son wait until the whole chapel is
+clear, and survey Lady Whittlesea’s monument at their leisure, and
+other hideous slabs erected in memory of defunct frequenters of the
+chapel. Whose was that face which Colonel Newcome thought he
+recognised—that of a stout man who came down from the organ-gallery?
+Could it be Broff the bass singer, who delivered the “Red Cross Knight”
+with such applause at the Cave of Melody, and who has been singing in
+this place? There are some chapels in London, where, the function over,
+one almost expects to see the sextons put brown hollands over the pews
+and galleries, as they do at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.
+
+The writer of these veracious pages was once walking through a splendid
+English palace, standing amidst parks and gardens, than which none more
+magnificent has been seen since the days of Aladdin, in company with a
+melancholy friend, who viewed all things darkly through his gloomy
+eyes. The housekeeper, pattering on before us from chamber to chamber,
+was expatiating upon the magnificence of this picture; the beauty of
+that statue; the marvellous richness of these hangings and carpets; the
+admirable likeness of the late Marquis by Sir Thomas; of his father,
+the fifth Earl, by Sir Joshua, and so on; when, in the very richest
+room of the whole castle, Hicks—such was my melancholy companion’s
+name—stopped the cicerone in her prattle, saying in a hollow voice,
+“And now, madam, will you show us the closet _where the skeleton is?_”
+The seared functionary paused in the midst of her harangue; that
+article was not inserted in the catalogue which she daily utters to
+visitors for their half-crown. Hicks’s question brought a darkness down
+upon the hall where we were standing. We did not see the room: and yet
+I have no doubt there is such an one; and ever after, when I have
+thought of the splendid castle towering in the midst of shady trees,
+under which the dappled deer are browsing; of the terraces gleaming
+with statues, and bright with a hundred thousand flowers; of the
+bridges and shining fountains and rivers wherein the castle windows
+reflect their festive gleams, when the halls are filled with happy
+feasters, and over the darkling woods comes the sound of music;—always,
+I say, when I think of Castle Bluebeard:—it is to think of that dark
+little closet, which I know is there, and which the lordly owner opens
+shuddering—after midnight—when he is sleepless and _must_ go unlock it,
+when the palace is hushed, when beauties are sleeping around him
+unconscious, and revellers are at rest. O Mrs. Housekeeper: all the
+other keys hast thou: but that key thou hast not!
+
+Have we not all such closets, my jolly friend, as well as the noble
+Marquis of Carabas? At night, when all the house is asleep but you,
+don’t you get up and peep into yours? When you in your turn are
+slumbering, up gets Mrs. Brown from your side, steals downstairs like
+Amina to her ghoul, clicks open the secret door, and looks into her
+dark depository. Did she tell you of that little affair with Smith long
+before she knew you? Psha! who knows any one save himself alone? Who,
+in showing his house to the closest and dearest, doesn’t keep back the
+key of a closet or two? I think of a lovely reader laying down the page
+and looking over at her unconscious husband, asleep, perhaps, after
+dinner. Yes, madam, a closet he hath: and you, who pry into everything,
+shall never have the key of it. I think of some honest Othello pausing
+over this very sentence in a railroad carriage, and stealthily gazing
+at Desdemona opposite to him, innocently administering sandwiches to
+their little boy—I am trying to turn off the sentence with a joke, you
+see—I feel it is growing too dreadful, too serious.
+
+And to what, pray, do these serious, these disagreeable, these almost
+personal observations tend? To this simply, that Charles Honeyman, the
+beloved and popular preacher, the elegant divine to whom Miss Blanche
+writes sonnets, and whom Miss Beatrice invites to tea; who comes with
+smiles on his lip, gentle sympathy in his tones, innocent gaiety in his
+accent; who melts, rouses, terrifies in the pulpit; who charms over the
+tea-urn and the bland bread-and-butter: Charles Honeyman has one or two
+skeleton closets in his lodgings, Walpole Street, Mayfair; and many a
+wakeful night, whilst Mrs. Ridley, his landlady, and her tired husband,
+the nobleman’s major-domo, whilst the lodger on the first floor, whilst
+the cook and housemaid and weary little bootboy are at rest (mind you,
+they have all got _their_ closets, which they open with their
+skeleton-keys); he wakes up, and looks at the ghastly occupant of that
+receptacle. One of the Reverend Charles Honeyman’s grisly
+night-haunters is—but stop; let us give a little account of the
+lodgings, and of some of the people frequenting the same.
+
+First floor, Mr. Bagshot, Member for a Norfolk borough. Stout jolly
+gentleman;—dines at the Carlton Club; greatly addicted to Greenwich and
+Richmond, in the season: bets in a moderate way: does not go into
+society, except now and again to the chiefs of his party, when they
+give great entertainments; and once or twice to the houses of great
+country dons who dwell near him in the country. Is not of very good
+family; was, in fact, an apothecary: married a woman with money, much
+older than himself, who does not like London, and stops at home at
+Hummingham, not much to the displeasure of Bagshot; gives every now and
+then nice little quiet dinners, which Mrs. Ridley cooks admirably, to
+exceedingly stupid jolly old Parliamentary fogies, who absorb, with
+much silence and cheerfulness, a vast quantity of wine. They have just
+begun to drink ’24 claret now, that of ’15 being scarce, and almost
+drunk up. Writes daily, and hears every morning from Mrs. Bagshot; does
+not read her letters always: does not rise till long past eleven
+o’clock of a Sunday, and has _John Bull_ and _Bell’s Life_, in bed:
+frequents the Blue Posts sometimes; rides a stout cob out of his
+county, and pays like the Bank of England.
+
+The house is a Norfolk house. Mrs. Ridley was housekeeper to the great
+Squire Bayham, who had the estate before the Conqueror, and who came to
+such a dreadful crash in the year 1825, the year of the panic. Bayhams
+still belongs to the family, but in what a state, as those can say who
+recollect it in its palmy days! Fifteen hundred acres of the best land
+in England were sold off: all the timber cut down as level as a
+billiard-board. Mr. Bayham now lives up in one corner of the house,
+which used to be filled with the finest company in Europe. Law bless
+you! the Bayhams have seen almost all the nobility of England come in
+and go out, and were gentlefolks when many a fine lord’s father of the
+present day was sweeping a counting-house.
+
+The house will hold genteelly no more than these two inmates; but in
+the season it manages to accommodate Miss Cann, who too was from
+Bayhams, having been a governess there to the young lady who is dead,
+and who now makes such a livelihood as she can best raise, by going out
+as a daily teacher. Miss Cann dines with Mrs. Ridley in the adjoining
+little back-parlour. Ridley but seldom can be spared to partake of the
+family dinner, his duties in the house and about the person of my Lord
+Todmorden keeping him constantly near that nobleman. How little Miss
+Cann can go on and keep alive on the crumb she eats for breakfast, and
+the scrap she picks at dinner, du astonish Mrs. Ridley, that it _du!_
+She declares that the two canary-birds encaged in her window (whence is
+a cheerful prospect of the back of Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel) eat more
+than Miss Cann. The two birds set up a tremendous singing and
+chorussing when Miss Cann, spying the occasion of the first-floor
+lodger’s absence, begins practising her music-pieces. Such trills,
+roulades, and flourishes go on from the birds and the lodger! it is a
+wonder how any fingers can move over the jingling ivory so quickly as
+Miss Cann’s. Excellent a woman as she is, admirably virtuous, frugal,
+brisk, honest, and cheerful, I would not like to live in lodgings where
+there was a lady so addicted to playing variations. No more does
+Honeyman. On a Saturday, when he is composing his valuable sermons (the
+rogue, you may be sure, leaves his work to the last day, and there are,
+I am given to understand, among the clergy many better men than
+Honeyman, who are as dilatory as he), he begs, he entreats with tears
+in his eyes, that Miss Cann’s music may cease. I would back little Cann
+to write a sermon against him, for all his reputation as a popular
+preacher.
+
+Old and weazened as that piano is, feeble and cracked her voice, it is
+wonderful what a pleasant concert she can give in that parlour of a
+Saturday evening, to Mrs. Ridley, who generally dozes a good deal, and
+to a lad, who listens with all his soul, with tears sometimes in his
+great eyes, with crowding fancies filling his brain and throbbing at
+his heart, as the artist plies her humble instrument. She plays old
+music of Handel and Haydn, and the little chamber anon swells into a
+cathedral, and he who listens beholds altars lighted, priests
+ministering, fair children swinging censers, great oriel windows
+gleaming in sunset, and seen through arched columns and avenues of
+twilight marble. The young fellow who hears her has been often and
+often to the opera and the theatres. As she plays Don Juan, Zerlina
+comes tripping over the meadows, and Masetto after her, with a crowd of
+peasants and maidens: and they sing the sweetest of all music, and the
+heart beats with happiness, and kindness, and pleasure. Piano,
+pianissimo! the city is hushed. The towers of the great cathedral rise
+in the distance, its spires lighted by the broad moon. The statues in
+the moonlit place cast long shadows athwart the pavement: but the
+fountain in the midst is dressed out like Cinderella for the night, and
+sings and wears a crest of diamonds. That great sombre street all in
+shade, can it be the famous Toledo?—or is it the Corso?—or is it the
+great street in Madrid, the one which leads to the Escurial where the
+Rubens and Velasquez are? It is Fancy Street—Poetry Street—Imagination
+Street—the street where lovely ladies look from balconies, where
+cavaliers strike mandolins and draw swords and engage, where long
+processions pass, and venerable hermits, with long beards, bless the
+kneeling people: where the rude soldiery, swaggering through the place
+with flags and halberts, and fife and dance, seize the slim waists of
+the daughters of the people, and bid the pifferari play to their
+dancing. Blow, bagpipes, a storm of harmony! become trumpets,
+trombones, ophicleides, fiddles, and bassoons! Fire, guns sound,
+tocsins! Shout, people! Louder, shriller and sweeter than all, sing
+thou, ravishing heroine! And see, on his cream-coloured charger
+Massaniello prances in, and Fra Diavolo leaps down the balcony,
+carabine in hand; and Sir Huon of Bordeaux sails up to the quay with
+the Sultan’s daughter of Babylon. All these delights and sights, and
+joys and glories, these thrills of sympathy, movements of unknown
+longing, and visions of beauty, a young sickly lad of eighteen enjoys
+in a little dark room where there is a bed disguised in the shape of a
+wardrobe, and a little old woman is playing under a gas-lamp on the
+jingling keys of an old piano.
+
+For a long time Mr. Samuel Ridley, butler and confidential valet to the
+Right Honourable John James Baron Todmorden, was in a state of the
+greatest despair and gloom about his only son, the little John James,—a
+sickly and almost deformed child “of whom there was no making nothink,”
+as Mr. Ridley said. His figure precluded him from following his
+father’s profession, and waiting upon the British nobility, who
+naturally require large and handsome men to skip up behind their
+rolling carriages, and hand their plates at dinner. When John James was
+six years old his father remarked, with tears in his eyes, he wasn’t
+higher than a plate-basket. The boys jeered at him in the streets—some
+whopped him, spite of his diminutive size. At school he made but little
+progress. He was always sickly and dirty, and timid and crying,
+whimpering in the kitchen away from his mother; who, though she loved
+him, took Mr. Ridley’s view of his character, and thought him little
+better than an idiot until such time as little Miss Cann took him in
+hand, when at length there was some hope of him.
+
+“Half-witted, you great stupid big man,” says Miss Cann, who had a fine
+spirit of her own. “That boy half-witted! He has got more wit in his
+little finger than you have in all your great person! You are a very
+good man, Ridley, very good-natured I’m sure, and bear with the teasing
+of a waspish old woman: but you are not the wisest of mankind. Tut,
+tut, don’t tell me. You know you spell out the words when you read the
+newspaper still, and what would your bills look like if I did not write
+them in my nice little hand? I tell you that boy is a genius. I tell
+you that one day the world will hear of him. His heart is made of pure
+gold. You think that all the wit belongs to the big people. Look at me,
+you great tall man! Am I not a hundred times cleverer than you are?
+Yes, and John James is worth a thousand such insignificant little chits
+as I am; and he is as tall as me too, sir. Do you hear that! One day I
+am determined he shall dine at Lord Todmorden’s table, and he shall get
+the prize at the Royal Academy, and be famous, sir—famous!”
+
+“Well, Miss C., I wish he may get it; that’s all I say,” answers Mr.
+Ridley. “The poor fellow does no harm, that I acknowledge; but _I_
+never see the good he was up to yet. I wish he’d begin it; I _du_ wish
+he would now.” And the honest gentleman relapses into the study of his
+paper.
+
+All those beautiful sounds and thoughts which Miss Cann conveys to him
+out of her charmed piano, the young artist straightway translates into
+forms; and knights in armour, with plume, and shield, and battle-axe;
+and splendid young noblemen with flowing ringlets, and bounteous plumes
+of feathers, and rapiers, and russet boots; and fierce banditti with
+crimson tights, doublets profusely illustrated with large brass
+buttons, and the dumpy basket-hilted claymores known to be the
+favourite weapon with which these whiskered ruffians do battle;
+wasp-waisted peasant girls, and young countesses with oh, such large
+eyes and the lips!—all these splendid forms of war and beauty crowd to
+the young draughtsman’s pencil, and cover letter-backs, copybooks,
+without end. If his hand strikes off some face peculiarly lovely, and
+to his taste, some fair vision that has shone on his imagination, some
+houri of a dancer, some bright young lady of fashion in an opera-box,
+whom he has seen, or fancied he has seen (for the youth is
+short-sighted, though he hardly as yet knows his misfortune)—if he has
+made some effort extraordinarily successful, our young Pygmalion hides
+away the masterpiece, and he paints the beauty with all his skill; the
+lips a bright carmine, the eyes a deep, deep cobalt, the cheeks a
+dazzling vermilion, the ringlets of a golden hue; and he worships this
+sweet creature of his in secret, fancies a history for her; a castle to
+storm, a tyrant usurper who keeps her imprisoned, and a prince in black
+ringlets and a spangled cloak, who scales the tower, who slays the
+tyrant, and then kneels gracefully at the princess’s feet, and says,
+“Lady, wilt thou be mine?”
+
+There is a kind lady in the neighbourhood, who takes in dressmaking for
+the neighbouring maid-servants, and has a small establishment of
+lollipops, theatrical characters, and ginger-beer for the boys in
+Little Craggs Buildings, hard by the Running Footman public-house,
+where father and other gentlemen’s gentlemen have their club: this good
+soul also sells Sunday newspapers to the footmen of the neighbouring
+gentry; and besides, has a stock of novels for the ladies of the upper
+servants’ table. Next to Miss Cann, Miss Flinders is John James’s
+greatest friend and benefactor. She has remarked him when he was quite
+a little man, and used to bring his father’s beer of a Sunday. Out of
+her novels he has taught himself to read, dull boy at the day-school
+though he was, and always the last in his class, there. Hours, happy
+hours, has he spent cowering behind her counter, or hugging her books
+under his pinafore when he had leave to carry them home. The whole
+library has passed through his hands, his long, lean, tremulous hands,
+and under his eager eyes. He has made illustrations to every one of
+those books, and been frightened at his own pictures of Manfroni or the
+One-handed Monk, Abellino the Terrific Bravo of Venice, and Rinaldo
+Rinaldini Captain of Robbers. How he has blistered Thaddeus of Warsaw
+with his tears, and drawn him in his Polish cap, and tights, and
+Hessians! William Wallace, the Hero of Scotland, how nobly he has
+depicted him! With what whiskers and bushy ostrich plumes!—in a tight
+kilt, and with what magnificent calves to his legs, laying about him
+with his battle-axe, and bestriding the bodies of King Edward’s
+prostrate cavaliers! At this time Mr. Honeyman comes to lodge in
+Walpole Street, and brings a set of Scott’s novels, for which he
+subscribed when at Oxford; and young John James, who at first waits
+upon him and does little odd jobs for the reverend gentleman, lights
+upon the volumes, and reads them with such a delight and passion of
+pleasure as all the delights of future days will scarce equal. A fool,
+is he?—an idle feller, out of whom no good will ever come, as his
+father says. There was a time when, in despair of any better chance for
+him, his parents thought of apprenticing him to a tailor, and John
+James was waked up from a dream of Rebecca and informed of the cruelty
+meditated against him. I forbear to describe the tears and terror, and
+frantic desperation in which the poor boy was plunged. Little Miss Cann
+rescued him from that awful board, and Honeyman likewise interceded for
+him, and Mr. Bagshot promised that, as soon as his party came in, he
+would ask the Minister for a tide-waitership for him; for everybody
+liked the solemn, soft-hearted, willing little lad, and no one knew him
+less than his pompous and stupid and respectable father.
+
+Miss Cann painted flowers and card-screens elegantly, and “finished”
+pencil-drawings most elaborately for her pupils. She could copy prints,
+so that at a little distance you would scarcely know that the copy in
+stumped chalk was not a bad mezzotinto engraving. She even had a little
+old paint-box, and showed you one or two ivory miniatures out of the
+drawer. She gave John James what little knowledge of drawing she had,
+and handed him over her invaluable recipes for mixing
+water-colours—“for trees in foregrounds, burnt sienna and indigo”—“for
+very dark foliage, ivory black and gamboge”—“for flesh-colour,” etc.
+etc. John James went through her poor little course, but not so
+brilliantly as she expected. She was forced to own that several of her
+pupils’ “pieces” were executed much more dexterously than Johnny
+Ridley’s. Honeyman looked at the boy’s drawings from time to time, and
+said, “Hm, ha!—very clever—a great deal of fancy, really.” But Honeyman
+knew no more of the subject than a deaf and dumb man knows of music. He
+could talk the art cant very glibly, and had a set of Morghens and
+Madonnas as became a clergyman and a man of taste; but he saw not with
+eyes such as those wherewith Heaven had endowed the humble little
+butler’s boy, to whom splendours of Nature were revealed to vulgar
+sights invisible, and beauties manifest in forms, colours, shadows of
+common objects, where most of the world saw only what was dull, and
+gross, and familiar. One reads in the magic story-books of a charm or a
+flower which the wizard gives, and which enables the bearer to see the
+fairies. O enchanting boon of Nature, which reveals to the possessor
+the hidden spirits of beauty round about him! spirits which the
+strongest and most gifted masters compel into painting or song. To
+others it is granted but to have fleeting glimpses of that fair
+Art-world; and tempted by ambition, or barred by faint-heartedness, or
+driven by necessity, to turn away thence to the vulgar life-track, and
+the light of common day.
+
+The reader who has passed through Walpole Street scores of times, knows
+the discomfortable architecture of all, save the great houses built in
+Queen Anne’s and George the First’s time; and while some of the
+neighbouring streets, to wit, Great Craggs Street, Bolingbroke Street,
+and others, contain mansions fairly coped with stone, with little
+obelisks before the doors, and great extinguishers wherein the torches
+of the nobility’s running footmen were put out a hundred and thirty or
+forty years ago:—houses which still remain abodes of the quality, and
+where you shall see a hundred carriages gather of a public night;
+Walpole Street has quite faded away into lodgings, private hotels,
+doctors’ houses, and the like; nor is No. 23 (Ridley’s) by any means
+the best house in the street. The parlour, furnished and tenanted by
+Miss Cann as has been described; the first floor, Bagshot, Esq., M.P.;
+the second floor, Honeyman; what remains but the garrets, and the ample
+staircase and the kitchens? and the family being all put to bed, how
+can you imagine there is room for any more inhabitants?
+
+And yet there is one lodger more, and one who, like almost all the
+other personages mentioned up to the present time (and some of whom you
+have no idea yet), will play a definite part in the ensuing history. At
+night, when Honeyman comes in, he finds on the hall-table three wax
+bedroom candles—his own, Bagshot’s, and another. As for Miss Cann, she
+is locked into the parlour in bed long ago, her stout little
+walking-shoes being on the mat at the door. At 12 o’clock at noon,
+sometimes at 1, nay at 2 and 3—long after Bagshot is gone to his
+committees, and little Cann to her pupils—a voice issues from the very
+topmost floor, from a room where there is no bell; a voice of thunder
+calling out “Slavey! Julia! Julia, my love! Mrs. Ridley!” And this
+summons not being obeyed, it will not unfrequently happen that a pair
+of trousers enclosing a pair of boots with iron heels, and known by the
+name of the celebrated Prussian General who came up to help the other
+christener of boots at Waterloo, will be flung down from the topmost
+story, even to the marble floor of the resounding hall. Then the boy
+Thomas, otherwise called Slavey, may say, “There he goes again;” or
+Mrs. Ridley’s own back-parlour bell rings vehemently, and Julia the
+cook will exclaim, “Lor, it’s Mr. Frederick.”
+
+If the breeches and boots are not understood, the owner himself appears
+in great wrath dancing on the upper story; dancing down to the lower
+floor; and loosely enveloped in a ragged and flowing _robe de chambre_.
+In this costume and condition he will dance into Honeyman’s apartment,
+where that meek divine may be sitting with a headache or over a novel
+or a newspaper; dance up to the fire flapping his robe-tails, poke it,
+and warm himself there; dance up to the cupboard where his reverence
+keeps his sherry, and help himself to a glass.
+
+“_Salve, spes fidei, lumen ecclesiæ_,” he will say; “here’s towards
+you, my buck. I knows the tap. Sherrick’s Marsala bottled three months
+after date, at two hundred and forty-six shillings the dozen.”
+
+“Indeed, indeed it’s not” (and now we are coming to an idea of the
+skeleton in poor Honeyman’s closet—not that this huge handsome jolly
+Fred Bayham is the skeleton, far from it. Mr. Frederick weighs fourteen
+stone). “Indeed, indeed it isn’t, Fred, I’m sure,” sighs the other.
+“You exaggerate, indeed you do. The wine is not dear, not by any means
+so expensive as you say.”
+
+“How much a glass, think you?” says Fred, filling another bumper. “A
+half-crown, think ye?—a half-crown, Honeyman? By cock and pye, it is
+not worth a bender.” He says this in the manner of the most celebrated
+tragedian of the day. He can imitate any actor, tragic or comic; any
+known Parliamentary orator or clergyman; any saw, cock, cloop of a cork
+wrenched from a bottle and guggling of wine into the decanter
+afterwards, bee buzzing, little boy up a chimney, etc. He imitates
+people being ill on board a steam-packet so well that he makes you die
+of laughing: his uncle the Bishop could not resist this comic
+exhibition, and gave Fred a cheque for a comfortable sum of money; and
+Fred, getting cash for the cheque at the Cave of Harmony, imitated his
+uncle the Bishop and his Chaplain, winding up with his Lordship and
+Chaplain being unwell at sea—the Chaplain and Bishop quite natural and
+distinct.
+
+“How much does a glass of this sack cost thee, Charley?” resumes Fred,
+after this parenthesis. “You say it is not dear. Charles Honeyman, you
+had, even from your youth up, a villainous habit. And I perfectly well
+remember, sir, in boyhood’s breezy hour, when I was the delight of his
+school, that you used to tell lies to your venerable father. You did,
+Charles. Excuse the frankness of an early friend, it’s my belief you’d
+rather lie than not. Hm”—he looks at the cards in the chimney-glass
+“Invitations to dinner, proffers of muffins. Do lend me your sermon.
+Oh, you old impostor! you hoary old Ananias! I say, Charley, why
+haven’t you picked out some nice girl for yours truly? One with lauds
+and beeves, with rents and consols, mark you? I have no money, ’tis
+true, but then I don’t owe as much as you. I am a handsomer man than
+you are. Look at this chest” (he slaps it), “these limbs; they are
+manly, sir, manly.”
+
+“For Heaven’s sake, Bayham,” cries Mr. Honeyman, white with terror; “if
+anybody were to come——”
+
+“What did I say anon, sir? that I was manly, ay, manly. Let any
+ruffian, save a bailiff, come and meet the doughty arm of Frederick
+Bayham.”
+
+“Oh, Lord, Lord, here’s somebody coming into the room!” cries Charles,
+sinking back on the sofa, as the door opens.
+
+“Ha! dost thou come with murderous intent?” and he now advances in an
+approved offensive attitude. “Caitiff, come on, come on!” and he walks
+off with a tragic laugh, crying, “Ha, ha, ha, ’tis but the slavey!”
+
+The slavey has Mr. Frederick’s hot water, and a bottle of sodawater on
+the same tray. He has been instructed to bring soda whenever he hears
+the word slavey pronounced from above. The bottle explodes, and
+Frederick drinks, and hisses after his drink as though he had been all
+hot within.
+
+“What’s o’clock now, slavey—half-past three? Let me see, I breakfasted
+exactly ten hours ago, in the rosy morning, off a modest cup of coffee
+in Covent Garden Market. Coffee, a penny; bread, a simple halfpenny.
+What has Mrs. Ridley for dinner?”
+
+“Please, sir, roast pork.”
+
+“Get me some. Bring it into my room, unless, Honeyman, you insist upon
+my having it here, kind fellow!”
+
+At the moment a smart knock comes to the door, and Fred says, “Well,
+Charles, it may be a friend or a lady come to confess, and I’m off; I
+knew you’d be sorry I was going. Tom, bring up my things; brush ’em
+gently, you scoundrel, and don’t take the nap off. Bring up the roast
+pork, and plenty of apple-sauce, tell Mrs. Ridley, with my love; and
+one of Mr. Honeyman’s shirts, and one of his razors. Adieu, Charles!
+Amend! Remember me.” And he vanishes into the upper chambers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+In which everybody is asked to Dinner
+
+
+John James had opened the door hastening to welcome a friend and
+patron, the sight of whom always gladdened the youth’s eyes; no other
+than Clive Newcome—in young Ridley’s opinion, the most splendid,
+fortunate, beautiful, high-born, and gifted youth this island
+contained. What generous boy in his time has not worshipped somebody?
+Before the female enslaver makes her appearance, every lad has a friend
+of friends, a crony of cronies, to whom he writes immense letters in
+vacation, whom he cherishes in his heart of hearts; whose sister he
+proposes to marry in after life; whose purse he shares; for whom he
+will take a thrashing if need be: who is his hero. Clive was John
+James’s youthful divinity: when he wanted to draw Thaddeus of Warsaw, a
+Prince, Ivanhoe, or some one splendid and egregious, it was Clive he
+took for a model. His heart leapt when he saw the young fellow. He
+would walk cheerfully to Grey Friars, with a letter or message for
+Clive, on the chance of seeing him, and getting a kind word from him,
+or a shake of the hand. An ex-butler of Lord Todmorden was a pensioner
+in the Grey Friars Hospital (it has been said that at that ancient
+establishment is a college for old men as well as for boys), and this
+old man would come sometimes to his successor’s Sunday dinner, and
+grumble from the hour of that meal until nine o’clock, when he was
+forced to depart, so as to be within Grey Friars’ gates before ten;
+grumble about his dinner—grumble about his beer—grumble about the
+number of chapels he had to attend, about the gown he wore, about the
+master’s treatment of him, about the want of plums in the pudding, as
+old men and schoolboys grumble. It was wonderful what a liking John
+James took to this odious, querulous, graceless, stupid, and snuffy old
+man, and how he would find pretexts for visiting him at his lodging in
+the old hospital. He actually took that journey that he might have a
+chance of seeing Clive. He sent Clive notes and packets of drawings;
+thanked him for books lent, asked advice about future reading—anything,
+so that he might have a sight of his pride, his patron, his paragon.
+
+I am afraid Clive Newcome employed him to smuggle rum-shrub and cigars
+into the premises; giving him appointments in the school precincts,
+where young Clive would come and stealthily receive the forbidden
+goods. The poor lad was known by the boys, and called Newcome’s Punch.
+He was all but hunchbacked; long and lean in the arm; sallow, with a
+great forehead, and waving black hair, and large melancholy eyes.
+
+“What, is it you, J. J.?” cries Clive gaily, when his humble friend
+appears at the door. “Father, this is my friend Ridley. This is the
+fellow what can draw.”
+
+“I know whom I will back against any young man of his size at _that_,”
+says the Colonel, looking at Clive fondly. He considered there was not
+such a genius in the world; and had already thought of having some of
+Clive’s drawings published by M’Lean of the Haymarket.
+
+“This is my father just come from India—and Mr. Pendennis, an old Grey
+Friars’ man. Is my uncle at home?” Both these gentlemen bestow rather
+patronising nods of the head on the lad introduced to them as J. J. His
+exterior is but mean-looking. Colonel Newcome, one of the
+humblest-minded men alive, has yet his old-fashioned military notions;
+and speaks to a butler’s son as to a private soldier, kindly, but not
+familiarly.
+
+“Mr. Honeyman is at home, gentlemen,” the young lad says, humbly. “Shall
+I show you up to his room?” And we walk up the stairs after our guide.
+We find Mr. Honeyman deep in study on his sofa, with Pearson on the
+Creed before him. The novel has been whipped under the pillow. Clive
+found it there some short time afterwards, during his uncle’s temporary
+absence in his dressing-room. He has agreed to suspend his theological
+studies, and go out with his brother-in-law to dine.
+
+As Clive and his friends were at Honeyman’s door, and just as we were
+entering to see the divine seated in state before his folio, Clive
+whispers, “J. J., come along, old fellow, and show us some drawings.
+What are you doing?”
+
+“I was doing some Arabian Nights,” says J. J., “up in my room; and
+hearing a knock which I thought was yours, I came down.”
+
+“Show us the pictures. Let’s go up into your room,” cries Clive.
+“What—will you?” says the other. “It is but a very small place.”
+
+“Never mind, come along,” says Clive; and the two lads disappear
+together, leaving the three grown gentlemen to discourse together, or
+rather two of us to listen to Honeyman, who expatiates upon the beauty
+of the weather, the difficulties of the clerical calling, the honour
+Colonel Newcome does him by a visit, etc., with his usual eloquence.
+
+After a while Clive comes down without J. J., from the upper regions.
+He is greatly excited. “Oh, sir,” he says to his father, “you talk
+about my drawings—you should see J. J.’s! By Jove, that fellow is a
+genius. They are beautiful, sir. You seem actually to read the Arabian
+Nights, you know, only in pictures. There is Scheherazade telling the
+stories, and—what do you call her?—Dinarzade and the Sultan sitting in
+bed and listening. Such a grim old cove! You see he has cut off ever so
+many of his wives’ heads. I can’t think where that chap gets his ideas
+from. I can beat him in drawing horses, I know, and dogs; but I can
+only draw what I see. Somehow he seems to see things we don’t, don’t
+you know? Oh, father, I’m determined I’d rather be a painter than
+anything.” And he falls to drawing horses and dogs at his uncle’s
+table, round which the elders are seated.
+
+“I’ve settled it upstairs with J. J.,” says Clive, working away with
+his pen. “We shall take a studio together; perhaps we will go abroad
+together. Won’t that be fun, father?”
+
+“My dear Clive,” remarks Mr. Honeyman, with bland dignity, “there are
+degrees in society which we must respect. You surely cannot think of
+being a professional artist. Such a profession is very well for your
+young _protégé;_ but for you——”
+
+“What for me?” cries Clive. “We are no such great folks that I know of;
+and if we were, I say a painter is as good as a lawyer, or a doctor, or
+even a soldier. In Dr. Johnston’s Life—which my father is always
+reading—I like to read about Sir Joshua Reynolds best: I think he is
+the best gentleman of all in the book. My! wouldn’t I like to paint a
+picture like Lord Heathfield in the National Gallery! _Wouldn’t_ I
+just! I think I would sooner have done that, than have fought at
+Gibraltar. And those Three Graces—oh, aren’t they graceful! And that
+Cardinal Beaufort at Dulwich!—it frightens me so, I daren’t look at it.
+Wasn’t Reynolds a clipper, that’s all! and wasn’t Rubens a brick! He
+was an ambassador, and Knight of the Bath; so was Vandyck. And Titian,
+and Raphael, and Velasquez?—I’ll just trouble you to show me better
+gentlemen than them, Uncle Charles.”
+
+“Far be it from me to say that the pictorial calling is not
+honourable,” says Uncle Charles; “but as the world goes there are other
+professions in greater repute; and I should have thought Colonel
+Newcome’s son——”
+
+“He shall follow his own bent,” said the Colonel; “as long as his
+calling is honest it becomes a gentleman; and if he were to take a
+fancy to play on the fiddle—actually on the fiddle—I shouldn’t object.”
+
+“Such a rum chap there was upstairs!” Clive resumes, looking up from
+his scribbling. “He was walking up and down on the landing in a
+dressing-gown, with scarcely any other clothes on, holding a plate in
+one hand, and a pork-chop he was munching with the other. Like this”
+(and Clive draws a figure). “What do you think, sir? He was in the Cave
+of Harmony, he says, that night you flared up about Captain Costigan.
+He knew me at once; and he says, ‘Sir, your father acted like a
+gentleman, a Christian, and a man of honour. _Maxima debetur puero
+reverentia_. Give him my compliments. I don’t know his highly
+respectable name.’ His highly respectable name,” says Clive, cracking
+with laughter—“those were his very words. ‘And inform him that I am an
+orphan myself—in needy circumstances’—he said he was in needy
+circumstances; ‘and I heartily wish he’d adopt me.’”
+
+The lad puffed out his face, made his voice as loud and as deep as he
+could; and from his imitation and the picture he had drawn, I knew at
+once that Fred Bayham was the man he mimicked.
+
+“And does the Red Rover live here,” cried Mr. Pendennis, “and have we
+earthed him at last?”
+
+“He sometimes comes here,” Mr. Honeyman said with a careless manner.
+“My landlord and landlady were butler and housekeeper to his father,
+Bayham of Bayham, one of the oldest families in Europe. And Mr.
+Frederick Bayham, the exceedingly eccentric person of whom you speak,
+was a private pupil of my own dear father in our happy days at
+Borehambury.”
+
+He had scarcely spoken when a knock was heard at the door, and before
+the occupant of the lodgings could say “Come in!” Mr. Frederick Bayham
+made his appearance, arrayed in that peculiar costume which he
+affected. In those days we wore very tall stocks, only a very few
+poetic and eccentric persons venturing on the Byron collar; but Fred
+Bayham confined his neck by a simple ribbon, which allowed his great
+red whiskers to curl freely round his capacious jowl. He wore a black
+frock and a large broad-brimmed hat, and looked somewhat like a
+Dissenting preacher. At other periods you would see him in a green coat
+and a blue neckcloth, as if the turf or the driving of coaches was his
+occupation.
+
+“I have heard from the young man of the house who you were, Colonel
+Newcome,” he said with the greatest gravity, “and happened to be
+present, sir, the other night; for I was aweary, having been toiling
+all the day in literary labour, and needed some refreshment. I happened
+to be present, sir, at a scene which did you the greatest honour, and
+of which I spoke, not knowing you, with something like levity to your
+son. He is an _ingenui vultus puer ingenuique pudoris_—Pendennis, how
+are you? And I thought, sir, I would come down and tender an apology if
+I had said any words that might savour of offence to a gentleman who
+was in the right, as I told the room when you quitted it, as Mr.
+Pendennis, I am sure, will remember.”
+
+Mr. Pendennis looked surprise and perhaps negation.
+
+“You forget, Pendennis? Those who quit that room, sir, often forget on
+the morrow what occurred during the revelry of the night. You did right
+in refusing to return to that scene. We public men are obliged often to
+seek our refreshment at hours when luckier individuals are lapt in
+slumber.”
+
+“And what may be your occupation, Mr. Bayham?” asks the Colonel, rather
+gloomily, for he had an idea that Bayham was adopting a strain of
+_persiflage_ which the Indian gentleman by no means relished. Never
+saying aught but a kind word to any one, he was on fire at the notion
+that any should take a liberty with him.
+
+“A barrister, sir, but without business—a literary man, who can but
+seldom find an opportunity to sell the works of his brains—a gentleman,
+sir, who has met with neglect, perhaps merited, perhaps undeserved,
+from his family. I get my bread as best I may. On that evening I had
+been lecturing on the genius of some of our comic writers, at the
+Parthenopæon, Hackney. My audience was scanty, perhaps equal to my
+deserts. I came home on foot to an egg and a glass of beer after
+midnight, and witnessed the scene which did you so much honour. What is
+this? I fancy a ludicrous picture of myself”—he had taken up the sketch
+which Clive had been drawing—“I like fun, even at my own expense; and
+can afford to laugh at a joke which is meant in good-humour.” This
+speech quite reconciled the honest Colonel. “I am sure the author of
+that, Mr. Bayham, means you or any man no harm. Why! the rascal, sir,
+has drawn me, his own father; and I have sent the drawing to Major
+Hobbs, who is in command of my regiment. Chinnery himself, sir,
+couldn’t hit off a likeness better; he has drawn me on horseback, and
+he has drawn me on foot, and he has drawn my friend, Mr. Binnie, who
+lives with me. We have scores of his drawings at my lodgings; and if
+you will favour us by dining with us to-day, and these gentlemen, you
+shall see that you are not the only person caricatured by Clive here.”
+
+“I just took some little dinner upstairs, sir. I am a moderate man, and
+can live, if need be, like a Spartan; but to join such good company I
+will gladly use the knife and fork again. You will excuse the
+traveller’s dress? I keep a room here, which I use only occasionally,
+and am at present lodging—in the country.”
+
+When Honeyman was ready, the Colonel, who had the greatest respect for
+the Church, would not hear of going out of the room before the
+clergyman, and took his arm to walk. Bayham then fell to Mr.
+Pendennis’s lot, and they went together. Through Hill Street and
+Berkeley Square their course was straight enough; but at Hay Hill, Mr.
+Bayham made an abrupt tack larboard, engaging in a labyrinth of
+stables, and walking a long way round from Clifford Street, whither we
+were bound. He hinted at a cab, but Pendennis refused to ride, being,
+in truth, anxious to see which way his eccentric companion would steer.
+“There are reasons,” growled Bayham, “which need not be explained to
+one of your experience, why Bond Street must be avoided by some men
+peculiarly situated. The smell of Truefitt’s pomatum makes me ill. Tell
+me, Pendennis, is this Indian warrior a rajah of large wealth? Could
+he, do you think, recommend me to a situation in the East India
+Company? I would gladly take any honest post in which fidelity might be
+useful, genius might be appreciated, and courage rewarded. Here we are.
+The hotel seems comfortable. I never was in it before.”
+
+When we entered the Colonel’s sitting-room at Nerot’s, we found the
+waiter engaged in extending the table. “We are a larger party than I
+expected,” our host said. “I met my brother Brian on horseback leaving
+cards at that great house in ——— Street.”
+
+“The Russian Embassy,” says Mr. Honeyman, who knew the town quite well.
+
+“And he said he was disengaged, and would dine with us,” continues the
+Colonel.
+
+“Am I to understand, Colonel Newcome,” says Mr. Frederick Bayham, “that
+you are related to the eminent banker, Sir Brian Newcome, who gives
+such uncommonly swell parties in Park Lane?”
+
+“What is a swell party?” asks the Colonel, laughing. “I dined with my
+brother last Wednesday; and it was a very grand dinner certainly. The
+Governor-General himself could not give a more splendid entertainment.
+But, do you know, I scarcely had enough to eat? I don’t eat side
+dishes; and as for the roast beef of Old England, why, the meat was put
+on the table and whisked away like Sancho’s inauguration feast at
+Barataria. We did not dine till nine o’clock. I like a few glasses of
+claret and a cosy talk after dinner; but—well, well”—(no doubt the
+worthy gentleman was accusing himself of telling tales out of school
+and had come to a timely repentance). “Our dinner, I hope, will be
+different. Jack Binnie will take care of that. That fellow is full of
+anecdote and fun. You will meet one or two more of our service; Sir
+Thomas de Boots, who is not a bad chap over a glass of wine; Mr.
+Pendennis’s chum, Mr. Warrington, and my nephew, Barnes Newcome—a dry
+fellow at first, but I dare say he has good about him when you know
+him; almost every man has,” said the good-natured philosopher. “Clive,
+you rogue, mind and be moderate with the champagne, sir!”
+
+“Champagne’s for women,” says Clive. “I stick to claret.”
+
+“I say, Pendennis,” here Bayham remarked, “it is my deliberate opinion
+that F. B. has got into a good thing.”
+
+Mr. Pendennis seeing there was a great party was for going home to his
+chambers to dress. “Hm!” says Mr. Bayham, “don’t see the necessity.
+What right-minded man looks at the exterior of his neighbour? He looks
+_here_, sir, and examines _there_,” and Bayham tapped his forehead,
+which was expansive, and then his heart, which he considered to be in
+the right place.
+
+“What is this I hear about dressing?” asks our host. “Dine in your
+frock, my good friend, and welcome, if your dress-coat is in the
+country.”
+
+“It is at present at an uncle’s,” Mr. Bayham said, with great gravity,
+“and I take your hospitality as you offer it, Colonel Newcome,
+cordially and frankly.”
+
+Honest Mr. Binnie made his appearance a short time before the appointed
+hour for receiving the guests, arrayed in a tight little pair of
+trousers, and white silk stockings and pumps, his bald head shining
+like a billiard-ball, his jolly gills rosy with good-humour. He was
+bent on pleasure. “Hey, lads!” says he; “but we’ll make a night of it.
+We haven’t had a night since the farewell dinner off Plymouth.”
+
+“And a jolly night it was, James,” ejaculates the Colonel.
+
+“Egad, what a song that Tom Norris sings!”
+
+“And your ‘Jock o’ Hazeldean’ is as good as a play, Jack.”
+
+“And I think you beat iny one I iver hard in ‘Tom Bowling,’ yourself,
+Tom!” cries the Colonel’s delighted chum. Mr. Pendennis opened the eyes
+of astonishment at the idea of the possibility of renewing these
+festivities, but he kept the lips of prudence closed. And now the
+carriages began to drive up, and the guests of Colonel Newcome to
+arrive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+In which Thomas Newcome sings his Last Song
+
+
+The earliest comers were the first mate and the medical officer of the
+ship in which the two gentlemen had come to England. The mate was a
+Scotchman: the doctor was a Scotchman; of the gentlemen from the
+Oriental Club, three were Scotchmen.
+
+The Southrons, with one exception, were the last to arrive, and for a
+while we stood looking out of the windows awaiting their coming. The
+first mate pulled out a penknife and arranged his nails. The doctor and
+Mr. Binnie talked of the progress of medicine. Binnie had walked the
+hospitals of Edinburgh before getting his civil appointment to India.
+The three gentlemen from Hanover Square and the Colonel had plenty to
+say about Tom Smith of the Cavalry, and Harry Hall of the Engineers:
+how Topham was going to marry poor little Bob Wallis’s widow; how many
+lakhs Barber had brought home, and the like. The tall grey-headed
+Englishman, who had been in the East too, in the King’s service, joined
+for a while in this conversation, but presently left it, and came and
+talked with Clive; “I knew your father in India,” said the gentleman to
+the lad; “there is not a more gallant or respected officer in that
+service. I have a boy too, a stepson, who has just gone into the army;
+he is older than you, he was born at the end of the Waterloo year, and
+so was a great friend of his and mine, who was at your school, Sir
+Rawdon Crawley.”
+
+“He was in Gown Boys, I know,” says the boy; “succeeded his uncle Pitt,
+fourth Baronet. I don’t know how his mother—her who wrote the hymns,
+you know, and goes to Mr. Honeyman’s chapel—comes to be Rebecca, Lady
+Crawley. His father, Colonel Rawdon Crawley, died at Coventry Island,
+in August, 182-, and his uncle, Sir Pitt, not till September here. I
+remember, we used to talk about it at Grey Friars, when I was quite a
+little chap; and there were bets whether Crawley, I mean the young one,
+was a Baronet or not.”
+
+“When I sailed to Rigy, Cornel,” the first mate was speaking—nor can
+any spelling nor combination of letters of which I am master, reproduce
+this gentleman’s accent when he was talking his best—“I racklackt they
+used always to sairve us a drem before denner. And as your frinds are
+kipping the denner, and as I’ve no watch to-night, I’ll jist do as we
+used to do at Rigy. James, my fine fellow, jist look alive and breng me
+a small glass of brandy, will ye? Did ye iver try a brandy cocktail,
+Cornel? Whin I sailed on the New York line, we used jest to make bits
+before denner and—thank ye, James:” and he tossed off a glass of
+brandy.
+
+Here a waiter announces, in a loud voice, “Sir Thomas de Boots,” and
+the General enters, scowling round the room according to his fashion,
+very red in the face, very tight in the girth, splendidly attired with
+a choking white neckcloth, a voluminous waistcoat, and his orders on.
+
+“Stars and garters, by jingo!” cries Mr. Frederick Bayham; “I say,
+Pendennis, have you any idea, is the Duke coming? I wouldn’t have come
+in these Bluchers if I had known it. Confound it, no—Hoby himself, my
+own bootmaker, wouldn’t have allowed poor F. B. to appear in Bluchers,
+if he had known that I was going to meet the Duke. My linen’s all
+right, anyhow.”
+
+F. B. breathed a thankful prayer for that. Indeed, who but the very
+curious could tell that not F. B.’s, but C. H.’s—Charles Honeyman’s—was
+the mark upon that decorous linen?
+
+Colonel Newcome introduced Sir Thomas to every one in the room, as he
+had introduced us all to each other previously, and as Sir Thomas
+looked at one after another, his face was kind enough to assume an
+expression which seemed to ask, “And who the devil are you, sir?” as
+clearly as though the General himself had given utterance to the words.
+With the gentleman in the window talking to Clive he seemed to have
+some acquaintance, and said not unkindly, “How d’you do, Dobbin?”
+
+The carriage of Sir Brian Newcome now drove up, from which the Baronet
+descended in state, leaning upon the arm of the Apollo in plush and
+powder, who closed the shutters of the great coach, and mounted by the
+side of the coachman, laced and periwigged. The Bench of Bishops has
+given up its wigs; cannot the box, too, be made to resign that insane
+decoration? Is it necessary for our comfort, that the men who do our
+work in stable or household should be dressed like Merry-Andrews? Enter
+Sir Brian Newcome, smiling blandly: he greets his brother
+affectionately, Sir Thomas gaily; he nods and smiles to Clive, and
+graciously permits Mr. Pendennis to take hold of two fingers of his
+extended right hand. That gentleman is charmed, of course, with the
+condescension. What man could be otherwise than happy to be allowed a
+momentary embrace of two such precious fingers? When a gentleman so
+favours me, I always ask, mentally, why he has taken the trouble at
+all, and regret that I have not had the presence of mind to poke one
+finger against his two. If I were worth ten thousand a year, I cannot
+help inwardly reflecting, and kept a large account in Threadneedle
+Street, I cannot help thinking he would have favoured me with the whole
+palm.
+
+The arrival of these two grandees has somehow cast a solemnity over the
+company. The weather is talked about: brilliant in itself, it does not
+occasion very brilliant remarks among Colonel Newcome’s guests. Sir
+Brian really thinks it must be as hot as it is in India. Sir Thomas de
+Boots, swelling in his white waistcoat, in the armholes of which his
+thumbs are engaged, smiles scornfully, and wishes Sir Brian had ever
+felt a good sweltering day in the hot winds in India. Sir Brian
+withdraws the untenable proposition that London is as hot as Calcutta.
+Mr. Binnie looks at his watch, and at the Colonel. “We have only your
+nephew, Tom, to wait for,” he says; “I think we may make so bold as to
+order the dinner,”—a proposal heartily seconded by Mr. Frederick
+Bayham.
+
+The dinner appears steaming, borne by steaming waiters. The grandees
+take their places, one on each side of the Colonel. He begs Mr.
+Honeyman to say grace, and stands reverentially during that brief
+ceremony, while de Boots looks queerly at him from over his napkin. All
+the young men take their places at the farther end of the table, round
+about Mr. Binnie; and at the end of the second course Mr. Barnes
+Newcome makes his appearance.
+
+Mr. Barnes does not show the slightest degree of disturbance, although
+he disturbs all the company. Soup and fish are brought for him, and
+meat, which he leisurely eats, while twelve other gentlemen are kept
+waiting. We mark Mr. Binnie’s twinkling eyes, as they watch the young
+man. “Eh,” he seems to say, “but that’s just about as free-and-easy a
+young chap as ever I set eyes on.” And so Mr. Barnes was a cool young
+chap. That dish is so good, he must really have some more. He discusses
+the second supply leisurely; and turning round simpering to his
+neighbour, says, “I really hope I’m not keeping everybody waiting.”
+
+“Hem!” grunts the neighbour, Mr. Bayham; “it doesn’t much matter, for
+we had all pretty well done dinner.” Barnes takes a note of Mr.
+Bayham’s dress—his long frock-coat, the ribbon round his neck; and
+surveys him with an admirable impudence. “Who are these people,” thinks
+he, “my uncle has got together?” He bows graciously to the honest
+Colonel, who asks him to take wine. He is so insufferably affable, that
+every man near him would like to give him a beating.
+
+All the time of the dinner the host was challenging everybody to drink
+wine, in his honest old-fashioned way, and Mr. Binnie seconding the
+chief entertainer. Such was the way in England and Scotland when they
+were young men. And when Binnie, asking Sir Brian, receives for reply
+from the Baronet—“Thank you, no, my dear sir. I have exceeded already,
+positively exceeded,” the poor discomfited gentleman hardly knows
+whither to apply: but, luckily, Tom Norris, the first mate, comes to
+his rescue, and cries out, “Mr. Binnie, _I’ve_ not had enough, and I’ll
+drink a glass of anything ye like with ye.” The fact is, that Mr.
+Norris has had enough. He has drunk bumpers to the health of every
+member of the company; his glass has been filled scores of times by
+watchful waiters. So has Mr. Bayham absorbed great quantities of drink;
+but without any visible effect on that veteran toper. So has young
+Clive taken more than is good for him. His cheeks are flushed and
+burning; he is chattering and laughing loudly at his end of the table.
+Mr. Warrington eyes the lad with some curiosity; and then regards Mr.
+Barnes with a look of scorn, which does not scorch that affable young
+person.
+
+I am obliged to confess that the mate of the Indiaman, at an early
+period of the dessert, and when nobody had asked him for any such
+public expression of his opinion, insisted on rising and proposing the
+health of Colonel Newcome, whose virtues he lauded outrageously, and
+whom he pronounced to be one of the best of mortal men. Sir Brian
+looked very much alarmed at the commencement of this speech, which the
+mate delivered with immense shrieks and gesticulation: but the Baronet
+recovered during the course of the rambling oration, and at its
+conclusion gracefully tapped the table with one of those patronising
+fingers; and lifting up a glass containing at least a thimbleful of
+claret, said, “My dear brother, I drink your health with all my heart,
+I’m su-ah.” The youthful Barnes had uttered many “Hear, hears!” during
+the discourse, with an irony which, with every fresh glass of wine he
+drank, he cared less to conceal. And though Barnes had come late he had
+drunk largely, making up for lost time.
+
+Those ironical cheers, and all his cousin’s behaviour during dinner,
+had struck young Clive, who was growing very angry. He growled out
+remarks uncomplimentary to Barnes. His eyes, as he looked towards his
+kinsman, flashed out challenges, of which we who were watching him
+could see the warlike purport. Warrington looked at Bayham and
+Pendennis with glances of apprehension. We saw that danger was
+brooding, unless the one young man could be restrained from his
+impertinence, and the other from his wine.
+
+Colonel Newcome said a very few words in reply to his honest friend the
+chief mate, and there the matter might have ended: but I am sorry to
+say Mr. Binnie now thought it necessary to rise and deliver himself of
+some remarks regarding the King’s service, coupled with the name of
+Major-General Sir Thomas de Boots, K.C.B., etc.—the receipt of which
+that gallant officer was obliged to acknowledge in a confusion
+amounting almost to apoplexy. The glasses went whack whack upon the
+hospitable board; the evening set in for public speaking. Encouraged by
+his last effort, Mr. Binnie now proposed Sir Brian Newcome’s health;
+and that Baronet rose and uttered an exceedingly lengthy speech,
+delivered with his wine-glass on his bosom.
+
+Then that sad rogue Bayham must get up, and call earnestly and
+respectfully for silence and the chairman’s hearty sympathy, for the
+few observations which he had to propose. “Our armies had been drunk
+with proper enthusiasm—such men as he beheld around him deserved the
+applause of all honest hearts, and merited the cheers with which their
+names had been received. (‘Hear, hear!’ from Barnes Newcome
+sarcastically. ‘Hear, hear, HEAR!’ fiercely from Clive.) But whilst we
+applauded our army, should we forget a profession still more exalted?
+Yes, still more exalted, I say in the face of the gallant General
+opposite; and that profession, I need not say, is the Church.
+(Applause.) Gentlemen, we have among us one who, while partaking
+largely of the dainties on this festive board, drinking freely of the
+sparkling wine-cup which our gallant hospitality administers to us,
+sanctifies by his presence the feast of which he partakes, inaugurates
+with appropriate benedictions, and graces it, I may say, both before
+and after meat. Gentlemen, Charles Honeyman was the friend of my
+childhood, his father the instructor of my early days. If Frederick
+Bayham’s latter life has been chequered by misfortune, it may be that I
+have forgotten the precepts which the venerable parent of Charles
+Honeyman poured into an inattentive ear. He too, as a child, was not
+exempt from faults; as a young man, I am told, not quite free from
+youthful indiscretions. But in this present Anno Domini, we hail
+Charles Honeyman as a precept and an example, as a _decus fidei_ and a
+_lumen ecclesiæ_ (as I told him in the confidence of the private circle
+this morning, and ere I ever thought to publish my opinion in this
+distinguished company). Colonel Newcome and Mr. Binnie! I drink to the
+health of the Reverend Charles Honeyman, A.M. May we listen to many
+more of his sermons, as well as to that admirable discourse with which
+I am sure he is about to electrify us now. May we profit by his
+eloquence; and cherish in our memories the truths which come mended
+from his tongue!” He ceased; poor Honeyman had to rise on his legs, and
+gasp out a few incoherent remarks in reply. Without a book before him,
+the Incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel was no prophet, and the truth
+is he made poor work of his oration.
+
+At the end of it, he, Sir Brian, Colonel Dobbin, and one of the Indian
+gentlemen quitted the room, in spite of the loud outcries of our
+generous host, who insisted that the party should not break up. “Close
+up, gentlemen,” called out honest Newcome, “we are not going to part
+just yet. Let me fill your glass, General. You used to have no
+objection to a glass of wine.” And he poured out a bumper for his
+friend, which the old campaigner sucked in with fitting gusto. “Who
+will give us a song? Binnie, give us the ‘Laird of Cockpen.’ It’s
+capital, my dear General. Capital,” the Colonel whispered to his
+neighbour.
+
+Mr. Binnie struck up the “Laird of Cockpen,” without, I am bound to
+say, the least reluctance. He bobbed to one man, and he winked to
+another, and he tossed his glass, and gave all the points of his song
+in a manner which did credit to his simplicity and his humour. You
+haughty Southerners little know how a jolly Scotch gentleman can
+_desipere in loco_, and how he chirrups over his honest cups. I do not
+say whether it was with the song or with Mr. Binnie that we were most
+amused. It was a good commonty, as Christopher Sly says; nor were we
+sorry when it was done.
+
+Him the first mate succeeded; after which came a song from the
+redoubted F. Bayham, which he sang with a bass voice which Lablache
+might envy, and of which the chorus was frantically sung by the whole
+company. The cry was then for the Colonel; on which Barnes Newcome, who
+had been drinking much, started up with something like an oath, crying,
+“Oh, I can’t stand this.”
+
+“Then leave it, confound you!” said young Clive, with fury in his face.
+“If our company is not good for you, why do you come into it?”
+
+“What’s that?” asks Barnes, who was evidently affected by wine. Bayham
+roared “Silence!” and Barnes Newcome, looking round with a tipsy toss
+of the head, finally sate down.
+
+The Colonel sang, as we have said, with a very high voice, using freely
+the falsetto, after the manner of the tenor singers of his day. He
+chose one of his maritime songs, and got through the first verse very
+well, Barnes wagging his head at the chorus, with a “Bravo!” so
+offensive that Fred Bayham, his neighbour, gripped the young man’s arm,
+and told him to hold his confounded tongue.
+
+The Colonel began his second verse: and here, as will often happen to
+amateur singers, his falsetto broke down. He was not in the least
+annoyed, for I saw him smile very good-naturedly; and he was going to
+try the verse again, when that unlucky Barnes first gave a sort of
+crowing imitation of the song, and then burst into a yell of laughter.
+Clive dashed a glass of wine in his face at the next minute, glass and
+all; and no one who had watched the young man’s behaviour was sorry for
+the insult.
+
+I never saw a kind face express more terror than Colonel Newcome’s. He
+started back as if he had himself received the blow from his son.
+“Gracious God!” he cried out. “My boy insult a gentleman at my table!”
+
+“I’d like to do it again,” says Clive, whose whole body was trembling
+with anger.
+
+“Are you drunk, sir?” shouted his father.
+
+“The boy served the young fellow right, sir,” growled Fred Bayham in
+his deepest voice. “Come along, young man. Stand up straight, and keep
+a civil tongue in your head next time, mind you, when you dine with
+gentlemen. It’s easy to see,” says Fred, looking round with a knowing
+air, “that this young man hasn’t got the usages of society—he’s not
+been accustomed to it:” and he led the dandy out.
+
+Others had meanwhile explained the state of the case to the
+Colonel—including Sir Thomas de Boots, who was highly energetic and
+delighted with Clive’s spirit; and some were for having the song to
+continue; but the Colonel, puffing his cigar, said, “No. My pipe is
+out. I will never sing again.” So this history will record no more of
+Thomas Newcome’s musical performances.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+Park Lane
+
+
+Clive woke up the next morning to be aware of a racking headache, and,
+by the dim light of his throbbing eyes, to behold his father with
+solemn face at his bed-foot—a reproving conscience to greet his waking.
+
+“You drank too much wine last night, and disgraced yourself, sir,” the
+old soldier said. “You must get up and eat humble pie this morning, my
+boy.”
+
+“Humble what, father?” asked the lad, hardly aware of his words, or the
+scene before him. “Oh, I’ve got such a headache!”
+
+“Serve you right, sir. Many a young fellow has had to go on parade in
+the morning, with a headache earned overnight. Drink this water. Now,
+jump up. Now, dash the water well over your head. There you come! Make
+your toilette quickly; and let us be off, and find cousin Barnes before
+he has left home.”
+
+Clive obeyed the paternal orders; dressed himself quickly; and
+descending, found his father smoking his morning cigar in the apartment
+where they had dined the night before, and where the tables still were
+covered with the relics of yesterday’s feast—the emptied bottles, the
+blank lamps, the scattered ashes and fruits, the wretched heel-taps
+that have been lying exposed all night to the air. Who does not know
+the aspect of an expired feast?
+
+“The field of action strewed with the dead, my boy,” says Clive’s
+father. “See, here’s the glass on the floor yet, and a great stain of
+claret on the carpet.”
+
+“Oh, father!” says Clive, hanging his head down, “I know I shouldn’t
+have done it. But Barnes Newcome would provoke the patience of Job; and
+I couldn’t bear to have my father insulted.”
+
+“I am big enough to fight my own battles, my boy,” the Colonel said
+good-naturedly, putting his hand on the lad’s damp head. “How your head
+throbs! If Barnes laughed at my singing, depend upon it, sir, there was
+something ridiculous in it, and he laughed because he could not help
+it. If he behaved ill, we should not; and to a man who is eating our
+salt too, and is of our blood.”
+
+“He is ashamed of our blood, father,” cries Clive, still indignant.
+
+“We ought to be ashamed of doing wrong. We must go and ask his pardon.
+Once when I was a young man in India,” the father continued very
+gravely, “some hot words passed at mess—not such an insult as that of
+last night; I don’t think I could have quite borne that—and people
+found fault with me for forgiving the youngster who had uttered the
+offensive expressions over his wine. Some of my acquaintance sneered at
+my courage, and that is a hard imputation for a young fellow of spirit
+to bear. But providentially, you see, it was war-time, and very soon
+after I had the good luck to show that I was not a _poule mouillée_, as
+the French call it; and the man who insulted me, and whom I forgave,
+became my fastest friend, and died by my side—it was poor Jack
+Cutler—at Argaum. We must go and ask Barnes Newcome’s pardon, sir, and
+forgive other people’s trespasses, my boy, if we hope forgiveness of
+our own.” His voice sank down as he spoke, and he bowed his honest head
+reverently. I have heard his son tell the simple story years
+afterwards, with tears in his eyes.
+
+Piccadilly was hardly yet awake the next morning, and the sparkling
+dews and the poor homeless vagabonds still had possession of the grass
+of Hyde Park, as the pair walked up to Sir Brian Newcome’s house, where
+the shutters were just opening to let in the day. The housemaid, who
+was scrubbing the steps of the house, and washing its trim feet in a
+manner which became such a polite mansion’s morning toilet, knew Master
+Clive, and smiled at him from under her blousy curl-papers, admitting
+the two gentlemen into Sir Brian’s dining-room, where they proposed to
+wait until Mr. Barnes should appear. There they sate for an hour
+looking at Lawrence’s picture of Lady Anne, leaning over a harp,
+attired in white muslin; at Harlowe’s portrait of Mrs. Newcome, with
+her two sons simpering at her knees, painted at a time when the Newcome
+Brothers were not the bald-headed, red-whiskered British merchants with
+whom the reader has made acquaintance, but chubby children with hair
+flowing down their backs, and quaint little swallow-tailed jackets and
+nankeen trousers. A splendid portrait of the late Earl of Kew in his
+peer’s robes hangs opposite his daughter and her harp. We are writing
+of George the Fourth’s reign; I dare say there hung in the room a fine
+framed print of that great sovereign. The chandelier is in a canvas
+bag; the vast sideboard, whereon are erected open frames for the
+support of Sir Brian Newcome’s grand silver trays, which on dinner days
+gleam on that festive board, now groans under the weight of Sir Brian’s
+bluebooks. An immense receptacle for wine, shaped like a Roman
+sarcophagus, lurks under the sideboard. Two people sitting at that
+large dining-table must talk very loud so as to make themselves heard
+across those great slabs of mahogany covered with damask. The butler
+and servants who attend at the table take a long time walking round it.
+I picture to myself two persons of ordinary size sitting in that great
+room at that great table, far apart, in neat evening costume, sipping a
+little sherry, silent, genteel, and glum; and think the great and
+wealthy are not always to be envied, and that there may be more comfort
+and happiness in a snug parlour, where you are served by a brisk little
+maid, than in a great dark, dreary dining-hall, where a funereal
+major-domo and a couple of stealthy footmen minister to you your
+mutton-chops. They come and lay the cloth presently, wide as the
+main-sheet of some tall ammiral. A pile of newspapers and letters for
+the master of the house; the _Newcome Sentinel_, old county paper,
+moderate conservative, in which our worthy townsman and member is
+praised, his benefactions are recorded, and his speeches given at full
+length; the _Newcome Independent_, in which our precious member is
+weekly described as a ninny, and informed almost every Thursday morning
+that he is a bloated aristocrat, as he munches his dry toast. Heaps of
+letters, county papers, _Times_ and _Morning Herald_ for Sir Brian
+Newcome; little heaps of letters (dinner and soirée cards most of
+these) and _Morning Post_ for Mr. Barnes. Punctually as eight o’clock
+strikes, that young gentleman comes to breakfast; his father will lie
+yet for another hour; the Baronet’s prodigious labours in the House of
+Commons keeping him frequently out of bed till sunrise.
+
+As his cousin entered the room, Clive turned very red, and perhaps a
+faint blush might appear on Barnes’s pallid countenance. He came in, a
+handkerchief in one hand, a pamphlet in the other, and both hands being
+thus engaged, he could offer neither to his kinsmen.
+
+“You are come to breakfast, I hope,” he said—calling it “weakfast,” and
+pronouncing the words with a most languid drawl—“or, perhaps, you want
+to see my father? He is never out of his room till half-past nine.
+Harper, did Sir Brian come in last night before or after me?” Harper,
+the butler, thinks Sir Brian came in after Mr. Barnes.
+
+When that functionary had quitted the room, Barnes turned round to his
+uncle in a candid, smiling way, and said, “The fact is, sir, I don’t
+know when I came home myself very distinctly, and can’t, of course,
+tell about my father. Generally, you know, there are two candles left
+in the hall, you know; and if there are two, you know, I know of course
+that my father is still at the House. But last night, after that
+capital song you sang, hang me if I know what happened to me. I beg
+your pardon, sir, I’m shocked at having been so overtaken. Such a
+confounded thing doesn’t happen to me once in ten years. I do trust I
+didn’t do anything rude to anybody, for I thought some of your friends
+the pleasantest fellows I ever met in my life; and as for the claret,
+’gad, as if I hadn’t had enough after dinner, I brought a quantity of
+it away with me on my shirt-front and waistcoat!”
+
+“I beg your pardon, Barnes,” Clive said, blushing deeply, “and I’m very
+sorry indeed for what passed; I threw it.”
+
+The Colonel, who had been listening with a queer expression of wonder
+and doubt on his face, here interrupted Mr. Barnes. “It was Clive
+that—that spilled the wine over you last night,” Thomas Newcome said;
+“the young rascal had drunk a great deal too much wine, and had neither
+the use of his head nor his hands, and this morning I have given him a
+lecture, and he has come to ask your pardon for his clumsiness; and if
+you have forgotten your share in the night’s transaction, I hope you
+have forgotten his, and will accept his hand and his apology.”
+
+“Apology: There’s no apology,” cries Barnes, holding out a couple of
+fingers of his hand, but looking towards the Colonel. “I don’t know
+what happened any more than the dead. Did we have a row? Were there any
+glasses broken? The best way in such cases is to sweep ’em up. We can’t
+mend them.”
+
+The Colonel said gravely—“that he was thankful to find that the
+disturbance of the night before had no worse result.” He pulled the
+tail of Clive’s coat, when that unlucky young blunderer was about to
+trouble his cousin with indiscreet questions or explanations, and
+checked his talk. “The other night you saw an old man in drink, my
+boy,” he said, “and to what shame and degradation the old wretch had
+brought himself. Wine has given you a warning too, which I hope you
+will remember all your life; no one has seen me the worse for drink
+these forty years, and I hope both you young gentlemen will take
+counsel by an old soldier, who fully preaches what he practises, and
+beseeches you to beware of the bottle.”
+
+After quitting their kinsman, the kind Colonel further improved the
+occasion with his son; and told him out of his own experience many
+stories of quarrels, and duels, and wine;—how the wine had occasioned
+the brawls, and the foolish speech overnight the bloody meeting at
+morning; how he had known widows and orphans made by hot words uttered
+in idle orgies: how the truest honour was the manly confession of
+wrong; and the best courage the courage to avoid temptation. The
+humble-minded speaker, whose advice contained the best of all wisdom,
+that which comes from a gentle and reverent spirit, and a pure and
+generous heart, never for once thought of the effect which he might be
+producing, but uttered his simple say according to the truth within
+him. Indeed, he spoke out his mind pretty resolutely on all subjects
+which moved or interested him; and Clive, his son, and his honest chum,
+Mr. Binnie, who had a great deal more reading and much keener
+intelligence than the Colonel, were amused often at his naive opinion
+about men, or books, or morals. Mr. Clive had a very fine natural sense
+of humour, which played perpetually round his father’s simple
+philosophy with kind and smiling comments. Between this pair of friends
+the superiority of wit lay, almost from the very first, on the younger
+man’s side; but, on the other hand, Clive felt a tender admiration for
+his father’s goodness, a loving delight in contemplating his elder’s
+character, which he has never lost, and which in the trials of their
+future life inexpressibly cheered and consoled both of them! _Beati
+illi!_ O man of the world, whose wearied eyes may glance over this
+page, may those who come after you so regard you! O generous boy, who
+read in it, may you have such a friend to trust and cherish in youth,
+and in future days fondly and proudly to remember!
+
+Some four or five weeks after the quasi-reconciliation between Clive
+and his kinsman, the chief part of Sir Brian Newcome’s family were
+assembled at the breakfast-table together, where the meal was taken in
+common, and at the early hour of eight (unless the senator was kept too
+late in the House of Commons overnight); and Lady Anne and her nursery
+were now returned to London again, little Alfred being perfectly set up
+by a month of Brighton air. It was a Thursday morning; on which day of
+the week, it has been said, the _Newcome Independent_ and the _Newcome
+Sentinel_ both made their appearance upon the Baronet’s table. The
+household from above and from below; the maids and footmen from the
+basement; the nurses, children, and governesses from the attics; all
+poured into the room at the sound of a certain bell.
+
+I do not sneer at the purpose for which, at that chiming eight-o’clock
+bell, the household is called together. The urns are hissing, the plate
+is shining; the father of the house, standing up, reads from a gilt
+book for three or four minutes in a measured cadence. The members of
+the family are around the table in an attitude of decent reverence; the
+younger children whisper responses at their mother’s knees; the
+governess worships a little apart; the maids and the large footmen are
+in a cluster before their chairs, the upper servants performing their
+devotion on the other side of the sideboard; the nurse whisks about the
+unconscious last-born, and tosses it up and down during the ceremony. I
+do not sneer at that—at the act at which all these people are
+assembled—it is at the rest of the day I marvel; at the rest of the
+day, and what it brings. At the very instant when the voice has ceased
+speaking and the gilded book is shut, the world begins again, and for
+the next twenty-three hours and fifty-seven minutes all that household
+is given up to it. The servile squad rises up and marches away to its
+basement, whence, should it happen to be a gala-day, those tall
+gentlemen at present attired in Oxford mixture will issue forth with
+flour plastered on their heads, yellow coats, pink breeches, sky-blue
+waistcoats, silver lace, buckles in their shoes, black silk bags on
+their backs, and I don’t know what insane emblems of servility and
+absurd bedizenments of folly. Their very manner of speaking to what we
+call their masters and mistresses will be a like monstrous masquerade.
+You know no more of that race which inhabits the basement floor, than
+of the men and brethren of Timbuctoo, to whom some among us send
+missionaries. If you met some of your servants in the streets (I
+respectfully suppose for a moment that the reader is a person of high
+fashion and a great establishment), you would not know their faces. You
+might sleep under the same roof for half a century and know nothing
+about them. If they were ill, you would not visit them, though you
+would send them an apothecary and of course order that they lacked for
+nothing. You are not unkind, you are not worse than your neighbours.
+Nay, perhaps, if you did go into the kitchen, or to take the tea in the
+servants’-hall, you would do little good, and only bore the folks
+assembled there. But so it is. With those fellow-Christians who have
+been just saying Amen to your prayers, you have scarcely the community
+of Charity. They come, you don’t know whence; they think and talk, you
+don’t know what; they die, and you don’t care, or _vice versâ_. They
+answer the bell for prayers as they answer the bell for coals: for
+exactly three minutes in the day you all kneel together on one
+carpet—and, the desires and petitions of the servants and masters over,
+the rite called family worship is ended.
+
+Exeunt servants, save those two who warm the newspaper, administer the
+muffins, and serve out the tea. Sir Brian reads his letters, and chumps
+his dry toast. Ethel whispers to her mother, she thinks Eliza is
+looking very ill. Lady Anne asks, which is Eliza? Is it the woman that
+was ill before they left town? If she is ill, Mrs. Trotter had better
+send her away. Mrs. Trotter is only a great deal too good-natured. She
+is always keeping people who are ill. Then her ladyship begins to read
+the _Morning Post_, and glances over the names of the persons who were
+present at Baroness Bosco’s ball, and Mrs. Toddle Tompkyns’s _soirée
+dansante_ in Belgrave Square.
+
+“Everybody was there,” says Barnes, looking over from his paper.
+
+“But who is Mrs. Toddle Tompkyns?” asks mamma. “Who ever heard of a
+Mrs. Toddle Tompkyns? What do people mean by going to such a person?”
+
+“Lady Popinjoy asked the people,” Barnes says gravely. “The thing was
+really doosed well done. The woman looked frightened; but she’s pretty,
+and I am told the daughter will have a great lot of money.”
+
+“Is she pretty, and did you dance with her?” asks Ethel.
+
+“Me dance!” says Mr. Barnes. We are speaking of a time before casinos
+were, and when the British youth were by no means so active in dancing
+practice as at this present period. Barnes resumed the reading of his
+county paper, but presently laid it down, with an execration so brisk
+and loud, that his mother gave a little outcry, and even his father
+looked up from his letters to ask the meaning of an oath so unexpected
+and ungenteel.
+
+“My uncle, the Colonel of sepoys, and his amiable son have been paying
+a visit to Newcome—that’s the news which I have the pleasure to
+announce to you,” says Mr. Barnes.
+
+“You are always sneering about our uncle,” breaks in Ethel, with
+impetuous voice, “and saying unkind things about Clive. Our uncle is a
+dear, good, kind man, and I love him. He came to Brighton to see us,
+and went out every day for hours and hours with Alfred; and Clive, too,
+drew pictures for him. And he is good, and kind, and generous, and
+honest as his father. And Barnes is always speaking ill of him behind
+his back.”
+
+“And his aunt lets very nice lodgings, and is altogether a most
+desirable acquaintance,” says Mr. Barnes. “What a shame it is that we
+have not cultivated that branch of the family!”
+
+“My dear fellow,” cries Sir Brian, “I have no doubt Miss Honeyman is a
+most respectable person. Nothing is so ungenerous as to rebuke a
+gentleman or a lady on account of their poverty, and I coincide with
+Ethel in thinking that you speak of your uncle and his son in terms
+which, to say the least, are disrespectful.”
+
+“Miss Honeyman is a dear little old woman,” breaks in Ethel. “Was not
+she kind to Alfred, mamma, and did not she make him nice jelly? And a
+Doctor of Divinity—you know Clive’s grandfather was a Doctor of
+Divinity, mamma, there’s a picture of him in a wig—is just as good as a
+banker, you know he is.”
+
+“Did you bring some of Miss Honeyman’s lodging-house cards with you,
+Ethel?” says her brother, “and had we not better hang up one or two in
+Lombard Street; hers and our other relation’s, Mrs. Mason?”
+
+“My darling love, who is Mrs. Mason?” asks Lady Anne.
+
+“Another member of the family, ma’am. She was cousin——”
+
+“She was no such thing, sir,” roars Sir Brian.
+
+“She was relative and housemaid of my grandfather during his first
+marriage. She acted, I believe, as dry nurse to the distinguished
+Colonel of sepoys, my uncle. She has retired into private life in her
+native town of Newcome, and occupies her latter days by the management
+of a mangle. The Colonel and young pothouse have gone down to spend a
+few days with their elderly relative. It’s all here in the paper, by
+Jove!” Mr. Barnes clenched his fist, and stamped upon the newspaper
+with much energy.
+
+“And so they should go down and see her, and so the Colonel should love
+his nurse, and not forget his relations if they are old and poor,”
+cries Ethel, with a flush on her face, and tears starting into her
+eyes.
+
+“Hear what the Newcome papers say about it,” shrieks out Mr. Barnes,
+his voice quivering, his little eyes flashing out scorn. “It’s in both
+the papers, I dare say. It will be in the _Times_ to-morrow. By —— it’s
+delightful. Our paper only mentions the gratifying circumstance; here
+is the paragraph. ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, C.B., a distinguished
+Indian officer, and younger brother of our respected townsman and
+representative Sir Brian Newcome, Bart., has been staying for the last
+week at the King’s Arms, in our city. He has been visited by the
+principal inhabitants and leading gentlemen of Newcome, and has come
+among us, as we understand, in order to pass a few days with an elderly
+relative, who has been living for many years past in great retirement
+in this place.’”
+
+“Well, I see no great harm in that paragraph,” says Sir Brian. “I wish
+my brother had gone to the Roebuck, and not to the King’s Arms, as the
+Roebuck is our house: but he could not be expected to know much about
+the Newcome inns, as he is a _new-comer_ himself. And I think it was
+very right of the people to call on him.”
+
+“Now hear what the _Independent_ says, and see if you like that, sir,”
+cries Barnes, grinning fiercely; and he began to read as follows:—
+
+“‘Mr. _Independent_—I was born and bred a Screwcomite, and am naturally
+proud of _everybody_ and _everything_ which bears the revered name of
+Screwcome. I am a Briton and a man, though I have not the honour of a
+vote for my native borough; if I had, you may be sure I would give it
+to our _admired_ and _talented_ representative, Don Pomposo Lickspittle
+Grindpauper, Poor House Agincourt, Screwcome, whose ancestors fought
+with Julius Cæsar against William the Conqueror, and whose father
+certainly wielded a _cloth yard shaft_ in London not fifty years ago.
+
+“‘Don Pomposo, as you know, seldom favours the town o Screwcome with a
+visit.—Our gentry are not of _ancient birth_ enough to be welcome to a
+Lady Screwcome. Our manufacturers make their money by trade. Oh, fie I
+how can it be supposed that such _vulgarians_ should be received among
+the _aristocratic society_ of Screwcome House? Two balls in the
+season, and ten dozen o gooseberry, are enough for _them_.’”
+
+“It’s that scoundrel Parrot,” burst out Sir Brian; “because I wouldn’t
+have any more wine of him—No, it’s Vidler, the apothecary. By heavens!
+Lady Anne, I told you it would be so. Why didn’t you ask the Miss
+Vidlers to your ball?”
+
+“They were on the list,” cries Lady Anne, “three of them; I did
+everything I could; I consulted Mr. Vidler for poor Alfred, and he
+actually stopped and saw the dear child take the physic. Why were they
+not asked to the ball?” cries her ladyship bewildered; “I declare to
+gracious goodness I don’t know.”
+
+“Barnes scratched their names,” cries Ethel, “out of the list, mamma.
+You know you did, Barnes; you said you had gallipots enough.”
+
+“I don’t think it is like Vidler’s writing,” said Mr. Barnes, perhaps
+willing to turn the conversation. “I think it must be that villain Duff
+the baker, who made the song about us at the last election;—but hear
+the rest of the paragraph,” and he continued to read:—
+
+“‘The Screwcomites are at this moment favoured with a visit from a
+gentleman of the Screwcome family, who, having passed all his life
+abroad, is somewhat different from his relatives, whom we all so _love
+and honour!_ This distinguished gentleman, this gallant soldier, has
+come among us, not merely to see our manufactures—in which Screwcome
+can vie with any city in the North—but an old servant and relation of
+his family, whom he is not above recognising; who nursed him in his
+early days; who has been living in her native place for many years,
+supported by the generous bounty of Colonel N———. The gallant officer,
+accompanied by his son, a fine youth, has taken repeated drives round
+our beautiful environs in one of friend Taplow’s (of the King’s Arms)
+open drags, and accompanied by Mrs. ———, now an aged lady, who speaks,
+with tears in her eyes, of the goodness and gratitude of her gallant
+soldier!
+
+“‘One day last week they drove to Screwcome House. Will it be believed
+that, though the house is only four miles distant from our city—though
+Don Pomposo’s family have inhabited it these twelve years for four or
+five months every year—Mrs. M——— saw her cousin’s house for the first
+time; has never set eyes upon those grandees, except in public places,
+since the day when they _honoured_ the county by purchasing the estate
+which they own?
+
+“‘I have, as I repeat, no vote for the borough; but if I had, oh,
+wouldn’t I show my respectful gratitude at the next election, and plump
+for Pomposo! I shall keep my eye upon him, and am, Mr.
+_Independent_,—Your Constant Reader, Peeping Tom.’”
+
+“The spirit of radicalism abroad in this country,” said Sir Brian
+Newcome, crushing his egg-shell desperately, “is dreadful, really
+dreadful. We are on the edge of a positive volcano.” Down went the
+egg-spoon into its crater. “The worst sentiments are everywhere
+publicly advocated; the licentiousness of the press has reached a
+pinnacle which menaces us with ruin; there is no law which these
+shameless newspapers respect; no rank which is safe from their attacks;
+no ancient landmark which the lava-flood of democracy does not threaten
+to overwhelm and destroy.”
+
+“When I was at Spielburg,” Barnes Newcome remarked kindly, “I saw three
+long-bearded, putty-faced blaguards pacin up and down a little
+courtyard, and Count Keppenheimer told me they were three damned
+editors of Milanese newspapers, who had had seven years of imprisonment
+already; and last year when Keppenheimer came to shoot at Newcome, I
+showed him that old thief, old Batters, the proprietor of the
+_Independent_, and Potts, his infernal ally, driving in a dogcart; and
+I said to him, Keppenheimer, I wish we had a place where we could lock
+up some of our infernal radicals of the press, or that you could take
+off those two villains to Spielburg; and as we were passin, that
+infernal Potts burst out laughin in my face, and cut one of my pointers
+over the head with his whip. We must do something with that
+_Independent_, sir.”
+
+“We must,” says the father, solemnly, “we must put it down, Barnes, we
+must put it down.”
+
+“I think,” says Barnes, “we had best give the railway advertisements to
+Batters.”
+
+“But that makes the man of the _Sentinel_ so angry,” says the elder
+persecutor of the press.
+
+“Then let us give Tom Potts some shootin at any rate; the ruffian is
+always poachin about our covers as it is. Speers should be written to,
+sir, to keep a look-out upon Batters and that villain his accomplice,
+and to be civil to them, and that sort of thing; and, damn it, to be
+down upon them whenever he sees the opportunity.”
+
+During the above conspiracy for bribing or crushing the independence of
+a great organ of British opinion, Miss Ethel Newcome held her tongue;
+but when her papa closed the conversation by announcing solemnly that
+he would communicate with Speers, Ethel turning to her mother said,
+“Mamma, is it true that grandpapa has a relation living at Newcome who
+is old and poor?”
+
+“My darling child, how on earth should I know?” says Lady Anne. “I
+daresay Mr. Newcome had plenty of poor relations.”
+
+“I am sure some on your side, Anne, have been good enough to visit me
+at the bank,” said Sir Brian, who thought his wife’s ejaculation was a
+reflection upon his family, whereas it was the statement of a simple
+fact in natural history. “This person was no relation of my father’s at
+all. She was remotely connected with his first wife, I believe. She
+acted as servant to him, and has been most handsomely pensioned by the
+Colonel.”
+
+“Who went to her, like a kind, dear, good, brave uncle as he is,” cried
+Ethel; “the very day I go to Newcome I’ll go to see her.” She caught a
+look of negation in her father’s eye—“I will go—that is, if papa will
+give me leave,” says Miss Ethel.
+
+“By Gad, sir,” says Barnes, “I think it is the very best thing she
+could do; and the best way of doing it, Ethel can go with one of the
+boys and take Mrs. What-do-you-call’em a gown, or a tract, or that sort
+of thing, and stop that infernal _Independent’s_ mouth.”
+
+“If we had gone sooner,” said Miss Ethel, simply, “there would not have
+been all this abuse of us in the paper.” To which statement her worldly
+father and brother perforce agreeing, we may congratulate good old Mrs.
+Mason upon the new and polite acquaintances she is about to make.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+The Old Ladies
+
+
+The above letter and conversation will show what our active Colonel’s
+movements and history had been since the last chapter in which they
+were recorded. He and Clive took the Liverpool mail, and travelled from
+Liverpool to Newcome with a post-chaise and a pair of horses, which
+landed them at the King’s Arms. The Colonel delighted in
+post-chaising—the rapid transit through the country amused him and
+cheered his spirits. Besides, had he not Dr. Johnson’s word for it,
+that a swift journey in a post-chaise was one of the greatest
+enjoyments in life, and a sojourn in a comfortable inn one of its chief
+pleasures? In travelling he was as happy and noisy as a boy. He talked
+to the waiters, and made friends with the landlord; got all the
+information which he could gather regarding the towns into which he
+came; and drove about from one sight or curiosity to another with
+indefatigable good-humour and interest. It was good for Clive to see
+men and cities; to visit mills, manufactories, country seats,
+cathedrals. He asked a hundred questions regarding all things round
+about him; and any one caring to know who Thomas Newcome was, and what
+his rank and business, found no difficulty in having his questions
+answered by the simple and kindly traveller.
+
+Mine host of the King’s Arms, Mr. Taplow aforesaid, knew in five
+minutes who his guest was, and the errand on which he came. Was not
+Colonel Newcome’s name painted on all his trunks and boxes? Was not his
+servant ready to answer all questions regarding the Colonel and his
+son? Newcome pretty generally introduced Clive to my landlord, when the
+latter brought his guest his bottle of wine. With old-fashioned
+cordiality, the Colonel would bid the landlord drink a glass of his own
+liquor, and seldom failed to say to him, “This is my son, sir. We are
+travelling together to see the country. Every English gentleman should
+see his own country first, before he goes abroad, as we intend to do
+afterwards—to make the Grand Tour. And I will thank you to tell me what
+there is remarkable in your town, and what we ought to see—antiquities,
+manufactures, and seats in the neighbourhood. We wish to see
+everything, sir—everything. Elaborate diaries of these home tours are
+still extant, in Clive’s boyish manuscript and the Colonel’s dashing
+handwriting—quaint records of places visited, and alarming accounts of
+inn bills paid.”
+
+So Mr. Taplow knew in five minutes that his guest was a brother of Sir
+Brian, their member; and saw the note despatched by an ostler to “Mrs.
+Sarah Mason, Jubilee Row,” announcing that the Colonel had arrived, and
+would be with her after his dinner. Mr. Taplow did not think fit to
+tell his guest that the house Sir Brian used—the Blue house—was the
+Roebuck, not the King’s Arms. Might not the gentlemen be of different
+politics? Mr. Taplow’s wine knew none.
+
+Some of the jolliest fellows in all Newcome use the Boscawen Room at
+the King’s Arms as their club, and pass numberless merry evenings and
+crack countless jokes there.
+
+Duff, the baker; old Mr. Vidler, when he can get away from his medical
+labours (and his hand shakes, it must be owned, very much now, and his
+nose is very red); Parrot, the auctioneer; and that amusing dog, Tom
+Potts, the talented reporter of the _Independent_—were pretty constant
+attendants at the King’s Arms; and Colonel Newcome’s dinner was not
+over before some of these gentlemen knew what dishes he had had; how he
+had called for a bottle of sherry and a bottle of claret, like a
+gentleman; how he had paid the postboys, and travelled with a servant
+like a top-sawyer; that he was come to shake hands with an old nurse
+and relative of his family. Every one of those jolly Britons thought
+well of the Colonel for his affectionateness and liberality, and
+contrasted it with the behaviour of the Tory Baronet—their
+representative.
+
+His arrival made a sensation in the place. The Blue Club at the Roebuck
+discussed it, as well as the uncompromising Liberals at the King’s
+Arms. Mr. Speers, Sir Brian’s agent, did not know how to act, and
+advised Sir Brian by the next night’s mail, The Reverend Dr. Bulders,
+the rector, left his card.
+
+Meanwhile it was not gain or business, but only love and gratitude,
+which brought Thomas Newcome to his father’s native town. Their dinner
+over, away went the Colonel and Clive, guided by the ostler, their
+previous messenger, to the humble little tenement which Thomas
+Newcome’s earliest friend inhabited. The good old woman put her
+spectacles into her Bible, and flung herself into her boy’s arms—her
+boy who was more than fifty years old. She embraced Clive still more
+eagerly and frequently than she kissed his father. She did not know her
+Colonel with them whiskers. Clive was the very picture of the dear boy
+as he had left her almost twoscore years ago. And as fondly as she hung
+on the boy, her memory had ever clung round that early time when they
+were together. The good soul told endless tales of her darling’s
+childhood, his frolics and beauty. To-day was uncertain to her, but the
+past was still bright and clear. As they sat prattling together over
+the bright tea-table, attended by the trim little maid, whose services
+the Colonel’s bounty secured for his old nurse, the kind old creature
+insisted on having Clive by her side. Again and again she would think
+he was actually her own boy, forgetting, in that sweet and pious
+hallucination, that the bronzed face, and thinned hair, and melancholy
+eyes of the veteran before her, were those of her nursling of old days.
+So for near half the space of man’s allotted life he had been absent
+from her, and day and night wherever he was, in sickness or health, in
+sorrow or danger, her innocent love and prayers had attended the absent
+darling. Not in vain, not in vain, does he live whose course is so
+befriended. Let us be thankful for our race, as we think of the love
+that blesses some of us. Surely it has something of Heaven in it, and
+angels celestial may rejoice in it, and admire it.
+
+Having nothing whatever to do, our Colonel’s movements are of course
+exceedingly rapid, and he has the very shortest time to spend in any
+single place. That evening, Saturday, and the next day, Sunday, when he
+will faithfully accompany his dear old nurse to church. And what a
+festival is that day for her, when she has her Colonel and that
+beautiful brilliant boy of his by her side, and Mr. Hicks, the curate,
+looking at him, and the venerable Dr. Bulders himself eyeing him from
+the pulpit, and all the neighbours fluttering and whispering, to be
+sure, who can be that fine military gentleman, and that splendid young
+man sitting by old Mrs. Mason, and leading her so affectionately out of
+church? That Saturday and Sunday the Colonel will pass with good old
+Mason, but on Monday he must be off; on Tuesday he must be in London,
+he has important business in London,—in fact, Tom Hamilton, of his
+regiment, comes up for election at the Oriental on that day, and on
+such an occasion could Thomas Newcome be absent? He drives away from
+the King’s Arms through a row of smirking chambermaids, smiling
+waiters, and thankful ostlers, accompanied to the post-chaise, of which
+the obsequious Taplow shuts the door; and the Boscawen Room pronounces
+him that night to be a trump; and the whole of the busy town, ere the
+next day is over, has heard of his coming and departure, praised his
+kindliness and generosity, and no doubt contrasted it with the
+different behaviour of the Baronet, his brother, who has gone for some
+time by the ignominious sobriquet of Screwcome, in the neighbourhood of
+his ancestral hall.
+
+Dear old nurse Mason will have a score of visits to make and to
+receive, at all of which you may be sure that triumphal advent of the
+Colonel’s will be discussed and admired. Mrs. Mason will show her
+beautiful new India shawl, and her splendid Bible with the large print,
+and the affectionate inscription, from Thomas Newcome to his dearest
+old friend; her little maid will exhibit her new gown; the curate will
+see the Bible, and Mrs. Bulders will admire the shawl; and the old
+friends and humble companions of the good old lady, as they take their
+Sunday walks by the pompous lodge-gates of Newcome Park, which stand
+with the Baronet’s new-fangled arms over them, gilded, and filagreed,
+and barred, will tell their stories, too, about the kind Colonel and
+his hard brother. When did Sir Brian ever visit a poor old woman’s
+cottage, or his bailiff exempt from the rent? What good action, except
+a few thin blankets and beggarly coal and soup tickets, did Newcome
+Park ever do for the poor? And as for the Colonel’s wealth, Lord bless
+you, he’s been in India these five-and-thirty years; the Baronet’s
+money is a drop in the sea to his. The Colonel is the kindest, the
+best, the richest of men. These facts and opinions, doubtless, inspired
+the eloquent pen of “Peeping Tom,” when he indited the sarcastic
+epistle to the _Newcome Independent_, which we perused over Sir Brian
+Newcome’s shoulder in the last chapter.
+
+And you may be sure Thomas Newcome had not been many weeks in England
+before good little Miss Honeyman, at Brighton, was favoured with a
+visit from her dear Colonel. The envious Gawler scowling out of his
+bow-window, where the fly-blown card still proclaimed that his lodgings
+were unoccupied, had the mortification to behold a yellow post-chaise
+drive up to Miss Honeyman’s door, and having discharged two gentlemen
+from within, trot away with servant and baggage to some house of
+entertainment other than Gawler’s. Whilst this wretch was cursing his
+own ill fate, and execrating yet more deeply Miss Honeyman’s better
+fortune, the worthy little lady was treating her Colonel to a sisterly
+embrace and a solemn reception. Hannah, the faithful housekeeper, was
+presented, and had a shake of the hand. The Colonel knew all about
+Hannah: ere he had been in England a week, a basket containing pots of
+jam of her confection, and a tongue of Hannah’s curing, had arrived for
+the Colonel. That very night when his servant had lodged Colonel
+Newcome’s effects at the neighbouring hotel, Hannah was in possession
+of one of the Colonel’s shirts, she and her mistress having previously
+conspired to make a dozen of those garments for the family benefactor.
+
+All the presents which Newcome had ever transmitted to his
+sister-in-law from India had been taken out of the cotton and lavender
+in which the faithful creature kept them. It was a fine hot day in
+June, but I promise you Miss Honeyman wore her blazing scarlet Cashmere
+shawl; her great brooch, representing the Taj of Agra, was in her
+collar; and her bracelets (she used to say, I am given to understand
+they are called bangles, my dear, by the natives) decorated the sleeves
+round her lean old hands, which trembled with pleasure as they received
+the kind grasp of the Colonel of colonels. How busy those hands had
+been that morning! What custards they had whipped!—what a triumph of
+pie-crusts they had achieved! Before Colonel Newcome had been ten
+minutes in the house, the celebrated veal-cutlets made their
+appearance. Was not the whole house adorned in expectation of his
+coming? Had not Mr. Kuhn, the affable foreign gentleman of the
+first-floor lodgers, prepared a French dish? Was not Betty on the
+look-out, and instructed to put the cutlets on the fire at the very
+moment when the Colonel’s carriage drove up to her mistress’s door? The
+good woman’s eyes twinkled, the kind old hand and voice shook, as,
+holding up a bright glass of Madeira, Miss Honeyman drank the Colonel’s
+health. “I promise you, my dear Colonel,” says she, nodding her head,
+adorned with a bristling superstructure of lace and ribbons, “I promise
+you, that I can drink your health in good _wine!_” The wine was of his
+own sending, and so were the China fire-screens, and the sandalwood
+workbox, and the ivory cardcase, and those magnificent pink and white
+chessmen, carved like little sepoys and mandarins, with the castles on
+elephants’ backs, George the Third and his queen in pink ivory, against
+the Emperor of China and lady in white—the delight of Clive’s
+childhood, the chief ornament of the old spinster’s sitting-room.
+
+Miss Honeyman’s little feast was pronounced to be the perfection of
+cookery; and when the meal was over, came a noise of little feet at the
+parlour door, which being opened, there appeared, first, a tall nurse
+with a dancing baby; second and third, two little girls with little
+frocks, little trousers, long ringlets, blue eyes, and blue ribbons to
+match; fourth, Master Alfred, now quite recovered from his illness, and
+holding by the hand, fifth, Miss Ethel Newcome, blushing like a rose.
+
+Hannah, grinning, acted as mistress of the ceremonies, calling out the
+names of “Miss Newcomes, Master Newcomes, to see the Colonel, if you
+please, ma’am,” bobbing a curtsey, and giving a knowing nod to Master
+Clive, as she smoothed her new silk apron. Hannah, too, was in new
+attire, all crisp and rustling, in the Colonel’s honour. Miss Ethel did
+not cease blushing as she advanced towards her uncle; and the honest
+campaigner started up, blushing too. Mr. Clive rose also, as little
+Alfred, of whom he was a great friend, ran towards him. Clive rose,
+laughed, nodded at Ethel, and ate gingerbread nuts all at the same
+time. As for Colonel Thomas Newcome and his niece, they fell in love
+with each other instantaneously, like Prince Camaralzaman and the
+Princess of China.
+
+I have turned away one artist: the poor creature was utterly
+incompetent to depict the sublime, graceful, and pathetic personages
+and events with which this history will most assuredly abound, and I
+doubt whether even the designer engaged in his place can make such a
+portrait of Miss Ethel Newcome as shall satisfy her friends and her own
+sense of justice. That blush which we have indicated, he cannot render.
+How are you to copy it with a steel point and a ball of printer’s ink?
+That kindness which lights up the Colonel’s eyes; gives an expression
+to the very wrinkles round about them; shines as a halo round his
+face;—what artist can paint it? The painters of old, when they
+portrayed sainted personages, were fain to have recourse to compasses
+and gold leaf—as if celestial splendour could be represented by Dutch
+metal! As our artist cannot come up to this task, the reader will be
+pleased to let his fancy paint for itself the look of courtesy for a
+woman, admiration for a young beauty, protection for an innocent child,
+all of which are expressed upon the Colonel’s kind face, as his eyes
+are set upon Ethel Newcome.
+
+“Mamma has sent us to bid you welcome to England, uncle,” says Miss
+Ethel, advancing, and never thinking for a moment of laying aside that
+fine blush which she brought into the room, and which is _her_ pretty
+symbol of youth, and modesty, and beauty.
+
+He took a little slim white hand and laid it down on his brown palm,
+where it looked all the whiter: he cleared the grizzled mustachio from
+his mouth, and stooping down he kissed the little white hand with a
+great deal of grace and dignity. There was no point of resemblance, and
+yet a something in the girl’s look, voice, and movements, which caused
+his heart to thrill, and an image out of the past to rise up and salute
+him. The eyes which had brightened his youth (and which he saw in his
+dreams and thoughts for faithful years afterwards, as though they
+looked at him out of heaven) seemed to shine upon him after
+five-and-thirty years. He remembered such a fair bending neck and
+clustering hair, such a light foot and airy figure, such a slim hand
+lying in his own—and now parted from it with a gap of ten thousand long
+days between. It is an old saying, that we forget nothing; as people in
+fever begin suddenly to talk the language of their infancy we are
+stricken by memory sometimes, and old affections rush back on us as
+vivid as in the time when they were our daily talk, when their presence
+gladdened our eyes, when their accents thrilled in our ears, when with
+passionate tears and grief we flung ourselves upon their hopeless
+corpses. Parting is death, at least as far as life is concerned. A
+passion comes to an end; it is carried off in a coffin, or weeping in a
+post-chaise; it drops out of life one way or other, and the earthclods
+close over it, and we see it no more. But it has been part of our
+souls, and it is eternal. Does a mother not love her dead infant? a man
+his lost mistress? with the fond wife nestling at his side,—yes, with
+twenty children smiling round her knee. No doubt, as the old soldier
+held the girl’s hand in his, the little talisman led him back to Hades,
+and he saw Leonora.——
+
+“How do you do, uncle?” say girls Nos. 2 and 3 in a pretty little
+infantile chorus. He drops the talisman, he is back in common life
+again—the dancing baby in the arms of the bobbing nurse babbles a
+welcome. Alfred looks up for a while at his uncle in the white
+trousers, and then instantly proposes that Clive should make him some
+drawings; and is on his knees at the next moment. He is always climbing
+on somebody or something, or winding over chairs, curling through
+banisters, standing on somebody’s head, or his own head,—as his
+convalescence advances, his breakages are fearful. Miss Honeyman and
+Hannah will talk about his dilapidations for years after the little
+chap has left them. When he is a jolly young officer in the Guards, and
+comes to see them at Brighton, they will show him the blue-dragon
+Chayny jar, on which he would sit, and which he cried so fearfully upon
+breaking.
+
+When this little party has gone out smiling to take its walk on the
+sea-shore, the Colonel sits down and resumes the interrupted dessert.
+Miss Honeyman talks of the children and their mother, and the merits of
+Mr. Kuhn, and the beauty of Miss Ethel, glancing significantly towards
+Clive, who has had enough of gingerbread nuts and dessert and wine, and
+whose youthful nose is by this time at the window. What kind-hearted
+woman, young or old, does not love match-making?
+
+The Colonel, without lifting his eyes from the table, says “she reminds
+him of—of somebody he knew once.”
+
+“Indeed?” cries Miss Honeyman, and thinks Emma must have altered very
+much after going to India, for she had fair hair, and white eyelashes,
+and not a pretty foot certainly—but, my dear good lady, the Colonel is
+not thinking of the late Mrs. Casey.
+
+He has taken a fitting quantity of the Madeira, the artless greeting of
+the people here, young and old, has warmed his heart, and he goes
+upstairs to pay a visit to his sister-in-law, to whom he makes his most
+courteous bow as becomes a lady of her rank. Ethel takes her place
+quite naturally beside him during his visit. Where did he learn those
+fine manners which all of us who knew him admired in him? He had a
+natural simplicity, an habitual practice of kind and generous thoughts;
+a pure mind, and therefore above hypocrisy and affectation—perhaps
+those French people with whom he had been intimate in early life had
+imparted to him some of the traditional graces of their _vieille
+tour_—certainly his half-brothers had inherited none such. “What is
+this that Barnes has written about his uncle, that the Colonel is
+ridiculous?” Lady Anne said to her daughter that night. “Your uncle is
+adorable. I have never seen a more perfect grand Seigneur. He puts me
+in mind of my grandfather, though grandpapa’s grand manner was more
+artificial, and his voice spoiled by snuff. See the Colonel. He smokes
+round the garden, but with what perfect grace! This is the man Uncle
+Hobson, and your poor dear papa, have represented to us as a species of
+bear! Mr. Newcome, who has himself the ton of a waiter! The Colonel is
+perfect. What can Barnes mean by ridiculing him? I wish Barnes had such
+a distinguished air; but he is like his poor dear papa. _Que
+voulez-vous_, my love? The Newcomes are honourable: the Newcomes are
+wealthy: but distinguished—no. I never deluded myself with that notion
+when I married your poor dear papa. At once I pronounce Colonel Newcome
+a person to be in every way distinguished by us. On our return to
+London I shall present him to all our family: poor good man! let him
+see that his family have some presentable relations besides those whom
+he will meet at Mrs. Newcome’s, in Bryanstone Square. You must go to
+Bryanstone Square immediately we return to London. You must ask your
+cousins and their governess, and we will give them a little party. Mrs.
+Newcome is insupportable, but we must never forsake our relatives,
+Ethel. When you come out you will have to dine there, and to go to her
+ball. Every young lady in your position in the world has sacrifices to
+make, and duties to her family to perform. Look at me. Why did I marry
+your poor dear papa? From duty. Has your Aunt Fanny, who ran away with
+Captain Canonbury, been happy? They have eleven children, and are
+starving at Boulogne. Think of three of Fanny’s boys in yellow
+stockings at the Bluecoat School. Your papa got them appointed. I am
+sure my papa would have gone mad if he had seen that day! She came with
+one of the poor wretches to Park Lane: but I could not see them. My
+feelings would not allow me. When my maid,—I had a French maid then,
+Louise, you remember; her conduct was _abominable:_ so was
+Préville’s—when she came and said that my Lady Fanny was below with a
+young gentleman, _qui portait des bas jaunes_, I could not see the
+child. I begged her to come up in my room: and, absolutely that I might
+not offend her, I went to bed. That wretch Louise met her at Boulogne
+and told her afterwards. Good night, we must not stand chattering here
+any more. Heaven bless you, my darling! Those are the Colonel’s
+windows! Look, he is smoking on his balcony—that must be Clive’s room.
+Clive is a good kind boy. It was very kind of him to draw so many
+pictures for Alfred. Put the drawings away, Ethel. Mr. Smee saw some in
+Park Lane, and said they showed remarkable genius. What a genius your
+Aunt Emily had for drawing; but it was flowers! I had no genius in
+particular, so mamma used to say—and Doctor Belper said, ‘My dear Lady
+Walham’ (it was before my grandpapa’s death), ‘has Miss Anne a genius
+for sewing buttons and making puddens?’—puddens he pronounced it.
+Goodnight, my own love. Blessings, blessings, on my Ethel!”
+
+The Colonel from his balcony saw the slim figure of the retreating
+girl, and looked fondly after her: and as the smoke of his cigar
+floated in the air, he formed a fine castle in it, whereof Clive was
+lord, and that pretty Ethel, lady. “What a frank, generous, bright
+young creature is yonder!” thought he. “How cheery and gay she is; how
+good to Miss Honeyman, to whom she behaved with just the respect that
+was the old lady’s due—how affectionate with her brothers and sisters!
+What a sweet voice she has! What a pretty little white hand it is! When
+she gave it me, it looked like a little white bird lying in mine. I
+must wear gloves, by Jove I must, and my coat is old-fashioned, as
+Binnie says; what a fine match might be made between that child and
+Clive! She reminds me of a pair of eyes I haven’t seen these forty
+years. I would like to have Clive married to her; to see him out of the
+scrapes and dangers that young fellows encounter, and safe with such a
+sweet girl as that. If God had so willed it, I might have been happy
+myself, and could have made a woman happy. But the Fates were against
+me. I should like to see Clive happy, and then say _Nunc dimittis_. I
+shan’t want anything more to-night, Kean, and you can go to bed.”
+
+“Thank you, Colonel,” says Kean, who enters, having prepared his
+master’s bedchamber, and is retiring when the Colonel calls after him:
+
+“I say, Kean, is that blue coat of mine very old?”
+
+“Uncommon white about the seams, Colonel,” says the man.
+
+“Is it older than other people’s coats?”—Kean is obliged gravely to
+confess that the Colonel’s coat is very queer.
+
+“Get me another coat, then—see that I don’t do anything or wear
+anything unusual. I have been so long out of Europe, that I don’t know
+the customs here, and am not above learning.”
+
+Kean retires, vowing that his master is an old trump; which opinion he
+had already expressed to Mr. Kuhn, Lady Hanne’s man, over a long
+potation which those two gentlemen had taken together. And, as all of
+us, in one way or another, are subject to this domestic criticism, from
+which not the most exalted can escape, I say, lucky is the man whose
+servants speak well of him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+In which Mr. Sherrick lets his House in Fitzroy Square
+
+
+In spite of the sneers of the _Newcome Independent_, and the Colonel’s
+unlucky visit to his nurse’s native place, he still remained in high
+favour in Park Lane; where the worthy gentleman paid almost daily
+visits, and was received with welcome and almost affection, at least by
+the ladies and the children of the house. Who was it that took the
+children to Astley’s but Uncle Newcome? I saw him there in the midst of
+a cluster of these little people, all children together. He laughed
+delighted at Mr. Merryman’s jokes in the ring. He beheld the Battle of
+Waterloo with breathless interest, and was amazed—amazed, by Jove,
+sir—at the prodigious likeness of the principal actor to the Emperor
+Napoleon; whose tomb he had visited on his return from India, as it
+pleased him to tell his little audience who sat clustering round him:
+the little girls, Sir Brian’s daughters, holding each by a finger of
+his honest hands; young Masters Alfred and Edward clapping and
+hurrahing by his side; while Mr. Clive and Miss Ethel sat in the back
+of the box enjoying the scene, but with that decorum which belonged to
+their superior age and gravity. As for Clive, he was in these matters
+much older than the grizzled old warrior his father. It did one good to
+hear the Colonel’s honest laughs at clown’s jokes, and to see the
+tenderness and simplicity with which he watched over this happy brood
+of young ones. How lavishly did he supply them with sweetmeats between
+the acts! There he sat in the midst of them, and ate an orange himself
+with perfect satisfaction. I wonder what sum of money Mr. Barnes
+Newcome would have taken to sit for five hours with his young brothers
+and sisters in a public box at the theatre and eat an orange in the
+face of the audience? When little Alfred went to Harrow, you may be
+sure Colonel Newcome and Clive galloped over to see the little man, and
+tipped him royally. What money is better bestowed than that of a
+schoolboy’s tip? How the kindness is recalled by the recipient in after
+days! It blesses him that gives and him that takes. Remember how happy
+such benefactions made you in your own early time, and go off on the
+very first fine day and tip your nephew at school!
+
+The Colonel’s organ of benevolence was so large, that he would have
+liked to administer bounties to the young folks his nephews and nieces
+in Bryanstone Square, as well as to their cousins in Park Lane; but
+Mrs. Newcome was a great deal too virtuous to admit of such spoiling of
+children. She took the poor gentleman to task for an attempt upon her
+boys when those lads came home for their holidays, and caused them
+ruefully to give back the shining gold sovereign with which their uncle
+had thought to give them a treat.
+
+“I do not quarrel with _other_ families,” says she; “I do not _allude_
+to other families;” meaning, of course, that she did not allude to Park
+Lane. “There may be children who are allowed to receive money from
+their father’s grown-up friends. There may be children who hold out
+their hands for presents, and thus become mercenary in early life. I
+make no reflections with regard to _other_ households. _I_ only look,
+and think, and pray for the welfare of my own beloved ones. They want
+for nothing. Heaven has bounteously furnished us with every comfort,
+with every elegance, with every luxury. Why need we be bounden to
+others, who have been ourselves so amply provided? I should consider it
+ingratitude, Colonel Newcome, want of proper spirit, to allow my boys
+to accept money. Mind, I make _no allusions_. When they go to school
+they receive a sovereign a-piece from their father, and a shilling a
+week, which is ample pocket-money. When they are at home, I desire that
+they may have rational amusements: I send them to the Polytechnic with
+Professor Hickson, who kindly explains to them some of the marvels of
+science and the wonders of machinery. I send them to the
+picture-galleries and the British Museum. I go with them myself to the
+delightful lectures at the institution in Albemarle Street. I do not
+desire that they should attend theatrical exhibitions. I do not quarrel
+with those who go to plays; far from it! Who am I that I should venture
+to judge the conduct of others? When you wrote from India, expressing a
+wish that your boy should be made acquainted with the works of
+Shakspeare, I gave up my own opinion at once. Should I interpose
+between a child and his father? I encouraged the boy to go to the play,
+and sent him to the pit with one of our footmen.”
+
+“And you tipped him very handsomely, my dear Maria, too,” said the
+good-natured Colonel, breaking in upon her sermon; but Virtue was not
+to be put off in that way.
+
+“And why, Colonel Newcome,” Virtue exclaimed, laying a pudgy little
+hand on its heart; “why did I treat Clive so? Because I stood towards
+him _in loco parentis;_ because he was as a child to me, and I to him
+as a mother. I indulged him more than my own. I loved him with a true
+maternal tenderness. _Then_ he was happy to come to our house: _then_
+perhaps Park Lane was not so often open to him as Bryanstone Square:
+but I make n_o allusions. Then_ he did not go six times to another
+house for once that he came to mine. He was a simple, confiding,
+generous boy, was not dazzled by worldly rank or titles of splendour.
+He could not find _these_ in Bryanstone Square. A merchant’s wife, a
+country lawyer’s daughter—I could not be expected to have my humble
+board surrounded by titled aristocracy; I would not if I could. I love
+my own family too well; I am too honest, too simple,—let me own it at
+once, Colonel Newcome, too _proud!_ And now, now his father has come to
+England, and I have resigned him, and he meets with no titled
+aristocrats at my house, and he does not come here any more.”
+
+Tears rolled out of her little eyes as she spoke, and she covered her
+round face with her pocket-handkerchief.
+
+Had Colonel Newcome read the paper that morning, he might have seen
+amongst what are called the fashionable announcements, the cause,
+perhaps, why his sister-in-law had exhibited so much anger and virtue.
+The _Morning Post_ stated, that yesterday Sir Brian and Lady Newcome
+entertained at dinner His Excellency the Persian Ambassador and
+Bucksheesh Bey; the Right Honourable Cannon Rowe, President of the
+Board of Control, and Lady Louisa Rowe; the Earl of H———, the Countess
+of Kew, the Earl of Kew, Sir Currey Baughton, Major-General and Mrs.
+Hooker, Colonel Newcome, and Mr. Horace Fogey. Afterwards her ladyship
+had an assembly, which was attended by, etc. etc.
+
+This catalogue of illustrious names had been read by Mr. Newcome to her
+spouse at breakfast, with such comments as she was in the habit of
+making.
+
+“The President of the Board of Control, the Chairman of the Court of
+Directors, and Ex-Governor-General of India, and a whole regiment of
+Kews. By Jove, Maria, the Colonel is in good company,” cries Mr.
+Newcome, with a laugh. “That’s the sort of dinner you should have given
+him. Some people to talk about India. When he dined with us he was put
+between old Lady Wormely and Professor Roots. I don’t wonder at his
+going to sleep after dinner. I was off myself once or twice during that
+confounded long argument between Professor Roots and Dr. Windus. That
+Windus is the deuce to talk.”
+
+“Dr. Windus is a man of science, and his name is of European
+celebrity!” says Maria solemnly. “Any intellectual person would prefer
+such company to the titled nobodies into whose family your brother has
+married.”
+
+“There you go, Polly; you are always having a shy at Lady Anne and her
+relations,” says Mr. Newcome, good-naturedly.
+
+“A shy! How can you use such vulgar words, Mr. Newcome? What have I to
+do with Sir Brian’s titled relations? I do not value nobility. I prefer
+people of science—people of intellect—to all the rank in the world.”
+
+“So you do,” says Hobson her spouse. “You have your party—Lady Anne has
+her party. You take your line—Lady Anne takes her line. You are a
+superior woman, my dear Polly; every one knows that. I’m a plain
+country farmer, I am. As long as you are happy, I am happy too. The
+people you get to dine here may talk Greek or algebra for what I care.
+By Jove, my dear, I think you can hold your own with the best of them.”
+
+“I have endeavoured by assiduity to make up for time lost, and an early
+imperfect education,” says Mrs. Newcome. “You married a poor country
+lawyer’s daughter. You did not seek a partner in the Peerage, Mr.
+Newcome.”
+
+“No, no. Not such a confounded flat as that,” cries Mr. Newcome,
+surveying his plump partner behind her silver teapot, with eyes of
+admiration.
+
+“I had an imperfect education, but I knew its blessings, and have, I
+trust, endeavoured to cultivate the humble talents which Heaven has
+given me, Mr. Newcome.”
+
+“Humble, by Jove!” exclaims the husband. “No gammon of that sort,
+Polly. You know well enough that you are a superior woman. I ain’t a
+superior man. I know that: one is enough in a family. I leave the
+reading to you, my dear. Here comes my horses. I say, I wish you’d call
+on Lady Anne to-day. Do go and see her, now that’s a good girl. I know
+she is flighty, and that; and Brian’s back is up a little. But he ain’t
+a bad fellow; and I wish I could see you and his wife better friends.”
+
+On his way to the City, Mr. Newcome rode to look at the new house, No.
+120 Fitzroy Square, which his brother, the Colonel, had taken in
+conjunction with that Indian friend of his, Mr. Binnie. Shrewd old
+cock, Mr. Binnie. Has brought home a good bit of money from India. Is
+looking out for safe investments. Has been introduced to Newcome
+Brothers. Mr. Newcome thinks very well of the Colonel’s friend.
+
+The house is vast, but, it must be owned, melancholy. Not long since it
+was a ladies’ school, in an unprosperous condition. The scar left by
+Madame Latour’s brass plate may still be seen on the tall black door,
+cheerfully ornamented in the style of the end of the last century, with
+a funereal urn in the centre of the entry, and garlands, and the skulls
+of rams at each corner. Madame Latour, who at one time actually kept a
+large yellow coach, and drove her parlour young ladies in the Regent’s
+Park, was an exile from her native country (Islington was her
+birthplace, and Grigson her paternal name), and an outlaw at the suit
+of Samuel Sherrick: that Mr. Sherrick whose wine-vaults undermine Lady
+Whittlesea’s Chapel where the eloquent Honeyman preaches.
+
+The house is Mr. Sherrick’s house. Some say his name is Shadrach, and
+pretend to have known him as an orange-boy, afterwards as a
+chorus-singer in the theatres, afterwards as secretary to a great
+tragedian. I know nothing of these stories. He may or he may not be a
+partner of Mr. Campion, of Shepherd’s Inn: he has a handsome villa,
+Abbey Road, St. John’s Wood, entertains good company, rather loud, of
+the sporting sort, rides and drives very showy horses, has boxes at the
+Opera whenever he likes, and free access behind the scenes: is
+handsome, dark, bright-eyed, with a quantity of jewellery, and a tuft
+to his chin; sings sweetly sentimental songs after dinner. Who cares a
+fig what was the religion of Mr. Sherrick’s ancestry, or what the
+occupation of his youth? Mr. Honeyman, a most respectable man surely,
+introduced Sherrick to the Colonel and Binnie.
+
+Mr. Sherrick stocked their cellar with some of the wine over which
+Honeyman preached such lovely sermons. It was not dear; it was not bad
+when you dealt with Mr. Sherrick for wine alone. Going into his market
+with ready money in your hand, as our simple friends did, you were
+pretty fairly treated by Mr. Sherrick.
+
+The house being taken, we may be certain there was fine amusement for
+Clive, Mr. Binnie, and the Colonel, in frequenting the sales, in the
+inspection of upholsterers’ shops, and the purchase of furniture for
+the new mansion. It was like nobody else’s house. There were three
+masters with four or five servants over them. Kean for the Colonel and
+his son; a smart boy with boots for Mr. Binnie; Mrs. Kean to cook and
+keep house, with a couple of maids under her. The Colonel, himself, was
+great at making hash mutton, hot-pot, curry, and pillau. What cosy
+pipes did we not smoke in the dining-room, in the drawing-room, or
+where we would! What pleasant evenings did we not have with Mr. Binnie’s
+books and Schiedam! Then there were the solemn state dinners, at most
+of which the writer of this biography had a corner.
+
+Clive had a tutor—Grindley of Corpus—whom we recommended to him, and
+with whom the young gentleman did not fatigue his brains very much; but
+his great forte decidedly lay in drawing. He sketched the horses, he
+sketched the dogs; all the servants from the blear-eyed boot-boy to the
+rosy-cheeked lass, Mrs. Kean’s niece, whom that virtuous housekeeper
+was always calling to come downstairs. He drew his father in all
+postures—asleep, on foot, on horseback; and jolly little Mr. Binnie,
+with his plump legs on a chair, or jumping briskly on the back of the
+cob which he rode. He should have drawn the pictures for this book, but
+that he no longer condescends to make sketches. Young Ridley was his
+daily friend now; and Grindley, his classics and mathematics over in
+the morning, and the ride with father over, this pair of young men
+would constantly attend Gandish’s Drawing Academy, where, to be sure,
+Ridley passed many hours at work on his art, before his young friend
+and patron could be spared from his books to his pencil.
+
+“Oh,” says Clive, if you talk to him now about those early days, “it
+was a jolly time! I do not believe there was any young fellow in London
+so happy.” And there hangs up in his painting-room now, a head, painted
+at one sitting, of a man rather bald, with hair touched with grey, with
+a large moustache, and a sweet mouth half smiling beneath it, and
+melancholy eyes; and Clive shows that portrait of their grandfather to
+his children, and tells them that the whole world never saw a nobler
+gentleman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+A School of Art
+
+
+British art either finds her peculiar nourishment in melancholy, and
+loves to fix her abode in desert places; or it may be her purse is but
+slenderly furnished, and she is forced to put up with accommodations
+rejected by more prosperous callings. Some of the most dismal quarters
+of the town are colonised by her disciples and professors. In walking
+through streets which may have been gay and polite when ladies’
+chairmen jostled each other on the pavement, and linkboys with their
+torches lighted the beaux over the mud, who has not remarked the
+artist’s invasion of those regions once devoted to fashion and gaiety?
+Centre windows of drawing-rooms are enlarged so as to reach up into
+bedrooms—bedrooms where Lady Betty has had her hair powdered, and where
+the painter’s north-light now takes possession of the place which her
+toilet-table occupied a hundred years ago. There are degrees in
+decadence: after the Fashion chooses to emigrate, and retreats from
+Soho or Bloomsbury, let us say, to Cavendish Square, physicians come
+and occupy the vacant houses, which still have a respectable look, the
+windows being cleaned, and the knockers and plates kept bright, and the
+doctor’s carriage rolling round the square, almost as fine as the
+countess’s, which has whisked away her ladyship to other regions. A
+boarding-house mayhap succeeds the physician, who has followed after
+his sick folks into the new country; and then Dick Tinto comes with his
+dingy brass plate, and breaks in his north window, and sets up his
+sitters’ throne. I love his honest moustache, and jaunty velvet jacket;
+his queer figure, his queer vanities, and his kind heart. Why should he
+not suffer his ruddy ringlets to fall over his shirt-collar? Why should
+he deny himself his velvet? it is but a kind of fustian which costs him
+eighteenpence a yard. He is naturally what he is, and breaks out into
+costume as spontaneously as a bird sings, or a bulb bears a tulip. And
+as Dick, under yonder terrific appearance of waving cloak, bristling
+beard, and shadowy sombrero, is a good kindly simple creature, got up
+at a very cheap rate, his life is so consistent with his dress; he
+gives his genius a darkling swagger, and a romantic envelope, which,
+being removed, you find, not a bravo, but a kind chirping soul; not a
+moody poet avoiding mankind for the better company of his own great
+thoughts, but a jolly little chap who has an aptitude for painting
+brocade gowns, a bit of armour (with figures inside them), or trees and
+cattle, or gondolas and buildings, or what not; an instinct for the
+picturesque, which exhibits itself in his works, and outwardly on his
+person; beyond this, a gentle creature loving his friends, his cups,
+feasts, merrymakings, and all good things. The kindest folks alive I
+have found among those scowling whiskeradoes. They open oysters with
+their yataghans, toast muffins on their rapiers, and fill their Venice
+glasses with half-and-half. If they have money in their lean purses, be
+sure they have a friend to share it. What innocent gaiety, what jovial
+suppers on threadbare cloths, and wonderful songs after; what pathos,
+merriment, humour does not a man enjoy who frequents their company! Mr.
+Clive Newcome, who has long since shaved his beard, who has become a
+family man, and has seen the world in a thousand different phases,
+avers that his life as an art-student at home and abroad was the
+pleasantest part of his whole existence. It may not be more amusing in
+the telling than the chronicle of a feast, or the accurate report of
+two lovers’ conversation; but the biographer, having brought his hero
+to the period of his life, is bound to relate it, before passing to
+other occurrences which are to be narrated in their turn.
+
+We may be sure the boy had many conversations with his affectionate
+guardian as to the profession which he should follow. As regarded
+mathematical and classical learning, the elder Newcome was forced to
+admit, that out of every hundred boys, there were fifty as clever as
+his own, and at least fifty more industrious; the army in time of peace
+Colonel Newcome thought a bad trade for a young fellow so fond of ease
+and pleasure as his son: his delight in the pencil was manifest to all.
+Were not his school-books full of caricatures of the masters? Whilst
+his tutor, Grindley, was lecturing him, did he not draw Grindley
+instinctively under his very nose? A painter Clive was determined to
+be, and nothing else; and Clive, being then some sixteen years of age,
+began to study the art, _en règle_, under the eminent Mr. Gandish, of
+Soho.
+
+It was that well-known portrait-painter, Alfred Smee, Esq., R.A., who
+recommended Gandish to Colonel Newcome, one day when the two gentlemen
+met at dinner at Lady Anne Newcome’s table. Mr. Smee happened to
+examine some of Clive’s drawings, which the young fellow had executed
+for his cousins. Clive found no better amusement than in making
+pictures for them, and would cheerfully pass evening after evening in
+that diversion. He had made a thousand sketches of Ethel before a year
+was over; a year, every day of which seemed to increase the attractions
+of the fair young creature, develop her nymph-like form, and give her
+figure fresh graces. He also of course drew Alfred and the nursery in
+general, Aunt Anne and the Blenheim spaniels, and Mr. Kuhn and his
+earrings, the majestic John bringing in the coal-scuttle, and all
+persons or objects in that establishment with which he was familiar.
+“What a genius the lad has,” the complimentary Mr. Smee averred; “what
+a force and individuality there is in all his drawings! Look at his
+horses! capital, by Jove, capital! and Alfred on his pony, and Miss
+Ethel in her Spanish hat, with her hair flowing in the wind! I must
+take this sketch, I positively must now, and show it to Landseer.” And
+the courtly artist daintily enveloped the drawing in a sheet of paper,
+put it away in his hat, and vowed subsequently that the great painter
+had been delighted with the young man’s performance. Smee was not only
+charmed with Clive’s skill as an artist, but thought his head would be
+an admirable one to paint. Such a rich complexion, such fine turns in
+his hair! such eyes! to see real blue eyes was so rare nowadays! And
+the Colonel too, if the Colonel would but give him a few sittings, the
+grey uniform of the Bengal Cavalry, the silver lace, the little bit of
+red ribbon just to warm up the picture! it was seldom, Mr. Smee
+declared, that an artist could get such an opportunity for colour. With
+our hideous vermilion uniforms there was no chance of doing anything;
+Rubens himself could scarcely manage scarlet. Look at the horseman in
+Cuyp’s famous picture at the Louvre: the red was a positive blot upon
+the whole picture. There was nothing like French grey and silver! All
+which did not prevent Mr. Smee from painting Sir Brian in a flaring
+deputy-lieutenant’s uniform, and entreating all military men whom he
+met to sit to him in scarlet. Clive Newcome the Academician succeeded
+in painting, of course for mere friendship’s sake, and because he liked
+the subject, though he could not refuse the cheque which Colonel
+Newcome sent him for the frame and picture; but no cajoleries could
+induce the old campaigner to sit to any artist save one. He said he
+should be ashamed to pay fifty guineas for the likeness of his homely
+face; he jocularly proposed to James Binnie to have his head put on the
+canvas, and Mr. Smee enthusiastically caught at the idea; but honest
+James winked his droll eyes, saying his was a beauty that did not want
+any paint; and when Mr. Smee took his leave after dinner in Fitzroy
+Square, where this conversation was held, James Binnie hinted that the
+Academician was no better than an old humbug, in which surmise he was
+probably not altogether incorrect. Certain young men who frequented the
+kind Colonel’s house were also somewhat of this opinion; and made
+endless jokes at the painter’s expense. Smee plastered his sitters with
+adulation as methodically as he covered his canvas. He waylaid
+gentlemen at dinner; he inveigled unsuspecting folks into his studio,
+and had their heads off their shoulders before they were aware. One
+day, on our way from the Temple, through Howland Street, to the
+Colonel’s house, we beheld Major-General Sir Thomas de Boots, in full
+uniform, rushing from Smee’s door to his brougham. The coachman was
+absent refreshing himself at a neighbouring tap: the little street-boys
+cheered and hurrayed Sir Thomas, as, arrayed in gold and scarlet, he
+sate in his chariot. He blushed purple when he beheld us. No artist
+would have dared to imitate those purple tones: he was one of the
+numerous victims of Mr. Smee.
+
+One day, then, day to be noted with a white stone, Colonel Newcome,
+with his son and Mr. Smee, R.A., walked from the Colonel’s house to
+Gandish’s, which was not far removed thence; and young Clive, who was a
+perfect mimic, described to his friends, and illustrated, as was his
+wont, by diagrams, the interview which he had with that professor. “By
+Jove, you must see Gandish, pa!” cries Clive: “Gandish is worth the
+whole world. Come and be an art-student. You’ll find such jolly fellows
+there! Gandish calls it hart-student, and says, ‘Hars est celare
+Hartem’—by Jove he does! He treated us to a little Latin, as he brought
+out a cake and a bottle of wine, you know.”
+
+“The governor was splendid, sir. He wore gloves: you know he only puts
+them on on parade days; and turned out for the occasion spick and span.
+He ought to be a general officer. He looks like a field-marshal—don’t
+he? You should have seen him bowing to Mrs. Gandish and the Miss
+Gandishes, dressed all in their best, round the cake-tray! He takes his
+glass of wine, and sweeps them all round with a bow. ‘I hope, young
+ladies,’ says he, ‘you don’t often go to the students’ room. I’m afraid
+the young gentlemen would leave off looking at the statues if you came
+in.’ And so they would: for you never saw such guys; but the dear old
+boy fancies every woman is a beauty.
+
+“‘Mr. Smee, you are looking at my picture of “Boadishia?”’ says
+Gandish. Wouldn’t he have caught it for his quantities at Grey Friars,
+that’s all.
+
+“‘Yes—ah—yes,’ says Mr. Smee, putting his hand over his eyes, and
+standing before it, looking steady, you know, as if he was going to see
+whereabouts he should _hit_ Boadishia.
+
+“‘It was painted when you were a young man, four years before you were
+an associate, Smee. Had some success in its time, and there’s good
+pints about that picture,’ Gandish goes on. ‘But I never could get my
+price for it; and here it hangs in my own room. Igh art won’t do in
+this country, Colonel—it’s a melancholy fact.’
+
+“‘High art! I should think it _is_ high art!’ whispers old Smee;
+‘fourteen feet high, at least!’ And then out loud he says ‘The picture
+has very fine points in it, Gandish, as you say. Foreshortening of that
+arm, capital! That red drapery carried off into the right of the
+picture very skilfully managed!’
+
+“‘It’s not like portrait-painting, Smee—Igh art,’ says Gandish. ‘The
+models of the hancient Britons in that pictur alone cost me thirty
+pound—when I was a struggling man, and had just married my Betsey here.
+You reckonise Boadishia, Colonel, with the Roman elmet, cuirass, and
+javeling of the period—all studied from the hantique, sir, the glorious
+hantique.’
+
+“‘All but Boadicea,’ says father. ‘She remains always young.’ And he
+began to speak the lines out of Cowper, he did—waving his stick like an
+old trump—and famous they are,” cries the lad:
+
+“When the British warrior queen,
+Bleeding from the Roman rods”—
+
+
+“Jolly verses! Haven’t I translated them into alcaics?” says Clive,
+with a merry laugh, and resumes his history.
+
+“‘Oh, I must have those verses in my album,’ cries one of the young
+ladies. ‘Did you compose them, Colonel Newcome?’ But Gandish, you see,
+is never thinking about any works but his own, and goes on, ‘Study of
+my eldest daughter, exhibited 1816.’
+
+“‘No, pa, not ’16,’ cries Miss Gandish. She don’t look like a chicken,
+I can tell you.
+
+“‘Admired,’ Gandish goes on, never heeding her,—‘I can show you what
+the papers said of it at the time—_Morning Chronicle_ and
+_Examiner_—spoke most ighly of it. My son as an infant ’Ercules,
+stranglin the serpent over the piano. Fust conception of my picture of
+“Non Hangli said Hangeli.”’
+
+“‘For which I can guess who were the angels that sat,’ says father.
+Upon my word, that old governor! He is a little too strong. But Mr.
+Gandish listened no more to him than to Mr. Smee, and went on,
+buttering himself all over, as I have read the Hottentots do. ‘Myself
+at thirty-three years of age!’ says he, pointing to a portrait of a
+gentleman in leather breeches and mahogany boots; ‘I could have been a
+portrait-painter, Mr. Smee.’
+
+“‘Indeed it was lucky for some of us you devoted yourself to high art,
+Gandish,’ Mr. Smee says, and sips the wine and puts it down again,
+making a face. It was not first-rate tipple, you see.
+
+“‘Two girls,’ continues that indomitable Mr. Gandish. ‘Hidea for “Babes
+in the Wood.” “View of Pæstum,” taken on the spot by myself, when
+travelling with the late lamented Earl of Kew. ‘Beauty, Valour,
+Commerce, and Liberty, condoling with Britannia on the death of Admiral
+Viscount Nelson,’—allegorical piece drawn at a very early age after
+Trafalgar. Mr. Fuseli saw that piece, sir, when I was a student of the
+Academy, and said to me, ‘Young man, stick to the antique. There’s
+nothing like it.’ Those were ’is very words. If you do me the favour to
+walk into the Hatrium, you’ll remark my great pictures also from
+English ’istry. An English historical painter, sir, should be employed
+chiefly in English ’istry. That’s what I would have done. Why ain’t
+there temples for us, where the people might read their history at a
+glance, and without knowing how to read? Why is my ‘Alfred’ ’anging up
+in this ’all? Because there is no patronage for a man who devotes
+himself to Igh art. You know the anecdote, Colonel? King Alfred flying
+from the Danes, took refuge in a neaterd’s ’ut. The rustic’s wife told
+him to bake a cake, and the fugitive sovering set down to his ignoble
+task, and forgetting it in the cares of state, let the cake burn, on
+which the woman struck him. The moment chose is when she is lifting her
+’and to deliver the blow. The king receives it with majesty mingled
+with meekness. In the background the door of the ’ut is open, letting
+in the royal officers to announce the Danes are defeated. The daylight
+breaks in at the aperture, signifying the dawning of ’Ope. That story,
+sir, which I found in my researches in ’istry, has since become so
+popular, sir, that hundreds of artists have painted it, hundreds! I who
+discovered the legend, have my picture—here!’
+
+“‘Now, Colonel,’ says the showman, ‘let me—let me lead you through the
+statue gallery. ‘Apollo,’ you see. The ‘Venus Hanadyomene,’ the
+glorious Venus of the Louvre, which I saw in 1814, Colonel, in its
+glory—the ‘Laocoon’—my friend Gibson’s ‘Nymth,’ you see, is the only
+figure I admit among the antiques. Now up this stair to the students’
+room, where I trust my young friend, Mr. Newcome, will labour
+assiduously. _Ars longa est_, Mr. Newcome. _Vita_——’”
+
+“I trembled,” Clive said, “lest my father should introduce a certain
+favourite quotation, beginning ‘_ingenuas didicisse_’—but he refrained,
+and we went into the room, where a score of students were assembled,
+who all looked away from their drawing-boards as we entered.
+
+“‘Here will be your place, Mr. Newcome,’ says the Professor, ‘and here
+that of your young friend—what did you say was his name?’ I told him
+Rigby, for my dear old governor has promised to pay for J. J. too, you
+know. ‘Mr. Chivers is the senior pupil and custos of the room in the
+absence of my son. Mr. Chivers, Mr. Newcome; gentlemen, Mr. Newcome, a
+new pupil. My son, Charles Gandish, Mr. Newcome. Assiduity, gentlemen,
+assiduity. _Ars longa. Vita brevis, et linea recta brevissima est_.
+This way, Colonel, down these steps, across the courtyard, to my own
+studio. There, gentlemen,’—and pulling aside a curtain, Gandish says
+‘There!’”
+
+“And what was the masterpiece behind it?” we ask of Clive, after we
+have done laughing at his imitation.
+
+“Hand round the hat, J. J.!” cries Clive. “Now, ladies and gentlemen,
+pay your money. Now walk in, for the performance is ‘just a-going to
+begin.’” Nor would the rogue ever tell us what Gandish’s curtained
+picture was.
+
+Not a successful painter, Mr. Gandish was an excellent master, and
+regarding all artists save one perhaps a good critic. Clive and his
+friend J. J. came soon after and commenced their studies under him. The
+one took his humble seat at the drawing-board, a poor mean-looking lad,
+with worn clothes, downcast features, and a figure almost deformed; the
+other adorned by good health, good looks, and the best of tailors;
+ushered into the studio with his father and Mr. Smee as his
+aides-de-camp on his entry; and previously announced there with all the
+eloquence of honest Gandish. “I bet he’s ’ad cake and wine,” says one
+youthful student, of an epicurean and satirical turn. “I bet he might
+have it every day if he liked.” In fact Gandish was always handing him
+sweetmeats of compliments and cordials of approbation. He had
+coat-sleeves with silk linings—he had studs in his shirt. How different
+was the texture and colour of that garment, to the sleeves Bob Grimes
+displayed when he took his coat off to put on his working jacket!
+Horses used actually to come for him to Gandish’s door (which was
+situated in a certain lofty street in Soho). The Miss G.’s would smile
+at him from the parlour window as he mounted and rode splendidly off;
+and those opposition beauties, the Miss Levisons, daughters of the
+professor of dancing over the way, seldom failed to greet the young
+gentleman with an admiring ogle from their great black eyes. Master
+Clive was pronounced an ‘out-and-outer,’ a ‘swell and no mistake,’ and
+complimented with scarce one dissentient voice by the simple academy at
+Gandish’s. Besides, he drew very well. There could be no doubt about
+that. Caricatures of the students of course were passing constantly
+among them, and in revenge for one which a huge red-haired Scotch
+student, Mr. Sandy M’Collop, had made of John James, Clive perpetrated
+a picture of Sandy which set the whole room in a roar; and when the
+Caledonian giant uttered satirical remarks against the assembled
+company, averring that they were a parcel of sneaks, a set of
+lick-spittles, and using epithets still more vulgar, Clive slipped off
+his fine silk-sleeved coat in an instant, invited Mr. M’Collop into the
+back-yard, instructed him in a science which the lad himself had
+acquired at Grey Friars, and administered two black eyes to Sandy,
+which prevented the young artist from seeing for some days after the
+head of the ‘Laocoon’ which he was copying. The Scotchman’s superior
+weight and age might have given the combat a different conclusion, had
+it endured long after Clive’s brilliant opening attack with his right
+and left; but Professor Gandish came out of his painting-room at the
+sound of battle, and could scarcely credit his own eyes when he saw
+those of poor M’Collop so darkened. To do the Scotchman justice, he
+bore Clive no rancour. They became friends there, and afterwards at
+Rome, whither they subsequently went to pursue their studies. The fame
+of Mr. M’Collop as an artist has long since been established. His
+pictures of ‘Lord Lovat in Prison,’ and ‘Hogarth painting him,’ of the
+‘Blowing up of the Kirk of Field’ (painted for M’Collop of M’Collop),
+of the ‘Torture of the Covenanters,’ the ‘Murder of the Regent,’ the
+‘Murder of Rizzio,’ and other historical pieces, all of course from
+Scotch history, have established his reputation in South as well as in
+North Britain. No one would suppose from the gloomy character of his
+works that Sandy M’Collop is one of the most jovial souls alive. Within
+six months after their little difference, Clive and he were the
+greatest of friends, and it was by the former’s suggestion that Mr.
+James Binnie gave Sandy his first commission, who selected the cheerful
+subject of ‘The Young Duke of Rothsay starving in Prison.’
+
+During this period, Mr. Clive assumed the _toga virilis_, and beheld
+with inexpressible satisfaction the first growth of those mustachios
+which have since given him such a marked appearance. Being at
+Gandish’s, and so near the dancing academy, what must he do but take
+lessons in the terpsichorean art too?—making himself as popular with
+the dancing folks as with the drawing folks, and the jolly king of his
+company everywhere. He gave entertainments to his fellow-students in
+the upper chambers in Fitzroy Square, which were devoted to his use,
+inviting his father and Mr. Binnie to those parties now and then. And
+songs were sung, and pipes were smoked, and many a pleasant supper
+eaten. There was no stint: but no excess. No young man was ever seen to
+quit those apartments the worse, as it is called, for liquor. Fred
+Bayham’s uncle the Bishop could not be more decorous than F. B. as he
+left the Colonel’s house, for the Colonel made that one of the
+conditions of his son’s hospitality, that nothing like intoxication
+should ensue from it. The good gentleman did not frequent the parties
+of the juniors. He saw that his presence rather silenced the young men;
+and left them to themselves, confiding in Clive’s parole, and went away
+to play his honest rubber of whist at the Club. And many a time he
+heard the young fellows’ steps tramping by his bedchamber door, as he
+lay wakeful within, happy to think his son was happy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+New Companions
+
+
+Clive used to give droll accounts of the young disciples at Gandish’s,
+who were of various ages and conditions, and in whose company the young
+fellow took his place with that good temper and gaiety which have
+seldom deserted him in life, and have put him at ease wherever his fate
+has led him. He is, in truth, as much at home in a fine drawing-room as
+in a public-house parlour; and can talk as pleasantly to the polite
+mistress of the mansion, as to the jolly landlady dispensing her drinks
+from her bar. Not one of the Gandishites but was after a while well
+inclined to the young fellow; from Mr. Chivers, the senior pupil, down
+to the little imp Harry Hooker, who knew as much mischief at twelve
+years old, and could draw as cleverly as many a student of
+five-and-twenty; and Bob Trotter, the diminutive fag of the studio, who
+ran on all the young men’s errands, and fetched them in apples,
+oranges, and walnuts. Clive opened his eyes with wonder when he first
+beheld these simple feasts, and the pleasure with which some of the
+young men partook of them. They were addicted to polonies; they did not
+disguise their love for Banbury cakes; they made bets in ginger-beer,
+and gave and took the odds in that frothing liquor. There was a young
+Hebrew amongst the pupils, upon whom his brother-students used
+playfully to press ham sandwiches, pork sausages, and the like. This
+young man (who has risen to great wealth subsequently, and was bankrupt
+only three months since) actually bought cocoa-nuts, and sold them at a
+profit amongst the lads. His pockets were never without pencil-cases,
+French chalk, garnet brooches, for which he was willing to bargain. He
+behaved very rudely to Gandish, who seemed to be afraid before him. It
+was whispered that the Professor was not altogether easy in his
+circumstances, and that the elder Moss had some mysterious hold over
+him. Honeyman and Bayham, who once came to see Clive at the studio,
+seemed each disturbed at beholding young Moss seated there (making a
+copy of the Marsyas). “Pa knows both those gents,” he informed Clive
+afterwards, with a wicked twinkle of his Oriental eyes. “Step in, Mr.
+Newcome, any day you are passing down Wardour Street, and see if you
+don’t want anything in our way.” (He pronounced the words in his own
+way, saying: “Step id, _Bister_ Doocob, ady day idto Vordor Street,”
+etc.) This young gentleman could get tickets for almost all the
+theatres, which he gave or sold, and gave splendid accounts at
+Cavendish’s of the brilliant masquerades. Clive was greatly diverted at
+beholding Mr. Moss at one of these entertainments, dressed in a scarlet
+coat and top-boots, and calling out, “Yoicks! Hark forward!” fitfully
+to another Orientalist, his younger brother, attired like a midshipman.
+Once Clive bought a half-dozen of theatre tickets from Mr. Moss, which
+he distributed to the young fellows of the studio. But, when this nice
+young man tried further to tempt him on the next day, “Mr. Moss,” Clive
+said to him with much dignity, “I am very much obliged to you for your
+offer, but when I go to the play, I prefer paying at the doors.”
+
+Mr. Chivers used to sit in one corner of the room, occupied over a
+lithographic stone. He was an uncouth and peevish young man; for ever
+finding fault with the younger pupils, whose butt he was. Next in rank
+and age was M’Collop, before named: and these two were at first more
+than usually harsh and captious with Clive, whose prosperity offended
+them, and whose dandified manners, free-and-easy ways, and evident
+influence over the younger scholars, gave umbrage to these elderly
+apprentices. Clive at first returned Mr. Chivers war for war,
+controlment for controlment; but when he found Chivers was the son of a
+helpless widow; that he maintained her by his lithographic vignettes
+for the music-sellers, and by the scanty remuneration of some lessons
+which he gave at a school at Highgate;—when Clive saw, or fancied he
+saw, the lonely senior eyeing with hungry eyes the luncheons of cheese
+and bread, and sweetstuff, which the young lads of the studio enjoyed,
+I promise you Mr. Clive’s wrath against Chivers was speedily turned
+into compassion and kindness, and he sought, and no doubt found, means
+of feeding Chivers without offending his testy independence.
+
+Nigh to Gandish’s was, and perhaps is, another establishment for
+teaching the art of design—Barker’s, which had the additional dignity
+of a life academy and costume; frequented by a class of students more
+advanced than those of Gandish’s. Between these and the Barkerites
+there was a constant rivalry and emulation, in and out of doors.
+Gandish sent more pupils to the Royal Academy; Gandish had brought up
+three medallists; and the last R.A. student sent to Rome was a
+Gandishite. Barker, on the contrary, scorned and loathed Trafalgar
+Square, and laughed at its art. Barker exhibited in Pall Mall and
+Suffolk Street: he laughed at old Gandish and his pictures, made
+mincemeat of his “Angli and Angeli,” and tore “King Alfred” and his
+muffins to pieces. The young men of the respective schools used to meet
+at Lundy’s coffee-house and billiard-room, and smoke there, and do
+battle. Before Clive and his friend J. J. came to Gandish’s, the
+Barkerites were having the best of that constant match which the two
+academies were playing. Fred Bayham, who knew every coffee-house in
+town, and whose initials were scored on a thousand tavern doors, was
+for a while a constant visitor at Lundy’s, played pool with the young
+men, and did not disdain to dip his beard into their porter-pots, when
+invited to partake of their drink; treated them handsomely when he was
+in cash himself; and was an honorary member of Barker’s academy. Nay,
+when the guardsman was not forthcoming, who was standing for one of
+Barker’s heroic pictures, Bayham bared his immense arms and brawny
+shoulders, and stood as Prince Edward, with Philippa sucking the
+poisoned wound. He would take his friends up to the picture in the
+Exhibition, and proudly point to it. “Look at that biceps, sir, and now
+look at this—that’s Barker’s masterpiece, sir, and that’s the muscle of
+F. B., sir.” In no company was F. B. greater than in the society of the
+artists, in whose smoky haunts and airy parlours he might often be
+found. It was from F. B. that Clive heard of Mr. Chivers’ struggles and
+honest industry. A great deal of shrewd advice could F. B. give on
+occasion, and many a kind action and gentle office of charity was this
+jolly outlaw known to do and cause to be done. His advice to Clive was
+most edifying at this time of our young gentleman’s life, and he owns
+that he was kept from much mischief by this queer counsellor.
+
+A few months after Clive and J. J. had entered at Gandish’s, that
+academy began to hold its own against its rival. The silent young
+disciple was pronounced to be a genius. His copies were beautiful in
+delicacy and finish. His designs were for exquisite grace and richness
+of fancy. Mr. Gandish took to himself the credit for J. J.’s genius;
+Clive ever and fondly acknowledged the benefit he got from his friend’s
+taste and bright enthusiasm and sure skill. As for Clive, if he was
+successful in the academy he was doubly victorious out of it. His
+person was handsome, his courage high, his gaiety and frankness
+delightful and winning. His money was plenty and he spent it like a
+young king. He could speedily beat all the club at Lundy’s at
+billiards, and give points to the redoubted F. B. himself. He sang a
+famous song at their jolly supper-parties: and J. J. had no greater
+delight than to listen to his fresh voice, and watch the young
+conqueror at the billiard-table, where the balls seemed to obey him.
+
+Clive was not the most docile of Mr. Gandish’s pupils. If he had not
+come to the studio on horseback, several of the young students averred,
+Gandish would not always have been praising him and quoting him as that
+professor certainly did. It must be confessed that the young ladies
+read the history of Clive’s uncle in the Book of Baronets, and that
+Gandish jun., probably with an eye to business, made a design of a
+picture, in which, according to that veracious volume, one of the
+Newcomes was represented as going cheerfully to the stake at
+Smithfield, surrounded by some very ill-favoured Dominicans, whose
+arguments did not appear to make the least impression upon the martyr
+of the Newcome family. Sandy M’Collop devised a counter picture,
+wherein the barber-surgeon of King Edward the Confessor was drawn,
+operating upon the beard of that monarch. To which piece of satire
+Clive gallantly replied by a design, representing Sawney Bean M’Collop,
+chief of the clan of that name, descending from his mountains into
+Edinburgh, and his astonishment at beholding a pair of breeches for the
+first time. These playful jokes passed constantly amongst the young men
+of Gandish’s studio. There was no one there who was not caricatured in
+one way or another. He whose eyes looked not very straight was depicted
+with a most awful squint. The youth whom nature had endowed with
+somewhat lengthy nose was drawn by the caricaturists with a prodigious
+proboscis. Little Bobby Moss, the young Hebrew artist from Wardour
+Street, was delineated with three hats and an old-clothes bag. Nor were
+poor J. J.’s round shoulders spared, until Clive indignantly
+remonstrated at the hideous hunchback pictures which the boys made of
+his friend, and vowed it was a shame to make jokes at such a deformity.
+
+Our friend, if the truth must be told regarding him, though one of the
+most frank, generous, and kind-hearted persons, is of a nature somewhat
+haughty and imperious, and very likely the course of life which he now
+led and the society which he was compelled to keep, served to increase
+some original defects in his character, and to fortify a certain
+disposition to think well of himself, with which his enemies not
+unjustly reproach him. He has been known very pathetically to lament
+that he was withdrawn from school too early, where a couple of years’
+further course of thrashings from his tyrant, old Hodge, he avers,
+would have done him good. He laments that he was not sent to college,
+where if a young man receives no other discipline, at least he acquires
+that of meeting with his equals in society and of assuredly finding his
+betters: whereas in poor Mr. Gandish’s studio of art, our young
+gentleman scarcely found a comrade that was not in one way or other his
+flatterer, his inferior, his honest or dishonest admirer. The influence
+of his family’s rank and wealth acted more or less on all those simple
+folks, who would run on his errands and vied with each other in winning
+the young nabob’s favour. His very goodness of heart rendered him a
+more easy prey to their flattery, and his kind and jovial disposition
+led him into company from which he had been much better away. I am
+afraid that artful young Moss, whose parents dealt in pictures,
+furniture, gimcracks, and jewellery, victimised Clive sadly with rings
+and chains, shirt-studs and flaming shirt-pins, and such vanities,
+which the poor young rogue locked up in his desk generally, only
+venturing to wear them when he was out of his father’s sight or of Mr.
+Binnie’s, whose shrewd eyes watched him very keenly.
+
+Mr. Clive used to leave home every day shortly after noon, when he was
+supposed to betake himself to Gandish’s studio. But was the young
+gentleman always at the drawing-board copying from the antique when his
+father supposed him to be so devotedly engaged? I fear his place was
+sometimes vacant. His friend J. J. worked every day and all day. Many a
+time the steady little student remarked his patron’s absence, and no
+doubt gently remonstrated with him, but when Clive did come to his work
+he executed it with remarkable skill and rapidity; and Ridley was too
+fond of him to say a word at home regarding the shortcomings of the
+youthful scapegrace. Candid readers may sometimes have heard their
+friend Jones’s mother lament that her darling was working too hard at
+college: or Harry’s sisters express their anxiety lest his too rigorous
+attendance in chambers (after which he will persist in sitting up all
+night reading those dreary law books which cost such an immense sum of
+money) should undermine dear Henry’s health; and to such acute persons
+a word is sufficient to indicate young Mr. Clive Newcome’s proceedings.
+Meanwhile his father, who knew no more of the world than Harry’s simple
+sisters or Jones’s fond mother, never doubted that all Clive’s doings
+were right, and that his boy was the best of boys.
+
+“If that young man goes on as charmingly as he has begun,” Clive’s
+cousin, Barnes Newcome, said of his kinsman, “he will be a paragon. I
+saw him last night at Vauxhall in company with young Moss, whose father
+does bills and keeps the bric-a-brac shop in Wardour Street. Two or
+three other gentlemen, probably young old-clothes-men, who had
+concluded for the day the labours of the bag, joined Mr. Newcome and
+his friend, and they partook of rack-punch in an arbour. He is a
+delightful youth, cousin Clive, and I feel sure he is about to be an
+honour to our family.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+The Colonel at Home
+
+
+Our good Colonel’s house had received a coat of paint, which, like
+Madame Latour’s rouge in her latter days, only served to make her
+careworn face look more ghastly. The kitchens were gloomy. The stables
+were gloomy. Great black passages; cracked conservatory; dilapidated
+bathroom, with melancholy waters moaning and fizzing from the cistern;
+the great large blank stone staircase—were all so many melancholy
+features in the general countenance of the house; but the Colonel
+thought it perfectly, cheerful and pleasant, and furnished it in his
+rough-and-ready way. One day a cartload of chairs; the next a waggonful
+of fenders, fire-irons, and glass and crockery—a quantity of supplies,
+in a word, he poured into the place. There were a yellow curtain in the
+back drawing-room, and green curtains in the front. The carpet was an
+immense bargain, bought dirt cheap, sir, at a sale in Euston Square. He
+was against the purchase of a carpet for the stairs. What was the good
+of it? What did men want with stair-carpets? His own apartment
+contained a wonderful assortment of lumber. Shelves which he nailed
+himself, old Indian garments, camphor trunks. What did he want with
+gewgaws? anything was good enough for an old soldier. But the spare
+bedroom was endowed with all sorts of splendour: a bed as big as a
+general’s tent, a cheval glass—whereas the Colonel shaved in a little
+cracked mirror, which cost him no more than King Stephen’s breeches—and
+a handsome new carpet; while the boards of the Colonel’s bedchamber
+were as bare—as bare as old Miss Scragg’s shoulders, which would be so
+much more comfortable were they covered up. Mr. Binnie’s bedchamber was
+neat, snug, and appropriate. And Clive had a study and bedroom at the
+top of the house, which he was allowed to furnish entirely according to
+his own taste. How he and Ridley revelled in Wardour Street! What
+delightful coloured prints of hunting, racing, and beautiful ladies,
+did they not purchase, mount with their own hands, cut out for screens,
+frame and glaze, and hang up on the walls. When the rooms were ready
+they gave a party, inviting the Colonel and Mr. Binnie by note of hand,
+two gentlemen from Lamb Court, Temple, Mr. Honeyman, and Fred Bayham.
+We must have Fred Bayham. Fred Bayham frankly asked, “Is Mr. Sherrick,
+with whom you have become rather intimate lately—and mind you I say
+nothing, but I recommend strangers in London to be cautious about their
+friends—is Mr. Sherrick coming to you, young ’un? because if he is, F.
+B. must respectfully decline.”
+
+Mr. Sherrick was not invited, and accordingly F. B. came. But Sherrick
+was invited on other days, and a very queer society did our honest
+Colonel gather together in that queer house, so dreary, so dingy, so
+comfortless, so pleasant. He, who was one of the most hospitable men
+alive, loved to have his friends around him; and it must be confessed
+that the evening parties now occasionally given in Fitzroy Square were
+of the oddest assemblage of people. The correct East India gentlemen
+from Hanover Square: the artists, Clive’s friends, gentlemen of all
+ages with all sorts of beards, in every variety of costume. Now and
+again a stray schoolfellow from Grey Friars, who stared, as well he
+might, at the company in which he found himself. Sometimes a few ladies
+were brought to these entertainments. The immense politeness of the
+good host compensated some of them for the strangeness of his company.
+They had never seen such odd-looking hairy men as those young artists,
+nor such wonderful women as Colonel Newcome assembled together. He was
+good to all old maids and poor widows. Retired captains with large
+families of daughters found in him their best friend. He sent carriages
+to fetch them and bring them back from the suburbs where they dwelt.
+Gandish, Mrs. Gandish, and the four Miss Gandishes in scarlet robes,
+were constant attendants at the Colonel’s soirées.
+
+“I delight, sir, in the ’ospitality of my distinguished military
+friend,” Mr. Gandish would say. “The harmy has always been my
+passion.—I served in the Soho Volunteers three years myself, till the
+conclusion of the war, sir, till the conclusion of the war.”
+
+It was a great sight to see Mr. Frederick Bayham engaged in the waltz
+or the quadrille with some of the elderly houris at the Colonel’s
+parties. F. B., like a good-natured F. B. as he was, always chose the
+plainest women as partners, and entertained them with profound
+compliments and sumptuous conversation. The Colonel likewise danced
+quadrilles with the utmost gravity. Waltzing had been invented long
+since his time: but he practised quadrilles when they first came in,
+about 1817, in Calcutta. To see him leading up a little old maid, and
+bowing to her when the dance was ended, and performing cavalier seul
+with stately simplicity, was a sight indeed to remember. If Clive
+Newcome had not such a fine sense of humour, he would have blushed for
+his father’s simplicity.—As it was, the elder’s guileless goodness and
+childlike trustfulness endeared him immensely to his son. “Look at the
+old boy, Pendennis,” he would say, “look at him leading up that old
+Miss Tidswell to the piano. Doesn’t he do it like an old duke? I lay a
+wager she thinks she is going to be my mother-in-law; all the women are
+in love with him, young and old. ‘Should he upbraid?’ There she goes.
+‘I’ll own that he’ll prevail, and sing as sweetly as a nigh-tin-gale!’
+Oh, you old warbler! Look at father’s old head bobbing up and down!
+Wouldn’t he do for Sir Roger de Coverley? How do you do, Uncle
+Charles?—I say, M’Collop, how gets on the Duke of What-d’ye-call-’em
+starving in the castle?—Gandish says it’s very good.” The lad retires
+to a group of artists. Mr. Honeyman comes up with a faint smile playing
+on his features, like moonlight on the facade of Lady Whittlesea’s
+Chapel.
+
+“These parties are the most singular I have ever seen,” whispers
+Honeyman. “In entering one of these assemblies, one is struck with the
+immensity of London: and with the sense of one’s own insignificance.
+Without, I trust, departing from my clerical character, nay, from my
+very avocation as incumbent of a London chapel,—I have seen a good deal
+of the world, and here is an assemblage no doubt of most respectable
+persons, on scarce one of whom I ever set eyes till this evening. Where
+does my good brother find such characters?”
+
+“That,” says Mr. Honeyman’s interlocutor, “is the celebrated, though
+neglected artist, Professor Gandish, whom nothing but jealousy has kept
+out of the Royal Academy. Surely you have heard of the great Gandish?”
+
+“Indeed I am ashamed to confess my ignorance, but a clergyman busy with
+his duties knows little, perhaps too little, of the fine arts.”
+
+“Gandish, sir, is one of the greatest geniuses on whom our ungrateful
+country ever trampled; he exhibited his first celebrated picture of
+‘Alfred in the Neatherd’s Hut’ (he says he is the first who ever
+touched that subject) in 180-; but Lord Nelson’s death, and victory of
+Trafalgar, occupied the public attention at that time, and Gandish’s
+work went unnoticed. In the year 1816, he painted his great work of
+‘Boadicea.’ You see her before you. That lady in yellow, with a light
+front and a turban. Boadicea became Mrs. Gandish in that year. So late
+as ’27, he brought before the world his ‘Non Angli sed Angeli.’ Two of
+the angels are yonder in sea-green dresses—the Misses Gandish. The
+youth in Berlin gloves was the little male angelus of that piece.”
+
+“How came you to know all this, you strange man?” says Mr. Honeyman.
+
+“Simply because Gandish has told me twenty times. He tells the story to
+everybody, every time he sees them. He told it to-day at dinner.
+Boadicea and the angels came afterwards.”
+
+“Satire! satire! Mr. Pendennis,” says the divine, holding up a
+reproving finger of lavender kid, “beware of a wicked wit!—But when a
+man has that tendency, I know how difficult it is to restrain. My dear
+Colonel, good evening! You have a great reception to-night. That
+gentleman’s bass voice is very fine; Mr. Pendennis and I were admiring
+it. ‘The Wolf’ is a song admirably adapted to show its capabilities.”
+
+Mr. Gandish’s autobiography had occupied the whole time of the
+retirement of the ladies from Colonel Newcome’s dinner-table. Mr.
+Hobson Newcome had been asleep during the performance; Sir Curry
+Baughton and one or two of the Colonel’s professional and military
+guests, silent and puzzled. Honest Mr. Binnie, with his shrewd
+good-humoured face, sipping his claret as usual, and delivering a sly
+joke now and again to the gentlemen at his end of the table. Mrs.
+Newcome had sat by him in sulky dignity; was it that Lady Baughton’s
+diamonds offended her?—her ladyship and her daughters being attired in
+great splendour for a Court ball, which they were to attend that
+evening. Was she hurt because SHE was not invited to that Royal
+Entertainment? As the festivities were to take place at an early hour,
+the ladies bidden were obliged to quit the Colonel’s house before the
+evening part commenced, from which Lady Anne declared she was quite
+vexed to be obliged to run away.
+
+Lady Anne Newcome had been as gracious on this occasion as her
+sister-in-law had been out of humour. Everything pleased her in the
+house. She had no idea that there were such fine houses in that quarter
+of the town. She thought the dinner so very nice,—that Mr. Binnie such a
+good-humoured-looking gentleman. That stout gentleman with his collars
+turned down like Lord Byron, so exceedingly clever and full of
+information. A celebrated artist was he? (courtly Mr. Smee had his own
+opinion upon that point, but did not utter it). All those artists are
+so eccentric and amusing and clever. Before dinner she insisted upon
+seeing Clive’s den with its pictures and casts and pipes. “You horrid
+young wicked creature, have you begun to smoke already?” she asks, as
+she admires his room. She admired everything. Nothing could exceed her
+satisfaction.
+
+The sisters-in-law kissed on meeting, with that cordiality so
+delightful to witness in sisters who dwell together in unity. It was,
+“My dear Maria, what an age since I have seen you!” “My dear Anne, our
+occupations are so engrossing, our circles are so different,” in a
+languid response from the other. “Sir Brian is not coming, I suppose?
+Now, Colonel,” she turns in a frisky manner towards him, and taps her
+fan, “did I not tell you Sir Brian would not come?”
+
+“He is kept at the House of Commons, my dear. Those dreadful
+committees. He was quite vexed at not being able to come.”
+
+“I know, I know, dear Anne, there are always excuses to gentlemen in
+Parliament; I have received many such. Mr. Shaloo and Mr. M’Sheny, the
+leaders of our party, often and often disappoint me. I _knew_ Brian
+would not come. _My_ husband came down from Marble Head on purpose this
+morning. Nothing would have induced us to give up our brother’s party.”
+
+“I believe you. I did come down from Marble Head this morning, and I
+was four hours in the hay-field before I came away, and in the City
+till five, and I’ve been to look at a horse afterwards at Tattersall’s,
+and I’m as hungry as a hunter, and as tired as a hodman,” says Mr.
+Newcome, with his hands in his pockets. “How do you do, Mr. Pendennis?
+Maria, you remember Mr. Pendennis—don’t you?”
+
+“Perfectly,” replies the languid Maria. Mrs. Gandish, Colonel Topham,
+Major M’Cracken, are announced, and then, in diamonds, feathers, and
+splendour, Lady Baughton and Miss Baughton, who are going to the
+Queen’s ball, and Sir Curry Baughton, not quite in his
+deputy-lieutenant’s uniform as yet, looking very shy in a pair of blue
+trousers, with a glittering stripe of silver down the seams. Clive
+looks with wonder and delight at these ravishing ladies, rustling in
+fresh brocades, with feathers, diamonds, and every magnificence. Aunt
+Anne has not her Court dress on as yet; and Aunt Maria blushes as she
+beholds the new comers, having thought fit to attire herself in a high
+dress, with a Quaker-like simplicity, and a pair of gloves more than
+ordinarily dingy. The pretty little foot she has, it is true, and
+sticks it out from habit; but what is Mrs. Newcome’s foot compared with
+that sweet little chaussure which Miss Baughton exhibits and withdraws?
+The shiny white satin slipper, the pink stocking which ever and anon
+peeps from the rustling folds of her robe, and timidly retires into its
+covert—that foot, light as it is, crushes Mrs. Newcome.
+
+No wonder she winces, and is angry; there are some mischievous persons
+who rather like to witness that discomfiture. All Mr. Smee’s flatteries
+that day failed to soothe her. She was in the state in which his
+canvasses sometimes are, when he cannot paint on them.
+
+What happened to her alone in the drawing-room, when the ladies invited
+to the dinner had departed, and those convoked to the soirée began to
+arrive,—what happened to her or to them I do not like to think. The
+Gandishes arrived first. Boadicea and the angels. We judged from the
+fact that young Mr. Gandish came blushing in to the dessert. Name after
+name was announced of persons of whom Mrs. Newcome knew nothing. The
+young and the old, the pretty and homely, they were all in their best
+dresses, and no doubt stared at Mrs. Newcome, so obstinately plain in
+her attire. When we came upstairs from dinner, we found her seated
+entirely by herself, tapping her fan at the fireplace. Timid groups of
+persons were round about, waiting for the irruption of the gentlemen,
+until the pleasure should begin. Mr. Newcome, who came upstairs
+yawning, was heard to say to his wife, “Oh, dam, let’s cut!” And they
+went downstairs, and waited until their carriage had arrived, when they
+quitted Fitzroy Square.
+
+Mr. Barnes Newcome presently arrived, looking particularly smart and
+lively, with a large flower in his button-hole, and leaning on the arm
+of a friend. “How do you do, Pendennis?” he says, with a peculiarly
+dandified air. “Did you dine here? You look as if you dined here” (and
+Barnes, certainly, as if he had dined elsewhere). “I was only asked to
+the cold soirée. Who did you have for dinner? You had my mamma and the
+Baughtons, and my uncle and aunt, I know, for they are down below in
+the library, waiting for the carriage: he is asleep, and she is as
+sulky as a bear.”
+
+“Why did Mrs. Newcome say I should find nobody I knew up here?” asks
+Barnes’s companion. “On the contrary, there are lots of fellows I know.
+There’s Fred Bayham, dancing like a harlequin. There’s old Gandish, who
+used to be my drawing-master; and my Brighton friends, your uncle and
+cousin, Barnes. What relations are they to me? must be some relations.
+Fine fellow your cousin.”
+
+“Hm,” growls Barnes. “Very fine boy,—not spirited at all,—not fond of
+flattery,—not surrounded by toadies,—not fond of drink,—delightful boy!
+See yonder, the young fellow is in conversation with his most intimate
+friend, a little crooked fellow, with long hair. Do you know who he is?
+he is the son of old Todmoreton’s butler. Upon my life it’s true.”
+
+“And suppose it is; what the deuce do I care!” cries Lord Kew. “Who can
+be more respectable than a butler? A man must be somebody’s son. When I
+am a middle-aged man, I hope humbly I shall look like a butler myself.
+Suppose you were to put ten of Gunter’s men into the House of Lords, do
+you mean to say that they would not look as well as any average ten
+peers in the house? Look at Lord Westcot; he is exactly like a butler
+that’s why the country has such confidence in him. I never dine with
+him but I fancy he ought to be at the sideboard. Here comes that
+insufferable little old Smee. How do you do, Mr. Smee?”
+
+Mr. Smee smiles his sweetest smile. With his rings, diamond
+shirt-studs, and red velvet waistcoat, there are few more elaborate
+middle-aged bucks than Alfred Smee. “How do you do, my dear lord?”
+cries the bland one. “Who would ever have thought of seeing your
+lordship here?”
+
+“Why the deuce not, Mr. Smee?” asks Lord Kew, abruptly. “Is it wrong to
+come here? I have been in the house only five minutes, and three people
+have said the same thing to me—Mrs. Newcome, who is sitting downstairs
+in a rage waiting for her carriage, the condescending Barnes, and
+yourself. Why do you come here, Since? How are you, Mr. Gandish? How do
+the fine arts go?”
+
+“Your lordship’s kindness in asking for them will cheer them if
+anything will,” says Mr. Gandish. “Your noble family has always
+patronised them. I am proud to be reckonised by your lordship in this
+house, where the distinguished father of one of my pupils entertains us
+this evening. A most promising young man is young Mr. Clive—talents for
+a hamateur really most remarkable.”
+
+“Excellent, upon my word—excellent,” cries Mr. Smee. “I’m not an animal
+painter myself, and perhaps don’t think much of that branch of the
+profession; but it seems to me the young fellow draws horses with the
+most wonderful spirit. I hope Lady Walham is very well, and that she
+was satisfied with her son’s portrait. Stockholm, I think, your brother
+is appointed to? I wish I might be allowed to paint the elder as well
+as the younger brother, my lord.”
+
+“I am an historical painter; but whenever Lord Kew is painted I hope
+his lordship will think of the old servant of his lordship’s family,
+Charles Gandish,” cries the Professor.
+
+“I am like Susannah between the two Elders,” says Lord Kew. “Let my
+innocence alone, Smee. Mr. Gandish, don’t persecute my modesty with
+your addresses. I won’t be painted. I am not a fit subject for a
+historical painter, Mr. Gandish.”
+
+“Halcibiades sat to Praxiteles, and Pericles to Phridjas,” remarks
+Gandish.
+
+“The cases are not quite similar,” says Lord Kew, languidly. “You are
+no doubt fully equal to Praxiteles; but I don’t see my resemblance to
+the other party. I should not look well as a hero, and Smee could not
+paint me handsome enough.”
+
+“I would try, my dear lord,” cries Mr. Smee.
+
+“I know you would, my dear fellow,” Lord Kew answered, looking at the
+painter with a lazy scorn in his eyes. “Where is Colonel Newcome, Mr.
+Gandish?” Mr. Gandish replied that our gallant host was dancing a
+quadrille in the next room; and the young gentleman walked on towards
+that apartment to pay his respects to the giver of the evening’s
+entertainment.
+
+Newcome’s behaviour to the young peer was ceremonious, but not in the
+least servile. He saluted the other’s superior rank, not his person, as
+he turned the guard out for a general officer. He never could be
+brought to be otherwise than cold and grave in his behaviour to John
+James; nor was it without difficulty, when young Ridley and his son
+became pupils at Gandish’s, he could be induced to invite the former to
+his parties. “An artist is any man’s equal,” he said. “I have no
+prejudice of that sort; and think that Sir Joshua Reynolds and Doctor
+Johnson were fit company for any person, of whatever rank. But a young
+man whose father may have had to wait behind me at dinner, should not
+be brought into my company.” Clive compromises the dispute with a
+laugh. “First,” says he, “I will wait till I am asked; and then I
+promise I will not go to dine with Lord Todmoreton.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+Contains more Particulars of the Colonel and his Brethren
+
+
+Clive’s amusements, studies, or occupations, such as they were, filled
+his day pretty completely, and caused the young gentleman’s time to
+pass rapidly and pleasantly, his father, it must be owned, had no such
+resources, and the good Colonel’s idleness hung heavily upon him. He
+submitted very kindly to this infliction, however, as he would have
+done to any other for Clive’s sake; and though he may have wished
+himself back with his regiment again, and engaged in the pursuits in
+which his life had been spent, he chose to consider these desires as
+very selfish and blameable on his part, and sacrificed them resolutely
+for his son’s welfare. The young fellow, I dare say, gave his parent no
+more credit for his long self-denial, than many other children award to
+theirs. We take such life-offerings as our due commonly. The old French
+satirist avers that, in a love affair, there is usually one person who
+loves, and the other, _qui se laisse aimer;_ it is only in later days,
+perhaps, when the treasures of love are spent, and the kind hand cold
+which ministered them, that we remember how tender it was; how soft to
+soothe; how eager to shield; how ready to support and caress. The ears
+may no longer hear, which would have received our words of thanks so
+delightedly. Let us hope those fruits of love, though tardy, are yet
+not all too late; and though we bring our tribute of reverence and
+gratitude, it may be to a gravestone, there is an acceptance even there
+for the stricken heart’s oblation of fond remorse, contrite memories,
+and pious tears. I am thinking of the love of Clive Newcome’s father
+for him (and, perhaps, young reader, that of yours and mine for
+ourselves); how the old man lay awake, and devised kindnesses, and gave
+his all for the love of his son; and the young man took, and spent, and
+slept, and made merry. Did we not say at our tale’s commencement that
+all stories were old? Careless prodigals and anxious elders have been
+from the beginning:—and so may love, and repentance, and forgiveness
+endure even till the end.
+
+The stifling fogs, the slippery mud, the dun dreary November mornings,
+when the Regent’s Park, where the Colonel took his early walk, was
+wrapped in yellow mist, must have been a melancholy exchange for the
+splendour of Eastern sunrise, and the invigorating gallop at dawn, to
+which, for so many years of his life, Thomas Newcome had accustomed
+himself. His obstinate habit of early waking accompanied him to
+England, and occasioned the despair of his London domestics, who, if
+master wasn’t so awful early, would have found no fault with him; for a
+gentleman as gives less trouble to his servants; as scarcely ever rings
+the bell for his self; as will brush his own clothes; as will even boil
+his own shaving-water in the little hetna which he keeps up in his
+dressing-room; as pays so regular, and never looks twice at the
+accounts; such a man deserved to be loved by his household, and I dare
+say comparisons were made between him and his son, who do ring the
+bells, and scold if his boots ain’t nice, and horder about like a young
+lord. But Clive, though imperious, was very liberal and good-humoured,
+and not the worse served because he insisted upon exerting his youthful
+authority. As for friend Binnie, he had a hundred pursuits of his own,
+which made his time pass very comfortably. He had all the Lectures at
+the British Institution; he had the Geographical Society, the Asiatic
+Society, and the Political Economy Club; and though he talked year
+after year of going to visit his relations in Scotland, the months and
+seasons passed away, and his feet still beat the London pavement.
+
+In spite of the cold reception his brothers gave him, duty was duty,
+and Colonel Newcome still proposed, or hoped to be well with the female
+members of the Newcome family; and having, as we have said, plenty of
+time on his hands, and living at no very great distance from either of
+his brothers’ town houses, when their wives were in London, the elder
+Newcome was for paying them pretty constant visits. But after the good
+gentleman had called twice or thrice upon his sister-in-law in
+Bryanstone Square—bringing, as was his wont, a present for this little
+niece, or a book for that—Mrs. Newcome, with her usual virtue, gave him
+to understand that the occupation of an English matron, who, besides
+her multifarious family duties, had her own intellectual culture to
+mind, would not allow her to pass the mornings in idle gossips: and of
+course took great credit to herself for having so rebuked him. “I am
+not above instruction of any age,” says she, thanking Heaven (or
+complimenting it, rather, for having created a being so virtuous and
+humble-minded). “When Professor Schroff comes, I sit with my children,
+and take lessons in German,—and I say my verbs with Maria and Tommy in
+the same class!” Yes, with curtsies and fine speeches she actually
+bowed her brother out of doors; and the honest gentleman meekly left
+her, though with bewilderment, as he thought of the different
+hospitality to which he had been accustomed in the East, where no
+friend’s house was ever closed to him, where no neighbour was so busy
+but he had time to make Thomas Newcome welcome.
+
+When Hobson Newcome’s boys came home for the holidays, their kind uncle
+was for treating them to the sights of the town, but here Virtue again
+interposed and laid its interdict upon pleasure. “Thank you, very much,
+my dear Colonel,” says Virtue, “there never was surely such a kind,
+affectionate, unselfish creature as you are, and so indulgent for
+children, but my boys and yours are brought up on a _very different_
+plan. Excuse me for saying that I do not think it is advisable that
+they should even see too much of each other. Clive’s company is not
+good for them.”
+
+“Great heavens, Maria!” cries the Colonel, starting up, “do you mean
+that my boy’s society is not good enough for any boy alive?”
+
+Maria turned very red: she had said not more than she meant, but more
+than she meant to say. “My dear Colonel, how hot we are! how angry you
+Indian gentlemen become with us poor women! Your boy is much older than
+mine. He lives with artists, with all sorts of eccentric people. Our
+children are bred on _quite a different plan_. Hobson will succeed his
+father in the bank, and dear Samuel I trust will go into the Church. I
+told you, before, the views I had regarding the boys: but it was most
+kind of you to think of them—most generous and kind.”
+
+“That nabob of ours is a queer fish,” Hobson Newcome remarked to his
+nephew Barnes. “He is as proud as Lucifer, he is always taking huff
+about one thing or the other. He went off in a fume the other night
+because your aunt objected to his taking the boys to the play. She
+don’t like their going to the play. My mother didn’t either. Your aunt
+is a woman who is uncommon wideawake, I can tell you.”
+
+“I always knew, sir, that my aunt was perfectly aware of the time of
+the day,” says Barnes, with a bow.
+
+“And then the Colonel flies out about his boy, and says that my wife
+insulted him! I used to like that boy. Before his father came he was a
+good lad enough—a jolly brave little fellow.”
+
+“I confess I did not know Mr. Clive at that interesting period of his
+existence,” remarks Barnes.
+
+“But since he has taken this madcap freak of turning painter,” the
+uncle continues, “there is no understanding the chap. Did you ever see
+such a set of fellows as the Colonel had got together at his party the
+other night? Dirty chaps in velvet coats and beards? They looked like a
+set of mountebanks. And this young Clive is going to turn painter!”
+
+“Very advantageous thing for the family. He’ll do our pictures for
+nothing. I always said he was a darling boy,” simpered Barnes.
+
+“Darling jackass!” growled out the senior. “Confound it, why doesn’t my
+brother set him up in some respectable business? I ain’t proud. I have
+not married an earl’s daughter. No offence to you, Barnes.”
+
+“Not at all, sir. I can’t help it if my grandfather is a gentleman,”
+says Barnes, with a fascinating smile.
+
+The uncle laughs. “I mean I don’t care what a fellow is if he is a good
+fellow. But a painter! hang it—a painter’s no trade at all—I don’t
+fancy seeing one of our family sticking up pictures for sale. I don’t
+like it, Barnes.”
+
+“Hush! here comes his distinguished friend, Mr. Pendennis,” whispers
+Barnes; and the uncle growling out, “Damn all literary fellows—all
+artists—the whole lot of them!” turns away. Barnes waves three languid
+fingers of recognition towards Pendennis: and when the uncle and nephew
+have moved out of the club newspaper room, little Tom Eaves comes up
+and tells the present reporter every word of their conversation.
+
+Very soon Mrs. Newcome announced that their Indian brother found the
+society of Bryanstone Square very little to his taste, as indeed how
+should he? being a man of a good harmless disposition certainly, but of
+small intellectual culture. It could not be helped. She had done her
+utmost to make him welcome, and grieved that their pursuits were not
+more congenial. She heard that he was much more intimate in Park Lane.
+Possibly the superior rank of Lady Anne’s family might present charms
+to Colonel Newcome, who fell asleep at her assemblies. His boy, she was
+afraid, was leading the most _irregular life_. He was growing a pair of
+mustachios, and going about with all sorts of wild associates. She
+found no fault; who was she, to find fault with any one? But she had
+been compelled to hint that her children must not be too intimate with
+him. And so, between one brother who meant no unkindness, and another
+who was all affection and goodwill, this undoubting woman created
+difference, distrust, dislike, which might one day possibly lead to
+open rupture. The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and
+they fall, and they come by their deserts: but who can tell the
+mischief which the very virtuous do?
+
+To her sister-in-law, Lady Anne, the Colonel’s society was more
+welcome. The affectionate gentleman never tired of doing kindnesses to
+his brother’s many children; and as Mr. Clive’s pursuits now separated
+him a good deal from his father, the Colonel, not perhaps without a
+sigh that fate should so separate him from the society which he loved
+best in the world, consoled himself as best he might with his nephews
+and nieces, especially with Ethel, for whom his _belle passion_
+conceived at first sight never diminished. If Uncle Newcome had a
+hundred children, Ethel said, who was rather jealous of disposition, he
+would spoil them all. He found a fine occupation in breaking a pretty
+little horse for her, of which he made her a present, and there was no
+horse in the Park that was so handsome, and surely no girl who looked
+more beautiful than Ethel Newcome with her broad hat and red ribbon,
+with her thick black locks waving round her bright face, galloping
+along the ride on Bhurtpore. Occasionally Clive was at their
+riding-parties, when the Colonel would fall back and fondly survey the
+young people cantering side by side over the grass: but by a tacit
+convention it was arranged that the cousins should be but seldom
+together; the Colonel might be his niece’s companion and no one could
+receive him with a more joyous welcome, but when Mr. Clive made his
+appearance with his father at the Park Lane door, a certain _gêne_ was
+visible in Miss Ethel, who would never mount except with Colonel
+Newcome’s assistance, and who, especially after Mr. Clive’s famous
+mustachios made their appearance, rallied him, and remonstrated with
+him regarding those ornaments, and treated him with much distance and
+dignity. She asked him if he was going into the army? she could not
+understand how any but military men could wear mustachios; and then she
+looked fondly and archly at her uncle, and said she liked none that
+were not grey.
+
+Clive set her down as a very haughty, spoiled, aristocratic young
+creature. If he had been in love with her, no doubt he would have
+sacrificed even those beloved new-born whiskers for the charmer. Had he
+not already bought on credit the necessary implements in a fine
+dressing-case, from young Moss? But he was not in love with her;
+otherwise he would have found a thousand opportunities of riding with
+her, walking with her, meeting her, in spite of all prohibitions tacit
+or expressed, all governesses, guardians, mamma’s punctilios, and kind
+hints from friends. For a while, Mr. Clive thought himself in love with
+his cousin; than whom no more beautiful young girl could be seen in any
+park, ball, or drawing-room; and he drew a hundred pictures of her, and
+discoursed about her beauties to J. J., who fell in love with her on
+hearsay. But at this time Mademoiselle Saltarelli was dancing at Drury
+Lane Theatre, and it certainly may be said that Clive’s first love was
+bestowed upon that beauty: whose picture of course he drew in most of
+her favourite characters; and for whom his passion lasted until the end
+of the season, when her night was announced, tickets to be had at the
+theatre, or of Mademoiselle Saltarelli, Buckingham Street, Strand. Then
+it was that with a throbbing heart and a five-pound note, to engage
+places for the houri’s benefit, Clive beheld Madame Rogomme,
+Mademoiselle Saltarelli’s mother, who entertained him in the French
+language in a dark parlour smelling of onions. And oh! issuing from the
+adjoining dining-room (where was a dingy vision of a feast and pewter
+pots upon a darkling tablecloth), could that lean, scraggy, old,
+beetle-browed yellow face, who cried, “Ou es tu donc, maman?” with such
+a shrill nasal voice—could that elderly vixen be that blooming and
+divine Saltarelli? Clive drew her picture as she was, and a likeness of
+Madame Rogomme, her mamma; a Mosaic youth, profusely jewelled, and
+scented at once with tobacco and eau-de-cologne, occupied Clive’s stall
+on Mademoiselle Saltarelli’s night. It was young Mr. Moss, of Gandish’s
+to whom Newcome ceded his place, and who laughed (as he always did at
+Clive’s jokes) when the latter told the story of his interview with the
+dancer. “Paid five pound to see that woman! I could have took you
+behind the scenes” (or “beide the seeds,” Mr. Moss said) “and showed
+her to you for nothing.” Did he take Clive behind the scenes? Over this
+part of the young gentleman’s life, without implying the least harm to
+him—for have not others been behind the scenes; and can there be any
+more dreary object than those whitened and raddled old women who
+shudder at the slips?—over this stage of Clive Newcome’s life we may
+surely drop the curtain.
+
+It is pleasanter to contemplate that kind old face of Clive’s father,
+that sweet young blushing lady by his side, as the two ride homewards
+at sunset. The grooms behind in quiet conversation about horses, as men
+never tire of talking about horses. Ethel wants to know about battles;
+about lovers’ lamps, which she has read of in Lalla Rookh. “Have you
+ever seen them, uncle, floating down the Ganges of a night?” About
+Indian widows. “Did you actually see one burning, and hear her scream
+as you rode up?” She wonders whether he will tell her anything about
+Clive’s mother: how she must have loved Uncle Newcome! Ethel can’t
+bear, somehow, to think that her name was Mrs. Casey, perhaps he was
+very fond of her; though he scarcely ever mentions her name. She was
+nothing like that good old funny Miss Honeyman at Brighton. Who could
+the person be?—a person that her uncle knew ever so long ago—a French
+lady, whom her uncle says Ethel often resembles? That is why he speaks
+French so well. He can recite whole pages out of Racine. Perhaps it was
+the French lady who taught him. And he was not very happy at the
+Hermitage (though grandpapa was a very kind good man), and he upset
+papa in a little carriage, and was wild, and got into disgrace, and was
+sent to India? He could not have been very bad, Ethel thinks, looking
+at him with her honest eyes. Last week he went to the Drawing-room, and
+papa presented him. His uniform of grey and silver was quite old, yet
+he looked much grander than Sir Brian in his new deputy-lieutenant’s
+dress. “Next year, when I am presented, you must come too, sir,” says
+Ethel. “I insist upon it, you must come too!”
+
+“I will order a new uniform, Ethel,” says her uncle.
+
+The girl laughs. “When little Egbert took hold of your sword, uncle,
+and asked you how many people you had killed, do you know I had the
+same question in my mind; and I thought when you went to the
+Drawing-room, perhaps the King will knight him. But instead he knighted
+mamma’s apothecary, Sir Danby Jilks: that horrid little man, and I
+won’t have you knighted any more.”
+
+“I hope Egbert won’t ask Sir Danby Jilks how many people HE has
+killed,” says the Colonel, laughing; but thinking the joke too severe
+upon Sir Danby and the profession, he forthwith apologises by narrating
+many anecdotes he knows to the credit of surgeons. How, when the fever
+broke out on board the ship going to India, their surgeon devoted
+himself to the safety of the crew, and died himself, leaving directions
+for the treatment of the patients when he was gone! What heroism the
+doctors showed during the cholera in India; and what courage he had
+seen some of them exhibit in action: attending the wounded men under
+the hottest fire, and exposing themselves as readily as the bravest
+troops. Ethel declares that her uncle always will talk of other
+people’s courage, and never say a word about his own; “and the only
+reason,” she says, “which made me like that odious Sir Thomas de Boots,
+who laughs so, and looks so red, and pays such horrid compliments to
+all ladies, was, that he praised you, uncle, at Newcome, last year,
+when Barnes and he came to us at Christmas. Why did you not come? Mamma
+and I went to see your old nurse; and we found her such a nice old
+lady.” So the pair talk kindly on, riding homewards through the
+pleasant summer twilight. Mamma had gone out to dinner; and there were
+cards for three parties afterwards. “Oh, how I wish it was next year!”
+says Miss Ethel.
+
+Many a splendid assembly, and many a brilliant next year, will the
+ardent and hopeful young creature enjoy; but in the midst of her
+splendour and triumphs, buzzing flatterers, conquered rivals, prostrate
+admirers, no doubt she will think sometimes of that quiet season before
+the world began for her, and that dear old friend, on whose arm she
+leaned while she was yet a young girl.
+
+The Colonel comes to Park Street early in the forenoon, when the
+mistress of the house, surrounded by her little ones, is administering
+dinner to them. He behaves with splendid courtesy to Miss Quigley, the
+governess, and makes a point of taking wine with her, and of making a
+most profound bow during that ceremony. Miss Quigley cannot help
+thinking Colonel Newcome’s bow very fine. She has an idea that his late
+Majesty must have bowed in that way: she flutteringly imparts this
+opinion to Lady Anne’s maid; who tells her mistress, who tells Miss
+Ethel, who watches the Colonel the next time he takes wine with Miss
+Quigley, and they laugh, and then Ethel tells him; so that the
+gentleman and the governess have to blush ever after when they drink
+wine together. When she is walking with her little charges in the Park,
+or in that before-mentioned paradise nigh to Apsley House, faint
+signals of welcome appear on her wan cheeks. She knows the dear Colonel
+amongst a thousand horsemen. If Ethel makes for her uncle purses,
+guard-chains, antimacassars, and the like beautiful and useful
+articles, I believe it is in reality Miss Quigley who does four-fifths
+of the work, as she sits alone in the schoolroom, high, high up in that
+lone house, when the little ones are long since asleep, before her
+dismal little tea-tray, and her little desk containing her mother’s
+letters and her mementos of home.
+
+There are, of course, numberless fine parties in Park Lane, where the
+Colonel knows he would be very welcome. But if there be grand
+assemblies, he does not care to come. “I like to go to the club best,”
+he says to Lady Anne. “We talk there as you do here about persons, and
+about Jack marrying, and Tom dying, and so forth. But we have known
+Jack and Tom all our lives, and so are interested in talking about
+them. Just as you are in speaking of your own friends and habitual
+society. They are people whose names I have sometimes read in the
+newspaper, but whom I never thought of meeting until I came to your
+house. What has an old fellow like me to say to your young dandies or
+old dowagers?”
+
+“Mamma is very odd and sometimes very captious, my dear Colonel,” said
+Lady Anne, with a blush; “she suffers so frightfully from tic that we
+are all bound to pardon her.”
+
+Truth to tell, old Lady Kew had been particularly rude to Colonel
+Newcome and Clive. Ethel’s birthday befell in the spring, on which
+occasion she was wont to have a juvenile assembly, chiefly of girls of
+her own age and condition; who came, accompanied by a few governesses,
+and they played and sang their little duets and choruses together, and
+enjoyed a gentle refection of sponge-cakes, jellies, tea, and the
+like.—The Colonel, who was invited to this little party, sent a fine
+present to his favourite Ethel; and Clive and his friend J. J. made a
+funny series of drawings, representing the life of a young lady as they
+imagined it, and drawing her progress from her cradle upwards: now
+engaged with her doll, then with her dancing-master; now marching in
+her back-board; now crying over her German lessons: and dressed for her
+first ball finally, and bestowing her hand upon a dandy, of
+preternatural ugliness, who was kneeling at her feet as the happy man.
+This picture was the delight of the laughing happy girls; except,
+perhaps, the little cousins from Bryanstone Square, who were invited to
+Ethel’s party, but were so overpowered by the prodigious new dresses in
+which their mamma had attired them, that they could admire nothing but
+their rustling pink frocks, their enormous sashes, their lovely new
+silk stockings.
+
+Lady Kew coming to London attended on the party, and presented her
+granddaughter with a sixpenny pincushion. The Colonel had sent Ethel a
+beautiful little gold watch and chain. Her aunt had complimented her
+with that refreshing work, Alison’s History of Europe, richly
+bound.—Lady Kew’s pincushion made rather a poor figure among the gifts,
+whence probably arose her ladyship’s ill-humour.
+
+Ethel’s grandmother became exceedingly testy when, the Colonel
+arriving, Ethel ran up to him and thanked him for the beautiful watch,
+in return for which she gave him a kiss, which, I dare say, amply
+repaid Colonel Newcome; and shortly after him Mr. Clive arrived,
+looking uncommonly handsome, with that smart little beard and mustachio
+with which nature had recently gifted him. As he entered, all the
+girls, who had been admiring his pictures, began to clap their hands.
+Mr. Clive Newcome blushed, and looked none the worse for that
+indication of modesty.
+
+Lady Kew had met Colonel Newcome a half-dozen times at her daughter’s
+house: but on this occasion she had quite forgotten him, for when the
+Colonel made her a bow, her ladyship regarded him steadily, and
+beckoning her daughter to her, asked who the gentleman was who has just
+kissed Ethel? Trembling as she always did before her mother, Lady Anne
+explained. Lady Kew said “Oh!” and left Colonel Newcome blushing and
+rather _embarrassé de sa personne_—before her.
+
+With the clapping of hands that greeted Clive’s arrival, the Countess
+was by no means more good-humoured. Not aware of her wrath, the young
+fellow, who had also previously been presented to her, came forward
+presently to make her his compliments. “Pray, who are you?” she said,
+looking at him very earnestly in the face. He told her his name.
+
+“Hm,” said Lady Kew, “I have heard of you, and I have heard very little
+good of you.”
+
+“Will your ladyship please to give me your informant?” cried out
+Colonel Newcome.
+
+Barnes Newcome, who had condescended to attend his sister’s little
+fête, and had been languidly watching the frolics of the young people,
+looked very much alarmed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+Is Sentimental, but Short
+
+
+Without wishing to disparage the youth of other nations, I think a
+well-bred English lad has this advantage over them, that his bearing is
+commonly more modest than theirs. He does not assume the tail-coat and
+the manners of manhood too early: he holds his tongue, and listens to
+his elders: his mind blushes as well as his cheeks: he does not know
+how to make bows and pay compliments like the young Frenchman: nor to
+contradict his seniors as I am informed American striplings do. Boys,
+who learn nothing else at our public schools, learn at least good
+manners, or what we consider to be such; and with regard to the person
+at present under consideration, it is certain that all his
+acquaintances, excepting perhaps his dear cousin Barnes Newcome, agreed
+in considering him as a very frank, manly, modest, and agreeable young
+fellow.—My friend Warrington found a grim pleasure in his company; and
+his bright face, droll humour, and kindly laughter were always welcome
+in our chambers. Honest Fred Bayham was charmed to be in his society;
+and used pathetically to aver that he himself might have been such a
+youth, had he been blest with a kind father to watch, and good friends
+to guide, his early career. In fact, Fred was by far the most didactic
+of Clive’s bachelor acquaintances, pursued the young man with endless
+advice and sermons, and held himself up as a warning to Clive, and a
+touching example of the evil consequences of early idleness and
+dissipation. Gentlemen of much higher rank in the world took a fancy to
+the lad. Captain Jack Belsize introduced him to his own mess, as also
+to the Guard dinner at St. James’s; and my Lord Kew invited him to
+Kewbury, his lordship’s house in Oxfordshire, where Clive enjoyed
+hunting, shooting, and plenty of good company. Mrs. Newcome groaned in
+spirit when she heard of these proceedings; and feared, feared very
+much that that unfortunate young man was going to ruin; and Barnes
+Newcome amiably disseminated reports amongst his family that the lad
+was plunged in all sorts of debaucheries: that he was tipsy every
+night: that he was engaged, in his sober moments, with dice, the turf,
+or worse amusements: and that his head was so turned by living with Kew
+and Belsize, that the little rascal’s pride and arrogance were
+perfectly insufferable. Ethel would indignantly deny these charges;
+then perhaps credit a few of them; and she looked at Clive with
+melancholy eyes when he came to visit his aunt; and I hope prayed that
+Heaven might mend his wicked ways. The truth is, the young fellow
+enjoyed life, as one of his age and spirit might be expected to do; but
+he did very little harm, and meant less; and was quite unconscious of
+the reputation which his kind friends were making for him.
+
+There had been a long-standing promise that Clive and his father were
+to go to Newcome at Christmas: and I dare say Ethel proposed to reform
+the young prodigal, if prodigal he was, for she busied herself
+delightedly in preparing the apartments which they were to inhabit
+during their stay—speculated upon it in a hundred pleasant ways,
+putting off her visit to this pleasant neighbour, or that pretty scene
+in the vicinage, until her uncle should come and they should be enabled
+to enjoy the excursion together. And before the arrival of her
+relatives, Ethel, with one of her young brothers, went to see Mrs.
+Mason; and introduced herself as Colonel Newcome’s niece; and came back
+charmed with the old lady, and eager once more in defence of Clive
+(when that young gentleman’s character happened to be called in
+question by her brother Barnes), for had she not seen the kindest
+letter, which Clive had written to old Mrs. Mason, and the beautiful
+drawing of his father on horseback and in regimentals, waving his sword
+in front of the gallant --th Bengal Cavalry, which the lad had sent down
+to the good old woman? He could not be very bad, Ethel thought, who was
+so kind and thoughtful for the poor. His father’s son could not be
+altogether a reprobate. When Mrs. Mason, seeing how good and beautiful
+Ethel was, and thinking in her heart nothing could be too good or
+beautiful for Clive, nodded her kind old head at Miss Ethel, and said
+she should like to find a husband for her, Miss Ethel blushed, and
+looked handsomer than ever; and at home, when she was describing the
+interview, never mentioned this part of her talk with Mrs. Mason.
+
+But the _enfant terrible_, young Alfred, did: announcing to all the
+company at dessert, that Ethel was in love with Clive—that Clive was
+coming to marry her—that Mrs. Mason, the old woman at Newcome, had told
+him so.
+
+“I dare say she has told the tale all over Newcome!” shrieked out Mr.
+Barnes. “I dare say it will be in the Independent next week. By Jove,
+it’s a pretty connexion—and nice acquaintances this uncle of ours
+brings us!” A fine battle ensued upon the receipt and discussion of
+this intelligence: Barnes was more than usually bitter and sarcastic:
+Ethel haughtily recriminated, losing her temper, and then her firmness,
+until, fairly bursting into tears, she taxed Barnes with meanness and
+malignity in for ever uttering stories to his cousin’s disadvantage,
+and pursuing with constant slander and cruelty one of the very best of
+men. She rose and left the table in great tribulation—she went to her
+room and wrote a letter to her uncle, blistered with tears, in which
+she besought him not to come to Newcome.—Perhaps she went and looked at
+the apartments which she had adorned and prepared for his reception. It
+was for him and for his company that she was eager. She had met no one
+so generous and gentle, so honest and unselfish, until she had seen
+him.
+
+Lady Anne knew the ways of women very well; and when Ethel that night,
+still in great indignation and scorn against Barnes, announced that she
+had written a letter to her uncle, begging the Colonel not to come at
+Christmas, Ethel’s mother soothed the wounded girl, and treated her
+with peculiar gentleness and affection; and she wisely gave Mr. Barnes
+to understand, that if he wished to bring about that very attachment,
+the idea of which made him so angry, he could use no better means than
+those which he chose to employ at present, of constantly abusing and
+insulting poor Clive, and awakening Ethel’s sympathies by mere
+opposition. And Ethel’s sad little letter was extracted from the
+post-bag: and her mother brought it to her, sealed, in her own room,
+where the young lady burned it: being easily brought by Lady Anne’s
+quiet remonstrances to perceive that it was best no allusion should
+take place to the silly dispute which had occurred that evening; and
+that Clive and his father should come for the Christmas holidays, if
+they were so minded. But when they came, there was no Ethel at Newcome.
+She was gone on a visit to her sick aunt, Lady Julia. Colonel Newcome
+passed the holidays sadly without his young favourite, and Clive
+consoled himself by knocking down pheasants with Sir Brian’s keepers:
+and increased his cousin’s attachment for him by breaking the knees of
+Barnes’s favourite mare out hunting. It was a dreary entertainment;
+father and son were glad enough to get away from it, and to return to
+their own humbler quarters in London.
+
+Thomas Newcome had now been for three years in the possession of that
+felicity which his soul longed after; and had any friend of his asked
+him if he was happy, he would have answered in the affirmative no
+doubt, and protested that he was in the enjoyment of everything a
+reasonable man could desire. And yet, in spite of his happiness, his
+honest face grew more melancholy: his loose clothes hung only the
+looser on his lean limbs: he ate his meals without appetite: his nights
+were restless: and he would sit for hours silent in the midst of his
+family, so that Mr. Binnie first began jocularly to surmise that Tom
+was crossed in love; then seriously to think that his health was
+suffering and that a doctor should be called to see him; and at last to
+agree that idleness was not good for the Colonel, and that he missed
+the military occupation to which he had been for so many years
+accustomed.
+
+The Colonel insisted that he was perfectly happy and contented. What
+could he want more than he had—the society of his son, for the present;
+and a prospect of quiet for his declining days? Binnie vowed that his
+friend’s days had no business to decline as yet; that a sober man of
+fifty ought to be at his best; and that Newcome had grown older in
+three years in Europe, than in a quarter of a century in the East—all
+which statements were true, though the Colonel persisted in denying
+them.
+
+He was very restless. He was always finding business in distant
+quarters of England. He must go visit Tom Barker who was settled in
+Devonshire, or Harry Johnson who had retired and was living in Wales.
+He surprised Mrs. Honeyman by the frequency of his visits to Brighton,
+and always came away much improved in health by the sea air, and by
+constant riding with the harriers there. He appeared at Bath and at
+Cheltenham, where, as we know, there are many old Indians. Mr. Binnie
+was not indisposed to accompany him on some of these jaunts—“provided,”
+the civilian said, “you don’t take young Hopeful, who is much better
+without us; and let us two old fogies enjoy ourselves together.”
+
+Clive was not sorry to be left alone. The father knew that only too
+well. The young man had occupations, ideas, associates, in whom the
+elder could take no interest. Sitting below in his blank, cheerless
+bedroom, Newcome could hear the lad and his friends talking, singing,
+and making merry overhead. Something would be said in Clive’s
+well-known tones, and a roar of laughter would proceed from the
+youthful company. They had all sorts of tricks, bywords, waggeries, of
+which the father could not understand the jest nor the secret. He
+longed to share in it, but the party would be hushed if he went in to
+join it—and he would come away sad at heart, to think that his presence
+should be a signal for silence among them; and that his son could not
+be merry in his company.
+
+We must not quarrel with Clive and Clive’s friends, because they could
+not joke and be free in the presence of the worthy gentleman. If they
+hushed when he came in, Thomas Newcome’s sad face would seem to look
+round—appealing to one after another of them, and asking, “Why don’t
+you go on laughing?” A company of old comrades shall be merry and
+laughing together, and the entrance of a single youngster will stop the
+conversation—and if men of middle age feel this restraint with our
+juniors, the young ones surely have a right to be silent before their
+elders. The boys are always mum under the eyes of the usher. There is
+scarce any parent, however friendly or tender with his children, but
+must feel sometimes that they have thoughts which are not his or hers;
+and wishes and secrets quite beyond the parental control: and, as
+people are vain, long after they are fathers, ay; or grandfathers, and
+not seldom fancy that mere personal desire of domination is overweening
+anxiety and love for their family, no doubt that common outcry against
+thankless children might often be shown to prove, not that the son is
+disobedient, but the father too exacting. When a mother (as fond
+mothers often will) vows that she knows every thought in her daughter’s
+heart, I think she pretends to know a great deal too much; nor can
+there be a wholesomer task for the elders, as our young subjects grow
+up, naturally demanding liberty and citizen’s rights, than for us
+gracefully to abdicate our sovereign pretensions and claims of absolute
+control. There’s many a family chief who governs wisely and gently, who
+is loth to give the power up when he should. Ah, be sure, it is not
+youth alone that has need to learn humility! By their very virtues, and
+the purity of their lives, many good parents create flatterers for
+themselves, and so live in the midst of a filial court of parasites—and
+seldom without a pang of unwillingness, and often not at all, will they
+consent to forgo their autocracy, and exchange the tribute they have
+been wont to exact of love and obedience for the willing offering of
+love and freedom.
+
+Our good Colonel was not of the tyrannous, but of the loving order of
+fathers: and having fixed his whole heart upon this darling youth, his
+son, was punished, as I suppose such worldly and selfish love ought to
+be punished (so Mr. Honeyman says, at least, in his pulpit), by a
+hundred little mortifications, disappointments, and secret wounds,
+which stung not the less severely though never mentioned by their
+victim.
+
+Sometimes he would have a company of such gentlemen as Messrs.
+Warrington, Honeyman, and Pendennis, when haply a literary conversation
+would ensue after dinner; and the merits of our present poets and
+writers would be discussed with the claret. Honeyman was well enough
+read in profane literature, especially of the lighter sort; and, I dare
+say, could have passed a satisfactory examination in Balzac, Dumas, and
+Paul de Kock himself, of all whose works our good host was entirely
+ignorant,—as indeed he was of graver books, and of earlier books, and
+of books in general—except those few which we have said formed his
+travelling library. He heard opinions that amazed and bewildered him.
+He heard that Byron was no great poet, though a very clever man. He
+heard that there had been a wicked persecution against Mr. Pope’s
+memory and fame, and that it was time to reinstate him; that his
+favourite, Dr. Johnson, talked admirably, but did not write English:
+that young Keats was a genius to be estimated in future days with young
+Raphael: and that a young gentleman of Cambridge who had lately
+published two volumes of verses, might take rank with the greatest
+poets of all. Doctor Johnson not write English! Lord Byron not one of
+the greatest poets of the world! Sir Walter a poet of the second order!
+Mr. Pope attacked for inferiority and want of imagination; Mr. Keats
+and this young Mr. Tennyson of Cambridge, the chief of modern poetic
+literature! What were these new dicta, which Mr. Warrington delivered
+with a puff of tobacco-smoke: to which Mr. Honeyman blandly assented
+and Clive listened with pleasure? Such opinions were not of the
+Colonel’s time. He tried in vain to construe Oenone, and to make sense
+of Lamia. Ulysses he could understand; but what were these prodigious
+laudations bestowed on it? And that reverence for Mr. Wordsworth, what
+did it mean? Had he not written Peter Bell, and been turned into
+deserved ridicule by all the reviews? Was that dreary Excursion to be
+compared to Goldsmith’s Traveller, or Doctor Johnson’s Imitation of the
+Tenth Satire of Juvenal? If the young men told the truth, where had
+been the truth in his own young days, and in what ignorance had our
+forefathers been brought up?—Mr. Addison was only an elegant essayist,
+and shallow trifler! All these opinions were openly uttered over the
+Colonel’s claret, as he and Mr. Binnie sate wondering at the speakers,
+who were knocking the gods of their youth about their ears. To Binnie
+the shock was not so great; the hard-headed Scotchman had read Hume in
+his college days, and sneered at some of the gods even at that early
+time. But with Newcome the admiration for the literature of the last
+century was an article of belief: and the incredulity of the young men
+seemed rank blasphemy. “You will be sneering at Shakspeare next,” he
+said: and was silenced, though not better pleased, when his youthful
+guests told him, that Doctor Goldsmith sneered at him too; that Dr.
+Johnson did not understand him, and that Congreve, in his own day and
+afterwards, was considered to be, in some points, Shakspeare’s
+superior. “What do you think a man’s criticism is worth, sir,” cries
+Mr. Warrington, “who says those lines of Mr. Congreve, about a church—
+
+‘How reverend is the face of yon tall pile,
+Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,
+To bear aloft its vast and ponderous roof,
+By its own weight made steadfast and immovable;
+Looking tranquillity. It strikes an awe
+And terror on my aching sight’—et cætera
+
+
+what do you think of a critic who says those lines are finer than
+anything Shakspeare ever wrote?” A dim consciousness of danger for
+Clive, a terror that his son had got into the society of heretics and
+unbelievers, came over the Colonel,—and then presently, as was the wont
+with his modest soul, a gentle sense of humility. He was in the wrong,
+perhaps, and these younger men were right. Who was he, to set up his
+judgment against men of letters, educated at college? It was better
+that Clive should follow them than him, who had had but a brief
+schooling, and that neglected, and who had not the original genius of
+his son’s brilliant companions. We particularise these talks, and the
+little incidental mortifications which one of the best of men endured,
+not because the conversations are worth the remembering or recording,
+but because they presently very materially influenced his own and his
+son’s future history.
+
+In the midst of the artists and their talk the poor Colonel was equally
+in the dark. They assaulted this Academician and that; laughed at Mr.
+Haydon, or sneered at Mr. Eastlake, or the contrary; deified Mr. Turner
+on one side of the table, and on the other scorned him as a madman—nor
+could Newcome comprehend a word of their jargon. Some sense there must
+be in their conversation: Clive joined eagerly in it and took one side
+or another. But what was all this rapture about a snuffy brown picture
+called Titian, this delight in three flabby nymphs by Rubens, and so
+forth? As for the vaunted Antique, and the Elgin Marbles—it might be
+that that battered torso was a miracle, and that broken-nosed bust a
+perfect beauty. He tried and tried to see that they were. He went away
+privily and worked at the National Gallery with a catalogue: and passed
+hours in the Museum before the ancient statues, desperately praying to
+comprehend them, and puzzled before them as he remembered he was
+puzzled before the Greek rudiments as a child when he cried over ὁ, και
+ἡ ἀληθής, και τὸ ἀληθὲς. Whereas when Clive came to look at these same
+things his eyes would lighten up with pleasure, and his cheeks flush
+with enthusiasm. He seemed to drink in colour as he would a feast of
+wine. Before the statues he would wave his finger, following the line
+of grace, and burst into ejaculations of delight and admiration. “Why
+can’t I love the things which he loves?” thought Newcome; “why am I
+blind to the beauties which he admires so much—and am I unable to
+comprehend what he evidently understands at his young age?”
+
+So, as he thought what vain egotistical hopes he used to form about the
+boy when he was away in India—how in his plans for the happy future,
+Clive was to be always at his side; how they were to read, work, play,
+think, be merry together—a sickening and humiliating sense of the
+reality came over him: and he sadly contrasted it with the former fond
+anticipations. Together they were, yet he was alone still. His thoughts
+were not the boy’s: and his affections rewarded but with a part of the
+young man’s heart. Very likely other lovers have suffered equally. Many
+a man and woman has been incensed and worshipped, and has shown no more
+feeling than is to be expected from idols. There is yonder statue in
+St. Peter’s, of which the toe is worn away with kisses, and which sits,
+and will sit eternally, prim and cold. As the young man grew, it seemed
+to the father as if each day separated them more and more. He himself
+became more melancholy and silent. His friend the civilian marked the
+ennui, and commented on it in his laughing way. Sometimes he announced
+to the club that Tom Newcome was in love: then he thought it was not
+Tom’s heart but his liver that was affected, and recommended blue pill.
+O thou fond fool! who art thou, to know any man’s heart save thine
+alone? Wherefore were wings made, and do feathers grow, but that birds
+should fly? The instinct that bids you love your nest, leads the young
+ones to seek a tree and a mate of their own. As if Thomas Newcome by
+poring over poems or pictures ever so much could read them with Clive’s
+eyes!—as if by sitting mum over his wine, but watching till the lad
+came home with his latchkey (when the Colonel crept back to his own
+room in his stockings), by prodigal bounties, by stealthy affection, by
+any schemes or prayers, he could hope to remain first in his son’s
+heart!
+
+One day going into Clive’s study, where the lad was so deeply engaged
+that he did not hear the father’s steps advancing, Thomas Newcome found
+his son, pencil in hand, poring over a paper, which, blushing, he
+thrust hastily into his breast-pocket, as soon as he saw his visitor.
+The father was deeply smitten and mortified. “I—I am sorry you have any
+secrets from me, Clive,” he gasped out at length.
+
+The boy’s face lighted up with humour. “Here it is, father, if you
+would like to see:”—and he pulled out a paper which contained neither
+more nor less than a copy of very flowery verses, about a certain young
+lady, who had succeeded (after I know not how many predecessors) to the
+place of _prima donna assoluta_ in Clive’s heart. And be pleased,
+madam, not to be too eager with your censure, and fancy that Mr. Clive
+or his chronicler would insinuate anything wrong. I dare say you felt a
+flame or two before you were married yourself: and that the Captain or
+the Curate, and the interesting young foreigner with whom you danced,
+caused your heart to beat, before you bestowed that treasure on Mr.
+Candour. Clive was doing no more than your own son will do when he is
+eighteen or nineteen years old himself—if he is a lad of any spirit and
+a worthy son of so charming a lady as yourself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+Describes a Visit to Paris; with Accidents and Incidents in London
+
+
+Mr. Clive, as we have said, had now begun to make acquaintances of his
+own; and the chimney-glass in his study was decorated with such a
+number of cards of invitation, as made his ex-fellow-student of
+Gandish’s, young Moss, when admitted into that sanctum, stare with
+respectful astonishment. “Lady Bary Rowe at obe,” the young Hebrew read
+out; “Lady Baughton at obe, dadsig! By eyes! what a tip-top swell
+you’re a gettid to be, Newcome! I guess this is a different sort of
+business to the hops at old Levison’s, where you first learned the
+polka; and where we had to pay a shilling a glass for negus!”
+
+“_We_ had to pay! _You_ never paid anything, Moss,” cries Clive,
+laughing; and indeed the negus imbibed by Mr. Moss did not cost that
+prudent young fellow a penny.
+
+“Well, well; I suppose at these swell parties you ’ave as bush champade
+as ever you like,” continues Moss. “Lady Kicklebury at obe—small early
+party. Why, I declare you know the whole peerage! I say, if any of
+these swells want a little tip-top lace, a real bargain, or diamonds,
+you know, you might put in a word for us, and do us a good turn.”
+
+“Give me some of your cards,” says Clive; “I can distribute them about
+at the balls I go to. But you must treat my friends better than you
+serve me. Those cigars which you sent me were abominable, Moss; the
+groom in the stable won’t smoke them.”
+
+“What a regular swell that Newcome has become!” says Mr. Moss to an old
+companion, another of Clive’s fellow-students: “I saw him riding in the
+Park with the Earl of Kew, and Captain Belsize, and a whole lot of
+’em—_I_ know ’em all—and he’d hardly nod to me. I’ll have a horse next
+Sunday, and _then_ I’ll see whether he’ll cut me or not. Confound his
+airs! For all he’s such a count, I know he’s got an aunt who lets
+lodgings at Brighton, and an uncle who’ll be preaching in the Bench if
+he don’t keep a precious good look-out.”
+
+“Newcome is not a bit of a count,” answers Moss’s companion,
+indignantly. “He don’t care a straw whether a fellow’s poor or rich;
+and he comes up to my room just as willingly as he would go to a
+duke’s. He is always trying to do a friend a good turn. He draws the
+figure capitally: he _looks_ proud, but he isn’t, and is the
+best-natured fellow I ever saw.”
+
+“He ain’t been in our place this eighteen months,” says Mr. Moss: “I
+know that.”
+
+“Because when he came you were always screwing him with some bargain or
+other,” cried the intrepid Hicks, Mr. Moss’s companion for the moment.
+“He said he couldn’t afford to know you: you never let him out of your
+house without a pin, or a box of eau-de-cologne, or a bundle of cigars.
+And when you cut the arts for the shop, how were you and Newcome to go
+on together, I should like to know?”
+
+“I know a relative of his who comes to our ’ouse every three months, to
+renew a little bill,” says Mr. Moss, with a grin: “and I know this, if
+I go to the Earl of Kew in the Albany, or the Honourable Captain
+Belsize, Knightsbridge Barracks, _they_ let me in soon enough. I’m told
+his father ain’t got much money.”
+
+“How the deuce should I know? or what do I care?” cries the young
+artist, stamping the heel of his blucher on the pavement. “When I was
+sick in that confounded Clipstone Street, I know the Colonel came to
+see me, and Newcome too, day after day, and night after night. And when
+I was getting well, they sent me wine and jelly, and all sorts of jolly
+things. I should like to know how often you came to see me, Moss, and
+what you did for a fellow?”
+
+“Well, I kep away because I thought you wouldn’t like to be reminded of
+that two pound three you owe me, Hicks: that’s why I kep away,” says
+Mr. Moss, who, I dare say, was good-natured too. And when young Moss
+appeared at the billiard-room that night, it was evident that Hicks had
+told the story; for the Wardour Street youth was saluted with a roar of
+queries, “How about that two pound three that Hicks owes you?”
+
+The artless conversation of the two youths will enable us to understand
+how our hero’s life was speeding. Connected in one way or another with
+persons in all ranks, it never entered his head to be ashamed of the
+profession which he had chosen. People in the great world did not in
+the least trouble themselves regarding him, or care to know whether Mr.
+Clive Newcome followed painting or any other pursuit: and though Clive
+saw many of his schoolfellows in the world, these entering into the
+army, others talking with delight of college, and its pleasures or
+studies; yet, having made up his mind that art was his calling, he
+refused to quit her for any other mistress, and plied his easel very
+stoutly. He passed through the course of study prescribed by Mr.
+Gandish, and drew every cast and statue in that gentleman’s studio.
+Grindley, his tutor, getting a curacy, Clive did not replace him; but
+he took a course of modern languages, which he learned with
+considerable aptitude and rapidity. And now, being strong enough to
+paint without a master, it was found that there was no good light in
+the house in Fitzroy Square; and Mr. Clive must needs have an atelier
+hard by, where he could pursue his own devices independently.
+
+If his kind father felt any pang even at this temporary parting, he was
+greatly soothed and pleased by a little mark of attention on the young
+man’s part, of which his present biographer happened to be a witness;
+for having walked over with Colonel Newcome to see the new studio, with
+its tall centre window, and its curtains, and carved wardrobes, china
+jars, pieces of armour, and other artistical properties, the lad, with
+a very sweet smile of kindness and affection lighting up his honest
+face, took one of two Bramah’s house-keys with which he was provided,
+and gave it to his father: “That’s your key, sir,” he said to the
+Colonel; “and you must be my first sitter, please, father; for though
+I’m a historical painter, I shall condescend to do a few portraits, you
+know.” The Colonel took his son’s hand, and grasped it; as Clive fondly
+put the other hand on his father’s shoulder. Then Colonel Newcome
+walked away into the next room for a minute or two, and came back
+wiping his moustache with his handkerchief, and still holding the key
+in the other hand. He spoke about some trivial subject when he
+returned; but his voice quite trembled; and I thought his face seemed
+to glow with love and pleasure. Clive has never painted anything better
+than that head, which he executed in a couple of sittings; and wisely
+left without subjecting it to the chances of further labour.
+
+It is certain the young man worked much better after he had been
+inducted into this apartment of his own. And the meals at home were
+gayer; and the rides with his father more frequent and agreeable. The
+Colonel used his key once or twice, and found Clive and his friend
+Ridley engaged in depicting a life-guardsman,—or a muscular negro,—or a
+Malay from a neighbouring crossing, who would appear as Othello,
+conversing with a Clipstone Street nymph, who was ready to represent
+Desdemona, Diana, Queen Ellinor (sucking poison from the arm of the
+Plantagenet of the Blues), or any other model of virgin or maiden
+excellence.
+
+Of course our young man commenced as a historical painter, deeming that
+the highest branch of art; and declining (except for preparatory
+studies) to operate on any but the largest canvasses. He painted a
+prodigious battle-piece of Assaye, with General Wellesley at the head
+of the 19th Dragoons charging the Mahratta Artillery, and sabring them
+at their guns. A piece of ordnance was dragged into the back-yard, and
+the Colonel’s stud put into requisition to supply studies for this
+enormous picture. Fred Bayham (a stunning likeness) appeared as the
+principal figure in the foreground, terrifically wounded, but still of
+undaunted courage, slashing about amidst a group of writhing Malays,
+and bestriding the body of a dead cab-horse, which Clive painted, until
+the landlady and rest of the lodgers cried out, and for sanitary
+reasons the knackers removed the slaughtered charger. So large was this
+picture that it could only be got out of the great window by means of
+artifice and coaxing; and its transport caused a shout of triumph among
+the little boys in Charlotte Street. Will it be believed that the Royal
+Academicians rejected the “Battle of Assaye”? The masterpiece was so
+big that Fitzroy Square could not hold it; and the Colonel had thoughts
+of presenting it to the Oriental Club; but Clive (who had taken a trip
+to Paris with his father, as a _délassement_ after the fatigues
+incident on this great work), when he saw it, after a month’s interval,
+declared the thing was rubbish, and massacred Britons, Malays,
+Dragoons, Artillery and all.
+
+“Hôtel de la Terrasse, Rue de Rivoli,
+
+“April 27—May 1, 183-.
+
+“My Dear Pendennis—You said I might write you a line from Paris; and if
+you find in my correspondence any valuable hints for the _Pall Mall
+Gazette_, you are welcome to use them gratis. Now I am here, I wonder I
+have never been here before, and that I have seen the Dieppe packet a
+thousand times at Brighton pier without thinking of going on board her.
+We had a rough little passage to Boulogne. We went into action as we
+cleared Dover pier—when the _first gun_ was fired, and a stout old lady
+was carried off by a steward to the cabin; half a dozen more dropped
+immediately, and the crew bustled about, bringing basins for the
+wounded. The Colonel smiled as he saw them fall. ‘I’m an old sailor,’
+says he to a gentleman on board. ‘I was coming home, sir, and we had
+plenty of rough weather on the voyage, I never thought of being unwell.
+My boy here, who made the voyage twelve years ago last May, may have
+lost his sea-legs; but for me, sir—’ Here a great wave dashed over the
+three of us; and would you believe it? in five minutes after, the dear
+old governor was as ill as all the rest of the passengers. When we
+arrived, we went through a line of ropes to the custom-house, with a
+crowd of snobs jeering at us on each side; and then were carried off by
+a bawling commissioner to an hotel, where the Colonel, who speaks
+French beautifully, you know, told the waiter to get us a _petit
+déjeuner soigné;_ on which the fellow, grinning, said, a ‘nice fried
+sole, sir,—nice mutton-chop, sir,’ in regular Temple Bar English; and
+brought us Harvey sauce with the chops, and the last _Bell’s Life_ to
+amuse us after our luncheon. I wondered if all the Frenchmen read
+_Bell’s Life_, and if all the inns smell so of brandy-and-water!
+
+“We walked out to see the town, which I dare say you know, and
+therefore shan’t describe. We saw some good studies of fishwomen with
+bare legs, and remarked that the soldiers were very dumpy and small. We
+were glad when the time came to set off by the diligence; and having
+the coupe to ourselves, made a very comfortable journey to Paris. It
+was jolly to hear the postillions crying to their horses, and the bells
+of the team, and to feel ourselves really in France. We took in
+provender at Abbeville and Amiens, and were comfortably landed here
+after about six-and-twenty hours of coaching. Didn’t I get up the next
+morning and have a good walk in the Tuileries! The chestnuts were out,
+and the statues all shining, and all the windows of the palace in a
+blaze. It looks big enough for the king of the giants to live in. How
+grand it is! I like the barbarous splendour of the architecture, and
+the ornaments profuse and enormous with which it is overladen. Think of
+Louis XVI. with a thousand gentlemen at his back, and a mob of yelling
+ruffians in front of him, giving up his crown without a fight for it;
+leaving his friends to be butchered, and himself sneaking into prison!
+No end of little children were skipping and playing in the sunshiny
+walks, with dresses as bright and cheeks as red as the flowers and
+roses in the parterres. I couldn’t help thinking of Barbaroux and his
+bloody pikemen swarming in the gardens, and fancied the Swiss in the
+windows yonder; where they were to be slaughtered when the King had
+turned his back. What a great man that Carlyle is! I have read the
+battle in his History so often, that I knew it before I had seen it.
+Our windows look out on the obelisk where the guillotine stood. The
+Colonel doesn’t admire Carlyle. He says Mrs. Graham’s Letters from
+Paris are excellent, and we bought Scott’s Visit to Paris, and Paris
+Re-visited, and read them in the diligence. They are famous good
+reading; but the Palais Royal is very much altered since Scott’s time:
+no end of handsome shops; I went there directly,—the same night we
+arrived, when the Colonel went to bed. But there is none of the fun
+going on which Scott describes. The _laquais-de-place_ says Charles X.
+put an end to it all.
+
+“Next morning the governor had letters to deliver after breakfast, and
+left me at the Louvre door. I shall come and live here, I think. I feel
+as if I never want to go away. I had not been ten minutes in the place
+before I fell in love with the most beautiful creature the world has
+ever seen. She was standing silent and majestic in the centre of one of
+the rooms of the statue-gallery; and the very first glimpse of her
+struck one breathless with the sense of her beauty. I could not see the
+colour of her eyes and hair exactly, but the latter is light, and the
+eyes I should think are grey. Her complexion is of a beautiful warm
+marble tinge. She is not a clever woman, evidently; I do not think she
+laughs or talks much—she seems too lazy to do more than smile. She is
+only beautiful. This divine creature has lost an arm, which has been
+cut off at the shoulder, but she looks none the less lovely for the
+accident. She maybe some two-and-thirty years old; and she was born
+about two thousand years ago. Her name is the Venus of Milo. O Victrix!
+O lucky Paris! (I don’t mean this present Lutetia, but Priam’s son.)
+How could he give the apple to any else but this enslaver—this joy of
+gods and men? at whose benign presence the flowers spring up, and the
+smiling ocean sparkles, and the soft skies beam with serene light! I
+wish we might sacrifice. I would bring a spotless kid, snowy-coated,
+and a pair of doves and a jar of honey—yea, honey from Morel’s in
+Piccadilly, thyme-flavoured, narbonian, and we would acknowledge the
+Sovereign Loveliness, and adjure the Divine Aphrodite. Did you ever see
+my pretty young cousin, Miss Newcome, Sir Brian’s daughter? She has a
+great look of the huntress Diana. It is sometimes too proud and too
+cold for me. The blare of those horns is too shrill and the rapid
+pursuit through bush and bramble too daring. O thou generous Venus! O
+thou beautiful bountiful calm! At thy soft feet let me kneel—on
+cushions of Tyrian purple. Don’t show this to Warrington, please: I
+never thought when I began that Pegasus was going to run away with me.
+
+“I wish I had read Greek a little more at school: it’s too late at my
+age; I shall be nineteen soon, and have got my own business; but when
+we return I think I shall try and read it with Cribs. What have I been
+doing, spending six months over a picture of sepoys and dragoons
+cutting each other’s throats? Art ought not to be a fever. It ought to
+be a calm; not a screaming bull-fight or a battle of gladiators, but a
+temple for placid contemplation, rapt worship, stately rhythmic
+ceremony, and music solemn and tender. I shall take down my Snyders and
+Rubens when I get home; and turn quietist. To think I have spent weeks
+in depicting bony life-guardsmen delivering cut one, or Saint George,
+and painting black beggars off a crossing!
+
+“What a grand thing it is to think of half a mile of pictures at the
+Louvre! Not but that there are a score under the old pepper-boxes in
+Trafalgar Square as fine as the best here. I don’t care for any Raphael
+here, as much as our own St. Catharine. There is nothing more grand.
+Could the Pyramids of Egypt or the Colossus of Rhodes be greater than
+our Sebastian? and for our Bacchus and Ariadne, you cannot beat the
+best you know. But if we have fine jewels, here there are whole sets of
+them: there are kings and all their splendid courts round about them.
+J. J. and I must come and live here. Oh, such portraits of Titian! Oh,
+such swells by Vandyke! I’m sure he must have been as fine a gentleman
+as any he painted! It’s a shame they haven’t got a Sir Joshua or two.
+At a feast of painters he has a right to a place, and at the high table
+too. Do you remember Tom Rogers, of Gandish’s? He used to come to my
+rooms—my other rooms in the Square. Tom is here with a fine carrotty
+beard, and a velvet jacket, cut open at the sleeves, to show that Tom
+has a shirt. I dare say it was clean last Sunday. He has not learned
+French yet, but pretends to have forgotten English; and promises to
+introduce me to a set of the French artists his _camarades_. There
+seems to be a scarcity of soap among these young fellows; and I think I
+shall cut off my mustachios; only Warrington will have nothing to laugh
+at when I come home.
+
+“The Colonel and I went to dine at the Café de Paris, and afterwards to
+the opera. Ask for _huitres de Marenne_ when you dine here. We dined
+with a tremendous French swell, the Vicomte de Florac, _officier
+d’ordonnance_ to one of the princes, and son of some old friends of my
+father’s. They are of very high birth, but very poor. He will be a duke
+when his cousin, the Duc d’Ivry, dies. His father is quite old. The
+vicomte was born in England. He pointed out to us no end of famous
+people at the opera—a few of the Fauxbourg St. Germain, and ever so
+many of the present people:—M. Thiers, and Count Molé, and Georges
+Sand, and Victor Hugo, and Jules Janin—I forget half their names. And
+yesterday we went to see his mother, Madame de Florac. I suppose she
+was an old flame of the Colonel’s, for their meeting was uncommonly
+ceremonious and tender. It was like an elderly Sir Charles Grandison
+saluting a middle-aged Miss Byron. And only fancy! the Colonel has been
+here once before since his return to England! It must have been last
+year, when he was away for ten days, whilst I was painting that
+rubbishing picture of the Black Prince waiting on King John. Madame de
+F. is a very grand lady, and must have been a great beauty in her time.
+There are two pictures by Gerard in her salon—of her and M. de Florac.
+M. de Florac, old swell, powder, thick eyebrows, hooked nose; no end of
+stars, ribbons, and embroidery. Madame also in the dress of the
+Empire—pensive, beautiful, black velvet, and a look something like my
+cousin’s. She wore a little old-fashioned brooch yesterday, and said,
+‘_Voilà, la reconnoissez-vous?_ Last year when you were here, it was in
+the country;’ and she smiled at him: and the dear old boy gave a sort
+of groan and dropped his head in his hand. I know what it is. I’ve gone
+through it myself. I kept for six months an absurd ribbon of that
+infernal little flirt Fanny Freeman. Don’t you remember how angry I was
+when you abused her?
+
+“‘Your father and I knew each other when we were children, my friend,’
+the Countess said to me (in the sweetest French accent). He was looking
+into the garden of the house where they live, in the Rue Saint
+Dominique. ‘You must come and see me often, always. You remind me of
+him,’ and she added, with a very sweet kind smile, ‘Do you like best to
+think that he was better-looking than you, or that you excel him?’ I
+said I should like to be like him. But who is? There are cleverer
+fellows, I dare say; but where is there such a good one? I wonder
+whether he was very fond of Madame de Florac? The old Count does not
+show. He is quite old, and wears a pigtail. We saw it bobbing over his
+garden chair. He lets the upper part of his house; Major-General the
+Honourable Zeno F. Pokey, of Cincinnati, U.S., lives in it. We saw Mrs.
+Pokey’s carriage in the court, and her footmen smoking cigars there; a
+tottering old man with feeble legs, as old as old Count de Florac,
+seemed to be the only domestic who waited on the family below.
+
+“Madame de Florac and my father talked about my profession. The
+Countess said it was a _belle carrière_. The Colonel said it was better
+than the army. ‘_Ah oui, monsieur_,’ says she very sadly. And then he
+said, ‘that presently I should very likely come to study at Paris, when
+he knew there would be a kind friend to watch over _son garçon_.’
+
+“‘But you will be here to watch over him yourself, _mon ami?_’ says the
+French lady.
+
+“Father shook his head. ‘I shall very probably have to go back to
+India,’ he said. ‘My furlough is expired. I am now taking my extra
+leave. If I can get my promotion, I need not return. Without that I
+cannot afford to live in Europe. But my absence in all probability will
+be but very short,’ he said. ‘And Clive is old enough now to go on
+without me.’
+
+“Is this the reason why father has been so gloomy for some months past?
+I thought it might have been some of my follies which made him
+uncomfortable; and you know I have been trying my best to amend—I have
+not half such a tailor’s bill this year as last. I owe scarcely
+anything. I have paid off Moss every halfpenny for his confounded rings
+and gimcracks. I asked father about this melancholy news as we walked
+away from Madame de Florac.
+
+“He is not near so rich as we thought. Since he has been at home he
+says he has spent greatly more than his income, and is quite angry at
+his own extravagance. At first he thought he might have retired from
+the army altogether; but after three years at home, he finds he cannot
+live upon his income. When he gets his promotion as full Colonel, he
+will be entitled to a thousand a year; that, and what he has invested
+in India, and a little in this country, will be plenty for both of us.
+He never seems to think of my making money by my profession. Why,
+suppose I sell the ‘Battle of Assaye’ for 500 pounds? that will be
+enough to carry me on ever so long, without dipping into the purse of
+the dear old father.
+
+“The Viscount de Florac called to dine with us. The Colonel said he did
+not care about going out: and so the Viscount and I went together.
+_Trois Frères Provençaux_—he ordered the dinner and of course I paid.
+Then we went to a little theatre, and he took me behind the scenes—such
+a queer place! We went to the _loge_ of Mademoiselle Fine who acted the
+part of ‘Le petit Tambour,’ in which she sings a famous song with a
+drum. He asked her and several literary fellows to supper at the Café
+Anglais. And I came home ever so late, and lost twenty napoleons at a
+game called bouillotte. It was all the change out of a twenty-pound
+note which dear old Binnie gave me before we set out, with a quotation
+out of Horace, you know, about _Neque tu choreas sperne puer_. O me!
+how guilty I felt as I walked home at ever so much o’clock to the Hotel
+de la Terrasse, and sneaked into our apartment! But the Colonel was
+sound asleep. His dear old boots stood sentries at his bedroom door,
+and I slunk into mine as silently as I could.
+
+“P.S.—Wednesday.—There’s just one scrap of paper left. I have got J.
+J.’s letter. He has been to the private view of the Academy (so that
+his own picture is in), and the ‘Battle of Assaye’ is refused. Smee
+told him it was too big. I dare say it’s very bad. I’m glad I’m away,
+and the fellows are not condoling with me.
+
+“Please go and see Mr. Binnie. He has come to grief. He rode the
+Colonel’s horse; came down on the pavement and wrenched his leg, and
+I’m afraid the grey’s. Please look at his legs; we can’t understand
+John’s report of them. He, I mean Mr. B., was going to Scotland to see
+his relations when the accident happened. You know he has always been
+going to Scotland to see his relations. He makes light of the business,
+and says the Colonel is not to think of coming to him: and _I_ don’t
+want to go back just yet, to see all the fellows from Gandish’s and the
+Life Academy, and have them grinning at my misfortune.
+
+“The governor would send his regards, I dare say, but he is out, and I
+am always yours affectionately, Clive Newcome.”
+
+“P.S.—He tipped me himself this morning; isn’t he a kind, dear old
+fellow?”
+
+Arthur Pendennis, Esq., to Clive Newcome, Esq.
+
+“‘Pall Mall Gazette,’ Journal of Politics, Literature and Fashion, 225
+Catherine Street, Strand,
+
+“Dear Clive—I regret very much for Fred Bayham’s sake (who has lately
+taken the responsible office of Fine Arts Critic for the _P. G._) that
+your extensive picture of the ‘Battle of Assaye’ has not found a place
+in the Royal Academy Exhibition. F. B. is at least fifteen shillings
+out of pocket by its rejection, as he had prepared a flaming eulogium
+of your work, which of course is so much waste paper in consequence of
+this calamity. Never mind. Courage, my son. The Duke of Wellington you
+know was best back at Seringapatam before he succeeded at Assaye. I
+hope you will fight other battles, and that fortune in future years
+will be more favourable to you. The town does not talk very much of
+your discomfiture. You see the parliamentary debates are very
+interesting just now, and somehow the ‘Battle of Assaye’ did not seem
+to excite the public mind.
+
+“I have been to Fitzroy Square; both to the stables and the house. The
+Houyhnhnm’s legs are very well; the horse slipped on his side and not
+on his knees, and has received no sort of injury. Not so Mr. Binnie;
+his ankle is much wrenched and inflamed. He must keep his sofa for many
+days, perhaps weeks. But you know he is a very cheerful philosopher,
+and endures the evils of life with much equanimity. His sister has come
+to him. I don’t know whether that may be considered as a consolation of
+his evil or an aggravation of it. You know he uses the sarcastic method
+in his talk, and it was difficult to understand from him whether he was
+pleased or bored by the embraces of his relative. She was an infant
+when he last beheld her, on his departure to India. She is now (to
+speak with respect) a very brisk, plump, pretty little widow; having,
+seemingly, recovered from her grief at the death of her husband,
+Captain Mackenzie in the West Indies. Mr. Binnie was just on the point
+of visiting his relatives, who reside at Musselburgh, near Edinburgh,
+when he met with the fatal accident which prevented his visit to his
+native shores. His account of his misfortune and his lonely condition
+was so pathetic that Mrs. Mackenzie and her daughter put themselves
+into the Edinburgh steamer, and rushed to console his sofa. They occupy
+your bedroom and sitting-room, which latter Mrs. Mackenzie says no
+longer smells of tobacco smoke, as it did when she took possession of
+your den. If you have left any papers about, any bills, any
+billets-doux, I make no doubt the ladies have read every single one of
+them, according to the amiable habits of their sex. The daughter is a
+bright little blue-eyed fair-haired lass, with a very sweet voice, in
+which she sings (unaided by instrumental music, and seated on a chair
+in the middle of the room) the artless ballads of her native country. I
+had the pleasure of hearing the ‘Bonnets of Bonny Dundee’ and ‘Jack of
+Hazeldean’ from her ruby lips two evenings since; not indeed for the
+first time in my life, but never from such a pretty little singer.
+Though both ladies speak our language with something of the tone
+usually employed by the inhabitants of the northern part of Britain,
+their accent is exceedingly pleasant, and indeed by no means so strong
+as Mr. Binnie’s own; for Captain Mackenzie was an Englishman, for whose
+sake his lady modified her native Musselburgh pronunciation. She tells
+many interesting anecdotes of him, of the West Indies, and of the
+distinguished regiment of infantry to which the captain belonged. Miss
+Rosa is a great favourite with her uncle, and I have had the good
+fortune to make their stay in the metropolis more pleasant, by sending
+them orders, from the _Pall Mall Gazette_, for the theatres, panoramas,
+and the principal sights in town. For pictures they do not seem to care
+much; they thought the National Gallery a dreary exhibition, and in the
+Royal Academy could be got to admire nothing but the picture of
+M’Collop of M’Collop, by our friend of the like name; but they think
+Madame Tussaud’s interesting exhibition of waxwork the most delightful
+in London; and there I had the happiness of introducing them to our
+friend Mr. Frederick Bayham; who, subsequently, on coming to this
+office with his valuable contributions on the Fine Arts, made
+particular inquiries as to their pecuniary means, and expressed himself
+instantly ready to bestow his hand upon the mother or daughter,
+provided old Mr. Binnie would make a satisfactory settlement. I got the
+ladies a box at the opera, whither they were attended by Captain Goby
+of their regiment, godfather to Miss, and where I had the honour of
+paying them a visit. I saw your fair young cousin Miss Newcome in the
+lobby with her grandmamma Lady Kew. Mr. Bayham with great eloquence
+pointed out to the Scotch ladies the various distinguished characters
+in the house. The opera delighted them, but they were astounded at the
+ballet, from which mother and daughter retreated in the midst of a fire
+of pleasantries of Captain Goby. I can fancy that officer at mess, and
+how brilliant his anecdotes must be when the company of ladies does not
+restrain his genial flow of humour.
+
+“Here comes Mr. Baker with the proofs. In case you don’t see the _P.
+G._ at Galignani’s, I send you an extract from Bayham’s article on the
+Royal Academy, where you will have the benefit of his opinion on the
+works of some of your friends:—
+
+“‘617. “Moses Bringing Home the Gross of Green Spectacles,” Smith,
+R.A.—Perhaps poor Goldsmith’s exquisite little work has never been so
+great a favourite as in the present age. We have here, in a work by one
+of our most eminent artists, an homage to the genius of him “who
+touched nothing which he did not adorn:” and the charming subject is
+handled in the most delicious manner by Mr. Smith. The chiaroscuro is
+admirable: the impasto is perfect. Perhaps a very captious critic might
+object to the foreshortening of Moses’s left leg; but where there is so
+much to praise justly, the _Pall Mall Gazette_ does not care to
+condemn.
+
+“‘420. Our (and the public’s) favourite, Brown, R.A., treats us to a
+subject from the best of all stories, the tale “which laughed Spain’s
+chivalry away,” the ever new Don Quixote. The incident which Brown has
+selected is the “Don’s Attack on the Flock of Sheep;” the sheep are in
+his best manner, painted with all his well-known facility and _brio_.
+Mr. Brown’s friendly rival, Hopkins, has selected “Gil Blas” for an
+illustration this year; and the “Robber’s Cavern” is one of the most
+masterly of Hopkins’ productions.
+
+“‘Great Rooms. 33. “Portrait of Cardinal Cospetto,” O’Gogstay, A.R.A.;
+and “Neighbourhood of Corpodibacco—Evening—a Contadina and a
+Trasteverino dancing at the door of a Locanda to the music of a
+Pifferaro.”—Since his visit to Italy Mr. O’Gogstay seems to have given
+up the scenes of Irish humour with which he used to delight us; and the
+romance, the poetry, the religion of “Italia la bella” form the
+subjects of his pencil. The scene near Corpodibacco (we know the spot
+well, and have spent many a happy month in its romantic mountains) is
+most characteristic. Cardinal Cospetto, we must say, is a most
+truculent prelate, and not certainly an ornament to his church.
+
+“‘49, 210, 311. Smee, R.A.—Portraits which a Reynolds might be proud
+of,—a Vandyke or Claude might not disown. “Sir Brian Newcome, in the
+costume of a Deputy-Lieutenant,” “Major-General Sir Thomas de Boots,
+K.C.B.,” painted for the 50th Dragoons, are triumphs, indeed, of this
+noble painter. Why have we no picture of the Sovereign and her august
+consort from Smee’s brush? When Charles II. picked up Titian’s
+mahl-stick, he observed to a courtier, “A king you can always have; a
+genius comes but rarely.” While we have a Smee among us, and a monarch
+whom we admire,—may the one be employed to transmit to posterity the
+beloved features of the other! We know our lucubrations are read in
+_high places_, and respectfully insinuate _verbum sapienti_.
+
+“‘1906. “The M’Collop of M’Collop,”—A. M’Collop,—is a noble work of a
+young artist, who, in depicting the gallant chief of a hardy Scottish
+clan, has also represented a romantic Highland landscape, in the midst
+of which, “his foot upon his native heath,” stands a man of splendid
+symmetrical figure and great facial advantages. We shall keep our eye
+on Mr. M’Collop.
+
+“‘1367. “Oberon and Titania.” Ridley.—This sweet and fanciful little
+picture draws crowds round about it, and is one of the most charming
+and delightful works of the present exhibition. We echo the universal
+opinion in declaring that it shows not only the greatest promise, but
+the most delicate and beautiful performance. The Earl of Kew, we
+understand, bought the picture at the private view; and we congratulate
+the young painter heartily upon his successful _début_. He is, we
+understand, a pupil of Mr. Gandish. Where is that admirable painter? We
+miss his bold canvasses and grand historic outline.’
+
+“I shall alter a few inaccuracies in the composition of our friend F.
+B., who has, as he says, ‘drawn it uncommonly mild in the above
+criticism.’ In fact, two days since, he brought in an article of quite
+a different tendency, of which he retains only the two last paragraphs;
+but he has, with great magnanimity, recalled his previous observations;
+and, indeed, he knows as much about pictures as some critics I could
+name.
+
+“Good-bye, my dear Clive! I send my kindest regards to your father; and
+think you had best see as little as possible of your bouillotte-playing
+French friend and his friends. This advice I know you will follow, as
+young men always follow the advice of their seniors and well-wishers. I
+dine in Fitzroy Square to-day with the pretty widow and her daughter,
+and am yours always, dear Clive, A. P.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+In which we hear a Soprano and a Contralto
+
+
+The most hospitable and polite of Colonels would not hear of Mrs.
+Mackenzie and her daughter quitting his house when he returned to it,
+after six weeks’ pleasant sojourn in Paris; nor, indeed, did his fair
+guest show the least anxiety or intention to go away. Mrs. Mackenzie
+had a fine merry humour of her own. She was an old soldier’s wife, she
+said and knew when her quarters were good; and I suppose, since her
+honeymoon, when the captain took her to Harrogate and Cheltenham,
+stopping at the first hotels, and travelling in a chaise-and-pair the
+whole way, she had never been so well off as in that roomy mansion near
+Tottenham Court Road. Of her mother’s house at Musselburgh she gave a
+ludicrous but dismal account. “Eh, James,” she said, “I think if you
+had come to mamma, as you threatened, you would not have staid very
+long. It’s a wearisome place. Dr. M’Craw boards with her; and it’s
+sermon and psalm-singing from morning till night. My little Josey takes
+kindly to the life there, and I left her behind, poor little darling!
+It was not fair to bring three of us to take possession of your house,
+dear James; but my poor little Rosey was just withering away there.
+It’s good for the dear child to see the world a little, and a kind
+uncle, who is not afraid of us now he sees us, is he?” Kind Uncle James
+was not at all afraid of little Rosey; whose pretty face and modest
+manners, and sweet songs, and blue eyes, cheered and soothed the old
+bachelor. Nor was Rosey’s mother less agreeable and pleasant. She had
+married the captain (it was a love-match, against the will of her
+parents, who had destined her to be the third wife of old Dr. M’Mull)
+when very young. Many sorrows she had had, including poverty, the
+captain’s imprisonment for debt, and his demise; but she was of a gay
+and lightsome spirit. She was but three-and-thirty years old, and
+looked five-and-twenty. She was active, brisk, jovial, and alert; and
+so good-looking, that it was a wonder she had not taken a successor to
+Captain Mackenzie. James Binnie cautioned his friend the Colonel
+against the attractions of the buxom siren; and laughingly would ask
+Clive how he would like Mrs. Mackenzie for a mamaw?
+
+Colonel Newcome felt himself very much at ease regarding his future
+prospects. He was very glad that his friend James was reconciled to his
+family, and hinted to Clive that the late Captain Mackenzie’s
+extravagance had been the cause of the rupture between him and his
+brother-in-law, who had helped that prodigal captain repeatedly during
+his life; and, in spite of family quarrels, had never ceased to act
+generously to his widowed sister and her family. “But I think, Mr.
+Clive,” said he, “that as Miss Rosa is very pretty, and you have a
+spare room at your studio, you had best take up your quarters in
+Charlotte Street as long as the ladies are living with us.” Clive was
+nothing loth to be independent; but he showed himself to be a very good
+home-loving youth. He walked home to breakfast every morning, dined
+often, and spent the evenings with the family. Indeed, the house was a
+great deal more cheerful for the presence of the two pleasant ladies.
+Nothing could be prettier than to see the two ladies tripping
+downstairs together, mamma’s pretty arm round Rosey’s pretty waist.
+Mamma’s talk was perpetually of Rosey. That child was always gay,
+always good, always happy! That darling girl woke with a smile on her
+face, it was sweet to see her! Uncle James, in his dry way, said, he
+dared to say it was very pretty. “Go away, you droll, dear old kind
+Uncle James!” Rosey’s mamma would cry out. “You old bachelors are
+wicked old things!” Uncle James used to kiss Rosey very kindly and
+pleasantly. She was as modest, as gentle, as eager to please Colonel
+Newcome as any little girl could be. It was pretty to see her tripping
+across the room with his coffee-cup, or peeling walnuts for him after
+dinner with her white plump little fingers.
+
+Mrs. Irons, the housekeeper, naturally detested Mrs. Mackenzie, and was
+jealous of her: though the latter did everything to soothe and coax the
+governess of the two gentlemen’s establishment. She praised her
+dinners, delighted in her puddings, must beg Mrs. Irons to allow her to
+see one of those delicious puddings made, and to write the receipt for
+her, that Mrs. Mackenzie might use it when she was away. It was Mrs.
+Irons’ belief that Mrs. Mackenzie never intended to go away. She had no
+ideer of ladies, as were ladies, coming into her kitchen. The maids
+vowed that they heard Miss Rosa crying, and mamma scolding in her
+bedroom for all she was so soft-spoken. How was that jug broke, and
+that chair smashed in the bedroom, that day there was such a awful row
+up there?
+
+Mrs. Mackenzie played admirably, in the old-fashioned way, dances,
+reels, and Scotch and Irish tunes, the former, of which filled James
+Binnie’s soul with delectation. The good mother naturally desired that
+her darling should have a few good lessons of the piano while she was
+in London. Rosey was eternally strumming upon an instrument which had
+been taken upstairs for her special practice; and the Colonel, who was
+always seeking to do harmless jobs of kindness for his friends,
+bethought him of little Miss Cann, the governess at Ridley’s, whom he
+recommended as an instructress. “Anybody whom you recommend I’m sure,
+dear Colonel, we shall like,” said Mrs. Mackenzie, who looked as black
+as thunder, and had probably intended to have Monsieur Quatremains or
+Signor Twankeydillo; and the little governess came to her pupil. Mrs.
+Mackenzie treated her very gruffly and haughtily at first; but as soon
+as she heard Miss Cann play, the widow was pacified—nay, charmed.
+Monsieur Quatremains charged a guinea for three-quarters of an hour;
+while Miss Cann thankfully took five shillings for an hour and a half;
+and the difference of twenty lessons, for which dear Uncle James paid,
+went into Mrs. Mackenzie’s pocket, and thence probably on to her pretty
+shoulders and head in the shape of a fine silk dress and a beautiful
+French bonnet, in which Captain Goby said, upon his life, she didn’t
+look twenty.
+
+The little governess trotting home after her lesson would often look in
+to Clive’s studio in Charlotte Street, where her two boys, as she
+called Clive and J. J., were at work each at his easel. Clive used to
+laugh, and tell us, who joked him about the widow and her daughter,
+what Miss Cann said about them. Mrs. Mack was not all honey, it
+appeared. If Rosey played incorrectly, mamma flew at her with
+prodigious vehemence of language, and sometimes with a slap on poor
+Rosey’s back. She must make Rosey wear tight boots, and stamp on her
+little feet if they refused to enter into the slipper. I blush for the
+indiscretion of Miss Cann; but she actually told J. J., that mamma
+insisted upon lacing her so tight, as nearly to choke the poor little
+lass. Rosey did not fight: Rosey always yielded; and the scolding over
+and the tears dried, would come simpering downstairs with mamma’s arm
+round her waist, and her pretty artless happy smile for the gentlemen
+below. Besides the Scottish songs without music, she sang ballads at
+the piano very sweetly. Mamma used to cry at these ditties. “That
+child’s voice brings tears into my eyes, Mr. Newcome,” she would say.
+“She has never known a moment’s sorrow yet! Heaven grant, heaven grant,
+she may be happy! But what shall I be when I lose her?”
+
+“Why, my dear, when ye lose Rosey, ye’ll console yourself with Josey,”
+says droll Mr. Binnie from the sofa, who perhaps saw the manœuvre of
+the widow.
+
+The widow laughs heartily and really. She places a handkerchief over
+her mouth. She glances at her brother with a pair of eyes full of
+knowing mischief. “Ah, dear James,” she says, “you don’t know what it
+is to have a mother’s feelings.”
+
+“I can partly understand them,” says James. “Rosey, sing me that pretty
+little French song.” Mrs. Mackenzie’s attention to Clive was really
+quite affecting. If any of his friends came to the house, she took them
+aside and praised Clive to them. The Colonel she adored. She had never
+met with such a man or seen such a manner. The manners of the Bishop of
+Tobago were beautiful, and he certainly had one of the softest and
+finest hands in the world; but not finer than Colonel Newcome’s. “Look
+at his foot!” (and she put out her own, which was uncommonly pretty,
+and suddenly withdrew it, with an arch glance meant to represent a
+blush)—“my shoe would fit it! When we were at Coventry Island, Sir
+Peregrine Blandy, who succeeded poor dear Sir Rawdon Crawley—I saw his
+dear boy was gazetted to a lieutenant-colonelcy in the Guards last
+week—Sir Peregrine, who was one of the Prince of Wales’s most intimate
+friends, was always said to have the finest manner and presence of any
+man of his day; and very grand and noble he was, but I don’t think he
+was equal to Colonel Newcome—I don’t really think so. Do you think so,
+Mr. Honeyman? What a charming discourse that was last Sunday! I know
+there were two pair of eyes not dry in the church. I could not see the
+other people just for crying myself. Oh, but I wish we could have you
+at Musselburgh! I was bred a Presbyterian, of course; but in much
+travelling through the world with my dear husband, I came to love his
+church. At home we sit under Dr. M’Craw, of course; but he is so awfully
+long! Four hours every Sunday at least, morning and afternoon! It
+nearly kills poor Rosey. Did you hear her voice at your church? The
+dear girl is delighted with the chants. Rosey, were you not delighted
+with the chants?”
+
+If she is delighted with the chants, Honeyman is delighted with the
+chantress and her mamma. He dashes the fair hair from his brow: he sits
+down to the piano, and plays one or two of them, warbling a faint vocal
+accompaniment, and looking as if he would be lifted off the screw
+music-stool, and flutter up to the ceiling.
+
+“Oh, it’s just seraphic!” says the widow. “It’s just the breath of
+incense and the pealing of the organ at the Cathedral at Montreal.
+Rosey doesn’t remember Montreal. She was a wee wee child. She was born
+on the voyage out, and christened at sea. You remember, Goby.”
+
+“Gad, I promised and vowed to teach her her catechism; ’gad, but I
+haven’t,” says Captain Goby. “We were between Montreal and Quebec for
+three years with the Hundredth, and the Hundred Twentieth Highlanders,
+and the Thirty-third Dragoon Guards a part of the time; Fipley
+commanded them, and a very jolly time we had. Much better than the West
+Indies, where a fellow’s liver goes to the deuce with hot pickles and
+sangaree. Mackenzie was a dev’lish wild fellow,” whispers Captain Goby
+to his neighbour (the present biographer, indeed), “and Mrs. Mack was
+as pretty a little woman as ever you set eyes on.” (Captain Goby winks,
+and looks peculiarly sly as he makes this statement.) “Our regiment
+wasn’t on your side of India, Colonel.”
+
+And in the interchange of such delightful remarks, and with music and
+song, the evening passes away. “Since the house had been adorned by the
+fair presence of Mrs. Mackenzie and her daughter,” Honeyman said,
+always gallant in behaviour and flowery in expression, “it seemed as if
+spring had visited it. Its hospitality was invested with a new grace;
+its ever welcome little _réunions_ were doubly charming. But why did
+these ladies come, if they were to go away again? How—how would Mr.
+Binnie console himself (not to mention others) if they left him in
+solitude?”
+
+“We have no wish to leave my brother James in solitude,” cries Mrs.
+Mackenzie, frankly laughing. “We like London a great deal better than
+Musselburgh.”
+
+“Oh, that we do!” ejaculates the blushing Rosey.
+
+“And we will stay as long as ever my brother will keep us,” continues
+the widow.
+
+“Uncle James is so kind and dear,” says Rosey. “I hope he won’t send me
+and mamma away.”
+
+“He were a brute—a savage, if he did!” cries Binnie, with glances of
+rapture towards the two pretty faces. Everybody liked them. Binnie
+received their caresses very good-humouredly. The Colonel liked every
+woman under the sun. Clive laughed and joked and waltzed alternately
+with Rosey and her mamma. The latter was the briskest partner of the
+two. The unsuspicious widow, poor dear innocent, would leave her girl
+at the painting-room, and go shopping herself; but little J. J. also
+worked there, being occupied with his second picture: and he was almost
+the only one of Clive’s friends whom the widow did not like. She
+pronounced the quiet little painter a pert, little, obtrusive,
+underbred creature.
+
+In a word, Mrs. Mackenzie was, as the phrase is, “setting her cap” so
+openly at Clive, that none of us could avoid seeing her play: and Clive
+laughed at her simple manœuvres as merrily as the rest. She was a merry
+little woman. We gave her and her pretty daughter a luncheon in Lamb
+Court, Temple; in Sibwright’s chambers—luncheon from Dick’s Coffee
+House—ices and dessert from Partington’s in the Strand. Miss Rosey, Mr.
+Sibwright, our neighbour in Lamb Court, and the Reverend Charles
+Honeyman sang very delightfully after lunch; there was quite a crowd of
+porters, laundresses, and boys to listen in the court; Mr. Paley was
+disgusted with the noise we made—in fact, the party was perfectly
+successful. We all liked the widow, and if she did set her pretty
+ribbons at Clive, why should not she? We all liked the pretty, fresh,
+modest Rosey. Why, even the grave old benchers in the Temple church,
+when the ladies visited it on Sunday, winked their reverend eyes with
+pleasure, as they looked at those two uncommonly smart, pretty,
+well-dressed, fashionable women. Ladies, go to the Temple church. You
+will see more young men, and receive more respectful attention there
+than in any place, except perhaps at Oxford or Cambridge. Go to the
+Temple church—not, of course, for the admiration which you will excite
+and which you cannot help; but because the sermon is excellent, the
+choral services beautifully performed, and the church so interesting as
+a monument of the thirteenth century, and as it contains the tombs of
+those dear Knights Templars!
+
+Mrs. Mackenzie could be grave or gay, according to her company: nor
+could any woman be of more edifying behaviour when an occasional
+Scottish friend bringing a letter from darling Josey, or a
+recommendatory letter from Josey’s grandmother, paid a visit in Fitzroy
+Square. Little Miss Cann used to laugh and wink knowingly, saying, “You
+will never get back your bedroom, Mr. Clive. You may be sure that Miss
+Josey will come in a few months; and perhaps old Mrs. Binnie, only no
+doubt she and her daughter do not agree. But the widow has taken
+possession of Uncle James; and she will carry off somebody else if I am
+not mistaken. Should you like a stepmother, Mr. Clive, or should you
+prefer a wife?”
+
+Whether the fair lady tried her wiles upon Colonel Newcome the present
+writer has no certain means of ascertaining: but I think another image
+occupied his heart: and this Circe tempted him no more than a score of
+other enchantresses who had tried their spells upon him. If she tried
+she failed. She was a very shrewd woman, quite frank in her talk when
+such frankness suited her. She said to me, “Colonel Newcome has had
+some great passion, once upon a time, I am sure of that, and has no
+more heart to give away. The woman who had his must have been a very
+lucky woman: though I daresay she did not value what she had; or did
+not live to enjoy it—or—or something or other. You see tragedies in
+some people’s faces. I recollect when we were in Coventry Island—there
+was a chaplain there—a very good man—a Mr. Bell, and married to a
+pretty little woman who died. The first day I saw him I said, ‘I know
+that man has had a great grief in life. I am sure that he left his
+heart in England.’ You gentlemen who write books, Mr. Pendennis, and
+stop at the third volume, know very well that the real story often
+begins afterwards. My third volume ended when I was sixteen, and was
+married to my poor husband. Do you think all our adventures ended then,
+and that we lived happy ever after? I live for my darling girls now.
+All I want is to see them comfortable in life. Nothing can be more
+generous than my dear brother James has been. I am only his
+half-sister, you know, and was an infant in arms when he went away. He
+had differences with Captain Mackenzie, who was headstrong and
+imprudent, and I own my poor dear husband was in the wrong. James could
+not live with my poor mother. Neither could by possibility suit the
+other. I have often, I own, longed to come and keep house for him. His
+home, the society he sees, of men of talents like Mr. Warrington
+and—and I won’t mention names, or pay compliments to a man who knows
+human nature so well as the author of Walter Lorraine: this house is
+pleasanter a thousand times than Musselburgh—pleasanter for me and my
+dearest Rosey, whose delicate nature shrunk and withered up in poor
+mamma’s society. She was never happy except in my room, the dear child!
+She’s all gentleness and affection. She doesn’t seem to show it: but
+she has the most wonderful appreciation of wit, of genius, and talent
+of all kinds. She always hides her feelings, except from her fond old
+mother. I went up into our room yesterday, and found her in tears. I
+can’t bear to see her eyes red or to think of her suffering. I asked
+her what ailed her, and kissed her. She is a tender plant, Mr.
+Pendennis! Heaven knows with what care I have nurtured her! She looked
+up smiling on my shoulder. She looked so pretty! ‘Oh, mamma,’ the
+darling child said, ‘I couldn’t help it. I have been crying over Walter
+Lorraine.’ (Enter Rosey.) Rosey, darling! I have been telling Mr.
+Pendennis what a naughty, naughty child you were yesterday, and how you
+read a book which I told you you shouldn’t read; for it is a very
+wicked book; and though it contains some sad sad truths, it is a great
+deal too misanthropic (is that the right word? I’m a poor soldier’s
+wife, and no scholar, you know), and a great deal too _bitter;_ and
+though the reviews praise it, and the clever people—we are poor simple
+country people—we won’t praise it. Sing, dearest, that little song”
+(profuse kisses to Rosey), “that pretty thing that Mr. Pendennis
+likes.”
+
+“I am sure that I will sing anything that Mr. Pendennis likes,” says
+Rosey, with her candid bright eyes—and she goes to the piano and
+warbles “Batti, Batti,” with her sweet fresh artless voice.
+
+More caresses follow. Mamma is in a rapture. How pretty they look—the
+mother and daughter—two lilies twining together! The necessity of an
+entertainment at the Temple-lunch from Dick’s (as before mentioned),
+dessert from Partington’s, Sibwright’s spoons, his boy to aid ours,
+nay, Sib himself, and his rooms, which are so much more elegant than
+ours, and where there is a piano and guitar: all these thoughts pass in
+rapid and brilliant combination in the pleasant Mr. Pendennis’s mind.
+How delighted the ladies are with the proposal! Mrs. Mackenzie claps
+her pretty hands, and kisses Rosey again. If osculation is a mark of
+love, surely Mrs. Mack is the best of mothers. I may say, without false
+modesty, that our little entertainment was most successful. The
+champagne was iced to a nicety. The ladies did not perceive that our
+laundress, Mrs. Flanagan, was intoxicated very early in the afternoon.
+Percy Sibwright sang admirably, and with the greatest spirit, ditties
+in many languages. I am sure Miss Rosey thought him (as indeed he is)
+one of the most fascinating young fellows about town. To her mother’s
+excellent accompaniment Rosey sang her favourite songs (by the way, her
+stock was very small—five, I think, was the number). Then the table was
+moved into a corner, where the quivering moulds of jelly seemed to keep
+time to the music; and whilst Percy played, two couple of waltzers
+actually whirled round the little room. No wonder that the court below
+was thronged with admirers, that Paley the reading man was in a rage,
+and Mrs. Flanagan in a state of excitement. Ah! pleasant days, happy
+gold dingy chambers illuminated by youthful sunshine! merry songs and
+kind faces—it is pleasant to recall you. Some of those bright eyes
+shine no more: some of those smiling lips do not speak. Some are not
+less kind, but sadder than in those days: of which the memories revisit
+us for a moment, and sink back into the grey past. The dear old Colonel
+beat time with great delight to the songs; the widow lit his cigar with
+her own fair fingers. That was the only smoke permitted during the
+entertainment—George Warrington himself not being allowed to use his
+cutty-pipe—though the gay little widow said that she had been used to
+smoking in the West Indies and I dare say spoke the truth. Our
+entertainment lasted actually until after dark: and a particularly neat
+cab being called from St. Clement’s by Mr. Binnie’s boy, you may be
+sure we all conducted the ladies to their vehicle: and many a fellow
+returning from his lonely club that evening into chambers must have
+envied us the pleasure of having received two such beauties.
+
+The clerical bachelor was not to be outdone by the gentlemen of the
+bar; and the entertainment at the Temple was followed by one at
+Honeyman’s lodgings, which, I must own, greatly exceeded ours in
+splendour, for Honeyman had his luncheon from Gunter’s; and if he had
+been Miss Rosey’s mother, giving a breakfast to the dear girl on her
+marriage, the affair could not have been more elegant and handsome. We
+had but two bouquets at our entertainment; at Honeyman’s there were
+four upon the breakfast-table, besides a great pineapple, which must
+have cost the rogue three or four guineas, and which Percy Sibwright
+delicately cut up. Rosey thought the pineapple delicious. “The dear
+thing does not remember the pineapples in the West Indies!” cries Mrs.
+Mackenzie; and she gave us many exciting narratives of entertainments
+at which she had been present at various colonial governors’ tables.
+After luncheon, our host hoped we should have a little music. Dancing,
+of course, could not be allowed. “That,” said Honeyman with his
+soft-bleating sigh, “were scarcely clerical. You know, besides, you are
+in a _hermitage;_ and” (with a glance round the table) “must put up
+with Cenobite’s fare.” The fare was, as I have said, excellent. The
+wine was bad, as George, and I, and Sib agreed; and in so far we
+flattered ourselves that _our_ feast altogether excelled the parson’s.
+The champagne especially was such stuff, that Warrington remarked on it
+to his neighbour, a dark gentleman, with a tuft to his chin, and
+splendid rings and chains.
+
+The dark gentleman’s wife and daughter were the other two ladies
+invited by our host. The elder was splendidly dressed. Poor Mrs.
+Mackenzie’s simple gimcracks, though she displayed them to the most
+advantage, and could make an ormolu bracelet go as far as another
+woman’s emerald clasps, were as nothing compared to the other lady’s
+gorgeous jewellery. Her fingers glittered with rings innumerable. The
+head of her smelling-bottle was as big as her husband’s gold snuff box,
+and of the same splendid material. Our ladies, it must be confessed,
+came in a modest cab from Fitzroy Square; these arrived in a splendid
+little open carriage with white ponies, and harness all over brass,
+which the lady of the rings drove with a whip that was a parasol. Mrs.
+Mackenzie, standing at Honeyman’s window, with her arm round Rosey’s
+waist, viewed this arrival perhaps with envy. “My dear Mr. Honeyman,
+whose are those beautiful horses?” cries Rosey, with enthusiasm.
+
+The divine says with a faint blush—“It is—ah—it is Mrs. Sherrick and
+Miss Sherrick who have done me the favour to come to luncheon.”
+
+“Wine-merchant. Oh!” thinks Mrs. Mackenzie, who has seen Sherrick’s
+brass plate on the cellar door of Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel; and hence,
+perhaps, she was a trifle more magniloquent than usual, and entertained
+us with stories of colonial governors and their ladies, mentioning no
+persons but those who “had handles to their names,” as the phrase is.
+
+Although Sherrick had actually supplied the champagne which Warrington
+abused to him in confidence, the wine-merchant was not wounded; on the
+contrary, he roared with laughter at the remark, and some of us smiled
+who understood the humour of the joke. As for George Warrington, he
+scarce knew more about the town than the ladies opposite to him; who,
+yet more innocent than George, thought the champagne very good. Mrs.
+Sherrick was silent during the meal, looking constantly up at her
+husband, as if alarmed and always in the habit of appealing to that
+gentleman, who gave her, as I thought, knowing glances and savage
+winks, which made me augur that he bullied her at home. Miss Sherrick
+was exceedingly handsome: she kept the fringed curtains of her eyes
+constantly down; but when she lifted them up towards Clive, who was
+very attentive to her (the rogue never sees a handsome woman but to
+this day he continues the same practice)—when she looked up and smiled,
+she was indeed a beautiful young creature to behold—with her pale
+forehead, her thick arched eyebrows, her rounded cheeks, and her full
+lips slightly shaded,—how shall I mention the word?—slightly pencilled,
+after the manner of the lips of the French governess, Mademoiselle
+Lenoir.
+
+Percy Sibwright engaged Miss Mackenzie with his usual grace and
+affability. Mrs. Mackenzie did her very utmost to be gracious, but it
+was evident the party was not altogether to her liking. Poor Percy,
+about whose means and expectations she had in the most natural way in
+the world asked information from me, was not perhaps a very eligible
+admirer for darling Rosey. She knew not that Percy can no more help
+gallantry than the sun can help shining. As soon as Rosey had done
+eating up her pineapple, artlessly confessing (to Percy Sibwright’s
+inquiries) that she preferred it to the rasps and hinnyblobs in her
+grandmamma’s garden, “Now, dearest Rosey,” cries Mrs. Mack, “now, a
+little song. You promised Mr. Pendennis a little song.” Honeyman whisks
+open the piano in a moment. The widow takes off her cleaned gloves
+(Mrs. Sherrick’s were new, and of the best Paris make), and little
+Rosey sings No. 1, followed by No. 2, with very great applause. Mother
+and daughter entwine as they quit the piano. “Brava! brava!” says Percy
+Sibwright. Does Mr. Clive Newcome say nothing? His back is turned to
+the piano, and he is looking with all his might into the eyes of Miss
+Sherrick.
+
+Percy sings a Spanish seguidilla, or a German lied, or a French
+romance, or a Neapolitan canzonet, which, I am bound to say, excites
+very little attention. Mrs. Ridley is sending in coffee at this
+juncture, of which Mrs. Sherrick partakes, with lots of sugar, as she
+has partaken of numberless things before. Chicken, plovers’ eggs,
+prawns, aspics, jellies, creams, grapes, and what-not. Mr. Honeyman
+advances, and with deep respect asks if Mrs. Sherrick and Miss Sherrick
+will not be persuaded to sing? She rises and bows, and again takes off
+the French gloves, and shows the large white hands glittering with
+rings, and, summoning Emily her daughter, they go to the piano.
+
+“Can she sing,” whispers Mrs. Mackenzie, “can she sing after eating so
+much?” Can she sing, indeed! Oh, you poor ignorant Mrs. Mackenzie! Why,
+when you were in the West Indies, if you ever read the English
+newspapers, you must have read of the fame of Miss Folthorpe. Mrs.
+Sherrick is no other than the famous artist, who, after three years of
+brilliant triumphs at the Scala, the Pergola, the San Carlo, the opera
+in England, forsook her profession, rejected a hundred suitors, and
+married Sherrick, who was Mr. Cox’s lawyer, who failed, as everybody
+knows, as manager of Drury Lane. Sherrick, like a man of spirit, would
+not allow his wife to sing in public after his marriage; but in private
+society, of course, she is welcome to perform: and now with her
+daughter, who possesses a noble contralto voice, she takes her place
+royally at the piano, and the two sing so magnificently that everybody
+in the room, with one single exception, is charmed and delighted; and
+that little Miss Cann herself creeps up the stairs, and stands with
+Mrs. Ridley at the door to listen to the music.
+
+Miss Sherrick looks doubly handsome as she sings. Clive Newcome is in a
+rapture; so is good-natured Miss Rosey, whose little heart beats with
+pleasure, and who says quite unaffectedly to Miss Sherrick, with
+delight and gratitude beaming from her blue eyes, “Why did you ask me
+to sing, when you sing so wonderfully, so beautifully, yourself? Do not
+leave the piano, please—do sing again!” And she puts out a kind little
+hand towards the superior artist, and, blushing, leads her back to the
+instrument. “I’m sure me and Emily will sing for you as much as you
+like, dear,” says Mrs. Sherrick, nodding to Rosey good-naturedly. Mrs.
+Mackenzie, who has been biting her lips and drumming the time on a
+side-table, forgets at last the pain of being vanquished in admiration
+of the conquerors. “It was cruel of you not to tell us, Mr. Honeyman,”
+she says, “of the—of the treat you had in store for us. I had no idea
+we were going to meet professional people; Mrs. Sherrick’s singing is
+indeed beautiful.”
+
+“If you come up to our place in the Regent’s Park, Mr. Newcome,” Mr.
+Sherrick says, “Mrs. S. and Emily will give you as many songs as you
+like. How do you like the house in Fitzroy Square? Anything wanting
+doing there? I’m a good landlord to a good tenant. Don’t care what I
+spend on my houses. Lose by ’em sometimes. Name a day when you’ll come
+to us; and I’ll ask some good fellows to meet you. Your father and Mr.
+Binnie came once. That was when you were a young chap. They didn’t have
+a bad evening, I believe. You just come and try us—I can give you as
+good a glass of wine as most, I think,” and he smiles, perhaps thinking
+of the champagne which Mr. Warrington had slighted. “I’ve ad the close
+carriage for my wife this evening,” he continues, looking out of window
+at a very handsome brougham which has just drawn up there. “That little
+pair of horses steps prettily together, don’t they? Fond of horses? I
+know you are. See you in the Park; and going by our house sometimes.
+The Colonel sits a horse uncommonly well: so do you, Mr. Newcome. I’ve
+often said, ‘Why don’t they get off their horses and say, Sherrick,
+we’re come for a bit of lunch and a glass of Sherry?’ Name a day, sir.
+Mr. P., will you be in it?”
+
+Clive Newcome named a day, and told his father of the circumstance in
+the evening. The Colonel looked grave. “There was something which I did
+not quite like about Mr. Sherrick,” said that acute observer of human
+nature. “It was easy to see that the man is not quite a gentleman. I
+don’t care what a man’s trade is, Clive. Indeed, who are we, to give
+ourselves airs upon that subject? But when I am gone, my boy, and there
+is nobody near you who knows the world as I do, you may fall into
+designing hands, and rogues may lead you into mischief: keep a sharp
+look-out, Clive. Mr. Pendennis, here, knows that there are designing
+fellows abroad” (and the dear old gentleman gives a very knowing nod as
+he speaks). “When I am gone, keep the lad from harm’s way, Pendennis.
+Meanwhile Mr. Sherrick has been a very good and obliging landlord; and
+a man who sells wine may certainly give a friend a bottle. I am glad
+you had a pleasant evening, boys. Ladies, I hope you have had a
+pleasant afternoon. Miss Rosey, you are come back to make tea for the
+old gentlemen? James begins to get about briskly now. He walked to
+Hanover Square, Mrs. Mackenzie, without hurting his ankle in the
+least.”
+
+“I am almost sorry that he is getting well,” says Mrs. Mackenzie
+sincerely. “He won’t want us when he is quite cured.”
+
+“Indeed, my dear creature!” cries the Colonel, taking her pretty hand
+and kissing it; “he will want you, and he shall want you. James no more
+knows the world than Miss Rosey here; and if I had not been with him,
+would have been perfectly unable to take care of himself. When I am
+gone to India, somebody must stay with him; and—and my boy must have a
+home to go to,” says the kind soldier, his voice dropping. “I had been
+in hopes that his own relatives would have received him more, but never
+mind about that,” he cried more cheerfully. “Why, I may not be absent a
+year! I perhaps need not go at all—I am second for promotion. A couple
+of our old generals may drop any day; and when I get my regiment I come
+back to stay, to live at home. Meantime, whilst I am gone, my dear
+lady, you will take care of James; and you will be kind to my boy.”
+
+“That I will!” said the widow, radiant with pleasure, and she took one
+of Clive’s hands and pressed it for an instant; and from Clive’s
+father’s kind face there beamed out that benediction which always made
+his countenance appear to me among the most beautiful of human faces.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+In which the Newcome Brothers once more meet together in Unity
+
+
+His narrative, as the judicious reader no doubt is aware, is written
+maturely and at ease, long after the voyage is over, whereof it
+recounts the adventures and perils; the winds adverse and favourable;
+the storms, shoals, shipwrecks, islands, and so forth, which Clive
+Newcome met in his early journey in life. In such a history events
+follow each other without necessarily having a connection with one
+another. One ship crosses another ship, and after a visit from one
+captain to his comrade, they sail away each on his course. The Clive
+Newcome meets a vessel which makes signals that she is short of bread
+and water; and after supplying her, our captain leaves her to see her
+no more. One or two of the vessels with which we commenced the voyage
+together, part company in a gale, and founder miserably; others, after
+being wofully battered in the tempest, make port, or are cast upon
+surprising islands where all sorts of unlooked-for prosperity awaits
+the lucky crew. Also, no doubt, the writer of the book, into whose
+hands Clive Newcome’s logs have been put, and who is charged with the
+duty of making two octavo volumes out of his friend’s story, dresses up
+the narrative in his own way; utters his own remarks in place of
+Newcome’s; makes fanciful descriptions of individuals and incidents
+with which he never could have been personally acquainted; and commits
+blunders, which the critics will discover. A great number of the
+descriptions in Cook’s Voyages, for instance, were notoriously invented
+by Dr. Hawkesworth, who “did” the book: so in the present volumes,
+where dialogues are written down, which the reporter could by no
+possibility have heard, and where motives are detected which the
+persons actuated by them certainly never confided to the writer, the
+public must once for all be warned that the author’s individual fancy
+very likely supplies much of the narrative; and that he forms it as
+best he may, out of stray papers, conversations reported to him, and
+his knowledge, right or wrong, of the characters of the persons
+engaged. And, as is the case with the most orthodox histories, the
+writer’s own guesses or conjectures are printed in exactly the same
+type as the most ascertained patent facts. I fancy, for my part, that
+the speeches attributed to Clive, the Colonel, and the rest, are as
+authentic as the orations in Sallust or Livy, and only implore the
+truth-loving public to believe that incidents here told, and which
+passed very probably without witnesses, were either confided to me
+subsequently as compiler of this biography, or are of such a nature
+that they must have happened from what we know happened after. For
+example, when you read such words as QVE ROMANVS on a battered Roman
+stone, your profound antiquarian knowledge enables you to assert that
+SENATVS POPVLVS was also inscribed there at some time or other. You
+take a mutilated statue of Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, or Virorum, and you
+pop him on a wanting hand, an absent foot, or a nose which time or
+barbarians have defaced. You tell your tales as you can, and state the
+facts as you think they must have been. In this manner, Mr. James
+(historiographer to Her Majesty), Titus Livius, Professor Alison,
+Robinson Crusoe, and all historians proceeded. Blunders there must be
+in the best of these narratives, and more asserted than they can
+possibly know or vouch for.
+
+To recur to our own affairs, and the subject at present in hand, I am
+obliged here to supply from conjecture a few points of the history,
+which I could not know from actual experience or hearsay. Clive, let us
+say, is Romanus, and we must add Senatus Populusque to his inscription.
+After Mrs. Mackenzie and her pretty daughter had been for a few months
+in London, which they did not think of quitting, although Mr. Binnie’s
+wounded little leg was now as well and as brisk as ever it had been, a
+redintegration of love began to take place between the Colonel and his
+relatives in Park Lane. How should we know that there had ever been a
+quarrel, or at any rate a coolness? Thomas Newcome was not a man to
+talk at length of any such matter; though a word or two occasionally
+dropped in conversation by the simple gentleman might lead persons who
+chose to interest themselves about his family affairs to form their own
+opinions concerning them. After that visit of the Colonel and his son
+to Newcome, Ethel was constantly away with her grandmother. The Colonel
+went to see his pretty little favourite at Brighton, and once, twice,
+thrice, Lady Kew’s door was denied to him. The knocker of that door
+could not be more fierce than the old lady’s countenance, when Newcome
+met her in her chariot driving on the cliff. Once, forming the
+loveliest of a charming Amazonian squadron, led by Mr. Whiskin, the
+riding-master, when the Colonel encountered his pretty Ethel, she
+greeted him affectionately, it is true; there was still the sweet look
+of candour and love in her eyes; but when he rode up to her she looked
+so constrained, when he talked about Clive, so reserved, when he left
+her, so sad, that he could not but feel pain and commiseration. Back he
+went to London, having in a week only caught this single glance of his
+darling.
+
+This event occurred while Clive was painting his picture of the “Battle
+of Assaye” before mentioned, during the struggles incident on which
+composition he was not thinking much about Miss Ethel, or his papa, or
+any other subject but his great work. Whilst Assaye was still in
+progress, Thomas Newcome must have had an explanation with his
+sister-in-law, Lady Anne, to whom he frankly owned the hopes which he
+had entertained for Clive, and who must as frankly have told the
+Colonel that Ethel’s family had very different views for that young
+lady to those which the simple Colonel had formed. A generous early
+attachment, the Colonel thought, is the safeguard of a young man. To
+love a noble girl; to wait a while and struggle, and haply do some
+little achievement in order to win her; the best task to which his boy
+could set himself. If two young people so loving each other were to
+marry on rather narrow means, what then? A happy home was better than
+the finest house in Mayfair; a generous young fellow, such as, please
+God, his son was—loyal, upright, and a gentleman—might pretend surely
+to his kinswoman’s hand without derogation; and the affection he bore
+Ethel himself was so great, and the sweet regard with which she
+returned it, that the simple father thought his kindly project was
+favoured by Heaven, and prayed for its fulfilment, and pleased himself
+to think, when his campaigns were over, and his sword hung on the wall,
+what a beloved daughter he might have to soothe and cheer his old age.
+With such a wife for his son, and child for himself, he thought the
+happiness of his last years might repay him for friendless boyhood,
+lonely manhood, and cheerless exile; and he imparted his simple scheme
+to Ethel’s mother, who no doubt was touched as he told his story; for
+she always professed regard and respect for him, and in the differences
+which afterwards occurred in the family, and the quarrels which divided
+the brothers, still remained faithful to the good Colonel.
+
+But Barnes Newcome, Esquire, was the head of the house, and the
+governor of his father and all Sir Brian’s affairs; and Barnes Newcome,
+Esquire, hated his cousin Clive, and spoke of him as a beggarly
+painter, an impudent snob, an infernal young puppy, and so forth; and
+Barnes with his usual freedom of language imparted his opinions to his
+Uncle Hobson at the bank, and Uncle Hobson carried them home to Mrs.
+Newcome in Bryanstone Square; and Mrs. Newcome took an early
+opportunity of telling the Colonel her opinion on the subject, and of
+bewailing that love for aristocracy which she saw actuated some folks;
+and the Colonel was brought to see that Barnes was his boy’s enemy, and
+words very likely passed between them, for Thomas Newcome took a new
+banker at this time, and, as Clive informed me, was in very great
+dudgeon because Hobson Brothers wrote to him to say that he had
+overdrawn his account. “I am sure there is some screw loose,” the
+sagacious youth remarked to me; “and the Colonel and the people in Park
+Lane are at variance, because he goes there very little now; and he
+promised to go to Court when Ethel was presented, and he didn’t go.”
+
+Some months after the arrival of Mr. Binnie’s niece and sister in
+Fitzroy Square, the fraternal quarrel between the Newcomes must have
+come to an end—for that time at least—and was followed by a rather
+ostentatious reconciliation. And pretty little Rosey Mackenzie was the
+innocent and unconscious cause of this amiable change in the minds of
+the three brethren, as I gathered from a little conversation with Mrs.
+Newcome, who did me the honour to invite me to her table. As she had
+not vouchsafed this hospitality to me for a couple of years previously,
+and perfectly stifled me with affability when we met,—as her invitation
+came quite at the end of the season, when almost everybody was out of
+town, and a dinner to a man is no compliment,—I was at first for
+declining this invitation, and spoke of it with great scorn when Mr.
+Newcome orally delivered it to me at Bays’s Club.
+
+“What,” said I, turning round to an old man of the world, who happened
+to be in the room at the time, “what do these people mean by asking a
+fellow to dinner in August, and taking me up after dropping me for two
+years?”
+
+“My good fellow,” says my friend—it was my kind old Uncle Major
+Pendennis, indeed—“I have lived long enough about town never to ask
+myself questions of that sort. In the world people drop you and take
+you up every day. You know Lady Cheddar by sight? I have known her
+husband for forty years: I have stayed with them in the country, for
+weeks at a time. She knows me as well as she knows King Charles at
+Charing Cross, and a doosid deal better, and yet for a whole season she
+will drop me—pass me by, as if there was no such person in the world.
+Well, sir, what do I do? I never see her. I give you my word I am never
+conscious of her existence; and if I meet her at dinner, I’m no more
+aware of her than the fellows in the play are of Banquo. What’s the end
+of it? She comes round—only last Toosday she came round—and said Lord
+Cheddar wanted me to go down to Wiltshire. I asked after the family
+(you know Henry Churningham is engaged to Miss Rennet?—a doosid good
+match for the Cheddars). We shook hands and are as good friends as
+ever. I don’t suppose she’ll cry when I die, you know,” said the worthy
+old gentleman with a grin. “Nor shall I go into very deep mourning if
+anything happens to her. You were quite right to say to Newcome that
+you did not know whether you were free or not, and would look at your
+engagements when you got home, and give him an answer. A fellow of that
+rank _has_ no right to give himself airs. But they will, sir. Some of
+those bankers are as high and mighty as the oldest families. They marry
+noblemen’s daughters, by Jove, and think nothing is too good for ’em.
+But I should go, if I were you, Arthur. I dined there a couple of
+months ago; and the bankeress said something about you: that you and
+her nephew were much together, that you were sad wild dogs, I
+think—something of that sort. ‘Gad, ma’am,’ says I, ‘boys will be
+boys.’ ‘And they grow to be men!’ says she, nodding her head. Queer
+little woman, devilish pompous. Dinner confoundedly long, stoopid,
+scientific.”
+
+The old gentleman was on this day inclined to be talkative and
+confidential, and I set down some more remarks which he made concerning
+my friends. “Your Indian Colonel,” says he, “seems a worthy man.” The
+Major quite forgot having been in India himself, unless he was in
+company with some very great personage. “He don’t seem to know much of
+the world, and we are not very intimate. Fitzroy Square is a dev’lish
+long way off for a fellow to go for a dinner, and _entre nous_, the
+dinner is rather queer and the company still more so. It’s right for
+you who are a literary man to see all sorts of people; but I’m
+different, you know, so Newcome and I are not very thick together. They
+say he wanted to marry your friend to Lady Anne’s daughter, an
+exceedingly fine girl; one of the prettiest girls come out this season.
+I hear the young men say so. And that shows how monstrous ignorant of
+the world Colonel Newcome is. His son could no more get that girl than
+he could marry one of the royal princesses. Mark my words, they intend
+Miss Newcome for Lord Kew. Those banker fellows are wild after grand
+marriages. Kew will sow his wild oats, and they’ll marry her to him; or
+if not to him, to some man of high rank. His father Walham was a weak
+young man; but his grandmother, old Lady Kew, is a monstrous clever old
+woman, too severe with her children, one of whom ran away and married a
+poor devil without a shilling. Nothing could show a more deplorable
+ignorance of the world than poor Newcome supposing his son could make
+such a match as that with his cousin. Is it true that he is going to
+make his son an artist? I don’t know what the dooce the world is coming
+to. An artist! By gad, in my time a fellow would as soon have thought
+of making his son a hairdresser, or a pastrycook, by gad.” And the
+worthy Major gives his nephew two fingers, and trots off to the next
+club in St. James’s Street, of which he is a member.
+
+The virtuous hostess of Bryanstone Square was quite civil and
+good-humoured when Mr. Pendennis appeared at her house; and my surprise
+was not inconsiderable when I found the whole party from Saint Pancras
+there assembled—Mr. Binnie; the Colonel and his son; Mrs. Mackenzie,
+looking uncommonly handsome and perfectly well-dressed; and Miss Rosey,
+in pink crape, with pearly shoulders and blushing cheeks, and beautiful
+fair ringlets—as fresh and comely a sight as it was possible to
+witness. Scarcely had we made our bows, and shaken our hands, and
+imparted our observations about the fineness of the weather, when,
+behold! as we look from the drawing-room windows into the cheerful
+square of Bryanstone, a great family coach arrives, driven by a family
+coachman in a family wig, and we recognise Lady Anne Newcome’s
+carriage, and see her ladyship, her mother, her daughter, and her
+husband, Sir Brian, descend from the vehicle. “It is quite a family
+party,” whispers the happy Mrs. Newcome to the happy writer conversing
+with her in the niche of the window. “Knowing your intimacy with our
+brother, Colonel Newcome, we thought it would please him to meet you
+here. Will you be so kind as to take Miss Newcome to dinner?”
+
+Everybody was bent upon being happy and gracious. It was “My dear
+brother, how do you do?” from Sir Brian. “My dear Colonel, how glad we
+are to see you! how well you look!” from Lady Anne. Miss Newcome ran up
+to him with both hands out, and put her beautiful face so close to his
+that I thought, upon my conscience, she was going to kiss him. And Lady
+Kew, advancing in the frankest manner, with a smile, I must own, rather
+awful, playing round her many wrinkles, round her ladyship’s hooked
+nose, and displaying her ladyship’s teeth (a new and exceedingly
+handsome set), held out her hand to Colonel Newcome, and said briskly,
+“Colonel, it is an age since we met.” She turns to Clive with equal
+graciousness and good-humour, and says, “Mr. Clive, let me shake hands
+with you; I have heard all sorts of good of you, that you have been
+painting the most beautiful things, that you are going to be quite
+famous.” Nothing can exceed the grace and kindness of Lady Anne Newcome
+towards Mrs. Mackenzie: the pretty widow blushes with pleasure at this
+greeting; and now Lady Anne must be introduced to Mrs. Mackenzie’s
+charming daughter, and whispers in the delighted mother’s ear, “She is
+lovely!” Rosey comes up looking rosy indeed, and executes a pretty
+curtsey with a great deal of blushing grace.
+
+Ethel has been so happy to see her dear uncle, that as yet she has had
+no eyes for any one else, until Clive advancing, those bright eyes
+become brighter still with surprise and pleasure as she beholds him.
+For being absent with his family in Italy now, and not likely to see
+this biography for many many months, I may say that he is a much
+handsomer fellow than our designer has represented; and if that wayward
+artist should take this very scene for the purpose of illustration, he
+is requested to bear in mind that the hero of this story will wish to
+have justice done to his person. There exists in Mr. Newcome’s
+possession a charming little pencil-drawing of Clive at this age, and
+which Colonel Newcome took with him when he went—whither he is about to
+go in a very few pages—and brought back with him to this country. A
+florid apparel becomes some men, as simple raiment suits others, and
+Clive in his youth was of the ornamental class of mankind—a customer to
+tailors, a wearer of handsome rings, shirt-studs, mustachios, long
+hair, and the like; nor could he help, in his costume or his nature,
+being picturesque and generous and splendid. He was always greatly
+delighted with that Scotch man-at-arms in Quentin Durward, who twists
+off an inch or two of his gold chain to treat a friend and pay for a
+bottle. He would give a comrade a ring or a fine jewelled pin, if he
+had no money. Silver dressing-cases and brocade morning-gowns were in
+him a sort of propriety at this season of his youth. It was a pleasure
+to persons of colder temperament to sun themselves in the warmth of his
+bright looks and generous humour. His laughter cheered one like wine. I
+do not know that he was very witty; but he was pleasant. He was prone
+to blush: the history of a generous trait moistened his eyes instantly.
+He was instinctively fond of children, and of the other sex from one
+year old to eighty. Coming from the Derby once—a merry party—and
+stopped on the road from Epsom in a lock of carriages, during which the
+people in the carriage ahead saluted us with many vituperative
+epithets, and seized the heads of our leaders,—Clive in a twinkling
+jumped off the box, and the next minute we saw him engaged with a
+half-dozen of the enemy: his hat gone, his fair hair flying off his
+face, his blue eyes flashing with fire, his lips and nostrils quivering
+wrath, his right and left hand hitting out, _que c’étoit un plaisir à
+voir_. His father sat back in the carriage, looking with delight and
+wonder—indeed it was a great sight. Policeman X separated the warriors.
+Clive ascended the box again with a dreadful wound in the coat, which
+was gashed from the waist to the shoulder. I hardly ever saw the elder
+Newcome in such a state of triumph. The postboys quite stared at the
+gratuity he gave them, and wished they might drive his lordship to the
+Oaks.
+
+All the time we have been making this sketch Ethel is standing, looking
+at Clive; and the blushing youth casts down his eyes before hers. Her
+face assumes a look of arch humour. She passes a slim hand over the
+prettiest lips and a chin with the most lovely of dimples, thereby
+indicating her admiration of Mr. Clive’s mustachios and imperial. They
+are of a warm yellowish chestnut colour, and have not yet known the
+razor. He wears a low cravat; a shirt-front of the finest lawn, with
+ruby buttons. His hair, of a lighter colour, waves almost to his “manly
+shoulders broad.” “Upon my word; my dear Colonel,” says Lady Kew, after
+looking at him, and nodding her head shrewdly, “I think we were right.”
+
+“No doubt right in everything your ladyship does, but in what
+particularly?” asks the Colonel.
+
+“Right to keep him out of the way. Ethel has been disposed of these ten
+years. Did not Anne tell you? How foolish of her! But all mothers like
+to have young men dying for their daughters. Your son is really the
+handsomest boy in London. Who is that conceited-looking young man in
+the window? Mr. Pen—what? has your son really been very wicked? I was
+told he was a sad scapegrace.”
+
+“I never knew him do, and I don’t believe he ever thought, anything
+that was untrue, or unkind, or ungenerous,” says the Colonel. “If any
+one has belied my boy to you, and I think I know who his enemy has
+been——”
+
+“The young lady is very pretty,” remarks Lady Kew, stopping the
+Colonel’s further outbreak. “How very young her mother looks! Ethel, my
+dear! Colonel Newcome must present us to Mrs. Mackenzie and Miss
+Mackenzie;” and Ethel, giving a nod to Clive, with whom she has talked
+for a minute or two, again puts her hand in her uncle’s, and walks
+towards Mrs. Mackenzie and her daughter.
+
+And now let the artist, if he has succeeded in drawing Clive to his
+liking, cut a fresh pencil, and give us a likeness of Ethel. She is
+seventeen years old; rather taller than the majority of women; of a
+countenance somewhat grave and haughty, but on occasion brightening
+with humour or beaming with kindliness and affection. Too quick to
+detect affectation or insincerity in others, too impatient of dulness
+or pomposity, she is more sarcastic now than she became when after
+years of suffering had softened her nature. Truth looks out of her
+bright eyes, and rises up armed, and flashes scorn or denial, perhaps
+too readily, when she encounters flattery, or meanness, or imposture.
+After her first appearance in the world, if the truth must be told,
+this young lady was popular neither with many men, nor with most women.
+The innocent dancing youth who pressed round her, attracted by her
+beauty, were rather afraid, after a while, of engaging her. This one
+felt dimly that she despised him; another, that his simpering
+commonplaces (delights of how many well-bred maidens!) only occasioned
+Miss Newcome’s laughter. Young Lord Croesus, whom all maidens and
+matrons were eager to secure, was astounded to find that he was utterly
+indifferent to her, and that she would refuse him twice or thrice in an
+evening, and dance as many times with poor Tom Spring, who was his
+father’s ninth son, and only at home till he could get a ship and go to
+sea again. The young women were frightened at her sarcasm. She seemed
+to know what _fadaises_ they whispered to their partners as they paused
+in the waltzes; and Fanny, who was luring Lord Croesus towards her with
+her blue eyes, dropped them guiltily to the floor when Ethel’s turned
+towards her; and Cecilia sang more out of time than usual; and Clara,
+who was holding Freddy, and Charley, and Tommy round her enchanted by
+her bright conversation and witty mischief, became dumb and disturbed
+when Ethel passed her with her cold face; and old Lady Hookham, who was
+playing off her little Minnie now at young Jack Gorget of the Guards,
+now at the eager and simple Bob Bateson of the Coldstreams, would slink
+off when Ethel made her appearance on the ground, whose presence seemed
+to frighten away the fish and the angler. No wonder that the other
+Mayfair nymphs were afraid of this severe Diana, whose looks were so
+cold and whose arrows were so keen.
+
+But those who had no cause to heed Diana’s shot or coldness might
+admire her beauty; nor could the famous Parisian marble, which Clive
+said she resembled, be more perfect in form than this young lady. Her
+hair and eyebrows were jet black (these latter may have been too thick
+according to some physiognomists, giving rather a stern expression to
+the eyes, and hence causing those guilty ones to tremble who came under
+her lash), but her complexion was as dazzlingly fair and her cheeks as
+red as Miss Rosey’s own, who had a right to those beauties, being a
+blonde by nature. In Miss Ethel’s black hair there was a slight natural
+ripple, as when a fresh breeze blows over the _melan hudor_—a ripple
+such as Roman ladies nineteen hundred years ago, and our own beauties a
+short time since, endeavoured to imitate by art, paper, and I believe
+crumpling-irons. Her eyes were grey; her mouth rather large; her teeth
+as regular and bright as Lady Kew’s own; her voice low and sweet; and
+her smile, when it lighted up her face and eyes, as beautiful as spring
+sunshine; also they could lighten and flash often, and sometimes,
+though rarely, rain. As for her figure—but as this tall slender form is
+concealed in a simple white muslin robe (of the sort which I believe is
+called _demie toilette_), in which her fair arms are enveloped, and
+which is confined at her slim waist by an azure ribbon, and descends to
+her feet—let us make a respectful bow to that fair image of Youth,
+Health, and Modesty, and fancy it as pretty as we will. Miss Ethel made
+a very stately curtsey to Mrs. Mackenzie, surveying that widow calmly,
+so that the elder lady looked up and fluttered; but towards Rosey she
+held out her hand, and smiled with the utmost kindness, and the smile
+was returned by the other; and the blushes with which Miss Mackenzie
+was always ready at this time, became her very much. As for Mrs.
+Mackenzie—the very largest curve that shall not be a caricature, and
+actually disfigure the widow’s countenance—a smile so wide and steady,
+so exceedingly rident, indeed, as almost to be ridiculous, may be drawn
+upon her buxom face, if the artist chooses to attempt it as it appeared
+during the whole of this summer evening, before dinner came (when
+people ordinarily look very grave), when she was introduced to the
+company: when she was made known to our friends Julia and Maria,—the
+darling child, lovely little dears! how like their papa and mamma!—when
+Sir Brian Newcome gave her his arm downstairs to the dining-room; when
+anybody spoke to her; when John offered her meat, or the gentleman in
+the white waistcoat, wine; when she accepted or when she refused these
+refreshments; when Mr. Newcome told her a dreadfully stupid story; when
+the Colonel called cheerily from his end of the table, “My dear Mrs.
+Mackenzie, you don’t take any wine to-day; may I not have the honour of
+drinking a glass of champagne with you?” when the new boy from the
+country upset some sauce upon her shoulder: when Mrs. Newcome made the
+sign for departure; and I have no doubt in the drawing-room, when the
+ladies retired thither. “Mrs. Mack is perfectly awful,” Clive told me
+afterwards, “since that dinner in Bryanstone Square. Lady Kew and Lady
+Anne are never out of her mouth; she has had white muslin dresses made
+just like Ethel’s for herself and her daughter. She has bought a
+Peerage, and knows the pedigree of the whole Kew family. She won’t go
+out in a cab now without the boy on the box; and in the plate for the
+cards which she has established in the drawing-room, you know, Lady
+Kew’s pasteboard always _will_ come up to the top, though I poke it
+down whenever I go into the room. As for poor Lady Trotter, the
+governess of St. Kitt’s, you know, and the Bishop of Tobago, they are
+quite bowled out: Mrs. Mack has not mentioned them for a week.”
+
+During the dinner it seemed to me that the lovely young lady by whom I
+sate cast many glances towards Mrs. Mackenzie, which did not betoken
+particular pleasure. Miss Ethel asked me several questions regarding
+Clive, and also respecting Miss Mackenzie: perhaps her questions were
+rather downright and imperious, and she patronised me in a manner that
+would not have given all gentlemen pleasure. I was Clive’s friend, his
+schoolfellow? had I seen him a great deal? know him very well—very well
+indeed? Was it true that he had been very thoughtless? very wild? Who
+told her so? That was not her question (with a blush). It was not true,
+and I ought to know? He was not spoiled? He was very good-natured,
+generous, told the truth? He loved his profession very much, and had
+great talent? Indeed she was very glad. Why do they sneer at his
+profession? It seemed to her quite as good as her father’s and
+brother’s. Were artists not very dissipated? Not more so, nor often so
+much as other young men? Was Mr. Binnie rich, and was he going to leave
+all his money to his niece? How long have you known them? Is Miss
+Mackenzie as good-natured as she looks? Not very clever, I suppose.
+Mrs. Mackenzie looks very—No, thank you, no more. Grandmamma (she is
+very deaf, and cannot hear) scolded me for reading the book you wrote,
+and took the book away. I afterwards got it, and read it all. I don’t
+think there was any harm in it. Why do you give such bad characters of
+women? Don’t you know any good ones? Yes, two as good as any in the
+world. They are unselfish: they are pious; they are always doing good;
+they live in the country? Why don’t you put them into a book? Why don’t
+you put my uncle into a book? He is so good, that nobody could make him
+good enough. Before I came out, I heard a young lady—(Lady Clavering’s
+daughter, Miss Amory) sing a song of yours. I have never spoken to an
+author before. I saw Mr. Lyon at Lady Popinjoy’s, and heard him speak.
+He said it was very hot, and he looked so, I am sure. Who is the
+greatest author now alive? You will tell me when you come upstairs
+after dinner;—and the young lady sails away, following the matrons, who
+rise and ascend to the drawing-room. Miss Newcome has been watching the
+behaviour of the author by whom she sate; curious to know what such a
+person’s habits are; whether he speaks and acts like other people; and
+in what respect authors are different from persons “in society.”
+
+When we had sufficiently enjoyed claret and politics below-stairs, the
+gentlemen went to the drawing-room to partake of coffee and the ladies’
+delightful conversation. We had heard previously the tinkling of the
+piano above, and the well-known sound of a couple of Miss Rosey’s five
+songs. The two young ladies were engaged over an album at a side-table,
+when the males of the party arrived. The book contained a number of
+Clive’s drawings made in the time of his very early youth for the
+amusement of his little cousins. Miss Ethel seemed to be very much
+pleased with these performances, which Miss Mackenzie likewise examined
+with great good-nature and satisfaction. So she did the views of Rome,
+Naples, Marble Hill in the county of Sussex, etc., in the same
+collection: so she did the Berlin cockatoo and spaniel which Mrs.
+Newcome was working in idle moments: so she did the “Books of Beauty,”
+“Flowers of Loveliness,” and so forth. She thought the prints very
+sweet and pretty: she thought the poetry very pretty and sweet. Which
+did she like best, Mr. Niminy’s “Lines to a bunch of violets,” or Miss
+Piminy’s “Stanzas to a wreath of roses”? Miss Mackenzie was quite
+puzzled to say which of these masterpieces she preferred; she found
+them alike so pretty. She appealed, as in most cases, to mamma. “How,
+my darling love, can I pretend to know?” mamma says. “I have been a
+soldier’s wife, battling about the world. I have not had your
+advantages. I had no drawing-masters, nor music-masters as you have.
+You, dearest child, must instruct me in these things.” This poses
+Rosey: who prefers to have her opinions dealt out to her like her
+frocks, bonnets, handkerchiefs, her shoes and gloves, and the order
+thereof; the lumps of sugar for her tea, the proper quantity of
+raspberry jam for breakfast; who trusts for all supplies corporeal and
+spiritual to her mother. For her own part, Rosey is pleased with
+everything in nature. Does she love music? Oh, yes. Bellini and
+Donizetti? Oh, yes. Dancing? They had no dancing at grandmamma’s, but
+she adores dancing, and Mr. Clive dances very well indeed. (A smile
+from Miss Ethel at this admission.) Does she like the country? Oh, she
+is so happy in the country! London? London is delightful, and so is the
+seaside. She does not really know which she likes best, London or the
+country, for mamma is not near her to decide, being engaged listening
+to Sir Brian, who is laying down the law to her, and smiling, smiling
+with all her might. In fact, Mr. Newcome says to Mr. Pendennis in his
+droll, humorous way, “That woman grins like a Cheshire cat.” Who was
+the naturalist who first discovered that peculiarity of the cats in
+Cheshire?
+
+In regard to Miss Mackenzie’s opinions, then, it is not easy to
+discover that they are decided, or profound, or original; but it seems
+pretty clear that she has a good temper, and a happy contented
+disposition. And the smile which her pretty countenance wears shows off
+to great advantage the two dimples on her pink cheeks. Her teeth are
+even and white, her hair of a beautiful colour, and no snow can be
+whiter than her fair round neck and polished shoulders. She talks very
+kindly and good-naturedly with Julia and Maria (Mrs. Hobson’s precious
+ones) until she is bewildered by the statements which those young
+ladies make regarding astronomy, botany, and chemistry, all of which
+they are studying. “My dears, I don’t know a single word about any of
+these abstruse subjects: I wish I did,” she says. And Ethel Newcome
+laughs. She too is ignorant upon all these subjects. “I am glad there
+is some one else,” says Rosey, with naivete, “who is as ignorant as I
+am.” And the younger children, with a solemn air, say they will ask
+mamma leave to teach her. So everybody, somehow, great or small, seems
+to protect her; and the humble, simple, gentle little thing wins a
+certain degree of goodwill from the world, which is touched by her
+humility and her pretty sweet looks. The servants in Fitzroy Square
+waited upon her much more kindly than upon her smiling bustling mother.
+Uncle James is especially fond of his little Rosey. Her presence in his
+study never discomposes him; whereas his sister fatigues him with the
+exceeding activity of her gratitude, and her energy in pleasing. As I
+was going away, I thought I heard Sir Brian Newcome say, “It” (but what
+“it” was, of course I cannot conjecture)—“it will do very well. The
+mother seems a superior woman.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+Is passed in a Public-house
+
+
+I had no more conversation with Miss Newcome that night, who had
+forgotten her curiosity about the habits of authors. When she had ended
+her talk with Miss Mackenzie, she devoted the rest of the evening to
+her uncle, Colonel Newcome; and concluded by saying, “And now you will
+come and ride with me to-morrow, uncle, won’t you?” which the Colonel
+faithfully promised to do. And she shook hands with Clive very kindly:
+and with Rosey very frankly, but as I thought with rather a patronising
+air: and she made a very stately bow to Mrs. Mackenzie, and so departed
+with her father and mother. Lady Kew had gone away earlier. Mrs.
+Mackenzie informed us afterwards that the Countess had gone to sleep
+after her dinner. If it was at Mrs. Mack’s story about the Governor’s
+ball at Tobago, and the quarrel for precedence between the Lord
+Bishop’s lady, Mrs. Rotchet, and the Chief Justice’s wife, Lady
+Barwise, I should not be at all surprised.
+
+A handsome fly carried off the ladies to Fitzroy Square, and the two
+worthy Indian gentlemen in their company; Clive and I walking, with the
+usual Havannah to light us home. And Clive remarked that he supposed
+there had been some difference between his father and the bankers: for
+they had not met for ever so many months before, and the Colonel always
+had looked very gloomy when his brothers were mentioned. “And I can’t
+help thinking,” says the astute youth, “that they fancied I was in love
+with Ethel (I know the Colonel would have liked me to make up to her),
+and that may have occasioned the row. Now, I suppose, they think I am
+engaged to Rosey. What the deuce are they in such a hurry to marry me
+for?”
+
+Clive’s companion remarked, “that marriage was a laudable institution:
+and an honest attachment an excellent conservator of youthful morals.”
+On which Clive replied, “Why don’t you marry yourself?”
+
+This it was justly suggested was no argument, but a merely personal
+allusion foreign to the question, which was, that marriage was
+laudable, etc.
+
+Mr. Clive laughed. “Rosey is as good a little creature as can be,” he
+said. “She is never out of temper, though I fancy Mrs. Mackenzie tries
+her. I don’t think she is very wise: but she is uncommonly pretty, and
+her beauty grows on you. As for Ethel, anything so high and mighty I
+have never seen since I saw the French giantess. Going to Court, and
+about to parties every night where a parcel of young fools flatter her,
+has perfectly spoiled her. By Jove, how handsome she is! How she turns
+with her long neck, and looks at you from under those black eyebrows!
+If I painted her hair, I think I should paint it almost blue, and then
+glaze over with lake. It _is_ blue. And how finely her head is joined
+on to her shoulders!”—And he waves in the air an imaginary line with
+his cigar. “She would do for Judith, wouldn’t she? Or how grand she
+would look as Herodias’s daughter sweeping down a stair—in a great
+dress of cloth-of-gold like Paul Veronese—holding a charger before her
+with white arms, you know—with the muscles accented like that glorious
+Diana at Paris—a savage smile on her face and a ghastly solemn gory
+head on the dish. I see the picture, sir, I see the picture!” and he
+fell to curling his mustachios just like his brave old father.
+
+I could not help laughing at the resemblance, and mentioning it to my
+friend. He broke, as was his wont, into a fond eulogium of his sire,
+wished he could be like him—worked himself up into another state of
+excitement, in which he averred “that if his father wanted him to
+marry, he would marry that instant. And why not Rosey? She is a dear
+little thing. Or why not that splendid Miss Sherrick? What ahead!—a
+regular Titian! I was looking at the difference of their colour at
+Uncle Honeyman’s that day of the _déjeuner_. The shadows in Rosey’s
+face, sir, are all pearly-tinted. You ought to paint her in milk, sir!”
+cries the enthusiast. “Have you ever remarked the grey round her eyes,
+and the sort of purple bloom of her cheek? Rubens could have done the
+colour: but I don’t somehow like to think of a young lady and that
+sensuous old Peter Paul in company. I look at her like a little
+wild-flower in a field—like a little child at play, sir. Pretty little
+tender nursling! If I see her passing in the street, I feel as if I
+would like some fellow to be rude to her, that I might have the
+pleasure of knocking him down. She is like a little songbird, sir,—a
+tremulous, fluttering little linnet that you would take into your hand,
+_pavidam quaerentem matrem_, and smooth its little plumes, and let it
+perch on your finger and sing. The Sherrick creates quite a different
+sentiment—the Sherrick is splendid, stately, sleepy——”
+
+“Stupid,” hints Clive’s companion.
+
+“Stupid! Why not? Some women ought to be stupid. What you call dulness
+I call repose. Give me a calm woman, a slow woman,—a lazy, majestic
+woman. Show me a gracious virgin bearing a lily: not a leering giggler
+frisking a rattle. A lively woman would be the death of me. Look at
+Mrs. Mack, perpetually nodding, winking, grinning, throwing out signals
+which you are to be at the trouble to answer! I thought her delightful
+for three days; I declare I was in love with her—that is, as much as I
+can be after—but never mind that, I feel I shall never be really in
+love again. Why shouldn’t the Sherrick be stupid, I say? About great
+beauty there should always reign a silence. As you look at the great
+stars, the great ocean, any great scene of nature: you hush, sir. You
+laugh at a pantomime, but you are still in a temple. When I saw the
+great Venus of the Louvre, I thought—Wert thou alive, O goddess, thou
+shouldst never open those lovely lips but to speak lowly, slowly: thou
+shouldst never descend from that pedestal but to walk stately to some
+near couch, and assume another attitude of beautiful calm. To be
+beautiful is enough. If a woman can do that well: who shall demand more
+from her? You don’t want a rose to sing. And I think wit is out of
+place where there’s great beauty; as I wouldn’t have a Queen to cut
+jokes on her throne. I say, Pendennis,”—here broke off the enthusiastic
+youth,—“have you got another cigar? Shall we go into Finch’s, and have
+a game at billiards? Just one—it’s quite early yet. Or shall we go in
+the Haunt? It’s Wednesday night, you know, when all the boys go.” We
+tap at a door in an old, old street in Soho: an old maid with a kind,
+comical face opens the door, and nods friendly, and says, “How do, sir?
+ain’t seen you this ever so long. How do, Mr. Noocom?” “Who’s here?”
+“Most everybody’s here.” We pass by a little snug bar, in which a trim
+elderly lady is seated by a great fire, on which boils an enormous
+kettle; while two gentlemen are attacking a cold saddle of mutton and
+West India pickles: hard by Mrs. Nokes the landlady’s elbow—with mutual
+bows—we recognise Hickson, the sculptor, and Morgan, the intrepid Irish
+chieftain, chief of the reporters of the _Morning Press_ newspaper. We
+pass through a passage into a back room, and are received with a roar
+of welcome from a crowd of men, almost invisible in the smoke.
+
+“I am right glad to see thee, boy!” cries a cheery voice (that will
+never troll a chorus more). “We spake anon of thy misfortune, gentle
+youth! and that thy warriors of Assaye have charged the Academy in
+vain. Mayhap thou frightenedst the courtly school with barbarous
+visages of grisly war.—Pendennis, thou dost wear a thirsty look!
+Resplendent swell! untwine thy choker white, and I will either stand a
+glass of grog, or thou shalt pay the like for me, my lad, and tell us
+of the fashionable world.” Thus spake the brave old Tom Sarjent,—also
+one of the Press, one of the old boys: a good old scholar with a good
+old library of books, who had taken his seat any time these forty years
+by the chimney-fire in this old Haunt: where painters, sculptors, men
+of letters, actors, used to congregate, passing pleasant hours in rough
+kindly communion, and many a day seeing the sunrise lighting the rosy
+street ere they parted, and Betsy put the useless lamp out and closed
+the hospitable gates of the Haunt.
+
+The time is not very long since, though to-day is so changed. As we
+think of it, the kind familiar faces rise up, and we hear the pleasant
+voices and singing. There are they met, the honest hearty companions.
+In the days when the Haunt was a haunt, stage-coaches were not yet
+quite over. Casinos were not invented: clubs were rather rare luxuries:
+there were sanded floors, triangular sawdust-boxes, pipes, and tavern
+parlours. Young Smith and Brown, from the Temple, did not go from
+chambers to dine at the Polyanthus, or the Megatherium, off potage à la
+Bisque, turbot au gratin, cotelettes a la What-do-you-call-’em, and a
+pint of St. Emilion; but ordered their beefsteak and pint of port from
+the “plump head-waiter at the Cock;” did not disdain the pit of the
+theatre; and for a supper a homely refection at the tavern. How
+delightful are the suppers in Charles Lamb to read of even now!—the
+cards—the punch—the candles to be snuffed—the social oysters—the modest
+cheer! Whoever snuffs a candle now? What man has a domestic supper
+whose dinner-hour is eight o’clock? Those little meetings, in the
+memory of many of us yet, are gone quite away into the past.
+Five-and-twenty years ago is a hundred years off—so much has our social
+life changed in those five lustres. James Boswell himself, were he to
+revisit London, would scarce venture to enter a tavern. He would find
+scarce a respectable companion to enter its doors with him. It is an
+institution as extinct as a hackney-coach. Many a grown man who peruses
+this historic page has never seen such a vehicle, and only heard of
+rum-punch as a drink which his ancestors used to tipple.
+
+Cheery old Tom Sarjent is surrounded at the Haunt by a dozen of kind
+boon companions. They toil all day at their avocations of art, or
+letters, or law, and here meet for a harmless night’s recreation and
+converse. They talk of literature, or politics, or pictures, or plays;
+socially banter one another over their cheap cups: sing brave old songs
+sometimes when they are especially jolly kindly ballads in praise of
+love and wine; famous maritime ditties in honour of Old England. I
+fancy I hear Jack Brent’s noble voice rolling out the sad, generous
+_refrain_ of “The Deserter,” “Then for that reason and for a season we
+will be merry before we go,” or Michael Percy’s clear tenor carolling
+the Irish chorus of “What’s that to any one, whether or no!” or Mark
+Wilder shouting his bottle-song of “Garryowen na gloria.” These songs
+were regarded with affection by the brave old frequenters of the Haunt.
+A gentleman’s property in a song was considered sacred. It was
+respectfully asked for: it was heard with the more pleasure for being
+old. Honest Tom Sarjent! how the times have changed since we saw thee!
+I believe the present chief of the reporters of the newspaper (which
+responsible office Tom filled) goes to Parliament in his brougham, and
+dines with the Ministers of the Crown.
+
+Around Tom are seated grave Royal Academicians, rising gay Associates;
+writers of other journals besides the _Pall Mall Gazette;_ a barrister
+maybe, whose name will be famous some day: a hewer of marble perhaps: a
+surgeon whose patients have not come yet; and one or two men about town
+who like this queer assembly better than haunts much more splendid.
+Captain Shandon has been here, and his jokes are preserved in the
+tradition of the place. Owlet, the philosopher, came once and tried, as
+his wont is, to lecture; but his metaphysics were beaten down by a
+storm of banter. Slatter, who gave himself such airs because he wrote
+in the —— _Review_, tried to air himself at the Haunt, but was choked
+by the smoke, and silenced by the unanimous pooh-poohing of the
+assembly. Dick Walker, who rebelled secretly at Sarjent’s authority,
+once thought to give himself consequence by bringing a young lord from
+the Blue Posts, but he was so unmercifully “chaffed” by Tom, that even
+the young lord laughed at him. His lordship has been heard to say he
+had been taken to a monsus queeah place, queeah set of folks, in a tap
+somewhere, though he went away quite delighted with Tom’s affability,
+but he never came again. He could not find the place, probably. You
+might pass the Haunt in the daytime, and not know it in the least. “I
+believe,” said Charley Ormond (A.R.A. he was then)—“I believe in the
+day there’s no such place at all: and when Betsy turns the gas off at
+the door-lamp as we go away, the whole thing vanishes: the door, the
+house, the bar, the Haunt, Betsy, the beer-boy, Mrs. Nokes and all.” It
+has vanished: it is to be found no more: neither by night nor by
+day—unless the ghosts of good fellows still haunt it.
+
+As the genial talk and glass go round, and after Clive and his friend
+have modestly answered the various queries put to them by good old Tom
+Sarjent, the acknowledged Praeses of the assembly and Sachem of this
+venerable wigwam, the door opens and another well-known figure is
+recognised with shouts as it emerges through the smoke. “Bayham, all
+hail!” says Tom. “Frederick, I am right glad to see thee!”
+
+Bayham says he is disturbed in spirit, and calls for a pint of beer to
+console him.
+
+“Hast thou flown far, thou restless bird of night?” asks Father Tom,
+who loves speaking in blank verses.
+
+“I have come from Cursitor Street,” says Bayham, in a low groan. “I
+have just been to see a poor devil in quod there. Is that you,
+Pendennis? You know the man—Charles Honeyman.”
+
+“What!” cries Clive, starting up.
+
+“O my prophetic soul, my uncle!” growls Bayham. “I did not see the
+young one; but ’tis true.”
+
+The reader is aware that more than the three years have elapsed, of
+which time the preceding pages contain the harmless chronicle; and
+while Thomas Newcome’s leave has been running out and Clive’s
+mustachios growing, the fate of other persons connected with our story
+has also had its development, and their fortune has experienced its
+natural progress, its increase or decay. Our tale, such as it has
+hitherto been arranged, has passed leisurely in scenes wherein the
+present tense is perforce adopted; the writer acting as chorus to the
+drama, and occasionally explaining, by hints or more open statements,
+what has occurred during the intervals of the acts; and how it happens
+that the performers are in such or such a posture. In the modern
+theatre, as the play-going critic knows, the explanatory personage is
+usually of quite a third-rate order. He is the two walking-gentlemen
+friends of Sir Harry Courtly, who welcome the young baronet to London,
+and discourse about the niggardliness of Harry’s old uncle, the Nabob;
+and the depth of Courtly’s passion for Lady Annabel the _première
+amoureuse_. He is the confidant in white linen to the heroine in white
+satin. He is “Tom, you rascal,” the valet or tiger, more or less
+impudent and acute—that well-known menial in top-boots and a livery
+frock with red cuffs and collar, whom Sir Harry always retains in his
+service, addresses with scurrilous familiarity, and pays so
+irregularly: or he is Lucetta, Lady Annabel’s waiting-maid, who carries
+the _billets-doux_ and peeps into them; knows all about the family
+affairs; pops the lover under the sofa; and sings a comic song between
+the scenes. Our business now is to enter into Charles Honeyman’s
+privacy, to peer into the secrets of that reverend gentleman, and to
+tell what has happened to him during the past months, in which he has
+made fitful though graceful appearances on our scene.
+
+While his nephew’s whiskers have been budding, and his brother-in-law
+has been spending his money and leave, Mr. Honeyman’s hopes have been
+withering, his sermons growing stale, his once blooming popularity
+drooping and running to seed. Many causes have contributed to bring him
+to his present melancholy strait. When you go to Lady Whittlesea’s
+Chapel now, it is by no means crowded. Gaps are in the pews: there is
+not the least difficulty in getting a snug place near the pulpit,
+whence the preacher can look over his pocket-handkerchief and see Lord
+Dozeley no more: his lordship has long gone to sleep elsewhere and a
+host of the fashionable faithful have migrated too. The incumbent can
+no more cast his fine eyes upon the French bonnets of the female
+aristocracy and see some of the loveliest faces in Mayfair regarding
+his with expressions of admiration. Actual dowdy tradesmen of the
+neighbourhood are seated with their families in the aisles: Ridley and
+his wife and son have one of the very best seats. To be sure Ridley
+looks like a nobleman, with his large waistcoat, bald head, and gilt
+book: J. J. has a fine head; but Mrs. Ridley! cook and housekeeper is
+written on her round face. The music is by no means of its former good
+quality. That rebellious and ill-conditioned basso Bellew has seceded,
+and seduced the four best singing boys, who now perform glees at the
+Cave of Harmony. Honeyman has a right to speak of persecution, and to
+compare himself to a hermit in so far that he preaches in a desert.
+Once, like another hermit, St. Hierome, he used to be visited by lions.
+None such come to him now. Such lions as frequent the clergy are gone
+off to lick the feet of other ecclesiastics. They are weary of poor
+Honeyman’s old sermons.
+
+Rivals have sprung up in the course of these three years—have sprung up
+round about Honeyman and carried his flock into their folds. We know
+how such simple animals will leap one after another, and that it is the
+sheepish way. Perhaps a new pastor has come to the church of St.
+Jacob’s hard by—bold, resolute, bright, clear, a scholar and no pedant:
+his manly voice is thrilling in their ears, he speaks of life and
+conduct, of practice as well as faith; and crowds of the most polite
+and most intelligent, and best informed, and best dressed, and most
+selfish people in the world come and hear him twice at least. There are
+so many well-informed and well-dressed etc. etc. people in the world
+that the succession of them keeps St. Jacob’s full for a year or more.
+Then, it may be, a bawling quack, who has neither knowledge, nor
+scholarship, nor charity, but who frightens the public with
+denunciations and rouses them with the energy of his wrath, succeeds in
+bringing them together for a while till they tire of his din and
+curses. Meanwhile the good quiet old churches round about ring their
+accustomed bell: open their Sabbath gates: receive their tranquil
+congregations and sober priest, who has been busy all the week, at
+schools and sick-beds, with watchful teaching, gentle counsel, and
+silent alms.
+
+Though we saw Honeyman but seldom, for his company was not altogether
+amusing, and his affectation, when one became acquainted with it, very
+tiresome to witness, Fred Bayham, from his garret at Mrs. Ridley’s,
+kept constant watch over the curate, and told us of his proceedings
+from time to time. When we heard the melancholy news first announced,
+of course the intelligence damped the gaiety of Clive and his
+companion; and F. B., who conducted all the affairs of life with great
+gravity, telling Tom Sarjent that he had news of importance for our
+private ear, Tom with still more gravity than F. B.’s, said, “Go, my
+children, you had best discuss this topic in a separate room, apart
+from the din and fun of a convivial assembly;” and ringing the bell he
+bade Betsy bring him another glass of rum-and-water, and one for Mr.
+Desborough, to be charged to him.
+
+We adjourned to another parlour then, where gas was lighted up: and F.
+B. over a pint of beer narrated poor Honeyman’s mishap. “Saving your
+presence, Clive,” said Bayham, “and with every regard for the youthful
+bloom of your young heart’s affections, your uncle Charles Honeyman,
+sir, is a bad lot. I have known him these twenty years, when I was at
+his father’s as a private tutor. Old Miss Honeyman is one of those
+cards which we call trumps—so was old Honeyman a trump; but Charles and
+his sister——”
+
+I stamped on F. B.’s foot under the table. He seemed to have forgotten
+that he was about to speak of Clive’s mother.
+
+“Hem! of your poor mother, I—hem—I may say _vidi tantum_. I scarcely
+knew her. She married very young: as I was when she left Borhambury.
+But Charles exhibited his character at a very early age—and it was not
+a charming one—no, by no means a model of virtue. He always had a
+genius for running into debt. He borrowed from every one of the
+pupils—I don’t know how he spent it except in hardbake and
+alycompaine—and even from old Nosey’s groom,—pardon me, we used to call
+your grandfather by that playful epithet (boys will be boys, you
+know),—even from the doctor’s groom he took money, and I recollect
+thrashing Charles Honeyman for that disgraceful action.
+
+“At college, without any particular show, he was always in debt and
+difficulties. Take warning by him, dear youth! By him and by me, if you
+like. See me—me, F. Bayham, descended from the ancient kings that long
+the Tuscan sceptre swayed, dodge down a street to get out of sight of a
+boot-shop, and my colossal frame tremble if a chap puts his hand on my
+shoulder, as you did, Pendennis, the other day in the Strand, when I
+thought a straw might have knocked me down! I have had my errors,
+Clive. I know ’em. I’ll take another pint of beer, if you please.
+Betsy, has Mrs. Nokes any cold meat in the bar? and an accustomed
+pickle? Ha! Give her my compliments, and say F. B. is hungry. I resume
+my tale. Faults F. B. has, and knows it. Humbug he may have been
+sometimes; but I’m not such a complete humbug as Honeyman.”
+
+Clive did not know how to look at this character of his relative, but
+Clive’s companion burst into a fit of laughter, at which F. B. nodded
+gravely, and resumed his narrative. “I don’t know how much money he has
+had from your governor, but this I can say, the half of it would make
+F. B. a happy man. I don’t know out of how much the reverend party has
+nobbled his poor old sister at Brighton. He has mortgaged his chapel to
+Sherrick, I suppose you know, who is master of it, and could turn him
+out any day. I don’t think Sherrick is a bad fellow. I think he’s a
+good fellow; I have known him do many a good turn to a chap in
+misfortune. He wants to get into society: what more natural? That was
+why you were asked to meet him the other day, and why he asked you to
+dinner. I hope you had a good one. I wish he’d ask me.
+
+“Then Moss has got his bills, and Moss’s brother-in-law in Cursitor
+Street has taken possession of his revered person. He’s very welcome.
+One Jew has the chapel, another Hebrew has the clergyman. It’s
+singular, ain’t it? Sherrick might turn Lady Whittlesea into a
+synagogue and have the Chief Rabbi into the pulpit, where my uncle the
+Bishop has given out the text.
+
+“The shares of that concern ain’t at a premium. I have had immense fun
+with Sherrick about it. I like the Hebrew, sir. He maddens with rage
+when F. B. goes and asks him whether any more pews are let overhead.
+Honeyman begged and borrowed in order to buy out the last man. I
+remember when the speculation was famous, when all the boxes (I mean
+the pews) were taken for the season, and you couldn’t get a place, come
+ever so early. Then Honeyman was spoilt, and gave his sermons over and
+over again. People got sick of seeing the old humbug cry, the old
+crocodile! Then we tried the musical dodge. F. B. came forward, sir,
+there. That _was_ a coup: I did it, sir. Bellew wouldn’t have sung for
+any man but me—and for two-and-twenty months I kept him as sober as
+Father Mathew. Then Honeyman didn’t pay him: there was a row in the
+sacred building, and Bellew retired. Then Sherrick must meddle in it.
+And having heard a chap out Hampstead way who Sherrick thought would
+do, Honeyman was forced to engage him, regardless of expense. You
+recollect the fellow, sir? The Reverend Simeon Rawkins, the lowest of
+the Low Church, sir—a red-haired dumpy man, who gasped at his _h’s_ and
+spoke with a Lancashire twang—he’d no more do for Mayfair than Grimaldi
+for Macbeth. He and Honeyman used to fight like cat and dog in the
+vestry: and he drove away a third part of the congregation. He was an
+honest man and an able man too, though not a sound Churchman” (F. B.
+said this with a very edifying gravity): “I told Sherrick this the very
+day I heard him. And if he had spoken to me on the subject I might have
+saved him a pretty penny—a precious deal more than the paltry sum which
+he and I had a quarrel about at that time—a matter of business, sir—a
+pecuniary difference about a small three months’ thing which caused a
+temporary estrangement between us. As for Honeyman, he used to cry
+about it. Your uncle is great in the lachrymatory line, Clive Newcome.
+He used to go with tears in his eyes to Sherrick, and implore him not
+to have Rawkins, but he would. And I must say for poor Charles that the
+failure of Lady Whittlesea’s has not been altogether Charles’s fault;
+and that Sherrick has kicked down that property.
+
+“Well, then, sir, poor Charles thought to make it all right by marrying
+Mrs. Brumby;—and she was very fond of him and the thing was all but
+done, in spite of her sons, who were in a rage as you may fancy. But
+Charley, sir, has such a propensity for humbug that he will tell lies
+when there is no earthly good in lying. He represented his chapel at
+twelve hundred a year, his private means as so-and-so; and when he came
+to book up with Briggs the lawyer, Mrs. Brumby’s brother, it was found
+that he lied and prevaricated so, that the widow in actual disgust
+would have nothing more to do with him. She was a good woman of
+business, and managed the hat-shop for nine years, whilst poor Brumby
+was at Dr. Tokelys. A first-rate shop it was, too. I introduced Charles
+to it. My uncle the Bishop had his shovels there: and they used for a
+considerable period to cover _this_ humble roof with tiles,” said F.
+B., tapping his capacious forehead; “I am sure he might have had
+Brumby,” he added, in his melancholy tones, “but for those unlucky
+lies. She didn’t want money. She had plenty. She longed to get into
+society, and was bent on marrying a gentleman.
+
+“But what I can’t pardon in Honeyman is the way in which he has done
+poor old Ridley and his wife. I took him there, you know, thinking they
+would send their bills in once a month: that he was doing a good
+business: in fact, that I had put ’em into a good thing. And the fellow
+has told me a score of times that he and the Ridleys were all right.
+But he has not only not paid his lodgings, but he has had money of
+them: he has given dinners: he has made Ridley pay for wine. He has
+kept paying lodgers out of the house, and he tells me all this with a
+burst of tears, when he sent for me to Lazarus’s to-night, and I went
+to him, sir, because he was in distress—went into the lion’s den, sir!”
+says F. B., looking round nobly. “I don’t know how much he owes them:
+because of course you know the sum he mentions ain’t the right one. He
+never does tell the truth—does Charles. But think of the pluck of those
+good Ridleys never saying a single word to F. B. about the debt! ‘We
+are poor, but we have saved some money and can lie out of it. And we
+think Mr. Honeyman will pay us,’ says Mrs. Ridley to me this very
+evening. And she thrilled my heart-strings, sir; and I took her in my
+arms, and kissed the old woman,” says Bayham; “and I rather astonished
+little Miss Cann, and young J. J., who came in with a picture under his
+arm. But she said she had kissed Master Frederick long before J. J. was
+born—and so she had: that good and faithful servant—and my emotion in
+embracing her was manly, sir, manly.”
+
+Here old Betsy came in to say that the supper was a-waitin’ for Mr.
+Bayham and it was a-getting’ very late; and we left F. B. to his meal;
+and bidding adieu to Mrs. Nokes, Clive and I went each to our
+habitation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+In which Colonel Newcome’s Horses are sold
+
+
+At an hour early the next morning I was not surprised to see Colonel
+Newcome at my chambers, to whom Clive had communicated Bayham’s
+important news of the night before. The Colonel’s object, as any one
+who knew him need scarcely be told, was to rescue his brother-in-law;
+and being ignorant of lawyers, sheriffs’-officers, and their
+proceedings, he bethought him that he would apply to Lamb Court for
+information, and in so far showed some prudence, for at least I knew
+more of the world and its ways than my simple client, and was enabled
+to make better terms for the unfortunate prisoner, or rather for
+Colonel Newcome, who was the real sufferer, than Honeyman’s creditors
+might otherwise have been disposed to give.
+
+I thought it would be more prudent that our good Samaritan should not
+see the victim of rogues whom he was about to succour; and left him to
+entertain himself with Mr. Warrington in Lamb Court, while I sped to
+the lock-up house, where the Mayfair pet was confined. A sickly smile
+played over his countenance as he beheld me when I was ushered to his
+private room. The reverent gentleman was not shaved; he had partaken of
+breakfast. I saw a glass which had once contained brandy on the dirty
+tray whereon his meal was placed: a greasy novel from a Chancery Lane
+library lay on the table: but he was at present occupied in writing one
+or more of those great long letters, those laborious, ornate, eloquent
+statements, those documents so profusely underlined, in which the
+_machinations of villains_ are laid bare with italic fervour; the
+coldness, to use no _harsher_ phrase, of friends on whom reliance
+_might have been placed;_ the outrageous conduct of Solomons; the
+astonishing failure of Smith to pay a sum of money on which he had
+counted as _on the Bank of England;_ finally, the _infallible
+certainty_ of repaying (with what heartfelt thanks need not be said)
+the loan of so many pounds _next Saturday week at farthest_. All this,
+which some readers in the course of their experience have read no doubt
+in many handwritings, was duly set forth by poor Honeyman. There was a
+wafer in a wine-glass on the table, and the bearer no doubt below to
+carry the missive. They always sent these letters by a messenger, who
+is introduced in the postscript; he is always sitting in the hall when
+you get the letter, and is “a young man waiting for an answer, please.”
+
+No one can suppose that Honeyman laid a complete statement of his
+affairs before the negotiator who was charged to look into them. No
+debtor does confess all his debts, but breaks them gradually to his man
+of business, factor or benefactor, leading him on from surprise to
+surprise; and when he is in possession of the tailor’s little account,
+introducing him to the bootmaker. Honeyman’s schedule I felt perfectly
+certain was not correct. The detainees against him were trifling. “Moss
+of Wardour Street, one hundred and twenty—I believe I have paid him
+thousands in this very transaction,” ejaculates Honeyman. “A heartless
+West End tradesman hearing of my misfortune—all these people a linked
+together, my dear Pendennis, and rush like vultures upon their
+prey!—Waddilove, the tailor, has another writ out for ninety-eight
+pounds; a man whom I have made by my recommendations! Tobbins, the
+bootmaker, his neighbour in Jermyn Street, forty-one pounds more, and
+that is all—I give you my word, all. In a few months, when my pew-rents
+will be coming in, I should have settled with those cormorants;
+otherwise, my total and irretrievable ruin, and the disgrace and
+humiliation of a prison attends me. I know it; I can bear it; I have
+been wretchedly weak, Pendennis: I can say mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,
+and I can—bear—my—penalty.” In his finest moments he was never more
+pathetic. He turned his head away, and concealed it in a handkerchief
+not so white as those which veiled his emotions at Lady Whittlesea’s.
+
+How by degrees this slippery penitent was induced to make other
+confessions; how we got an idea of Mrs. Ridley’s account from him, of
+his dealings with Mr. Sherrick, need not be mentioned here. The
+conclusion to which Colonel Newcome’s ambassador came was, that to help
+such a man would be quite useless; and that the Fleet Prison would be a
+most wholesome retreat for this most reckless divine. Ere the day was
+out, Messrs. Waddilove and Tobbins had conferred with their neighbour
+in St. James’s, Mr. Brace; and there came a detainer from that
+haberdasher for gloves, cravats, and pocket-handkerchiefs, that might
+have done credit to the most dandified young Guardsman. Mr. Warrington
+was on Mr. Pendennis’s side, and urged that the law should take its
+course. “Why help a man,” said he, “who will not help himself? Let the
+law sponge out the fellow’s debts; set him going again with twenty
+pounds when he quits the prison, and get him a chaplaincy in the Isle
+of Man.”
+
+I saw by the Colonel’s grave kind face that these hard opinions did not
+suit him. “At all events, sir, promise us,” we said, “that you will pay
+nothing yourself—that you won’t see Honeyman’s creditors, and let
+people, who know the world better, deal with him.” “Know the world,
+young man!” cries Newcome; “I should think if I don’t know the world at
+my age, I never shall.” And if he had lived to be as old as Jahaleel, a
+boy could still have cheated him.
+
+“I do not scruple to tell you,” he said, after a pause during which a
+plenty of smoke was delivered from the council of three, “that I have—a
+fund—which I had set aside for mere purposes of pleasure, I give you my
+word, and a part of which I shall think it my duty to devote to poor
+Honeyman’s distresses. The fund is not large. The money was intended,
+in fact:—however, there it is. If Pendennis will go round to these
+tradesmen, and make some composition with them, as their prices have
+been no doubt enormously exaggerated, I see no harm. Besides the
+tradesfolk, there is good Mrs. Ridley and Mr. Sherrick—we must see
+them; and, if we can, set this luckless Charles again on his legs. We
+have read of other prodigals who were kindly treated; and we may have
+debts of our own to forgive, boys.”
+
+Into Mr. Sherrick’s account we had no need to enter. That gentleman had
+acted with perfect fairness by Honeyman. He laughingly said to us, “You
+don’t imagine I would lend that chap a shilling without security? I
+will give him fifty or a hundred. Here’s one of his notes, with
+What-do-you-call-’ems—that rum fellow Bayham’s name as drawer. A nice
+pair, ain’t they? Pooh! _I_ shall never touch ’em. I lent some money on
+the shop overhead,” says Sherrick, pointing to the ceiling (we were in
+his counting-house in the cellar of Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel), “because
+I thought it was a good speculation. And so it was at first. The people
+liked Honeyman. All the nobs came to hear him. Now the speculation
+ain’t so good. He’s used up. A chap can’t be expected to last for ever.
+When I first engaged Mademoiselle Bravura at my theatre, you couldn’t
+get a place for three weeks together. The next year she didn’t draw
+twenty pounds a week. So it was with Pottle and the regular drama
+humbug. At first it was all very well. Good business, good houses, our
+immortal bard, and that sort of game. They engaged the tigers and the
+French riding people over the way; and there was Pottle bellowing away
+in my place to the orchestra and the orders. It’s all a speculation.
+I’ve speculated in about pretty much everything that’s going: in
+theatres, in joint-stock jobs, in building-ground, in bills, in gas and
+insurance companies, and in this chapel. Poor old Honeyman! I won’t
+hurt him. About that other chap I put in to do the first business—that
+red-haired chap, Rawkins—I think I was wrong. I think he injured the
+property. But I don’t know everything, you know. I wasn’t bred to know
+about parsons—quite the reverse. I thought, when I heard Rawkins at
+Hampstead, he was just the thing. I used to go about, sir, just as I
+did to the provinces, when I had the theatre—Camberwell, Islington,
+Kennington, Clapton, all about, and hear the young chaps. Have a glass
+of sherry; and here’s better luck to Honeyman. As for that Colonel,
+he’s a trump, sir! I never see such a man. I have to deal with such a
+precious lot of rogues, in the City and out of it, among the swells and
+all, you know, that to see such a fellow refreshes me; and I’d do
+anything for him. You’ve made a good thing of that _Pall Mall Gazette!_
+I tried papers too; but mine didn’t do. I don’t know why. I tried a
+Tory one, moderate Liberal, and out-and-out uncompromising Radical. I
+say, what d’ye think of a religious paper, the _Catechism_, or some
+such name? Would Honeyman do as editor? I’m afraid it’s all up with the
+poor cove at the chapel.” And I parted with Mr. Sherrick, not a little
+edified by his talk, and greatly relieved as to Honeyman’s fate. The
+tradesmen of Honeyman’s body were appeased; and as for Mr. Moss, when
+he found that the curate had no effects, and must go before the
+Insolvent Court, unless Moss chose to take the composition which we
+were empowered to offer him, he too was brought to hear reason, and
+parted with the stamped paper on which was poor Honeyman’s signature.
+Our negotiation had like to have come to an end by Clive’s untimely
+indignation, who offered at one stage of the proceedings to pitch young
+Moss out of window; but nothing came of this most ungentlemanlike
+behaviour on Noocob’s part, further than remonstrance and delay in the
+proceedings; and Honeyman preached a lovely sermon at Lady Whittlesea’s
+the very next Sunday. He had made himself much liked in the
+sponging-house, and Mr. Lazarus said, “if he hadn’t a got out time
+enough, I’d a let him out for Sunday, and sent one of my men with him
+to show him the way ome, you know; for when a gentleman behaves as a
+gentleman to me, I behave as a gentleman to him.”
+
+Mrs. Ridley’s account, and it was a long one, was paid without a single
+question, or the deduction of a farthing; but the Colonel rather
+sickened of Honeyman’s expressions of rapturous gratitude, and received
+his professions of mingled contrition and delight very coolly. “My
+boy,” says the father to Clive, “you see to what straits debt brings a
+man, to tamper with truth to have to cheat the poor. Think of flying
+before a washerwoman, or humbling yourself to a tailor, or eating a
+poor man’s children’s bread!” Clive blushed, I thought, and looked
+rather confused.
+
+“Oh, father,” says he, “I—I’m afraid I owe some money too—not much; but
+about forty pound, five-and-twenty for cigars, and fifteen I borrowed
+of Pendennis, and—and I’ve been devilish annoyed about it all this
+time.”
+
+“You stupid boy,” says the father “I knew about the cigars bill, and
+paid it last week. Anything I have is yours, you know. As long as there
+is a guinea, there is half for you. See that every shilling we owe is
+paid before—before a week is over. And go down and ask Binnie if I can
+see him in his study. I want to have some conversation with him.” When
+Clive was gone away, he said to me in a very sweet voice, “In God’s
+name, keep my boy out of debt when I am gone, Arthur. I shall return to
+India very soon.”
+
+“Very soon, sir! You have another year’s leave,” said I.
+
+“Yes, but no allowances, you know; and this affair of Honeyman’s has
+pretty nearly emptied the little purse I had set aside for European
+expenses. They have been very much heavier than I expected. As it is, I
+overdrew my account at my brother’s, and have been obliged to draw
+money from my agents in Calcutta. A year sooner or later (unless two of
+our senior officers had died, when I should have got my promotion and
+full colonel’s pay with it, and proposed to remain in this country)—a
+year sooner or later, what does it matter? Clive will go away and work
+at his art, and see the great schools of painting while I am absent. I
+thought at one time how pleasant it would be to accompany him. But
+_l’homme propose_, Pendennis. I fancy now a lad is not the better for
+being always tied to his parent’s apron-string. You young fellows are
+too clever for me. I haven’t learned your ideas or read your books. I
+feel myself very often an old damper in your company. I will go back,
+sir, where I have some friends, where I am somebody still. I know an
+honest face or two, white and brown, that will lighten up in the old
+regiment when they see Tom Newcome again. God bless you, Arthur. You
+young fellows in this country have such cold ways that we old ones
+hardly know how to like you at first. James Binnie and I, when we first
+came home, used to talk you over, and think you laughed at us. But you
+didn’t, I know. God Almighty bless you, and send you a good wife, and
+make a good man of you. I have bought a watch, which I would like you
+to wear in remembrance of me and my boy, to whom you were so kind when
+you were boys together in the old Grey Friars.” I took his hand, and
+uttered some incoherent words of affection and respect. Did not Thomas
+Newcome merit both from all who knew him?
+
+His resolution being taken, our good Colonel began to make silent but
+effectual preparations for his coming departure. He was pleased during
+these last days of his stay to give me even more of his confidence than
+I had previously enjoyed, and was kind enough to say that he regarded
+me almost as a son of his own, and hoped I would act as elder brother
+and guardian to Clive. Ah! who is to guard the guardian? The younger
+brother had many nobler qualities than belonged to the elder. The world
+had not hardened Clive, nor even succeeded in spoiling him. I perceive
+I am diverging from his history into that of another person, and will
+return to the subject proper of the book.
+
+Colonel Newcome expressed himself as being particularly touched and
+pleased with his friend Binnie’s conduct, now that the Colonel’s
+departure was determined. “James is one of the most generous of men,
+Pendennis, and I am proud to be put under an obligation to him, and to
+tell it too. I hired this house, as you are aware, of our speculative
+friend Mr. Sherrick, and am answerable for the payment of the rent till
+the expiry of the lease. James has taken the matter off my hands
+entirely. The place is greatly too large for him, but he says that he
+likes it, and intends to stay, and that his sister and niece shall be
+his housekeepers. Clive” (here, perhaps, the speaker’s voice drops a
+little)—“Clive will be the son of the house still, honest James says,
+and God bless him. James is richer than I thought by near a lakh of
+rupees—and here is a hint for you, Master Arthur. Mr. Binnie has
+declared to me in confidence that if his niece, Miss Rosey, shall marry
+a person of whom he approves, he will leave her a considerable part of
+his fortune.”
+
+The Colonel’s confidant here said that his own arrangements were made
+in another quarter, to which statement the Colonel replied knowingly,
+“I thought so. A little bird has whispered to me the name of a certain
+Miss A. I knew her grandfather, an accommodating old gentleman, and I
+borrowed some money from him when I was a subaltern at Calcutta. I tell
+you in strict confidence, my dear young friend, that I hope and trust a
+certain young gentleman of your acquaintance may be induced to think
+how good and pretty and sweet-tempered a girl Miss Mackenzie is, and
+that she may be brought to like him. If you young men would marry in
+good time good and virtuous women—as I am sure—ahem!—Miss Amory is—half
+the temptations of your youth would be avoided. You would neither be
+dissolute, has many of you seem to me, or cold and selfish, which are
+worse vices still. And my prayer is, that my Clive may cast anchor
+early out of the reach of temptation, and mate with some such kind girl
+as Binnie’s niece. When I first came home I formed other plans for him
+which could not be brought to a successful issue; and knowing his
+ardent disposition, and having kept an eye on the young rogue’s
+conduct, I tremble lest some mischance with a woman should befall him,
+and long to have him out of danger.”
+
+So the kind scheme of the two elders was, that their young ones should
+marry and be happy ever after, like the Prince and Princess of the
+Fairy Tale: and dear Mrs. Mackenzie (have I said that at the
+commencement of her visit to her brother she made almost open love to
+the Colonel?), dear Mrs. Mack was content to forgo her own chances so
+that her darling Rosey might be happy. We used to laugh and say, that
+as soon as Clive’s father was gone, Josey would be sent for to join
+Rosey. But little Josey being under her grandmother’s sole influence
+took a most gratifying and serious turn; wrote letters, in which she
+questioned the morality of operas, Towers of London, and waxworks; and,
+before a year was out, married Elder Bogie, of Mr. M’Craw’s church.
+
+Presently was to be read in the _Morning Post_ an advertisement of the
+sale of three horses (the description and pedigree following), “the
+property of an officer returning to India. Apply to the groom, at the
+stables, 150 Fitzroy Square.”
+
+The Court of Directors invited Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome to an
+entertainment given to Major-General Sir Ralph Spurrier, K.C.B.,
+appointed Commander-in-Chief at Madras. Clive was asked to this dinner
+too, “and the governor’s health was drunk, sir,” Clive said, “after
+dinner, and the dear old fellow made such a good speech, in returning
+thanks!”
+
+He, Clive, and I made a pilgrimage to Grey Friars, and had the Green to
+ourselves, it being the Bartlemytide vacation, and the boys all away.
+One of the good old Poor Brothers whom we both recollected accompanied
+us round the place; and we sate for a while in Captain Scarsdale’s
+little room (he had been a Peninsular officer, who had sold out, and
+was fain in his old age to retire into this calm retreat). And we
+talked, as old schoolmates and lovers talk, about subjects interesting
+to schoolmates and lovers only.
+
+One by one the Colonel took leave of his friends, young and old; ran
+down to Newcome, and gave Mrs. Mason a parting benediction; slept a
+night at Tom Smith’s, and passed a day with Jack Brown; went to all the
+boys’ and girls’ schools where his little _protégés_ were, so as to be
+able to take the very last and most authentic account of the young
+folks to their parents in India; spent a week at Marble Hill, and shot
+partridges there, but for which entertainment, Clive said, the place
+would have been intolerable; and thence proceeded to Brighton to pass a
+little time with good Miss Honeyman. As for Sir Brian’s family, when
+Parliament broke up, of course, they did not stay in town. Barnes, of
+course, had part of a moor in Scotland, whither his uncle and cousin
+did not follow him. The rest went abroad. Sir Brian wanted the waters
+of Aix-la-Chapelle. The brothers parted very good friends; Lady Anne,
+and all the young people, heartily wished him farewell. I believe Sir
+Brian even accompanied the Colonel downstairs from the drawing-room, in
+Park Lane, and actually came out and saw his brother into his cab (just
+as he would accompany old Lady Bagges when she came to look at her
+account at the bank, from the parlour to her carriage). But as for
+Ethel, she was not going to be put off with this sort of parting and
+the next morning a cab dashed up to Fitzroy Square, and a veiled lady
+came out thence, and was closeted with Colonel Newcome for five
+minutes, and when he led her back to the carriage there were tears in
+his eyes.
+
+Mrs. Mackenzie joked about the transaction (having watched it from the
+dining-room windows), and asked the Colonel who his sweetheart was?
+Newcome replied very sternly, that he hoped no one would ever speak
+lightly of that young lady, whom he loved as his own daughter; and I
+thought Rosey looked vexed at the praises thus bestowed. This was the
+day before we all went down to Brighton. Miss Honeyman’s lodgings were
+taken for Mr. Binnie and his ladies. Clive and her dearest Colonel had
+apartments next door. Charles Honeyman came down and preached one of
+his very best sermons. Fred Bayham was there, and looked particularly
+grand and noble on the pier and the cliff. I am inclined to think he
+had had some explanation with Thomas Newcome, which had placed F. B. in
+a state of at least temporary prosperity. Whom did he not benefit whom
+he knew, and what eye that saw him did not bless him? F. B. was greatly
+affected at Charles’s sermon, of which our party of course could see
+the allusions. Tears actually rolled down his brown cheeks; for Fred
+was a man very easily moved, and, as it were, a softened sinner. Little
+Rosey and her mother sobbed audibly, greatly to the surprise of stout
+old Miss Honeyman, who had no idea of such watery exhibitions, and to
+the discomfiture of poor Newcome, who was annoyed to have his praises
+even hinted in that sacred edifice. Good Mr. James Binnie came for once
+to church; and, however variously their feelings might be exhibited or,
+repressed, I think there was not one of the little circle there
+assembled who did not bring to the place a humble prayer and a gentle
+heart. It was the last Sabbath-bell our dear friend was to hear for
+many a day on his native shore. The great sea washed the beach as we
+came out, blue with the reflection of the skies, and its innumerable
+waves crested with sunshine. I see the good man and his boy yet
+clinging to him, as they pace together by the shore.
+
+The Colonel was very much pleased by a visit from Mr. Ridley and the
+communication which he made (my Lord Todmorden has a mansion and park
+in Sussex, whence Mr. Ridley came to pay his duty to Colonel Newcome).
+He said he “never could forget the kindness with which the Colonel have
+a treated him. His lordship have taken a young man, which Mr. Ridley
+had brought him up under his own eye, and can answer for him, Mr. R.
+says, with impunity; and which he is to be his lordship’s own man for
+the future. And his lordship have appointed me his steward, and having,
+as he always hev been, been most liberal in point of sellary. And me
+and Mrs. Ridley was thinking, sir, most respectfully, with regard to
+our son, Mr. John James Ridley—as good and honest a young man, which I
+am proud to say it, that if Mr. Clive goes abroad we should be most
+proud and happy if John James went with him. And the money which you
+have paid us so handsome, Colonel, he shall have it; which it was the
+excellent ideer of Miss Cann; and my lord have ordered a pictur of John
+James in the most libral manner, and have asked my son to dinner, sir,
+at his lordship’s own table, which I have faithfully served him
+five-and-thirty years.” Ridley’s voice fairly broke down at this part
+of his speech, which evidently was a studied composition, and he
+uttered no more of it, for the Colonel cordially shook him by the hand,
+and Clive jumped up clapping his, and saying that it was the greatest
+wish of his heart that J. J. and he should be companions in France and
+Italy. “But I did not like to ask my dear old father,” he said, “who
+has had so many calls on his purse, and besides, I knew that J. J. was
+too independent to come as my follower.”
+
+The Colonel’s berth has been duly secured ere now. This time he makes
+the overland journey; and his passage is to Alexandria, taken in one of
+the noble ships of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. His kit is as
+simple as a subaltern’s; I believe, but for Clive’s friendly
+compulsion, he would have carried back no other than the old uniform
+which has served him for so many years. Clive and his father travelled
+to Southampton together by themselves. F. B. and I took the Southampton
+coach: we had asked leave to see the last of him, and say a “God bless
+you” to our dear old friend. So the day came when the vessel was to
+sail. We saw his cabin, and witnessed all the bustle and stir on board
+the good ship on a day of departure. Our thoughts, however, were fixed
+but on one person—the case, no doubt, with hundreds more on such a day.
+There was many a group of friends closing wistfully together on the
+sunny deck, and saying the last words of blessing and farewell. The
+bustle of the ship passes dimly round about them; the hurrying noise of
+crew and officers running on their duty; the tramp and song of the men
+at the capstan-bars; the bells ringing, as the hour for departure comes
+nearer and nearer, as mother and son, father and daughter, husband and
+wife, hold hands yet for a little while. We saw Clive and his father
+talking together by the wheel. Then they went below; and a passenger,
+her husband, asked me to give my arm to an almost fainting lady, and to
+lead her off the ship. Bayham followed us, carrying their two children
+in his arms, as the husband turned away and walked aft. The last bell
+was ringing, and they were crying, “Now for the shore.” The whole ship
+had begun to throb ere this, and its great wheels to beat the water,
+and the chimneys had flung out their black signals for sailing. We were
+as yet close on the dock, and we saw Clive coming up from below,
+looking very pale; the plank was drawn after him as he stepped on land.
+
+Then, with three great cheers from the dock, and from the crew in the
+bows, and from the passengers on the quarter-deck, the noble ship
+strikes the first stroke of her destined race, and swims away towards
+the ocean. “There he is, there he is,” shouts Fred Bayham, waving his
+hat. “God bless him, God bless him!” I scarce perceived at the ship’s
+side, beckoning an adieu, our dear old friend, when the lady, whose
+husband had bidden me to lead her away from the ship, fainted in my
+arms. Poor soul! Her, too, has fate stricken. Ah, pangs of hearts torn
+asunder, passionate regrets, cruel, cruel partings! Shall you not end
+one day, ere many years; when the tears shall be wiped from all eyes,
+and there shall be neither sorrow nor pain?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+Youth and Sunshine
+
+
+Although Thomas Newcome was gone back to India in search of more money,
+finding that he could not live upon his income at home, he was
+nevertheless rather a wealthy man; and at the moment of his departure
+from Europe had two lakhs of rupees invested in various Indian
+securities. “A thousand a year,” he thought, “more, added to the
+interest accruing from my two lakhs, will enable us to live very
+comfortably at home. I can give Clive ten thousand pounds when he
+marries, and five hundred a year out of my allowances. If he gets a
+wife with some money, they may have every enjoyment of life; and as for
+his pictures, he can paint just as few or as many of those as he
+pleases.” Newcome did not seem seriously to believe that his son would
+live by painting pictures, but considered Clive as a young prince who
+chose to amuse himself with painting. The Muse of Painting is a lady
+whose social station is not altogether recognised with us as yet. The
+polite world permits a gentleman to amuse himself with her; but to take
+her for better or for worse! forsake all other chances and cleave unto
+her! to assume her name! Many a respectable person would be as much
+shocked at the notion, as if his son had married an opera-dancer.
+
+Newcome left a hundred a year in England, of which the principal sum
+was to be transferred to his boy as soon as he came of age. He endowed
+Clive further with a considerable annual sum, which his London bankers
+would pay: “And if these are not enough,” says he kindly, “you must
+draw upon my agents, Messrs. Frank and Merryweather at Calcutta, who
+will receive your signature just as if it was mine.” Before going away,
+he introduced Clive to F. and M.’s corresponding London house, Jolly
+and Baines, Fog Court—leading out of Leadenhall—Mr. Jolly, a myth as
+regarded the firm, now married to Lady Julia Jolly—a Park in
+Kent—evangelical interest—great at Exeter Hall meetings—knew Clive’s
+grandmother—that is, Mrs. Newcome, a most admirable woman. Baines
+represents a house in the Regent’s Park, with an emigrative tendency
+towards Belgravia—musical daughters—Herr Moscheles, Benedick,
+Ella,—Osborne, constantly at dinner-sonatas in P flat (op. 936),
+composed and dedicated to Miss Euphemia Baines, by her most obliged,
+most obedient servant, Ferdinando Blitz. Baines hopes that his young
+friend will come constantly to York Terrace, where the most girls will
+be happy to see him; and mentions at home a singular whim of Colonel
+Newcome’s, who can give his son twelve or fifteen hundred a year, and
+makes an artist of him. Euphemia and Flora adore artists; they feel
+quite interested about this young man. “He was scribbling caricatures
+all the time I was talking with his father in my parlour,” says Mr.
+Baines, and produces a sketch of an orange-woman near the Bank, who had
+struck Clive’s eyes, and been transferred to the blotting-paper in Fog
+Court. “_He_ needn’t do anything,” said good-natured Mr. Baines. “I
+guess all the pictures he’ll paint won’t sell for much.”
+
+“Is he fond of music, papa?” asks Miss. “What a pity he had not come to
+our last evening; and now the season is over!”
+
+“And Mr. Newcome is going out of town. He came to me, to-day for
+circular notes—says he’s going through Switzerland and into Italy—lives
+in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square. Queer place, ain’t it? Put his
+name down in your book, and ask him to dinner next season.”
+
+Before Clive went away, he had an apparatus of easels,
+sketching-stools, umbrellas, and painting-boxes, the most elaborate and
+beautiful that Messrs. Soap and Isaac could supply. It made J. J.’s
+eyes glisten to see those lovely gimcracks of art; those smooth
+mill-boards, those slab-tinted sketching-blocks, and glistening rows of
+colour-tubes lying in their boxes, which seemed to cry, “Come, squeeze
+me.” If painting-boxes made painters, if sketching-stools would but
+enable one to sketch, surely I would hasten this very instant to
+Messrs. Soap and Isaac! but, alas! these pretty toys no more make
+artists than cowls make monks.
+
+As a proof that Clive did intend to practise his profession, and to
+live by it too, at this time he took four sporting sketches to a
+printseller in the Haymarket, and disposed of them at the rate of seven
+shillings and sixpence per sketch. His exultation at receiving a
+sovereign and half a sovereign from Mr. Jones was boundless. “I can do
+half a dozen of these things easily in a morning,” he says. “Two
+guineas a day is twelve guineas—say ten guineas a week, for I won’t
+work on Sundays, and may take a holiday in the week besides. Ten
+guineas a week is five hundred a year. That is pretty nearly as much
+money as I shall want, and I need not draw the dear old governor’s
+allowance at all.” He wrote an ardent letter, full of happiness and
+affection, to the kind father, which he shall find a month after he has
+arrived in India, and read to his friends in Calcutta and Barrackpore.
+Clive invited many of his artist friends to a grand feast in honour of
+the thirty shillings. The King’s Arms, Kensington, was the hotel
+selected (tavern beloved of artists for many score years!). Gandish was
+there, and the Gandishites, and some chosen spirits from the Life
+Academy, Clipstone Street, and J. J. was vice-president, with Fred
+Bayham by his side, to make the speeches and carve the mutton; and I
+promise you many a merry song was sung, and many a health drunk in
+flowing bumpers; and as jolly a party was assembled as any London
+contained that day. The _beau monde_ had quitted it; the Park was empty
+as we crossed it; and the leaves of Kensington Gardens had begun to
+fall, dying after the fatigues of a London season. We sang all the way
+home through Knightsbridge and by the Park railings, and the Covent
+Garden carters halting at the Half-way House were astonished at our
+choruses. There is no half-way house now; no merry chorus at midnight.
+
+Then Clive and J. J. took the steamboat to Antwerp; and those who love
+pictures may imagine how the two young men rejoiced in one of the most
+picturesque cities of the world; where they went back straightway into
+the sixteenth century; where the inn at which they stayed (delightful
+old Grand Laboureur, thine ancient walls are levelled! thy comfortable
+hospitalities exist no more!) seemed such a hostelry as that where
+Quentin Durward first saw his sweetheart; where knights of Velasquez or
+burgomasters of Rubens seemed to look from the windows of the
+tall-gabled houses and the quaint porches; where the Bourse still
+stood, the Bourse of three hundred years ago, and you had but to supply
+figures with beards and ruffs, and rapiers and trunk-hose, to make the
+picture complete; where to be awakened by the carillon of the bells was
+to waken to the most delightful sense of life and happiness; where
+nuns, actual nuns, walked the streets, and every figure in the Place de
+Meir, and every devotee at church, kneeling and draped in black, or
+entering the confessional (actually the confessional!), was a
+delightful subject for the new sketchbook. Had Clive drawn as much
+everywhere as at Antwerp, Messrs. Soap and Isaac might have made a
+little income by supplying him with materials.
+
+After Antwerp, Clive’s correspondent gets a letter dated from the Hotel
+de Suede at Brussels, which contains an elaborate eulogy of the cookery
+and comfort of that hotel, where the wines, according to the writer’s
+opinion, are unmatched almost in Europe. And this is followed by a
+description of Waterloo, and a sketch of Hougoumont, in which J. J. is
+represented running away in the character of a French grenadier, Clive
+pursuing him in the lifeguard’s habit, and mounted on a thundering
+charger.
+
+Next follows a letter from Bonn. Verses about Drachenfels of a not very
+superior style of versification; an account of Crichton, an old Grey
+Friars man, who has become a student at the university; of a commerz, a
+drunken bout, and a students’ duel at Bonn. “And whom should I find
+here,” says Mr. Clive, “but Aunt Anne, Ethel, Miss Quigley, and the
+little ones, the whole detachment under the command of Kuhn? Uncle
+Brian is staying at Aix. He is recovered from his attack. And, upon my
+conscience, I think my pretty cousin looks prettier every day.
+
+“When they are not in London,” Clive goes on to write, “or I sometimes
+think when Barnes or old Lady Kew are not looking over them, they are
+quite different. You know how cold they have latterly seemed to us, and
+how their conduct annoyed my dear old father. Nothing can be kinder
+than their behaviour since we have met. It was on the little hill at
+Godesberg: J. J. and I were mounting to the ruin, followed by the
+beggars who waylay you, and have taken the place of the other robbers
+who used to live there, when there came a procession of donkeys down
+the steep, and I heard a little voice cry, ‘Hullo! it’s Clive! hooray,
+Clive!’ and an ass came pattering down the declivity, with a little
+pair of white trousers at an immensely wide angle over the donkey’s
+back, and behold there was little Alfred grinning with all his might.
+
+“He turned his beast and was for galloping up the hill again, I suppose
+to inform his relations; but the donkey refused with many kicks, one of
+which sent Alfred plunging amongst the stones, and we were rubbing him
+down just as the rest of the party came upon us. Miss Quigley looked
+very grim on an old white pony; my aunt was on a black horse that might
+have turned grey, he is so old. Then come two donkeysful of children,
+with Kuhn as supercargo; then Ethel on donkey-back, too, with a bunch
+of wildflowers in her hand, a great straw hat with a crimson ribbon, a
+white muslin jacket, you know, bound at the waist with a ribbon of the
+first, and a dark skirt, with a shawl round her feet which Kuhn had
+arranged. As she stopped, the donkey fell to cropping greens in the
+hedge; the trees there chequered her white dress and face with shadow.
+Her eyes, hair, and forehead were in shadow too—but the light was all
+upon her right cheek: upon her shoulder down to her arm, which was of a
+warmer white, and on the bunch of flowers which she held, blue, yellow,
+and red poppies, and so forth.
+
+“J. J. says, ‘I think the birds began to sing louder when she came.’ We
+have both agreed that she is the handsomest woman in England. It’s not
+her form merely, which is certainly as yet too thin and a little
+angular—it is her colour. I do not care for woman or picture without
+colour. O, ye carnations! O, ye _lilia mista rosis!_ O such black hair
+and solemn eyebrows! It seems to me the roses and carnations have
+bloomed again since we saw them last in London, when they were drooping
+from the exposure to night air, candle-light, and heated ballrooms.
+
+“Here I was in the midst of a regiment of donkeys, bearing a crowd of
+relations; J. J. standing modestly in the background—beggars completing
+the group, and Kuhn ruling over them with voice and gesture, oaths and
+whip. Throw in the Rhine in the distance flashing by the Seven
+Mountains—but mind and make Ethel the principal figure: if you make her
+like, she certainly _will_ be—and other lights will be only minor
+fires. You may paint her form, but you can’t paint her colour; that is
+what beats us in nature. A line must come right; you can force that
+into its place, but you can’t compel the circumambient air. There is no
+yellow I know of will make sunshine, and no blue that is a bit like
+sky. And so with pictures: I think you only get signs of colour, and
+formulas to stand for it. That brick-dust which we agree to receive as
+representing a blush, look at it—can you say it is in the least like
+the blush which flickers and varies as it sweeps over the down of the
+cheek—as you see sunshine playing over a meadow? Look into it and see
+what a variety of delicate blooms there are! a multitude of flowerets
+twining into one tint! We may break our colour-pots and strive after
+the line alone: that is palpable and we can grasp it—the other is
+impossible and beyond us.” Which sentiment I here set down, not on
+account of its worth (and I think it is contradicted—as well as
+asserted—in more than one of the letters I subsequently had from Mr.
+Clive, but it may serve to show the ardent and impulsive disposition of
+this youth), by whom all beauties of art and nature, animate or
+inanimate (the former especially), were welcomed with a gusto and
+delight whereof colder temperaments are incapable. The view of a fine
+landscape, a fine picture, a handsome woman, would make this harmless
+young sensualist tipsy with pleasure. He seemed to derive an actual
+hilarity and intoxication as his eye drank in these sights; and, though
+it was his maxim that all dinners were good, and he could eat bread and
+cheese and drink small beer with perfect good-humour, I believe that he
+found a certain pleasure in a bottle of claret, which most men’s
+systems were incapable of feeling.
+
+This springtime of youth is the season of letter-writing. A lad in high
+health and spirits, the blood running briskly in his young veins, and
+the world, and life, and nature bright and welcome to him, looks out,
+perforce, for some companion to whom he may impart his sense of the
+pleasure which he enjoys, and which were not complete unless a friend
+were by to share it. I was the person most convenient for the young
+fellow’s purpose; he was pleased to confer upon me the title of friend
+_en titre_, and confidant in particular; to endow the confidant in
+question with a number of virtues and excellences which existed very
+likely only in the lad’s imagination; to lament that the confidant had
+no sister whom he, Clive, might marry out of hand; and to make me a
+thousand simple protests of affection and admiration, which are noted
+here as signs of the young man’s character, by no means as proofs of
+the goodness of mine. The books given to the present biographer by “his
+affectionate friend, Clive Newcome,” still bear on the titlepages the
+marks of that boyish hand and youthful fervour. He had a copy of Walter
+Lorraine bound and gilt with such splendour as made the author blush
+for his performance, which has since been seen at the bookstalls at a
+price suited to the very humblest purses. He fired up and fought a
+newspaper critic (whom Clive met at the Haunt one night) who had dared
+to write an article in which that work was slighted; and if, in the
+course of nature, his friendship has outlived that rapturous period,
+the kindness of the two old friends, I hope, is not the less because it
+is no longer romantic, and the days of white vellum and gilt edges have
+passed away. From the abundance of the letters which the affectionate
+young fellow now wrote, the ensuing portion of his youthful history is
+compiled. It may serve to recall passages of their early days to such
+of his seniors as occasionally turn over the leaves of a novel; and in
+the story of his faults, indiscretions, passions, and actions, young
+readers may be reminded of their own.
+
+Now that the old Countess, and perhaps Barnes, were away, the barrier
+between Clive and this family seemed to be withdrawn. The young folks
+who loved him were free to see him as often as he would come. They were
+going to Baden: would he come too? Baden was on the road to
+Switzerland, he might journey to Strasbourg, Basle, and so on. Clive
+was glad enough to go with his cousins, and travel in the orbit of such
+a lovely girl as Ethel Newcome. J. J. performed the second part always
+when Clive was present: and so they all travelled to Coblentz, Mayence,
+and Frankfort together, making the journey which everybody knows, and
+sketching the mountains and castles we all of us have sketched. Ethel’s
+beauty made all the passengers on all the steamers look round and
+admire. Clive was proud of being in the suite of such a lovely person.
+The family travelled with a pair of those carriages which used to
+thunder along the Continental roads a dozen years since, and from
+interior, box, and rumble discharge a dozen English people at hotel
+gates.
+
+The journey is all sunshine and pleasure and novelty: the circular
+notes with which Mr. Baines of Fog Court has supplied Clive Newcome,
+Esquire, enabled that young gentleman to travel with great ease and
+comfort. He has not yet ventured upon engaging a _valet de chambre_, it
+being agreed between him and J. J. that two travelling artists have no
+right to such an aristocratic appendage; but he has bought a snug
+little britzska at Frankfort (the youth has very polite tastes, is
+already a connoisseur in wine, and has no scruple in ordering the best
+at the hotels), and the britzska travels in company with Lady Anne’s
+caravan, either in its wake so as to be out of reach of the dust, or
+more frequently ahead of that enormous vehicle and its tender, in which
+come the children and the governess of Lady Anne Newcome, guarded by a
+huge and melancholy London footman, who beholds Rhine and Neckar,
+valley and mountain, village and ruin, with a like dismal composure.
+Little Alfred and little Egbert are by no means sorry to escape from
+Miss Quigley and the tender, and for a stage ride or two in Clive’s
+britzska. The little girls cry sometimes to be admitted to that
+privilege. I dare say Ethel would like very well to quit her place in
+the caravan, where she sits, circumvented by mamma’s dogs, and books,
+bags, dressing-boxes, and gimcrack cases, without which apparatus some
+English ladies of condition cannot travel; but Miss Ethel is grown up,
+she is out, and has been presented at Court, and is a person of too
+great dignity now to sit anywhere but in the place of state in the
+chariot corner. I like to think, for my part, of the gallant young
+fellow taking his pleasure and enjoying his holiday, and few sights are
+more pleasant than to watch a happy, manly English youth, free-handed
+and generous-hearted, content and good-humour shining in his honest
+face, pleased and pleasing, eager, active, and thankful for services,
+and exercising bravely his noble youthful privilege to be happy and to
+enjoy. Sing, cheery spirit, whilst the spring lasts; bloom whilst the
+sun shines, kindly flowers of youth! You shall be none the worse
+to-morrow for having been happy to-day, if the day brings no action to
+shame it. As for J. J., he too had his share of enjoyment; the charming
+scenes around him did not escape his bright eye, he absorbed pleasure
+in his silent way, he was up with the sunrise always, and at work with
+his eyes and his heart if not with his hands. A beautiful object too is
+such a one to contemplate, a pure virgin soul, a creature gentle,
+pious, and full of love, endowed with sweet gifts, humble and timid;
+but for truth’s and justice’s sake inflexible, thankful to God and man,
+fond, patient, and faithful. Clive was still his hero as ever, his
+patron, his splendid young prince and chieftain. Who was so brave, who
+was so handsome, generous, witty as Clive? To hear Clive sing, as the
+lad would whilst they were seated at their work, or driving along on
+this happy journey, through fair landscapes in the sunshine, gave J. J.
+the keenest pleasure; his wit was a little slow, but he would laugh
+with his eyes at Clive’s sallies, or ponder over them and explode with
+laughter presently, giving a new source of amusement to these merry
+travellers, and little Alfred would laugh at J. J.’s laughing; and so,
+with a hundred harmless jokes to enliven, and the ever-changing,
+ever-charming smiles of nature to cheer and accompany it, the happy
+day’s journey would come to an end.
+
+So they travelled by the accustomed route to the prettiest town of all
+places where Pleasure has set up her tents; and where the gay, the
+melancholy, the idle or occupied, grave or haughty, come for amusement,
+or business, or relaxation; where London beauties, having danced and
+flirted all the season, may dance and flirt a little more; where
+well-dressed rogues from all quarters of the world assemble; where I
+have seen severe London lawyers, forgetting their wigs and the Temple,
+trying their luck against fortune and M. Bénazet; where wistful
+schemers conspire and prick cards down, and deeply meditate the
+infallible coup; and try it, and lose it, and borrow a hundred francs
+to go home; where even virtuous British ladies venture their little
+stakes, and draw up their winnings with trembling rakes, by the side of
+ladies who are not virtuous at all, no, not even by name; where young
+prodigals break the bank sometimes, and carry plunder out of a place
+which Hercules himself could scarcely compel; where you meet wonderful
+countesses and princesses, whose husbands are almost always absent on
+their vast estates—in Italy, Spain, Piedmont—who knows where their
+lordships’ possessions are?—while trains of suitors surround those
+wandering Penelopes their noble wives; Russian Boyars, Spanish Grandees
+of the Order of the Fleece, Counts of France, and Princes Polish and
+Italian innumerable, who perfume the gilded halls with their
+tobacco-smoke, and swear in all languages against the black and the
+red. The famous English monosyllable by which things, persons, luck,
+even eyes, are devoted to the infernal gods, we may be sure is not
+wanting in that Babel. Where does one not hear it? “D—— the luck,” says
+Lord Kew, as the croupier sweeps off his lordship’s rouleaux. “D—— the
+luck,” says Brown the bagman, who has been backing his lordship with
+five-franc pieces. “Ah, body of Bacchus!” says Count Felice, whom we
+all remember a courier. “Ah, sacré coup,” cries M. le Vicomte de
+Florac, as his last louis parts company from him—each cursing in his
+native tongue. Oh, sweet chorus!
+
+That Lord Kew should be at Baden is no wonder. If you heard of him at
+the Finish, or at Buckingham Palace ball, or in a watch-house, or at
+the Third Cataract, or at a Newmarket meeting, you would not be
+surprised. He goes everywhere; does everything with all his might;
+knows everybody. Last week he won who knows how many thousand louis
+from the bank (it appears Brown has chosen one of the unlucky days to
+back his lordship). He will eat his supper as gaily after a great
+victory as after a signal defeat; and we know that to win with
+magnanimity requires much more constancy than to lose. His sleep will
+not be disturbed by one event or the other. He will play skittles all
+the morning with perfect contentment, romp with children in the
+forenoon (he is the friend of half the children in the place), or he
+will cheerfully leave the green table and all the risk and excitement
+there, to take a hand at sixpenny whist with General Fogey, or to give
+the six Miss Fogeys a turn each in the ballroom. From H.R.H. the Prince
+Royal of ——, who is the greatest guest at Baden, down to Brown the
+bagman, who does not consider himself the smallest, Lord Kew is hail
+fellow with everybody, and has a kind word from and for all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+In which Clive begins to see the World
+
+
+In the company assembled at Baden, Clive found one or two old
+acquaintances; among them his friend of Paris, M. de Florac, not in
+quite so brilliant a condition as when Newcome had last met him on the
+Boulevard. Florac owned that Fortune had been very unkind to him at
+Baden; and, indeed, she had not only emptied his purse, but his
+portmanteaus, jewel-box, and linen-closet—the contents of all of which
+had ranged themselves on the red and black against Monsieur Bénazet’s
+crown-pieces: whatever side they took was, however, the unlucky one.
+“This campaign has been my Moscow, _mon cher_,” Florac owned to Clive.
+“I am conquered by Bénazet; I have lost in almost every combat. I have
+lost my treasure, my baggage, my ammunition of war, everything but my
+honour, which, _au reste_, Mons. Bénazet will not accept as a stake; if
+he would, there are plenty here, believe me, who would set it on the
+trente-et-quarante. Sometimes I have had a mind to go home; my mother,
+who is an angel all forgiveness, would receive her prodigal, and kill
+the fatted veal for me. But what will you? He annoys me—the domestic
+veal. Besides, my brother the Abbé, though the best of Christians, is a
+Jew upon certain matters; a Bénazet who will not _troquer_ absolution
+except against repentance; and I have not for a sou of repentance in my
+pocket! I have been sorry, yes—but it was because odd came up in place
+of even, or the reverse. The accursed _après_ has chased me like a
+remorse, and when black has come up I have wished myself converted to
+red. Otherwise I have no repentance—I am _joueur_—nature has made me
+so, as she made my brother _dévot_. The Archbishop of Strasbourg is of
+our parents; I saw his grandeur when I went lately to Strasbourg, on my
+last pilgrimage to the Mont de Piété. I owned to him that I would pawn
+his cross and ring to go play: the good prelate laughed, and said his
+chaplain should keep an eye on them. Will you dine with me? The
+landlord of my hotel was the intendant of our cousin, the Duc d’Ivry,
+and will give me credit to the day of judgment. I do not abuse his
+noble confidence. My dear! there are covers of silver put upon my table
+every day with which I could retrieve my fortune, did I listen to the
+suggestions of Satanas; but I say to him, _Vade retro_. Come and dine
+with me—Duluc’s kitchen is very good.”
+
+These easy confessions were uttered by a gentleman who was nearly forty
+years of age, and who had indeed played the part of a young man in
+Paris and the great European world so long, that he knew or chose to
+perform no other. He did not want for abilities; had the best temper in
+the world; was well bred and gentlemanlike always; and was gay even
+after Moscow. His courage was known, and his character for bravery and
+another kind of gallantry probably exaggerated by his bad reputation.
+Had his mother not been alive, perhaps he would have believed in the
+virtue of no woman. But this one he worshipped, and spoke with
+tenderness and enthusiasm of her constant love and patience and
+goodness. “See her miniature!” he said, “I never separate myself from
+it—oh, never! It saved my life in an affair about—about a woman who was
+not worth the powder which poor Jules and I burned for her. His ball
+struck me here, upon the waistcoat, bruising my rib and sending me to
+my bed, which I never should have left alive but for this picture. Oh,
+she is an angel, my mother! I am sure that Heaven has nothing to deny
+that saint, and that her tears wash out my sins.”
+
+Clive smiled. “I think Madame de Florac must weep a good deal,” he
+said.
+
+“_Enormément_, my friend! My faith! I do not deny it! I give her cause,
+night and evening. I am possessed by demons! This little Affenthaler
+wine of this country has a little smack which is most agreeable. The
+passions tear me, my young friend! Play is fatal, but play is not so
+fatal as woman. Pass me the écrévisses, they are most succulent. Take
+warning by me, and avoid both. I saw you _rôder_ round the green
+tables, and marked your eyes as they glistened over the heaps of gold,
+and looked at some of our beauties of Baden. Beware of such sirens,
+young man! and take me for your Mentor; avoiding what I have done—that
+understands itself. You have not played as yet? Do not do so; above all
+avoid a martingale, if you do. Play ought not to be an affair of
+calculation, but of inspiration. I have calculated infallibly, and what
+has been the effect? Gousset empty, tiroirs empty, nécessaire parted
+for Strasbourg! Where is my fur pelisse, Frédéric?”
+
+“Parbleu, vous le savez bien, Monsieur le Vicomte,” says Frédéric, the
+domestic, who was waiting on Clive and his friend.
+
+“A pelisse lined with true sable, and, worth three thousand francs,
+that I won of a little Russian at billiards. That pelisse at Strasbourg
+(where the infamous worms of the Mount of Piety are actually gnawing
+her). Two hundred francs and this _reconnaissance_, which Frédéric
+receive, are all that now represent the pelisse. How many chemises have
+I, Frédéric?”
+
+“Eh, parbleu, Monsieur le Vicomte sait bien que nous avons toujours
+vingt-quatre chemises,” says Frédéric, grumbling.
+
+Monsieur le Vicomte springs up shrieking from the dinner-table.
+“Twenty-four shirts,” says he, “and I have been a week without a louis
+in my pocket! _Bélître! Nigaud!_” He flings open one drawer after
+another, but there are no signs of that—superfluity of linen of which
+the domestic spoke, whose countenance now changes from a grim frown to
+a grim smile.
+
+“Ah, my faithful Frédéric, I pardon thee! Mr. Newcome will understand
+my harmless _supercherie_. Frédéric was in my company of the Guard, and
+remains with me since. He is Caleb Balderstone and I am Ravenswood.
+Yes, I am Edgard. Let us have coffee and a cigar, Balderstone.”
+
+“Plait-il, Monsieur le Vicomte?” says the French Caleb.
+
+“Thou comprehendest not English. Thou readest not Valtare Scott, thou!”
+cries the master. “I was recounting to Monsieur Newcome thy history and
+my misfortunes. Go seek coffee for us, _Nigaud_.” And as the two
+gentlemen partake of that exhilarating liquor, the elder confides gaily
+to his guest the reason why he prefers taking coffee at the hotel to
+the coffee at the great Café of the Redoute, with a _duris urgéns in
+rebus égestāss!_ pronounced in the true French manner.
+
+Clive was greatly amused by the gaiety of the Viscount after his
+misfortunes and his Moscow; and thought that one of Mr. Baines’s
+circular notes might not be ill laid out in succouring this hero. It
+may have been to this end that Florac’s confessions tended; though, to
+do him justice, the incorrigible young fellow would confide his
+adventures to any one who would listen; and the exact state of his
+wardrobe, and the story of his pawned pelisse, dressing-case, rings and
+watches, were known to all Baden.
+
+“You tell me to marry and range myself,” said Clive (to whom the
+Viscount was expatiating upon the charms of the _superbe_ young
+_Anglaise_ with whom he had seen Clive walking on the promenade). “Why
+do you not marry and range yourself too?”
+
+“Eh, my dear! I am married already. You do not know it? I am married
+since the Revolution of July. Yes. We were poor in those days, as poor
+we remain. My cousins the Duc d’Ivry’s sons and his grandson were still
+alive. Seeing no other resource and pursued by the Arabs, I espoused
+the Vicomtesse de Florac. I gave her my name, you comprehend, in
+exchange for her own odious one. She was Miss Higg. Do you know the
+family Higg of Manchesterre in the comte of Lancastre? She was then a
+person of a ripe age. The Vicomtesse is now—ah! it is fifteen years
+since, and she dies not. Our union was not happy, my friend—Madame Paul
+de Florac is of the reformed religion—not of the Anglican Church, you
+understand—but a dissident I know not of what sort. We inhabited the
+Hôtel de Florac for a while after our union, which was all of
+convenience, you understand. She filled her salon with ministers to
+make you die. She assaulted my poor father in his garden-chair, whence
+he could not escape her. She told my sainted mother that she was an
+idolatress—she who only idolatrises her children! She called us other
+poor Catholics who follow the rites of our fathers, _des Romishes;_ and
+Rome, Babylon; and the Holy Father—a scarlet—eh! a scarlet abomination.
+She outraged my mother, that angel; essayed to convert the antechamber
+and the office; put little books in the Abbé’s bedroom. Eh, my friend!
+what a good king was Charles IX., and his mother what a wise sovereign!
+I lament that Madame de Florac should have escaped the St. Barthelemi,
+when no doubt she was spared on account of her tender age. We have been
+separated for many years; her income was greatly exaggerated. Beyond
+the payment of my debts I owe her nothing. I wish I could say as much
+of all the rest of the world. Shall we take a turn of promenade?
+_Mauvais sujet!_ I see you are longing to be at the green table.”
+
+Clive was not longing to be at the green table: but his companion was
+never easy at it or away from it. Next to winning, losing, M. de Florac
+said, was the best sport—next to losing, looking on. So he and Clive
+went down to the Redoute, where Lord Kew was playing with a crowd of
+awestruck amateurs and breathless punters admiring his valour and
+fortune; and Clive, saying that he knew nothing about the game, took
+out five Napoleons from his purse, and besought Florac to invest them
+in the most profitable manner at roulette. The other made some faint
+attempts at a scruple: but the money was speedily laid on the table,
+where it increased and multiplied amazingly too; so that in a quarter
+of an hour Florac brought quite a handful of gold pieces to his
+principal. Then Clive, I dare say blushing as he made the proposal,
+offered half the handful of Napoleons to M. de Florac, to be repaid
+when he thought fit. And fortune must have been very favourable to the
+husband of Miss Higg that night; for in the course of an hour he
+insisted on paying back Clive’s loan; and two days afterwards appeared
+with his shirt-studs (of course with his shirts also), released from
+captivity, his watch, rings, and chains, on the parade; and was
+observed to wear his celebrated fur pelisse as he drove back in a
+britzska from Strasbourg. “As for myself,” wrote Clive, “I put back
+into my purse the five Napoleons with which I had begun; and laid down
+the whole mass of winnings on the table, where it was doubled and then
+quadrupled, and then swept up by the croupiers, greatly to my ease of
+mind. And then Lord Kew asked me to supper and we had a merry night.”
+
+This was Mr. Clive’s first and last appearance as a gambler. J. J.
+looked very grave when he heard of these transactions. Clive’s French
+friend did not please his English companion at all, nor the friends of
+Clive’s French friend, the Russians, the Spaniards, the Italians, of
+sounding titles and glittering decorations, and the ladies who belonged
+to their society. He saw by chance Ethel, escorted by her cousin Lord
+Kew, passing through a crowd of this company one day. There was not one
+woman there who was not the heroine of some discreditable story. It was
+the Comtesse Calypso who had been jilted by the Duc Ulysse. It was the
+Marquise Ariane to whom the Prince Thésée had behaved so shamefully,
+and who had taken to Bacchus as a consolation. It was Madame Médée, who
+had absolutely killed her old father by her conduct regarding Jason:
+she had done everything for Jason: she had got him the _toison d’or_
+from the Queen Mother, and now had to meet him every day with his
+little blonde bride on his arm! J. J. compared Ethel, moving in the
+midst of these folks, to the Lady amidst the rout of Comus. There they
+were the Fauns and Satyrs: there they were, the merry Pagans: drinking
+and dancing, dicing and sporting; laughing out jests that never should
+be spoken; whispering rendezvous to be written in midnight calendars;
+jeering at honest people who passed under their palace windows—jolly
+rebels and repealers of the law. Ah, if Mrs. Brown, whose children are
+gone to bed at the hotel, knew but the history of that calm
+dignified-looking gentleman who sits under her, and over whose patient
+back she frantically advances and withdraws her two-franc piece, whilst
+his own columns of louis d’or are offering battle to fortune—how she
+would shrink away from the shoulder which she pushes! That man so calm
+and well bred, with a string of orders on his breast, so well dressed,
+with such white hands, has stabbed trusting hearts; severed family
+ties; written lying vows; signed false oaths; torn up pitilessly tender
+appeals for redress, and tossed away into the fire supplications
+blistered with tears; packed cards and cogged dice; or used pistol or
+sword as calmly and dexterously as he now ranges his battalions of gold
+pieces.
+
+Ridley shrank away from such lawless people with the delicacy belonging
+to his timid and retiring nature, but it must be owned that Mr. Clive
+was by no means so squeamish. He did not know, in the first place, the
+mystery of their iniquities; and his sunny kindly spirit, undimmed by
+any of the cares which clouded it subsequently, was disposed to shine
+upon all people alike. The world was welcome to him: the day a
+pleasure: all nature a gay feast: scarce any dispositions discordant
+with his own (for pretension only made him laugh, and hypocrisy he will
+never be able to understand if he lives to be a hundred years old): the
+night brought him a long sleep, and the morning a glad waking. To those
+privileges of youth what enjoyments of age are comparable? what
+achievements of ambition? what rewards of money and fame? Clive’s happy
+friendly nature shone out of his face; and almost all who beheld it
+felt kindly towards him. As those guileless virgins of romance and
+ballad, who walk smiling through dark forests charming off dragons and
+confronting lions, the young man as yet went through the world
+harmless; no giant waylaid him as yet; no robbing ogre fed on him: and
+(greatest danger of all for one of his ardent nature) no winning
+enchantress or artful siren coaxed him to her cave, or lured him into
+her waters—haunts into which we know so many young simpletons are
+drawn, where their silly bones are picked and their tender flesh
+devoured.
+
+The time was short which Clive spent at Baden, for it has been said the
+winter was approaching, and the destination of our young artists was
+Rome; but he may have passed some score of days here, to which he and
+another person in that pretty watering-place possibly looked back
+afterwards, as not the unhappiest period of their lives. Among Colonel
+Newcome’s papers to which the family biographer has had subsequent
+access, there are a couple of letters from Clive, dated Baden, at this
+time, and full of happiness, gaiety, and affection. Letter No. 1 says,
+“Ethel is the prettiest girl here. At the assemblies all the princes,
+counts, dukes, Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, are dying to dance with
+her. She sends her dearest love to her uncle.” By the side of the words
+“prettiest girl,” was written in a frank female hand the monosyllable
+“_Stuff;_” and as a note to the expression “dearest love,” with a star
+to mark the text and the note, are squeezed, in the same feminine
+characters, at the bottom of Clive’s page, the words, “_That I do. E.
+N._”
+
+In letter No. 2, the first two pages are closely written in Clive’s
+handwriting, describing his pursuits and studies, and giving amusing
+details of the life at Baden, and the company whom he met
+there—narrating his _rencontre_ with their Paris friend, M. de Florac,
+and the arrival of the Duchesse d’Ivry, Florac’s cousin, whose titles
+the Vicomte will probably inherit. Not a word about Florac’s gambling
+propensities are mentioned in the letter; but Clive honestly confesses
+that he has staked five Napoleons, doubled them, quadrupled them, won
+ever so much, lost it all back again, and come away from the table with
+his original five pounds in his pocket—proposing never to play any
+more. “Ethel,” he concluded, “is looking over my shoulder. She thinks
+me such a delightful creature that she is never easy without me. She
+bids me to say that I am the best of sons and cousins, and am, in a
+word, a darling du—” The rest of this important word is not given, but
+_goose_ is added in the female hand. In the faded ink, on the yellow
+paper that may have crossed and recrossed oceans, that has lain locked
+in chests for years, and buried under piles of family archives, while
+your friends have been dying and your head has grown white—who has not
+disinterred mementos like these—from which the past smiles at you so
+sadly, shimmering out of Hades an instant but to sink back again into
+the cold shades, perhaps with a faint, faint sound as of a remembered
+tone—a ghostly echo of a once familiar laughter? I was looking of late
+at a wall in the Naples Museum, whereon a boy of Herculaneum eighteen
+hundred years ago had scratched with a nail the figure of a soldier. I
+could fancy the child turning round and smiling on me after having done
+his etching. Which of us that is thirty years old has not had his
+Pompeii? Deep under ashes lies the Life of Youth,—the careless Sport,
+the Pleasure and Passion, the darling Joy. You open an old letter-box
+and look at your own childish scrawls, or your mother’s letters to you
+when you were at school; and excavate your heart. Oh me, for the day
+when the whole city shall be bare and the chambers unroofed—and every
+cranny visible to the Light above, from the Forum to the Lupanar!
+
+Ethel takes up the pen. “My dear uncle,” she says, “while Clive is
+sketching out of window, let me write you a line or two on his paper,
+though _I know you like to hear no one speak_ but him. I wish I could
+draw him for you as he stands yonder, looking the picture of good
+health, good spirits, and good humour. Everybody likes him. He is quite
+unaffected; always gay; always pleased. He draws more and more
+beautifully every day; and his affection for young Mr. Ridley, who is
+really a most excellent and astonishing young man, and actually a
+better artist than Clive himself, is most romantic, and does your son
+the greatest credit. You will order Clive not to sell his pictures,
+won’t you? I know it is not wrong, but your son might look higher than
+to be an artist. It is a rise for Mr. Ridley, but a fall for him. An
+artist, an organist, a pianist, all these are very good people, but you
+know not _de notre monde_, and Clive ought to belong to it.
+
+“We met him at Bonn on our way to a great family gathering here; where,
+I must tell you, we are assembled for what I call the Congress of
+Baden! The chief of the house of Kew is here, and what time he does not
+devote to skittles, to smoking cigars, to the _jeu_ in the evenings, to
+Madame d’Ivry, to Madame de Cruchecassée, and the foreign people (of
+whom there are a host here of the worst kind, as usual), he graciously
+bestows on me. Lord and Lady Dorking are here, with their meek little
+daughter, Clara Pulleyn; and Barnes is coming. Uncle Hobson has
+returned to Lombard Street to relieve guard. I think you will hear
+before very long of Lady Clara Newcome. Grandmamma, who was to have
+presided at the Congress of Baden, and still, you know, reigns over the
+house of Kew, has been stopped at Kissingen with an attack of
+rheumatism; I pity poor Aunt Julia, who can never leave her. Here are
+all our news. I declare I have filled the whole page; men write closer
+than we do. I wear the dear brooch you gave me, often and often; I
+think of you always, dear, kind uncle, as your affectionate Ethel.”
+
+Besides roulette and trente-et-quarante, a number of amusing games are
+played at Baden, which are not performed, so to speak, _sur table_.
+These little diversions and _jeux de société_ can go on anywhere; in an
+alley in the park; in a picnic to this old schloss, or that pretty
+hunting-lodge; at a tea-table in a lodging-house or hotel; in a ball at
+the Redoute; in the play-rooms behind the backs of the gamblers, whose
+eyes are only cast upon rakes and rouleaux, and red and black; or on
+the broad walk in front of the conversation rooms, where thousands of
+people are drinking and chattering, lounging and smoking, whilst the
+Austrian brass band, in the little music pavilion, plays the most
+delightful mazurkas and waltzes. Here the widow plays her black suit
+and sets her bright eyes against the rich bachelor, elderly or young as
+may be. Here the artful practitioner, who has dealt in a thousand such
+games, engages the young simpleton with more money than wit; and
+knowing his weakness and her skill, we may safely take the odds, and
+back rouge et couleur to win. Here mamma, not having money, perhaps,
+but metal more attractive, stakes her virgin daughter against Count
+Fettacker’s forests and meadows; or Lord Lackland plays his coronet, of
+which the jewels have long since been in pawn, against Miss Bags’
+three-per-cents. And so two or three funny little games were going on
+at Baden amongst our immediate acquaintance; besides that vulgar sport
+round the green table, at which the mob, with whom we have little to
+do, was elbowing each other. A hint of these domestic prolusions has
+been given to the reader in the foregoing extract from Miss Ethel
+Newcome’s letter: likewise some passions have been in play, of which a
+modest young English maiden could not be aware. Do not, however, let us
+be too prematurely proud of our virtue. That tariff of British virtue
+is wonderfully organised. Heaven help the society which made its laws!
+Gnats are shut out of its ports, or not admitted without scrutiny and
+repugnance, whilst herds of camels are let in. The law professes to
+exclude some goods (or bads shall we call them?)—well, some articles of
+baggage, which are yet smuggled openly under the eyes of winking
+officers, and worn every day without shame. Shame! What is shame?
+Virtue is very often shameful according to the English social
+constitution, and shame honourable. Truth, if yours happens to differ
+from your neighbour’s, provokes your friend’s coldness, your mother’s
+tears, the world’s persecution. Love is not to be dealt in, save under
+restrictions which kill its sweet, healthy, free commerce. Sin in man
+is so light, that scarce the fine of a penny is imposed; while for
+woman it is so heavy that no repentance can wash it out. Ah! yes; all
+stories are old. You proud matrons in your Mayfair markets, have you
+never seen a virgin sold, or sold one? Have you never heard of a poor
+wayfarer fallen among robbers, and not a Pharisee to help him? of a
+poor woman fallen more sadly yet, abject in repentance and tears, and a
+crowd to stone her? I pace this broad Baden walk as the sunset is
+gilding the hills round about, as the orchestra blows its merry tunes,
+as the happy children laugh and sport in the alleys, as the lamps of
+the gambling-palace are lighted up, as the throngs of pleasure-hunters
+stroll, and smoke, and flirt, and hum: and wonder sometimes, is it the
+sinners who are the most sinful? Is it poor Prodigal yonder amongst the
+bad company, calling black and red and tossing the champagne; or
+brother Straitlace that grudges his repentance? Is it downcast Hagar
+that slinks away with poor little Ishmael in her hand; or bitter old
+virtuous Sarah, who scowls at her from my demure Lord Abraham’s arm?
+
+One day of the previous May, when of course everybody went to visit the
+Water-colour Exhibitions, Ethel Newcome was taken to see the pictures
+by her grandmother, that rigorous old Lady Kew, who still proposed to
+reign over all her family. The girl had high spirit, and very likely
+hot words had passed between the elder and the younger lady; such as I
+am given to understand will be uttered in the most polite families.
+They came to a piece by Mr. Hunt, representing one of those figures
+which he knows how to paint with such consummate truth and pathos—a
+friendless young girl cowering in a doorway, evidently without home or
+shelter. The exquisite fidelity of the details, and the plaintive
+beauty of the expression of the child, attracted old Lady Kew’s
+admiration, who was an excellent judge of works of art; and she stood
+for some time looking at the drawing, with Ethel by her side. Nothing,
+in truth, could be more simple or pathetic; Ethel laughed, and her
+grandmother looking up from her stick on which she hobbled about, saw a
+very sarcastic expression in the girl’s eyes.
+
+“You have no taste for pictures, only for painters, I suppose,” said
+Lady Kew.
+
+“I was not looking at the picture,” said Ethel, still with a smile,
+“but at the little green ticket in the corner.”
+
+“Sold,” said Lady Kew. “Of course it is sold; all Mr. Hunt’s pictures
+are sold. There is not one of them here on which you won’t see the
+green ticket. He is a most admirable artist. I don’t know whether his
+comedy or tragedy are the most excellent.”
+
+“I think, grandmamma,” Ethel said, “we young ladies in the world, when
+we are exhibiting, ought to have little green tickets pinned on our
+backs, with ‘Sold’ written on them; it would prevent trouble and any
+future haggling, you know. Then at the end of the season the owner
+would come to carry us home.”
+
+Grandmamma only said, “Ethel, you are a fool,” and hobbled on to Mr.
+Cattermole’s picture hard by. “What splendid colour; what a romantic
+gloom; what a flowing pencil and dexterous hand!” Lady Kew could
+delight in pictures, applaud good poetry, and squeeze out a tear over a
+good novel too. That afternoon, young Dawkins, the rising water-colour
+artist, who used to come daily to the gallery and stand delighted
+before his own piece, was aghast to perceive that there was no green
+ticket in the corner of his frame, and he pointed out the deficiency to
+the keeper of the pictures. His landscape, however, was sold and paid
+for, so no great mischief occurred. On that same evening, when the
+Newcome family assembled at dinner in Park Lane, Ethel appeared with a
+bright green ticket pinned in the front of her white muslin frock, and
+when asked what this queer fancy meant, she made Lady Kew a curtsey,
+looking her full in the face, and turning round to her father, said, “I
+am a _tableau-vivant_, papa. I am Number 46 in the Exhibition of the
+Gallery of Painters in Water-colours.”
+
+“My love, what do you mean?” says mamma; and Lady Kew, jumping up on
+her crooked stick with immense agility, tore the card out of Ethel’s
+bosom, and very likely would have boxed her ears, but that her parents
+were present and Lord Kew announced.
+
+Ethel talked about pictures the whole evening, and would talk of
+nothing else. Grandmamma went away furious. “She told Barnes, and when
+everybody was gone there was a pretty row in the building,” said Madam
+Ethel, with an arch look, when she narrated the story. “Barnes was
+ready to kill me and eat me; but I never was afraid of Barnes.” And the
+biographer gathers from this little anecdote, narrated to him, never
+mind by whom, at a long subsequent period, that there had been great
+disputes in Sir Brian Newcome’s establishment, fierce drawing-room
+battles, whereof certain pictures of a certain painter might have
+furnished the cause, and in which Miss Newcome had the whole of the
+family forces against her. That such battles take place in other
+domestic establishments, who shall say or shall not say? Who, when he
+goes out to dinner, and is received by a bland host with a gay shake of
+the hand, and a pretty hostess with a gracious smile of welcome, dares
+to think that Mr. Johnson upstairs, half an hour before, was swearing
+out of his dressing-room at Mrs. Johnson, for having ordered a turbot
+instead of a salmon, or that Mrs. Johnson now talking to Lady Jones so
+nicely about their mutual darling children, was crying her eyes out as
+her maid was fastening her gown, as the carriages were actually driving
+up? The servants know these things, but not we in the dining-room. Hark
+with what a respectful tone Johnson begs the clergyman present to say
+grace!
+
+Whatever these family quarrels may have been, let bygones be bygones,
+and let us be perfectly sure, that to whatever purpose Miss Ethel
+Newcome, for good or for evil, might make her mind up, she had quite
+spirit enough to hold her own. She chose to be Countess of Kew because
+she chose to be Countess of Kew; had she set her heart on marrying Mr.
+Kuhn, she would have had her way, and made the family adopt it, and
+called him dear Fritz, as by his godfathers and godmothers, in his
+baptism, Mr. Kuhn was called. Clive was but a fancy, if he had even
+been so much as that, not a passion, and she fancied a pretty
+four-pronged coronet still more.
+
+So that the diatribe wherein we lately indulged, about the selling of
+virgins, by no means applies to Lady Anne Newcome, who signed the
+address to Mrs. Stowe, the other day, along with thousands more virtuous
+British matrons; but should the reader haply say, “Is thy fable, O
+Poet, narrated concerning Tancred Pulleyn, Earl of Dorking, and
+Sigismunda, his wife?” the reluctant moralist is obliged to own that
+the cap _does_ fit those noble personages, of whose lofty society you
+will, however, see but little.
+
+For though I would like to go into an Indian Brahmin’s house, and see
+the punkahs, and the purdahs and tattys, and the pretty brown maidens
+with great eyes, and great nose-rings, and painted foreheads, and slim
+waists cased in Cashmir shawls, Kincob scarfs, curly slippers, gilt
+trousers, precious anklets and bangles; and have the mystery of Eastern
+existence revealed to me (as who would not who has read the Arabian
+Nights in his youth?), yet I would not choose the moment when the
+Brahmin of the house was dead, his women howling, his priests doctoring
+his child of a widow, now frightening her with sermons, now drugging
+her with bang, so as to push her on his funeral pile at last, and into
+the arms of that carcase, stupefied, but obedient and decorous. And
+though I like to walk, even in fancy, in an earl’s house, splendid,
+well ordered, where there are feasts and fine pictures and fair ladies
+and endless books and good company; yet there are times when the visit
+is not pleasant; and when the parents in that fine house are getting
+ready their daughter for sale, and frightening away her tears with
+threats, and stupefying her grief with narcotics, praying her and
+imploring her, and dramming her and coaxing her, and blessing her, and
+cursing her perhaps, till they have brought her into such a state as
+shall fit the poor young thing for that deadly couch upon which they
+are about to thrust her. When my lord and lady are so engaged I prefer
+not to call at their mansion, Number 1000 in Grosvenor Square, but to
+partake of a dinner of herbs rather than of that stalled ox which their
+cook is roasting whole. There are some people who are not so squeamish.
+The family comes, of course; the Most Reverend the Lord Arch-Brahmin of
+Benares will attend the ceremony; there will be flowers and lights and
+white favours; and quite a string of carriages up to the pagoda; and
+such a breakfast afterwards; and music in the street and little parish
+boys hurrahing; and no end of speeches within and tears shed (no
+doubt), and His Grace the Arch-Brahmin will make a highly appropriate
+speech, just with a faint scent of incense about it as such a speech
+ought to have; and the young person will slip away unperceived, and
+take off her veils, wreaths, orange-flowers, bangles and finery, and
+will put on a plain dress more suited for the occasion, and the
+house-door will open—and there comes the SUTTEE in company of the body:
+yonder the pile is waiting on four wheels with four horses, the crowd
+hurrahs and the deed is done.
+
+This ceremony amongst us is so stale and common that to be sure there
+is no need to describe its rites, and as women sell themselves for what
+you call an establishment every day; to the applause of themselves,
+their parents, and the world, why on earth should a man ape at
+originality and pretend to pity them? Never mind about the lies at the
+altar, the blasphemy against the godlike name of love, the sordid
+surrender, the smiling dishonour. What the deuce does a _mariage de
+convenance_ mean but all this, and are not such sober Hymeneal torches
+more satisfactory often than the most brilliant love matches that ever
+flamed and burnt out? Of course. Let us not weep when everybody else is
+laughing: let us pity the agonised duchess when her daughter, Lady
+Atalanta, runs away with the doctor—of course, that’s respectable; let
+us pity Lady Iphigenia’s father when that venerable chief is obliged to
+offer up his darling child; but it is over _her_ part of the business
+that a decorous painter would throw the veil now. Her ladyship’s
+sacrifice is performed, and the less said about it the better.
+
+Such was the case regarding an affair which appeared in due subsequence
+in the newspapers not long afterwards under the fascinating title of
+“Marriage in High Life,” and which was in truth the occasion of the
+little family Congress of Baden which we are now chronicling. We all
+know—everybody at least who has the slightest acquaintance with the
+army list—that, at the commencement of their life, my Lord Kew, my Lord
+Viscount Rooster, the Earl of Dorking’s eldest son, and the Honourable
+Charles Belsize, familiarly called Jack Belsize, were subaltern
+officers in one of His Majesty’s regiments of cuirassier guards. They
+heard the chimes at midnight like other young men, they enjoyed their
+fun and frolics as gentlemen of spirit will do; sowing their wild oats
+plentifully, and scattering them with boyish profusion. Lord Kew’s luck
+had blessed him with more sacks of oats than fell to the lot of his
+noble young companions. Lord Dorking’s house is known to have been long
+impoverished; an excellent informant, Major Pendennis, has entertained
+me with many edifying accounts of the exploits of Lord Rooster’s
+grandfather “with the wild Prince and Poins,” of his feats in the
+hunting-field, over the bottle, over the dice-box. He played two nights
+and two days at a sitting with Charles Fox, when they both lost sums
+awful to reckon. He played often with Lord Steyne, and came away, as
+all men did, dreadful sufferers from those midnight encounters. His
+descendants incurred the penalties of the progenitor’s imprudence, and
+Chanticlere, though one of the finest castles in England, is splendid
+but for a month in the year. The estate is mortgaged up to the very
+castle windows. “Dorking cannot cut a stick or kill a buck in his own
+park,” the good old Major used to tell with tragic accents, “he lives
+by his cabbages, grapes, and pineapples, and the fees which people give
+for seeing the place and gardens, which are still the show of the
+county, and among the most splendid in the island. When Dorking is at
+Chanticlere, Ballard, who married his sister, lends him the plate and
+sends three men with it. Four cooks inside, and four maids and six
+footmen on the roof, with a butler driving, come down from London in a
+trap, and wait the month. And as the last carriage of the company
+drives away, the servants’ coach is packed, and they all bowl back to
+town again. It’s pitiable, sir, pitiable.”
+
+In Lord Kew’s youth, the names of himself and his two noble friends
+appeared on innumerable slips of stamped paper, conveying pecuniary
+assurances of a promissory nature; all of which promises, my Lord Kew
+singly and most honourably discharged. Neither of his two
+companions-in-arms had the means of meeting these engagements. Ballard,
+Rooster’s uncle, was said to make his lordship some allowance. As for
+Jack Belsize: how he lived; how he laughed; how he dressed himself so
+well, and looked so fat and handsome; how he got a shilling to pay for
+a cab or a cigar; what ravens fed him; was a wonder to all. The young
+men claimed kinsmanship with one another, which those who are learned
+in the peerage may unravel.
+
+When Lord Dorking’s eldest daughter married the Honourable and
+Venerable Dennis Gallowglass, Archdeacon of Bullintubber (and at
+present Viscount Gallowglass and Killbrogue, and Lord Bishop of
+Ballyshannon), great festivities took place at Chanticlere, whither the
+relatives of the high contracting parties were invited. Among them came
+poor Jack Belsize, and hence the tears which are dropping at Baden at
+this present period of our history. Clara Pulleyn was then a pretty
+little maiden of sixteen, and Jack a handsome guardsman of six or seven
+and twenty. As she had been especially warned against Jack as a wicked
+young rogue, whose _antécédents_ were wofully against him; as she was
+never allowed to sit near him at dinner, or to walk with him, or to
+play at billiards with him, or to waltz with him; as she was scolded if
+he spoke a word to her, or if he picked up her glove, or touched her
+hand in a round game, or caught him when they were playing at
+blindman’s-buff; as they neither of them had a penny in the world, and
+were both very good-looking, of course Clara was always catching Jack
+at blindman’s-buff; constantly lighting upon him in the shrubberies or
+corridors, etc. etc. etc. She fell in love (she was not the first) with
+Jack’s broad chest and thin waist; she thought his whiskers as indeed
+they were, the handsomest pair in all His Majesty’s Brigade of
+Cuirassiers.
+
+We know not what tears were shed in the vast and silent halls of
+Chanticlere, when the company were gone, and the four cooks, and four
+maids, six footmen, and temporary butler had driven back in their
+private trap to the metropolis, which is not forty miles distant from
+that splendid castle. How can we tell? The guests departed, the
+lodge-gates shut; all is mystery:—darkness with one pair of wax candles
+blinking dismally in a solitary chamber; all the rest dreary vistas of
+brown hollands, rolled Turkey carpets, gaunt ancestors on the walls
+scowling out of the twilight blank. The imagination is at liberty to
+depict his lordship, with one candle, over his dreadful endless tapes
+and papers; her ladyship with the other, and an old, old novel, wherein
+perhaps, Mrs. Radcliffe describes a castle as dreary as her own; and
+poor little Clara sighing and crying in the midst of these funereal
+splendours, as lonely and heart-sick as Oriana in her moated
+grange:—poor little Clara!
+
+Lord Kew’s drag took the young men to London; his lordship driving, and
+the servants sitting inside. Jack sat behind with the two grooms, and
+tooted on a cornet-a-piston in the most melancholy manner. He partook
+of no refreshment on the road. His silence at his clubs was remarked:
+smoking, billiards, military duties, and this and that, roused him a
+little, and presently Jack was alive again. But then came the season,
+Lady Clara Pulleyn’s first season in London, and Jack was more alive
+than ever. There was no ball he did not go to; no opera (that is to
+say, no opera of _certain_ operas) which he did not frequent. It was
+easy to see by his face, two minutes after entering a room, whether the
+person he sought was there or absent; not difficult for those who were
+in the secret to watch in another pair of eyes the bright kindling
+signals which answered Jack’s fiery glances. Ah! how beautiful he
+looked on his charger on the birthday, all in a blaze of scarlet, and
+bullion, and steel. O Jack! tear her out of yon carriage, from the side
+of yonder livid, feathered, painted, bony dowager! place her behind you
+on the black charger; cut down the policeman, and away with you! The
+carriage rolls in through St. James’s Park; Jack sits alone with his
+sword dropped to the ground, or only _atra cura_ on the crupper behind
+him; and Snip, the tailor, in the crowd, thinks it is for fear of him
+Jack’s head droops. Lady Clara Pulleyn is presented by her mother, the
+Countess of Dorking; and Jack is arrested that night as he is going out
+of White’s to meet her at the Opera.
+
+Jack’s little exploits are known in the Insolvent Court, where he made
+his appearances as Charles Belsize, commonly called the Honourable
+Charles Belsize, whose dealings were smartly chronicled by the
+indignant moralists of the press of those days. The _Scourge_ flogged
+him heartily. The _Whip_ (of which the accomplished editor was himself
+in Whitecross Street prison) was especially virtuous regarding him; and
+the _Penny Voice of Freedom_ gave him an awful dressing. I am not here
+to scourge sinners; I am true to my party; it is the other side this
+humble pen attacks; let us keep to the virtuous and respectable, for as
+for poor sinners they get the whipping-post every day. One person was
+faithful to poor Jack through all his blunders and follies and
+extravagance and misfortunes, and that was the pretty young girl of
+Chanticlere, round whose young affections his luxuriant whiskers had
+curled. And the world may cry out at Lord Kew for sending his brougham
+to the Queen’s Bench prison, and giving a great feast at Grignon’s to
+Jack on the day of his liberation, but I for one will not quarrel with
+his lordship. He and many other sinners had a jolly night. They said
+Kew made a fine speech, in hearing and acknowledging which Jack Belsize
+wept copiously. Barnes Newcome was in a rage at Jack’s manumission, and
+sincerely hoped Mr. Commissioner would give him a couple of years
+longer; and cursed and swore with a great liberality on hearing of his
+liberty.
+
+That this poor prodigal should marry Clara Pulleyn, and by way of a
+dowry lay his schedule at her feet, was out of the question. His noble
+father, Lord Highgate, was furious against him; his eldest brother
+would not see him; he had given up all hopes of winning his darling
+prize long ago, and one day there came to him a great packet bearing
+the seal of Chanticlere, containing a wretched little letter signed C.
+P., and a dozen sheets of Jack’s own clumsy writing, delivered who
+knows how, in what crush-rooms, quadrilles, bouquets, balls, and in
+which were scrawled Jack’s love and passion and ardour. How many a time
+had he looked into the dictionary at White’s, to see whether eternal
+was spelt with an e, and adore with one a or two! There they were, the
+incoherent utterances of his brave longing heart; and those two
+wretched, wretched lines signed C., begging that C.’s little letters
+might too be returned or destroyed. To do him justice, he burnt them
+loyally every one along with his own waste paper. He kept not one
+single little token which she had given him or let him take. The rose,
+the glove, the little handkerchief which she had dropped to him, how he
+cried over them! The ringlet of golden hair—he burnt them all, all in
+his own fire in the prison, save a little, little bit of the hair,
+which might be any one’s, which was the colour of his sister’s. Kew saw
+the deed done; perhaps he hurried away when Jack came to the very last
+part of the sacrifice, and flung the hair into the fire, where he would
+have liked to fling his heart and his life too.
+
+So Clara was free, and the year when Jack came out of prison and went
+abroad, she passed the season in London dancing about night after
+night, and everybody said she was well out of that silly affair with
+Jack Belsize. It was then that Barnes Newcome, Esq., a partner of the
+wealthy banking firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcome, son and heir of
+Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome, Bart., and M. P., descended in right
+line from Bryan de Newcomyn, slain at Hastings, and barber-surgeon to
+Edward the Confessor, etc. etc., cast the eyes of regard on the Lady
+Clara Pulleyn, who was a little pale and languid certainly, but had
+blue eyes, a delicate skin, and a pretty person, and knowing her
+previous history as well as you who have just perused it, deigned to
+entertain matrimonial intentions towards her ladyship.
+
+Not one of the members of these most respectable families, excepting
+poor little Clara perhaps, poor little fish (as if she had any call but
+to do her duty, or to ask _à quelle sauce elle serait mangée_),
+protested against this little affair of traffic; Lady Dorking had a
+brood of little chickens to succeed Clara. There was little Hennie, who
+was sixteen, and Biddy, who was fourteen, and Adelaide, and who knows
+how many more? How could she refuse a young man, not very agreeable it
+is true, nor particularly amiable, nor of good birth, at least on his
+father’s side, but otherwise eligible, and heir to so many thousands a
+year? The Newcomes, on their side, think it a desirable match. Barnes,
+it must be confessed, is growing rather selfish, and has some bachelor
+ways which a wife will reform. Lady Kew is strongly for the match. With
+her own family interest, Lord Steyne and Lord Kew, her nephews, and
+Barnes’s own father-in-law, Lord Dorking, in the Peers, why shall not
+the Newcomes sit there too, and resume the old seat which all the world
+knows they had in the time of Richard III.? Barnes and his father had
+got up quite a belief about a Newcome killed at Bosworth, along with
+King Richard, and hated Henry VII. as an enemy of their noble race. So
+all the parties were pretty well agreed. Lady Anne wrote rather a
+pretty little poem about welcoming the white Fawn to the Newcome
+bowers, and “Clara” was made to rhyme with “fairer,” and “timid does
+and antlered deer to dot the glades of Chanticlere,” quite in a
+picturesque way. Lady Kew pronounced that the poem was very pretty
+indeed.
+
+The year after Jack Belsize made his foreign tour he returned to London
+for the season. Lady Clara did not happen to be there; her health was a
+little delicate, and her kind parents took her abroad; so all things
+went on very smoothly and comfortably indeed.
+
+Yes, but when things were so quiet and comfortable, when the ladies of
+the two families had met at the Congress of Baden, and liked each other
+so much, when Barnes and his papa the Baronet, recovered from his
+illness, were actually on their journey from Aix-la-Chapelle, and Lady
+Kew in motion from Kissingen to the Congress of Baden, why on earth
+should Jack Belsize, haggard, wild, having been winning great sums, it
+was said, at Hombourg, forsake his luck there, and run over frantically
+to Baden? He wore a great thick beard, a great slouched hat—he looked
+like nothing more or less than a painter or an Italian brigand.
+Unsuspecting Clive, remembering the jolly dinner which Jack had
+procured for him at the Guards’ mess in St. James’s, whither Jack
+himself came from the Horse Guards—simple Clive, seeing Jack enter the
+town, hailed him cordially, and invited him to dinner, and Jack
+accepted, and Clive told him all the news he had of the place; how Kew
+was there, and Lady Anne Newcome, and Ethel; and Barnes was coming. “I
+am not very fond of him either,” says Clive, smiling, when Belsize
+mentioned his name. So Barnes was coming to marry that pretty little
+Lady Clara Pulleyn. The knowing youth! I dare say he was rather pleased
+with his knowledge of the fashionable world, and the idea that Jack
+Belsize would think he, too, was somebody.
+
+Jack drank an immense quantity of champagne, and the dinner over, as
+they could hear the band playing from Clive’s open windows in the snug
+clean little Hôtel de France, Jack proposed they should go on the
+promenade. M. de Florac was of the party; he had been exceedingly
+jocular when Lord Kew’s name was mentioned, and said, “Ce petit Kiou!
+M. le Duc d’Ivry, mon oncle, l’honore d’une amitié toute particulière.”
+These three gentlemen walked out; the promenade was crowded, the was
+band playing “Home, sweet Home” very sweetly, and the very first
+persons they met on the walk were the Lords of Kew and Dorking, on the
+arm of which latter venerable peer his daughter Lady Clara was hanging.
+
+Jack Belsize, in a velvet coat, with a sombrero slouched over his face,
+with a beard reaching to his waist, was, no doubt, not recognised at
+first by the noble lord of Dorking, for he was greeting the other two
+gentlemen with his usual politeness and affability; when, of a sudden,
+Lady Clara looking up, gave a little shriek and fell down lifeless on
+the gravel walk. Then the old earl recognised Mr. Belsize, and Clive
+heard him say, “You villain, how dare you come here?”
+
+Belsize had flung himself down to lift up Clara, calling her
+frantically by her name, when old Dorking sprang to seize him.
+
+“Hands off, my lord,” said the other, shaking the old man from his
+back. “Confound you, Jack, hold your tongue,” roars out Kew. Clive runs
+for a chair, and a dozen were forthcoming. Florac skips back with a
+glass of water. Belsize runs towards the awakening girl: and the
+father, for an instant losing all patience and self-command, trembling
+in every limb, lifts his stick, and says again, “Leave her, you
+ruffian.” “Lady Clara has fainted again, sir,” says Captain Belsize. “I
+am staying at the Hôtel de France. If you touch me, old man” (this in a
+very low voice), “by Heaven I shall kill you. I wish you good morning;”
+and taking a last long look at the lifeless girl, he lifts his hat and
+walks away. Lord Dorking mechanically takes his hat off, and stands
+stupidly gazing after him. He beckoned Clive to follow him, and a crowd
+of the frequenters of the place are by this time closed round the
+fainting young lady.
+
+Here was a pretty incident in the Congress of Baden!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+In which Barnes comes a-wooing
+
+
+Ethel had all along known that her holiday was to be a short one, and
+that, her papa and Barnes arrived, there was to be no more laughing and
+fun and sketching and walking with Clive; so she took the sunshine
+while it lasted, determined to bear with a stout heart the bad weather.
+
+Sir Brian Newcome and his eldest born arrived at Baden on the very
+night of Jack Belsize’s performance upon the promenade; of course it
+was necessary to inform the young bridegroom of the facts. His
+acquaintances of the public, who by this time know his temper, and are
+acquainted with his language, can imagine the explosions of the one and
+the vehemence of the other; it was a perfect _feu d’artifice_ of oaths
+which he sent up. Mr. Newcome only fired off these volleys of curses
+when he was in a passion, but then he was in a passion very frequently.
+
+As for Lady Clara’s little accident, he was disposed to treat that very
+lightly. “Poor dear Clara, of course, of course,” he said, “she’s been
+accustomed to fainting fits; no wonder she was agitated on the sight of
+that villain, after his infernal treatment of her. If I had been there”
+(a volley of oaths comes here along the whole line) “I should have
+strangled the scoundrel; I should have murdered him.”
+
+“Mercy, Barnes!” cries Lady Anne.
+
+“It was a mercy Barnes was not there,” says Ethel, gravely; “a fight
+between him and Captain Belsize would have been awful indeed.”
+
+“I am afraid of no man, Ethel,” says Barnes fiercely, with another
+oath.
+
+“Hit one of your own size, Barnes,” says Miss Ethel (who had a number
+of school-phrases from her little brothers, and used them on occasions
+skilfully). “Hit Captain Belsize, he has no friends.”
+
+As Jack Belsize from his height and strength was fitted to be not only
+an officer but actually a private in his former gallant regiment, and
+brother Barnes was but a puny young gentleman, the idea of a personal
+conflict between them was rather ridiculous. Some notion of this sort
+may have passed through Sir Brian’s mind, for the Baronet said with his
+usual solemnity, “It is the cause, Ethel, it is the cause, my dear,
+which gives strength; in such a cause as Barnes’s, with a beautiful
+young creature to protect from a villain, any man would be strong, any
+man would be strong.” “Since his last attack,” Barnes used to say, “my
+poor old governor is exceedingly shaky, very groggy about the head;”
+which was the fact. Barnes was already master at Newcome and the bank,
+and awaiting with perfect composure the event which was to place the
+blood-red hand of the Newcome baronetcy on his own brougham.
+
+Casting his eyes about the room, a heap of drawings, the work of a
+well-known hand which he hated, met his eye. There were a half-dozen
+sketches of Baden; Ethel on horseback again; the children and the dogs
+just in the old way. “D—— him, is he here?” screams out Barnes. “Is
+that young pothouse villain here? and hasn’t Kew knocked his head off?
+Is Clive Newcome here, sir,” he cries out to his father. “The Colonel’s
+son. I have no doubt they met by——”
+
+“By what, Barnes?” says Ethel.
+
+“Clive is here, is he?” says the Baronet; “making caricatures, hey? You
+did not mention him in your letters, Lady Anne.”
+
+Sir Brian was evidently very much touched by his last attack.
+
+Ethel blushed; it was a curious fact, but there had been no mention of
+Clive in the ladies’ letters to Sir Brian.
+
+“My dear, we met him by the merest chance, at Bonn, travelling with a
+friend of his; and he speaks a little German, and was very useful to
+us, and took one of the boys in his britzska the whole way.”
+
+“Boys always crowd in a carriage,” says Sir Brian. “Kick your shins;
+always in the way. I remember, when we used to come in the carriage
+from Clapham, when we were boys, I used to kick my brother Tom’s shins.
+Poor Tom, he was a devilish wild fellow in those days. You don’t
+recollect Tom, my Lady Anne?”
+
+Further anecdotes from Sir Brian are interrupted by Lord Kew’s arrival.
+“How dydo, Kew!” cries Barnes. “How’s Clara?” and Lord Kew walking up
+with great respect to shake hands with Sir Brian, says, “I am glad to
+see you looking so well, sir,” and scarcely takes any notice of Barnes.
+That Mr. Barnes Newcome was an individual not universally beloved, is a
+point of history of which there can be no doubt.
+
+“You have not told me how Clara is, my good fellow,” continues Barnes.
+“I have heard all about her meeting with that villain, Jack Belsize.”
+
+“Don’t call names, my good fellow,” says Lord Kew. “It strikes me you
+don’t know Belsize well enough to call him by nicknames or by other
+names. Lady Clara Pulleyn, I believe, is very unwell indeed.”
+
+“Confound the fellow! How dared he to come here?” cries Barnes, backing
+from this little rebuff.
+
+“Dare is another ugly word. I would advise you not to use it to the
+fellow himself.”
+
+“What do you mean?” says Barnes, looking very serious in an instant.
+
+“Easy, my good friend. Not so very loud. It appears, Ethel, that poor
+Jack—_I_ know him pretty well, you see, Barnes, and may call him by
+what names I like—had been dining to-day with cousin Clive; he and M.
+de Florac; and that they went with Jack to the promenade, not in the
+least aware of Mr. Jack Belsize’s private affairs, or of the shindy
+that was going to happen.”
+
+“By Jove, he shall answer for it,” cries out Barnes in a loud voice.
+
+“I dare say he will, if you ask him,” says the other drily; “but not
+before ladies. He’d be afraid of frightening them. Poor Jack was always
+as gentle as a lamb before women. I had some talk with the Frenchman
+just now,” continued Lord Kew gaily, as if wishing to pass over this
+side of the subject. “Mi Lord Kiou,” says he, “we have made your friend
+Jac to hear reason. He is a little _fou_, your friend Jack. He drank
+champagne at dinner like an ogre. How is the _charmante_ Miss Clara?
+Florac, you see, calls her Miss Clara, Barnes; the world calls her Lady
+Clara. You call her Clara. You happy dog, you.”
+
+“I don’t see why that infernal young cub of a Clive is always meddling
+in our affairs,” cries out Barnes, whose rage was perpetually being
+whipped into new outcries. “Why has he been about this house? Why is he
+here?”
+
+“It is very well for you that he was, Barnes,” Lord Kew said. “The
+young fellow showed great temper and spirit. There has been a famous
+row, but don’t be alarmed, it is all over. It is all over, everybody
+may go to bed and sleep comfortably. Barnes need not get up in the
+morning to punch Jack Belsize’s head. I’m sorry for your
+disappointment, you Fenchurch Street fire-eater. Come away. It will be
+but proper, you know, for a bridegroom elect to go and ask news of _la
+charmante_ Miss Clara.”
+
+“As we went out of the house,” Lord Kew told Clive, “I said to Barnes
+that every word I had uttered upstairs with regard to the
+reconciliation was a lie. That Jack Belsize was determined to have his
+blood, and was walking under the lime-trees by which we had to pass
+with a thundering big stick. You should have seen the state the fellow
+was in, sir. The sweet youth started back, and turned as yellow as a
+cream cheese. Then he made a pretext to go into his room, and said it
+was for his pocket-handkerchief, but I know it was for a pistol; for he
+dropped his hand from my arm into his pocket, every time I said ‘Here’s
+Jack,’ as we walked down the avenue to Lord Dorking’s apartment.”
+
+A great deal of animated business had been transacted during the two
+hours subsequent to poor Lady Clara’s mishap. Clive and Belsize had
+returned to the former’s quarters, while gentle J. J. was utilising the
+last rays of the sun to tint a sketch which he had made during the
+morning. He fled to his own apartment on the arrival of the
+fierce-looking stranger, whose glaring eyes, pallid looks, shaggy
+beard, clutched hands, and incessant gasps and mutterings as he strode
+up and down, might well scare a peaceable person. Very terrible must
+Jack have looked as he trampled those boards in the growing twilight,
+anon stopping to drink another tumbler of champagne, then groaning
+expressions of inarticulate wrath, and again sinking down on Clive’s
+bed with a dropping head and breaking voice, crying, “Poor little
+thing, poor little devil.”
+
+“If the old man sends me a message, you will stand by me, won’t you,
+Newcome? He was a fierce old fellow in his time, and I have seen him
+shoot straight enough at Chanticlere. I suppose you know what the
+affair is about?”
+
+“I never heard of it before, but I think I understand,” says Clive,
+gravely.
+
+“I can’t ask Kew, he is one of the family; he is going to marry Miss
+Newcome. It is no use asking him.”
+
+All Clive’s blood tingled at the idea that any man was going to marry
+Miss Newcome. He knew it before—a fortnight since, and it was nothing
+to him to hear it. He was glad that the growing darkness prevented his
+face from being seen. “I am of the family, too,” said Clive, “and
+Barnes Newcome and I had the same grandfather.”
+
+“Oh, yes, old boy—old banker, the weaver, what was he? I forgot,” says
+poor Jack, kicking on Clive’s bed, “in that family the Newcomes don’t
+count. I beg your pardon,” groans poor Jack.
+
+They lapse into silence, during which Jack’s cigar glimmers from the
+twilight corner where Clive’s bed is; whilst Clive wafts his fragrance
+out of the window where he sits, and whence he has a view of Lady Anne
+Newcome’s windows to the right, over the bridge across the little
+rushing river, at the Hotel de Hollande hard by. The lights twinkle in
+the booths under the pretty lime avenues. The hum of distant voices is
+heard; the gambling-palace is all in a blaze; it is an assembly night,
+and from the doors of the conversation rooms, as they open and close,
+escape gusts of harmony. Behind on the little hill the darkling woods
+lie calm, the edges of the fir-trees cut sharp against the sky, which
+is clear with a crescent moon and the lambent lights of the starry
+hosts of heaven. Clive does not see pine-robed hills and shining stars,
+nor think of pleasure in its palace yonder, nor of pain writhing on his
+own bed within a few feet of him, where poor Belsize was groaning. His
+eyes are fixed upon a window whence comes the red light of a lamp,
+across which shadows float now and again. So every light in every booth
+yonder has a scheme of its own: every star above shines by itself; and
+each individual heart of ours goes on brightening with its own hopes,
+burning with its own desires, and quivering with its own pain.
+
+The reverie is interrupted by the waiter, who announces M. le Vicomte
+de Florac, and a third cigar is added to the other two smoky lights.
+Belsize is glad to see Florac, whom he has known in a thousand haunts.
+“He will do my business for me. He has been out half a dozen times,”
+thinks Jack. It would relieve the poor fellow’s boiling blood that some
+one would let a little out. He lays his affair before Florac; he
+expects a message from Lord Dorking.
+
+“Comment donc?” cries Florac; “il y avait donc quelque chose! Cette
+pauvre petite Miss! Vous voulez tuer le père, après avoir délaissé la
+fille? Cherchez d’autres témoins, Monsieur. Le Vicomte de Florac ne se
+fait pas complice de telles lâchetés.”
+
+“By Heaven,” says Jack, sitting up on the bed, with his eyes glaring,
+“I have a great mind, Florac, to wring your infernal little neck, and
+to fling you out of the window. Is all the world going to turn against
+me? I am half mad as it is. If any man dares to think anything wrong
+regarding that little angel, or to fancy that she is not as pure, and
+as good, and as gentle, and as innocent, by Heaven, as any angel
+there,—if any man thinks I’d be the villain to hurt her, I should just
+like to see him,” says Jack. “By the Lord, sir, just bring him to me.
+Just tell the waiter to send him upstairs. Hurt her! I hurt her! Oh!
+I’m a fool! a fool! a d——d fool! Who’s that?”
+
+“It’s Kew,” says a voice out of the darkness from behind cigar No. 4,
+and Clive now, having a party assembled, scrapes a match and lights his
+candles.
+
+“I heard your last words, Jack,” Lord Kew says bluntly, “and you never
+spoke more truth in your life. Why did you come here? What right had
+you to stab that poor little heart over again, and frighten Lady Clara
+with your confounded hairy face? You promised me you would never see
+her. You gave your word of honour you wouldn’t, when I gave you the
+money to go abroad. Hang the money, I don’t mind that; it was on your
+promise that you would prowl about her no more. The Dorkings left
+London before you came there; they gave you your innings. They have
+behaved kindly and fairly enough to that poor girl. How was she to
+marry such a bankrupt beggar as you are? What you have done is a shame,
+Charley Belsize. I tell you it is unmanly and cowardly.”
+
+“Pst,” says Florac, “numero deux, voilà le mot lâche.”
+
+“Don’t bite your thumb at me,” Kew went on. “I know you could thrash
+me, if that’s what you mean by shaking your fists; so could most men. I
+tell you again—you have done a bad deed; you have broken your word of
+honour, and you knocked down Clara Pulleyn to-day as cruelly as if you
+had done it with your hand.”
+
+With this rush upon him, and fiery assault of Kew, Belsize was quite
+bewildered. The huge man flung up his great arms, and let them drop at
+his side as a gladiator that surrenders, and asks for pity. He sank
+down once more on the iron bed.
+
+“I don’t know,” says he, rolling and rolling round, in one of his great
+hands, one of the brass knobs of the bed by which he was seated. “I
+don’t know, Frank,” says he, “what the world is coming to, or me
+either; here is twice in one night I have been called a coward by you,
+and by that little what-d’-you-call-’m. I beg your pardon, Florac. I
+don’t know whether it is very brave in you to hit a chap when he is
+down: hit again, I have no friends. I have acted like a blackguard, I
+own that; I did break my promise; you had that safe enough, Frank, my
+boy; but I did not think it would hurt her to see me,” says he, with a
+dreadful sob in his voice. “By—I would have given ten years of my life
+to look at her. I was going mad without her. I tried every place,
+everything; went to Ems, to Wiesbaden, to Hombourg, and played like
+hell. It used to excite me once, and now I don’t care for it. I won no
+end of money,—no end for a poor beggar like me, that is; but I couldn’t
+keep away. I couldn’t, and if she had been at the North Pole, by
+Heavens I would have followed her.”
+
+“And so just to look at her, just to give your confounded stupid eyes
+two minutes’ pleasure, you must bring about all this pain, you great
+baby,” cries Kew, who was very soft-hearted, and in truth quite torn
+himself by the sight of poor Jack’s agony.
+
+“Get me to see her for five minutes, Kew,” cries the other, griping his
+comrade’s hand in his; “but for five minutes.”
+
+“For shame,” cries Lord Kew, shaking away his hand, “be a man, Jack,
+and have no more of this puling. It’s not a baby, that must have its
+toy, and cries because it can’t get it. Spare the poor girl this pain,
+for her own sake, and balk yourself of the pleasure of bullying and
+making her unhappy.”
+
+Belsize started up with looks that were by no means pleasant. “There’s
+enough of this chaff I have been called names, and blackguarded quite
+sufficiently for one sitting. I shall act as I please. I choose to take
+my own way, and if any gentleman stops me he has full warning.” And he
+fell to tugging his mustachios, which were of a dark tawny hue, and
+looked as warlike as he had ever done on any field-day.
+
+“I take the warning!” said Lord Kew. “And if I know the way you are
+going, as I think I do, I will do my best to stop you, madman as you
+are! You can hardly propose to follow her to her own doorway and pose
+yourself before your mistress as the murderer of her father, like
+Rodrigue in the French play. If Rooster were here it would be his
+business to defend his sister; In his absence I will take the duty on
+myself, and I say to you, Charles Belsize, in the presence of these
+gentlemen, that any man who iusults this young lady, who persecutes her
+with his presence, knowing it can but pain her, who persists in
+following her when he has given his word of honour to avoid her, that
+such a man is——”
+
+“What, my Lord Kew?” cries Belsize, whose chest began to heave.
+
+“You know what,” answers the other. “You know what a man is who insults
+a poor woman, and breaks his word of honour. Consider the word said,
+and act upon it as you think fit.”
+
+“I owe you four thousand pounds, Kew,” says Belsize, “and I have got
+four thousand on the bills, besides four hundred when I came out of
+that place.”
+
+“You insult me the more,” cries Kew, flashing out, “by alluding to the
+money. If you will leave this place to-morrow, well and good; if not,
+you will please to give me a meeting. Mr. Newcome will you be so kind
+as to act as my friend? We are connexions, you know, and this gentleman
+chooses to insult a lady who is about to become one of our family.”
+
+“C’est bien, milord. Ma foi! c’est d’agir en vrai gentilhomme,” says
+Florac, delighted. “Touchez-là, mon petit Kiou. Tu as du cœur. Godam!
+you are a brave! A brave fellow!” and the Viscount reached out his hand
+cordially to Lord Kew.
+
+His purpose was evidently pacific. From Kew he turned to the great
+guardsman, and taking him by the coat began to apostrophise him. “And
+you, mon gros,” says he, “is there no way of calming this hot blood
+without a saignée? Have you a penny to the world? Can you hope to carry
+off your Chiméne, O Rodrigue, and live by robbing afterwards on the
+great way? Suppose you kill ze Fazér, you kill Kiou, you kill Roostere,
+your Chiméne will have a pretty moon of honey.”
+
+“What the devil do you mean about your Chiméne and your Rodrigue? Do
+you mean, Viscount——?” says Belsize, “Jack Belsize once more, and he
+dashed his hand across his eyes. Kew has riled me, and he drove me half
+wild. I ain’t much of a Frenchman, but I know enough of what you said,
+to say it’s true, by Jove, and that Frank Kew’s a trump. That’s what
+you mean. Give us your hand, Frank. God bless you, old boy; don’t be
+too hard upon me, you know I’m d——d miserable, that I am. Hullo! What’s
+this?” Jack’s pathetic speech was interrupted at this instant, for the
+Vicomte de Florac in his enthusiasm rushed into his arms, and jumped up
+towards his face and proceeded to kiss Jack. A roar of immense
+laughter, as he shook the little Viscount off, cleared the air and
+ended this quarrel.
+
+Everybody joined in this chorus, the Frenchman with the rest, who said,
+“he loved to laugh meme when he did not know why.” And now came the
+moment of the evening, when Clive, according to Lord Kew’s saying,
+behaved so well and prevented Barnes from incurring a great danger. In
+truth, what Mr. Clive did or said amounted exactly to nothing. What
+moments can we not all remember in our lives when it would have been so
+much wittier and wiser to say and do nothing?
+
+Florac, a very sober drinker like most of his nation, was blessed with
+a very fine appetite, which, as he said, renewed itself thrice a day at
+least. He now proposed supper, and poor Jack was for supper too, and
+especially more drink, champagne and seltzer-water; “bring champagne
+and seltzer-water, there is nothing like it.” Clive could not object to
+this entertainment, which was ordered forthwith, and the four young men
+sat down to share it.
+
+Whilst Florac was partaking of his favourite écrévisses, giving not
+only his palate but his hands, his beard, his mustachios and cheeks a
+full enjoyment of the sauce which he found so delicious, he chose to
+revert now and again to the occurrences which had just passed, and
+which had better perhaps have been forgotten, and gaily rallied Belsize
+upon his warlike humour. “If ze petit pretendu was here, what would you
+have done wiz him, Jac? You would croquer im, like zis ecrevisse, hein?
+You would mache his bones, hein?”
+
+Jack, who had forgotten to put the seltzer-water into his champagne,
+writhed at the idea of having Barnes Newcome before him, and swore,
+could he but see Barnes, he would take the little villain’s life.
+
+And but for Clive, Jack might actually have beheld his enemy. Young
+Clive after the meal went to the window with his eternal cigar, and of
+course began to look at That Other window. Here, as he looked, a
+carriage had at the moment driven up. He saw two servants descend, then
+two gentlemen, and then he heard a well-known voice swearing at the
+couriers. To his credit be it said, he checked the exclamation which
+was on his lips, and when he came back to the table did not announce to
+Kew or his right-hand neighbour Belsize, that his uncle and Barnes had
+arrived. Belsize, by this time, had had quite too much wine: when the
+viscount went away, poor Jack’s head was nodding; he had been awake all
+the night before; sleepless for how many nights previous. He scarce
+took any notice of the Frenchman’s departure.
+
+Lord Kew remained. He was for taking Jack to walk, and for reasoning
+with him further, and for entering more at large than perhaps he chose
+to do before the two others upon this family dispute. Clive took a
+moment to whisper to Lord Kew, “My uncle and Barnes are arrived, don’t
+let Belsize go out; for goodness’ sake let us get him to bed.”
+
+And lest the poor fellow should take a fancy to visit his mistress by
+moonlight, when he was safe in his room Lord Kew softly turned the key
+in Mr. Jack’s door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+A Retreat
+
+
+As Clive lay awake revolving the strange incidents of the day, and
+speculating upon the tragedy in which he had been suddenly called to
+take a certain part, a sure presentiment told him that his own happy
+holiday was come to an end, and that the clouds and storm which he had
+always somehow foreboded, were about to break and obscure this brief
+pleasant period of sunshine. He rose at a very early hour, flung his
+windows open, looked out no doubt towards those other windows in the
+neighbouring hotel, where he may have fancied he saw a curtain
+stirring, drawn by a hand that every hour now he longed more to press.
+He turned back into his chamber with a sort of groan, and surveyed some
+of the relics of the last night’s little feast, which still remained on
+the table. There were the champagne-flasks which poor Jack Belsize had
+emptied, the tall seltzer-water bottle, from which the gases had issued
+and mingled with the hot air of the previous night’s talk; glasses with
+dregs of liquor, ashes of cigars, or their black stumps, strewing the
+cloth; the dead men, the burst guns of yesterday’s battle. Early as it
+was, his neighbour J. J had been up before him. Clive could hear him
+singing as was his wont when the pencil went well, and the colours
+arranged themselves to his satisfaction over his peaceful and happy
+work.
+
+He pulled his own drawing-table to the window, set out his board and
+colour-box, filled a great glass from the seltzer-water bottle, drank
+some of the vapid liquor, and plunged his brushes in the rest, with
+which he began to paint. The work all went wrong. There was no song for
+him over his labour; he dashed brush and board aside after a while,
+opened his drawers, pulled out his portmanteaus from under the bed, and
+fell to packing mechanically. J. J. heard the noise from the next room,
+and came in smiling, with a great painting-brush in his mouth.
+
+“Have the bills in, J. J.,” says Clive. “Leave your cards on your
+friends, old boy; say good-bye to that pretty little strawberry-girl
+whose picture you have been doing; polish it off to-day, and dry the
+little thing’s tears. I read P.P.C. in the stars last night, and my
+familiar spirit came to me in a vision, and said, ‘Clive, son of
+Thomas, put thy travelling-boots on.’”
+
+Lest any premature moralist should prepare to cry fie against the good,
+pure-minded little J. J., I hereby state that his strawberry-girl was a
+little village maiden of seven years old, whose sweet little picture a
+bishop purchased at the next year’s Exhibition.
+
+“Are you going already?” cries J. J., removing the bit out of his
+mouth. “I thought you had arranged parties for a week to come, and that
+the princesses and the duchesses had positively forbidden the departure
+of your lordship!”
+
+“We have dallied at Capua long enough,” says Clive; “and the legions
+have the route for Rome. So wills Hannibal, the son of Hasdrubal.”
+
+“The son of Hasdrubal is quite right,” his companion answered; “the
+sooner we march the better. I have always said it; I will get all the
+accounts in. Hannibal has been living like a voluptuous Carthaginian
+prince. One, two, three champagne-bottles! There will be a deuce of a
+bill to pay.”
+
+“Ah! there _will_ be a deuce of a bill to pay,” says Clive, with a
+groan whereof J. J. knew the portent; for the young men had the
+confidence of youth one in another. Clive was accustomed to pour out
+his full heart to any crony who was near him; and indeed had he spoken
+never a word, his growing attachment to his cousin was not hard to see.
+A hundred times, and with the glowing language and feelings of youth,
+with the fire of his twenty years, with the ardour of a painter, he had
+spoken of her and described her. Her magnanimous simplicity, her
+courage and lofty scorn, her kindness towards her little family, her
+form, her glorious colour of rich carnation and dazzling white, her
+queenly grace when quiescent and in motion, had constantly formed the
+subjects of this young gentleman’s ardent eulogies. As he looked at a
+great picture or statue, as the Venus of Milo, calm and deep,
+unfathomably beautiful as the sea from which she sprung; as he looked
+at the rushing Aurora of the Rospigliosi, or the Assumption of Titian,
+more bright and glorious than sunshine, or that divine Madonna and
+divine Infant, of Dresden, whose sweet faces must have shone upon
+Raphael out of heaven; his heart sang hymns, as it were, before these
+gracious altars; and, somewhat as he worshipped these masterpieces of
+his art, he admired the beauty of Ethel.
+
+J. J. felt these things exquisitely after his manner, and enjoyed
+honest Clive’s mode of celebration and rapturous fioriture of song; but
+Ridley’s natural note was much gentler, and he sang his hymns in
+plaintive minors. Ethel was all that was bright and beautiful but—but
+she was engaged to Lord Kew. The shrewd kind confidant used gently to
+hint the sad fact to the impetuous hero of this piece. The impetuous
+hero knew this quite well. As he was sitting over his painting-board he
+would break forth frequently, after his manner, in which laughter and
+sentiment were mingled, and roar out with all the force of his healthy
+young lungs—
+
+“But her heart it is another’s, she never—can—be—mine;”
+
+
+and then hero and confidant would laugh each at his drawing-table. Miss
+Ethel went between the two gentlemen by the name of Alice Grey.
+
+Very likely, Night, the Grey Mentor, had given Clive Newcome the
+benefit of his sad counsel. Poor Belsize’s agony, and the wretchedness
+of the young lady who shared in the desperate passion, may have set our
+young man a-thinking; and Lord Kew’s frankness and courage, and honour,
+whereof Clive had been a witness during the night, touched his heart
+with a generous admiration, and manned him for a trial which he felt
+was indeed severe. He thought of the dear old father ploughing the seas
+on the way to his duty, and was determined, by Heaven’s help, to do his
+own. Only three weeks since, when strolling careless about Bonn he had
+lighted upon Ethel and the laughing group of little cousins, he was a
+boy as they were, thinking but of the enjoyment of the day and the
+sunshine, as careless as those children. And now the thoughts and
+passions which had sprung up in a week or two, had given him an
+experience such as years do not always furnish; and our friend was to
+show, not only that he could feel love in his heart, but that he could
+give proof of courage, and self-denial, and honour.
+
+“Do you remember, J. J.,” says he, as boots and breeches went plunging
+into the portmanteau, and with immense energy, he pummels down one upon
+the other, “do you remember” (a dig into the snowy bosom of a dress
+cambric shirt) “my dear old father’s only campaign story of his running
+away” (a frightful blow into the ribs of a waistcoat), “running away at
+Asseer-Ghur?”
+
+“Asseer-What?” says J. J. wondering.
+
+“The siege of Asseer-Ghur!” says Clive, “fought in the eventful year
+1803: Lieutenant Newcome, who has very neat legs, let me tell you,
+which also he has imparted to his descendants, had put on a new pair of
+leather breeches, for he likes to go handsomely dressed into action.
+His horse was shot, the enemy were upon him, and the governor had to
+choose between death and retreat. I have heard his brother-officers say
+that my dear old father was the bravest man they ever knew, the coolest
+hand, sir. What do you think it was Lieutenant Newcome’s duty to do
+under these circumstances? To remain alone as he was, his troop having
+turned about, and to be cut down by the Mahratta horsemen—to perish or
+to run, sir?”
+
+“I know which I should have done,” says Ridley.
+
+“Exactly. Lieutenant Newcome adopted that course. His bran-new leather
+breeches were exceedingly tight, and greatly incommoded the rapidity of
+his retreating movement, but he ran away, sir, and afterwards begot
+your obedient servant. That is the history of the battle of
+Asseer-Ghur.”
+
+“And now for the moral,” says J. J., not a little amused.
+
+“J. J., old boy, this is my battle of Asseer-Ghur. I am off. Dip into
+the money-bag: pay the people: be generous, J. J., but not too
+prodigal. The chambermaid is ugly, yet let her not want for a crown to
+console her at our departure. The waiters have been brisk and servile;
+reward the slaves for their labours. Forget not the humble boots, so
+shall he bless us when we depart. For artists are gentlemen, though
+Ethel does not think so. De—No—God bless her, God bless her,” groans
+out Clive, cramming his two fists into his eyes. If Ridley admired him
+before, he thought none the worse of him now. And if any generous young
+fellow in life reads the Fable, which may possibly concern him, let him
+take a senior’s counsel and remember that there are perils in our
+battle, God help us, from which the bravest had best run away.
+
+Early as the morning yet was, Clive had a visitor, and the door opened
+to let in Lord Kew’s honest face. Ridley retreated before it into his
+own den; the appearance of earls scared the modest painter, though he
+was proud and pleased that his Clive should have their company. Lord
+Kew indeed lived in more splendid apartments on the first floor of the
+hotel, Clive and his friend occupying a couple of spacious chambers on
+the second story. “You are an early bird,” says Kew. “I got up myself
+in a panic before daylight almost; Jack was making a deuce of a row in
+his room, and fit to blow the door out. I have been coaxing him for
+this hour; I wish we had thought of giving him a dose of laudanum last
+night; if it finished him, poor old boy, it would do him no harm.” And
+then, laughing, he gave Clive an account of his interview with Barnes
+on the previous night. “You seem to be packing up to go, too,” says
+Lord Kew, with a momentary glance of humour darting from his keen eyes.
+“The weather is breaking up here, and if you are going to cross the St.
+Gothard, as the Newcomes told me, the sooner the better. It’s bitter
+cold over the mountains in October.”
+
+“Very cold,” says Clive, biting his nails.
+
+“Post or Vett.?” asks my lord.
+
+“I bought a carriage at Frankfort,” says Clive, in an offhand manner.
+
+“Hulloh!” cries the other, who was perfectly kind, and entirely frank
+and pleasant, and showed no difference in his conversation with men of
+any degree, except perhaps that to his inferiors in station he was a
+little more polite than to his equals; but who would as soon have
+thought of a young artist leaving Baden in a carriage of his own as of
+his riding away on a dragon.
+
+“I only gave twenty pounds for the carriage; it’s a little light thing,
+we are two, a couple of horses carry us and our traps, you know, and we
+can stop where we like. I don’t depend upon my profession,” Clive
+added, with a blush. “I made three guineas once, and that is the only
+money I ever gained in my life.”
+
+“Of course, my dear fellow, have not I been to your father’s house? At
+that pretty ball, and seen no end of fine people there? We are young
+swells. I know that very well. We only paint for pleasure.”
+
+“We are artists, and we intend to paint for money, my lord,” says
+Clive. “Will your lordship give me an order?”
+
+“My lordship serves me right,” the other said. “I think, Newcome, as
+you are going, I think you might do some folks here a good turn, though
+the service is rather a disagreeable one. Jack Belsize is not fit to be
+left alone. I can’t go away from here just now for reasons of state. Do
+be a good fellow and take him with you. Put the Alps between him and
+this confounded business, and if I can serve you in any way I shall be
+delighted, if you will furnish me with the occasion. Jack does not know
+yet that our amiable Barnes is here. I know how fond you are of him. I
+have heard the story—glass of claret and all. We all love Barnes. How
+that poor Lady Clara can have accepted him the Lord knows. We are
+fearfully and wonderfully made, especially women.”
+
+“Good heavens,” Clive broke out, “can it be possible that a young
+creature can have been brought to like such a selfish, insolent coxcomb
+as that, such a cocktail as Barnes Newcome? You know very well, Lord
+Kew, what his life is. There was a poor girl whom he brought out of a
+Newcome factory when he was a boy himself, and might have had a heart
+one would have thought, whom he ill-treated, whom he deserted, and
+flung out of doors without a penny, upon some pretence of her
+infidelity towards him; who came and actually sat down on the steps of
+Park Lane with a child on each side of her, and not their cries and
+their hunger, but the fear of his own shame and a dread of a
+police-court, forced him to give her a maintenance. I never see the
+fellow but I loathe him, and long to kick him out of window and this
+man is to marry a noble young lady because forsooth he is a partner in
+a bank, and heir to seven or eight thousand a year. Oh, it is a shame,
+it is a shame! It makes me sick when I think of the lot which the poor
+thing is to endure.”
+
+“It is not a nice story,” said Lord Kew, rolling a cigarette; “Barnes
+is not a nice man. I give you that in. You have not heard it talked
+about in the family, have you?”
+
+“Good heavens! you don’t suppose that I would speak to Ethel, to Miss
+Newcome, about such a foul subject as that?” cries Clive. “I never
+mentioned it to my own father. He would have turned Barnes out of his
+doors if he had known it.”
+
+“It was the talk about town, I know,” Kew said dryly. “Everything is
+told in those confounded clubs. I told you I give up Barnes. I like him
+no more than you do. He may have treated the woman ill, I suspect he
+has not an angelical temper: but in this matter he has not been so bad,
+so very bad as it would seem. The first step is wrong, of course—those
+factory towns—that sort of thing, you know—well, well, the commencement
+of the business is a sad one. But he is not the only sinner in London.
+He has declared on his honour to me when the matter was talked about,
+and he was coming on for election at Bays’s, and was as nearly as any
+man I ever knew in my life,—he declared on his word that he only parted
+from poor Mrs. Delacy, (Mrs. Delacy, the devil used to call herself)
+because he found that she had served him—as such women will serve men.
+He offered to send his children to school in Yorkshire—rather a cheap
+school—but she would not part with them. She made a scandal in order to
+get good terms, and she succeeded. He was anxious to break the
+connexion: he owned it had hung like a millstone round his neck and
+caused him a great deal of remorse—annoyance you may call it. He was
+immensely cut up about it. I remember, when that fellow was hanged for
+murdering a woman, Barnes said he did not wonder at his having done it.
+Young men make those connexions in their early lives and rue them all
+their days after. He was heartily sorry, that we may take for granted.
+He wished to lead a proper life. My grandmother managed this business
+with the Dorkings. Lady Kew still pulls stroke oar in our boat, you
+know, and the old woman will not give up her place. They know
+everything, the elders do. He is a clever fellow. He is witty in his
+way. When he likes he can make himself quite agreeable to some people.
+There has been no sort of force. You don’t suppose young ladies are
+confined in dungeons and subject to tortures, do you? But there is a
+brood of Pulleyns at Chanticlere, and old Dorking has nothing to give
+them. His daughter accepted Barnes of her own free will, he knowing
+perfectly well of that previous affair with Jack. The poor devil bursts
+into the place yesterday and the girl drops down in a faint. She will
+see Belsize this very day if he likes. I took a note from Lady Dorking
+to him at five o’clock this morning. If he fancies that there is any
+constraint put upon Lady Clara’s actions she will tell him with her own
+lips that she has acted of her own free will. She will marry the
+husband she has chosen and do her duty by him. You are quite a young un
+who boil and froth up with indignation at the idea that a girl hardly
+off with an old love should take on with a new——”
+
+“I am not indignant with her,” says Clive, “for breaking with Belsize,
+but for marrying Barnes.”
+
+“You hate him, and you know he is your enemy; and, indeed, young
+fellow, he does not compliment you in talking about you. A pretty young
+scapegrace he has made you out to be, and very likely thinks you to be.
+It depends on the colours in which a fellow is painted. Our friends and
+our enemies draw us,—and I often think both pictures are like,”
+continued the easy world-philosopher. “You hate Barnes, and cannot see
+any good in him. He sees none in you. There have been tremendous
+shindies in Park Lane _à propos_ of your worship, and of a subject
+which I don’t care to mention,” said Lord Kew, with some dignity; “and
+what is the upshot of all this malevolence? I like you; I like your
+father, I think he is a noble old boy; there are those who represented
+him as a sordid schemer. Give Mr. Barnes the benefit of common charity
+at any rate; and let others like him, if you do not.
+
+“And as for this romance of love,” the young nobleman went on, kindling
+as he spoke, and forgetting the slang and colloquialisms with which we
+garnish all our conversation—“this fine picture of Jenny and Jessamy
+falling in love at first sight, billing and cooing in an arbour, and
+retiring to a cottage afterwards to go on cooing and billing—Psha! what
+folly is this! It is good for romances, and for misses to sigh about;
+but any man who walks through the world with his eyes open, knows how
+senseless is all this rubbish. I don’t say that a young man and woman
+are not to meet, and to fall in love that instant, and to marry that
+day year, and love each other till they are a hundred; that is the
+supreme lot—but that is the lot which the gods only grant to Baucis and
+Philemon, and a very, very few besides. As for the rest, they must
+compromise; make themselves as comfortable as they can, and take the
+good and the bad together. And as for Jenny and Jessamy, by Jove! look
+round among your friends, count up the love matches, and see what has
+been the end of most of them! Love in a cottage! Who is to pay the
+landlord for the cottage? Who is to pay for Jenny’s tea and cream, and
+Jessamy’s mutton-chops? If he has cold mutton, he will quarrel with
+her. If there is nothing in the cupboard, a pretty meal they make. No,
+you cry out against people in our world making money marriages. Why,
+kings and queens marry on the same understanding. My butcher has saved
+a stockingful of money, and marries his daughter to a young salesman;
+Mr. and Mrs. Salesman prosper in life, and get an alderman’s daughter
+for their son. My attorney looks out amongst his clients for an
+eligible husband for Miss Deeds; sends his son to the bar, into
+Parliament, where he cuts a figure and becomes attorney-general, makes
+a fortune, has a house in Belgrave Square, and marries Miss Deeds of
+the second generation to a peer. Do not accuse us of being more sordid
+than our neighbours. We do but as the world does; and a girl in our
+society accepts the best _parti_ which offers itself, just as Miss
+Chummey, when entreated by two young gentlemen of the order of
+costermongers, inclines to the one who rides from market on a moke,
+rather than to the gentleman who sells his greens from a handbasket.”
+
+This tirade, which his lordship delivered with considerable spirit, was
+intended no doubt to carry a moral for Clive’s private hearing; and
+which, to do him justice, the youth was not slow to comprehend. The
+point was, “Young man, if certain persons of rank choose to receive you
+very kindly, who have but a comely face, good manners, and three or
+four hundred pounds a year, do not presume upon their good-nature, or
+indulge in certain ambitious hopes which your vanity may induce you to
+form. Sail down the stream with the brass-pots, Master Earthen-pot, but
+beware of coming too near! You are a nice young man, but there are
+prizes which are some too good for you, and are meant for your betters.
+And you might as well ask the prime minister for the next vacant garter
+as expect to wear on your breast such a star as Ethel Newcome.”
+
+Before Clive made his accustomed visit to his friends at the hotel
+opposite, the last great potentiary had arrived who was to take part in
+the family Congress of Baden. In place of Ethel’s flushing cheeks and
+bright eyes, Clive found, on entering Lady Anne Newcome’s sitting-room,
+the parchment-covered features and the well-known hooked beak of the
+old Countess of Kew. To support the glances from beneath the bushy
+black eyebrows on each side of that promontory was no pleasant matter.
+The whole family cowered under Lady Kew’s eyes and nose, and she ruled
+by force of them. It was only Ethel whom these awful features did not
+utterly subdue and dismay.
+
+Besides Lady Kew, Clive had the pleasure of finding his lordship, her
+grandson, Lady Anne and children of various sizes, and Mr. Barnes; not
+one of whom was the person whom Clive desired to behold.
+
+The queer glance in Kew’s eye directed towards Clive, who was himself
+not by any means deficient in perception, informed him that there had
+just been a conversation in which his own name had figured. Having been
+abusing Clive extravagantly as he did whenever he mentioned his
+cousin’s name, Barnes must needs hang his head when the young fellow
+came in. His hand was yet on the chamber-door, and Barnes was calling
+his miscreant and scoundrel within; so no wonder Barnes had a hangdog
+look. But as for Lady Kew, that veteran diplomatist allowed no signs of
+discomfiture, or any other emotion, to display themselves on her
+ancient countenance. Her bushy eyebrows were groves of mystery, her
+unfathomable eyes were wells of gloom.
+
+She gratified Clive by a momentary loan of two knuckly old fingers,
+which he was at liberty to hold or to drop; and then he went on to
+enjoy the felicity of shaking hands with Mr. Barnes, who, observing and
+enjoying his confusion over Lady Kew’s reception, determined to try
+Clive in the same way, and he gave Clive at the same time a
+supercilious “How de dah,” which the other would have liked to drive
+down his throat. A constant desire to throttle Mr. Barnes—to beat him
+on the nose—to send him flying out of window, was a sentiment with
+which this singular young man inspired many persons whom he accosted. A
+biographer ought to be impartial, yet I own, in a modified degree, to
+have partaken of this sentiment. He looked very much younger than his
+actual time of life, and was not of commanding stature; but patronised
+his equals, nay, let us say, his betters, so insufferably, that a
+common wish for his suppression existed amongst many persons in
+society.
+
+Clive told me of this little circumstance, and I am sorry to say of his
+own subsequent ill behaviour. “We were standing apart from the ladies,”
+so Clive narrated, “when Barnes and I had our little passage-of-arms.
+He had tried the finger business upon me before, and I had before told
+him, either to shake hands or to leave it alone. You know the way in
+which the impudent little beggar stands astride, and sticks his little
+feet out. I brought my heel well down on his confounded little
+varnished toe, and gave it a scrunch which made Mr. Barnes shriek out
+one of his loudest oaths.”
+
+“D—— clumsy ——!” screamed out Barnes.
+
+Clive said, in a low voice, “I thought you only swore at women,
+Barnes.”
+
+“It is you that say things before women, Clive,” cries his cousin,
+looking very furious.
+
+Mr. Clive lost all patience. “In what company, Barnes, would you like
+me to say, that I think you are a snob? Will you have it on the Parade?
+Come out and I will speak to you.”
+
+“Barnes can’t go out on the Parade,” cries Lord Kew, bursting out
+laughing: “there’s another gentleman there wanting him.” And two of the
+three young men enjoyed this joke exceedingly. I doubt whether Barnes
+Newcome Newcome, Esq., of Newcome, was one of the persons amused.
+
+“What wickedness are you three boys laughing at?” cries Lady Anne,
+perfectly innocent and good-natured; “no good, I will be bound. Come
+here, Clive.” Our young friend, it must be premised, had no sooner
+received the thrust of Lady Kew’s two fingers on entering, than it had
+been intimated to him that his interview with that gracious lady was at
+an end. For she had instantly called her daughter to her, with whom her
+ladyship fell a-whispering; and then it was that Clive retreated from
+Lady Kew’s hand, to fall into Barnes’s.
+
+“Clive trod on Barnes’s toe,” cries out cheery Lord Kew, “and has hurt
+Barnes’s favourite corn, so that he cannot go out, and is actually
+obliged to keep the room. That’s what we were laughing at.”
+
+“Hem!” growled Lady Kew. She knew to what her grandson alluded. Lord
+Kew had represented Jack Belsize, and his thundering big stick, in the
+most terrific colours to the family council. The joke was too good a
+one not to serve twice.
+
+Lady Anne, in her whispered conversation with the old Countess, had
+possibly deprecated her mother’s anger towards poor Clive, for when he
+came up to the two ladies, the younger took his hand with great
+kindness, and said, “My dear Clive, we are very sorry you are going.
+You were of the greatest use to us on the journey. I am sure you have
+been uncommonly good-natured and obliging, and we shall all miss you
+very much.” Her gentleness smote the generous young fellow, and an
+emotion of gratitude towards her for being so compassionate to him in
+his misery, caused his cheeks to blush and his eyes perhaps to moisten.
+“Thank you, dear aunt,” says he, “you have been very good and kind to
+me. It is I that shall feel lonely; but—but it is quite time that I
+should go to my work.”
+
+“Quite time!” said the severe possessor of the eagle beak. “Baden is a
+bad place for young men. They make acquaintances here of which very
+little good can come. They frequent the gambling-tables, and live with
+the most disreputable French Viscounts. We have heard of your
+goings-on, sir. It is a great pity that Colonel Newcome did not take
+you with him to India.”
+
+“My dear mamma,” cries Lady Anne, “I am sure Clive has been a very good
+boy indeed.” The old lady’s morality put a stop to Clive’s pathetic
+mood, and he replied with a great deal of spirit, “Dear Lady Anne, you
+have been always very good, and kindness is nothing surprising from
+you; but Lady Kew’s advice, which I should not have ventured to ask, is
+an unexpected favour; my father knows the extent of the gambling
+transactions to which your ladyship was pleased to allude, and
+introduced me to the gentleman whose acquaintance you don’t seem to
+think eligible.”
+
+“My good young man, I think it is time you were off,” Lady Kew said,
+this time with great good-humour; she liked Clive’s spirit, and as long
+as he interfered with none of her plans, was quite disposed to be
+friendly with him. “Go to Rome, go to Florence, go wherever you like,
+and study very hard, and make very good pictures, and come back again,
+and we shall all be very glad to see you. You have very great
+talents—these sketches are really capital.”
+
+“Is not he very clever, mamma?” said kind Lady Anne, eagerly. Clive
+felt the pathetic mood coming on again, and an immense desire to hug
+Lady Anne in his arms, and to kiss her. How grateful are we—how touched
+a frank and generous heart is for a kind word extended to us in our
+pain! The pressure of a tender hand nerves a man for an operation, and
+cheers him for the dreadful interview with the surgeon.
+
+That cool old operator, who had taken Mr. Clive’s case in hand, now
+produced her shining knife, and executed the first cut with perfect
+neatness and precision. “We are come here, as I suppose you know, Mr.
+Newcome, upon family matters, and I frankly tell you that I think, for
+your own sake, you would be much better away. I wrote my daughter a
+great scolding when I heard that you were in this place.”
+
+“But it was by the merest chance, mamma, indeed it was,” cries Lady
+Anne.
+
+“Of course, by the merest chance, and by the merest chance I heard of
+it too. A little bird came and told me at Kissingen. You have no more
+sense, Anne, than a goose. I have told you so a hundred times. Lady
+Anne requested you to stay, and I, my good young friend, request you to
+go away.”
+
+“I needed no request,” said Clive. “My going, Lady Kew, is my own act.
+I was going without requiring any guide to show me to the door.”
+
+“No doubt you were, and my arrival is the signal for Mr. Newcome’s _bon
+jour_. I am Bogey, and I frighten everybody away. By the scene which
+you witnessed yesterday, my good young friend, and all that painful
+_esclandre_ on the promenade, you must see how absurd, and dangerous,
+and wicked—yes, wicked it is for parents to allow intimacies to spring
+up between young people, which can only lead to disgrace and
+unhappiness. Lady Dorking was another good-natured goose. I had not
+arrived yesterday ten minutes, when my maid came running in to tell me
+of what had occurred on the promenade; and, tired as I was, I went that
+instant to Jane Dorking and passed the evening with her, and that poor
+little creature to whom Captain Belsize behaved so cruelly. She does
+not care a fig for him—not one fig. Her childish inclination is passed
+away these two years, whilst Mr. Jack was performing his feats in
+prison; and if the wretch flatters himself that it was on his account
+she was agitated yesterday, he is perfectly mistaken, and you may tell
+him Lady Kew said so. She is subject to fainting fits. Dr. Finck has
+been attending her ever since she has been here. She fainted only last
+Tuesday at the sight of a rat walking about their lodgings (they have
+dreadful lodgings, the Dorkings), and no wonder she was frightened at
+the sight of that great coarse tipsy wretch! She is engaged, as you
+know, to your connexion, my grandson, Barnes:—in all respects a most
+eligible union. The rank of life of the parties suits them to one
+another. She is a good young woman, and Barnes has experienced from
+persons of another sort such horrors, that he will know the blessing of
+domestic virtue. It was high time he should. I say all this in perfect
+frankness to you.
+
+“Go back again and play in the garden, little brats” (this to the
+innocents who came frisking in from the lawn in front of the windows).
+“You have been? And Barnes sent you in here? Go up to Miss Quigley. No,
+stop. Go and tell Ethel to come down; bring her down with you. Do you
+understand?”
+
+The unconscious infants toddle upstairs to their sister; and Lady Kew
+blandly says, “Ethel’s engagement to my grandson, Lord Kew, has long
+been settled in our family, though these things are best not talked
+about until they are quite determined, you know, my dear Mr. Newcome.
+When we saw you and your father in London, we heard that you too-that
+you too were engaged to a young lady in your own rank of life, a
+Miss—what was her name?—Miss MacPherson, Miss Mackenzie. Your aunt,
+Mrs. Hobson Newcome, who I must say is a most blundering silly person,
+had set about this story. It appears there is no truth in it. Do not
+look surprised that I know about your affairs. I am an old witch, and
+know numbers of things.”
+
+And, indeed, how Lady Kew came to know this fact, whether her maid
+corresponded with Lady Anne’s maid, what her ladyship’s means of
+information were, avowed or occult, this biographer has never been able
+to ascertain. Very likely Ethel, who in these last three weeks had been
+made aware of that interesting circumstance, had announced it to Lady
+Kew in the course of a cross-examination, and there may have been a
+battle between the granddaughter and the grandmother, of which the
+family chronicler of the Newcomes has had no precise knowledge. That
+there were many such I know—skirmishes, sieges, and general
+engagements. When we hear the guns, and see the wounded, we know there
+has been a fight. Who knows had there been a battle-royal, and was Miss
+Newcome having her wounds dressed upstairs?
+
+“You will like to say good-bye to your cousin, I know,” Lady Kew
+continued, with imperturbable placidity. “Ethel, my dear, here is Mr.
+Clive Newcome, who has come to bid us all good-bye.” The little girls
+came trotting down at this moment, each holding a skirt of their elder
+sister. She looked rather pale, but her expression was haughty—almost
+fierce.
+
+Clive rose up as she entered, from the sofa by the old Countess’s side,
+which place she had pointed him to take during the amputation. He rose
+up and put his hair back off his face, and said very calmly, “Yes, I’m
+come to say good-bye. My holidays are over, and Ridley and I are off
+for Rome; good-bye, and God bless you, Ethel.”
+
+She gave him her hand and said, “Good-bye, Clive,” but her hand did not
+return his pressure, and dropped to her side, when he let it go.
+
+Hearing the words good-bye, little Alice burst into a howl, and little
+Maude, who was an impetuous little thing, stamped her little red shoes
+and said, “It san’t be good-bye. Tlive san’t go.” Alice, roaring, clung
+hold of Clive’s trousers. He took them up gaily, each on an arm, as he
+had done a hundred times, and tossed the children on to his shoulders,
+where they used to like to pull his yellow mustachios. He kissed the
+little hands and faces, and a moment after was gone.
+
+“Qu’as-tu?” says M. de Florac, meeting him going over the bridge to his
+own hotel. “Qu’as-tu, mon petit Claive? Est-ce qu’on vient de
+t’arracher une dent?”
+
+“C’est ça,” says Clive, and walked into the Hôtel de France. “Hulloh!
+J. J.! Ridley!” he sang out. “Order the trap out and let’s be off.” “I
+thought we were not to march till to-morrow,” says J. J., divining
+perhaps that some catastrophe had occurred. Indeed, Mr. Clive was going
+a day sooner than he had intended. He woke at Fribourg the next
+morning. It was the grand old cathedral he looked at, not Baden of the
+pine-clad hills, of the pretty walks and the lime-tree avenues. Not
+Baden, the prettiest booth of all Vanity Fair. The crowds and the
+music, the gambling-tables and the cadaverous croupiers and chinking
+gold, were far out of sight and hearing. There was one window in the
+Hôtel de Hollande that he thought of, how a fair arm used to open it in
+the early morning, how the muslin curtain in the morning air swayed to
+and fro. He would have given how much to see it once more! Walking
+about at Fribourg in the night, away from his companions, he had
+thought of ordering horses, galloping back to Baden, and once again
+under that window, calling Ethel, Ethel. But he came back to his room
+and the quiet J. J., and to poor Jack Belsize, who had had his tooth
+taken out too.
+
+We had almost forgotten Jack, who took a back seat in Clive’s carriage,
+as befits a secondary personage in this history, and Clive in truth had
+almost forgotten him too. But Jack having his own cares and business,
+and having rammed his own carpet-bag, brought it down without a word,
+and Clive found him environed in smoke when he came down to take his
+place in the little britzska. I wonder whether the window at the Hôtel
+de Hollande saw him go? There are some curtains behind which no
+historian, however prying, is allowed to peep.
+
+“Tiens, le petit part,” says Florac of the cigar, who was always
+sauntering. “Yes, we go,” says Clive. “There is a fourth place,
+Viscount; will you come too?”
+
+“I would love it well,” replies Florac, “but I am here in faction. My
+cousin and seigneur M. le Duc d’Ivry is coming all the way from
+Bagneres de Bigorre. He says he counts on me:—affaires mon cher,
+affaires d’etat.”
+
+“How pleased the duchess will be! Easy with that bag!” shouts Clive.
+“How pleased the princess will be!” In truth he hardly knew what he was
+saying.
+
+“Vous croyez; vous croyez,” says M. de Florac. “As you have a fourth
+place, I know who had best take it.”
+
+“And who is that?” asked the young traveller.
+
+Lord Kew and Barnes, Esq., of Newcome, came out of the Hotel de
+Hollande at this moment. Barnes slunk back, seeing Jack Belsize’s hairy
+face. Kew ran over the bridge. “Good-bye, Clive. Good-bye, Jack.”
+“Good-bye, Kew.” It was a great handshake. Away goes the postillion
+blowing his horn, and young Hannibal has left Capua behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+Madame la Duchesse
+
+
+In one of Clive Newcome’s letters from Baden, the young man described
+to me, with considerable humour and numerous illustrations as his wont
+was, a great lady to whom he was presented at that watering-place by
+his friend Lord Kew. Lord Kew had travelled in the East with Monsieur
+le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry—the prince being an old friend of
+his lordship’s family. He is the “Q” of Madame d’Ivry’s book of
+travels, Footprints of the Gazelles, by a daughter of the Crusaders, in
+which she prays so fervently for Lord Kew’s conversion. He is the “Q”
+who rescued the princess from the Arabs, and performed many a feat
+which lives in her glowing pages. He persists in saying that he never
+rescued Madame la Princesse from any Arabs at all, except from one
+beggar who was bawling out for bucksheesh, and whom Kew drove away with
+a stick. They made pilgrimages to all the holy places, and a piteous
+sight it was, said Lord Kew, to see the old prince in the Jerusalem
+processions at Easter pacing with bare feet and a candle. Here Lord Kew
+separated from the prince’s party. His name does not occur in the last
+part of the Footprints; which, in truth, are filled full of strange
+rhapsodies, adventures which nobody was but the princess, and mystic
+disquisitions. She hesitates at nothing, like other poets of her
+nation: not profoundly learned, she invents where she has not acquired:
+mingles together religion and the opera; and performs Parisian
+_pas-de-ballet_ before the gates of monasteries and the cells of
+anchorites. She describes, as if she had herself witnessed the
+catastrophe, the passage of the Red Sea: and, as if there were no doubt
+of the transaction, an unhappy love-affair between Pharaoh’s eldest son
+and Moses’s daughter. At Cairo, _à propos_ of Joseph’s granaries, she
+enters into a furious tirade against Putiphar, whom she paints as an
+old savage, suspicious and a tyrant. They generally have a copy of the
+Footprints of the Gazelles at the Circulating Library at Baden, as
+Madame d’Ivry constantly visits that watering-place. M. le Duc was not
+pleased with the book, which was published entirely without his
+concurrence, and which he described as one of the ten thousand follies
+of Madame la Duchesse.
+
+This nobleman was five-and-forty years older than his duchess. France
+is the country where that sweet Christian institution of _mariages de
+convenance_ (which so many folks of the family about which this story
+treats are engaged in arranging) is most in vogue. There the newspapers
+daily announce that M. de Foy has a bureau de confiance, where families
+may arrange marriages for their sons and daughters in perfect comfort
+and security. It is but a question of money on one side and the other.
+Mademoiselle has so many francs of dot; Monsieur has such and such
+_rentes_ or lands in possession or reversion, an _étude d’avoué_, a
+shop with a certain _clientèle_ bringing him such and such an income,
+which may be doubled by the judicious addition of so much capital, and
+the pretty little matrimonial arrangement is concluded (the agent
+touching his percentage), or broken off, and nobody unhappy, and the
+world none the wiser. The consequences of the system I do not pretend
+personally to know; but if the light literature of a country is a
+reflex of its manners, and French novels are a picture of French life,
+a pretty society must that be into the midst of which the London reader
+may walk in twelve hours from this time of perusal, and from which only
+twenty miles of sea separate us.
+
+When the old Duke d’Ivry, of the ancient ancient nobility of France, an
+emigrant with Artois, a warrior with Conde, an exile during the reign
+of the Corsican usurper, a grand prince, a great nobleman afterwards,
+though shorn of nineteen-twentieths of his wealth by the
+Revolution,—when the Duke d’Ivry lost his two sons, and his son’s son
+likewise died, as if fate had determined to end the direct line of that
+noble house, which had furnished queens to Europe, and renowned chiefs
+to the Crusaders—being of an intrepid spirit, the Duke was ill disposed
+to yield to his redoubtable enemy, in spite of the cruel blows which
+the latter had inflicted upon him, and when he was more than sixty
+years of age, three months before the July Revolution broke out, a
+young lady of a sufficient nobility, a virgin of sixteen, was brought
+out of the convent of the Sacré Cœur at Paris, and married with immense
+splendour and ceremony to this princely widower. The most august names
+signed the book of the civil marriage. Madame la Dauphine and Madame la
+Duchesse de Berri complimented the young bride with royal favours. Her
+portrait by Dubufe was in the Exhibition next year, a charming young
+duchess indeed, with black eyes, and black ringlets, pearls on her
+neck, and diamonds in her hair, as beautiful as a princess of a fairy
+tale. M. d’Ivry, whose early life may have been rather oragious, was
+yet a gentleman perfectly well conserved. Resolute against fate his
+enemy (one would fancy fate was of an aristocratic turn, and took
+especial delight in combats with princely houses; the Atridae, the
+Borbonidae, the Ivrys,—the Browns and Joneses being of no account), the
+prince seemed to be determined not only to secure a progeny, but to
+defy age. At sixty he was still young, or seemed to be so. His hair was
+as black as the princess’s own, his teeth as white. If you saw him on
+the Boulevard de Gand, sunning among the youthful exquisites there, or
+riding _au Bois_, with a grace worthy of old Franconi himself, you
+would take him for one of the young men, of whom indeed up to his
+marriage he retained a number of the graceful follies and amusements,
+though his manners had a dignity acquired in old days of Versailles and
+the Trianon, which the moderns cannot hope to imitate. He was as
+assiduous behind the scenes of the opera as any journalist, or any
+young dandy of twenty years. He “ranged himself,” as the French phrase
+is, shortly before his marriage, just like any other young bachelor:
+took leave of Phryne and Aspasie in the coulisses, and proposed to
+devote himself henceforth to his charming young wife.
+
+The affreux catastrophe of July arrived. The ancient Bourbons were once
+more on the road to exile (save one wily old remnant of the race, who
+rode grinning over the barricades, and distributing poignees de main to
+the stout fists that had pummelled his family out of France). M. le Duc
+d’Ivry, who lost his place at court, his appointments which helped his
+income very much, and his peerage would no more acknowledge the usurper
+of Neuilly, than him of Elba. The ex-peer retired to his _terres_. He
+barricaded his house in Paris against all supporters of the citizen
+king; his nearest kinsman, M. de Florac, among the rest, who for his
+part cheerfully took his oath of fidelity, and his seat in Louis
+Philippe’s house of peers, having indeed been accustomed to swear to
+all dynasties for some years past.
+
+In due time Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry gave birth to a child, a
+daughter, whom her noble father received with but small pleasure. What
+the Duke desired, was an heir to his name, a Prince of Moncontour, to
+fill the place of the sons and grandsons gone before him, to join their
+ancestors in the tomb. No more children, however, blessed the old
+Duke’s union. Madame d’Ivry went the round of all the watering-places:
+pilgrimages were tried: vows and gifts to all saints supposed to be
+favourable to the d’Ivry family, or to families in general:—but the
+saints turned a deaf ear; they were inexorable since the true religion
+and the elder Bourbons were banished from France.
+
+Living by themselves in their ancient castles, or their dreary mansion
+of the Faubourg St. Germain, I suppose the Duke and Duchess grew tried
+of one another, as persons who enter into a _mariage de convenance_
+sometimes, nay, as those who light a flaming love-match, and run away
+with one another, will be found to do. A lady of one-and-twenty, and a
+gentleman of sixty-six, alone in a great castle, have not unfrequently
+a third guest at their table, who comes without a card, and whom they
+cannot shut out, though they keep their doors closed ever so. His name
+is Ennui, and many a long hour and weary night must such folks pass in
+the unbidden society of this Old Man of the Sea; this daily guest at
+the board; this watchful attendant at the fireside; this assiduous
+companion who _will_ walk out with you; this sleepless restless
+bedfellow.
+
+At first, M. d’Ivry, that well-conserved nobleman who never would allow
+that he was not young, exhibited no sign of doubt regarding his own
+youth except an extreme jealousy and avoidance of all other young
+fellows. Very likely Madame la Duchesse may have thought men in general
+dyed their hair, wore stays, and had the rheumatism. Coming out of the
+convent of the Sacré Cœur, how was the innocent young lady to know
+better? You see, in these _mariages de convenance_, though a coronet
+may be convenient to a beautiful young creature, and a beautiful young
+creature may be convenient to an old gentleman, there are articles
+which the marriage-monger cannot make to convene at all: tempers over
+which M. de Foy and his like have no control; and tastes which cannot
+be put into the marriage settlements. So this couple were unhappy, and
+the Duke and Duchess quarrelled with one another like the most vulgar
+pair who ever fought across a table.
+
+In this unhappy state of home affairs, madame took to literature,
+monsieur to politics. She discovered that she was a great unappreciated
+soul, and when a woman finds that treasure in her bosom of course she
+sets her own price on the article. Did you ever see the first poems of
+Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry, Les Cris de l’Ame? She used to read them to
+her very intimate friends, in white, with her hair a good deal down her
+back. They had some success. Dubufe having painted her as a Duchess,
+Scheffer depicted her as a Muse. That was in the third year of her
+marriage, when she rebelled against the Duke her husband, insisted on
+opening her saloons to art and literature, and, a fervent devotee
+still, proposed to unite genius and religion. Poets had interviews with
+her. Musicians came and twanged guitars to her.
+
+Her husband, entering her room, would fall over the sabre and spurs of
+Count Almaviva from the boulevard, or Don Basilio with his great
+sombrero and shoe-buckles. The old gentleman was breathless and
+bewildered in following her through all her vagaries. He was of old
+France, she of new. What did he know of the Ecole Romantique, and these
+_jeunes gens_ with their Marie Tudors and Tours de Nesle, and
+sanguineous histories of queens who sewed their lovers into sacks,
+emperors who had interviews with robber captains in Charlemagne’s tomb,
+Buridans and Hernanis, and stuff? Monsieur le Vicomte de Chateaubriand
+was a man of genius as a writer, certainly immortal; and M. de
+Lamartine was a young man extremely _bien pensant_, but, _ma foi_, give
+him _Crébillon fils_, or a bonne farce of M. Vade to make laugh; for
+the great sentiments, for the beautiful style, give him M. de Lormian
+(although Bonapartist) or the Abbé de Lille. And for the new school!
+bah! these little Dumass, and Hugos, and Mussets, what is all that? “M.
+de Lormian shall be immortal, monsieur,” he would say, “when all these
+_freluquets_ are forgotten.” After his marriage he frequented the
+coulisses of the opera no more; but he was a pretty constant attendant
+at the Théatre Français, where you might hear him snoring over the
+_chefs-d’œuvres_ of French tragedy.
+
+For some little time after 1830, the Duchesse was as great a Carlist as
+her husband could wish; and they conspired together very comfortably at
+first. Of an adventurous turn, eager for excitement of all kinds,
+nothing would have better pleased the Duchesse than to follow MADAME in
+her adventurous courses in La Vendee, disguised as a boy above all. She
+was persuaded to stay at home, however, and aid the good cause at
+Paris; while Monsieur le Duc went off to Brittany to offer his old
+sword to the mother of his king. But MADAME was discovered up the
+chimney at Rennes, and all sorts of things were discovered afterwards.
+The world said that our silly little Duchess of Paris was partly the
+cause of the discovery. Spies were put upon her, and to some people she
+would tell anything. M. le Duc, on paying his annual visit to august
+exiles at Goritz, was very badly received: Madame la Dauphine gave him
+a sermon. He had an awful quarrel with Madame la Duchesse on returning
+to Paris. He provoked Monsieur le Comte Tiercelin, le beau Tiercelin,
+an officer of ordonnance of the Duke of Orleans, into a duel, _à
+propos_ of a cup of coffee in a salon; he actually wounded the beau
+Tiercelin—he sixty-five years of age! his nephew, M. de Florac, was
+loud in praise of his kinsman’s bravery.
+
+That pretty figure and complexion which still appear so captivating in
+M. Dubufe’s portrait of Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry, have long existed—it
+must be owned only in paint. “_Je la préfère à l’huile_,” the Vicomte
+de Florac said of his cousin. “She should get her blushes from Monsieur
+Dubufe—those of her present furnishers are not near so natural.”
+Sometimes the Duchess appeared with these postiches roses, sometimes of
+a mortal paleness. Sometimes she looked plump, on other occasions
+wofully thin. “When she goes into the world,” said the same chronicler,
+“ma cousine surrounds herself with _jupons_—c’est pour défendre sa
+vertu: when she is in a devotional mood, she gives up rouge, roast
+meat, and crinoline, and _fait maigre absolument_.” To spite the Duke
+her husband, she took up with the Vicomte de Florac, and to please
+herself she cast him away. She took his brother, the Abbé de Florac,
+for a director, and presently parted from him. “Mon frère, ce saint
+homme ne parle jamais de Madame la Duchesse, maintenant,” said the
+Vicomte. “She must have confessed to him des choses affreuses—oh,
+oui!—affreuses ma parole d’honneur!”
+
+The Duke d’Ivry being archiroyaliste, Madame la Duchesse must make
+herself ultra-Philippiste. “Oh, oui! tout ce qu’il y a de plus Madame
+Adélaide au monde!” cried Florac. “She raffoles of M. le Régent. She
+used to keep a fast of the day of the supplice of Philippe Egalité,
+Saint and Martyr. I say used, for to make to enrage her husband, and to
+recall the Abbé my brother, did she not advise herself to consult M. le
+Pasteur Grigou, and to attend the preach at his Temple? When this sheep
+had brought her shepherd back, she dismissed the Pasteur Grigou. Then
+she tired of M. l’Abbé again, and my brother is come out from her,
+shaking his good head. Ah! she must have put things into it which
+astonished the good Abbé! You know he has since taken the Dominican
+robe? My word of honour! I believe it was terror of her that drove him
+into a convent. You shall see him at Rome, Clive. Give him news of his
+elder, and tell him this gross prodigal is repenting amongst the swine.
+My word of honour! I desire but the death of Madame la Vicomtesse de
+Florac, to marry and range myself!
+
+“After being Royalist, Philippist, Catholic, Huguenot, Madame d’Ivry
+must take to Pantheism, to bearded philosophers who believe in nothing,
+not even in clean linen, eclecticism, republicanism, what know I? All
+her changes have been chronicled by books of her composition. Les
+Démons, poem Catholic; Charles IX. is the hero and the demons are shot
+for the most part at the catastrophe of St. Bartholomew. My good
+mother, all good Catholic as she is, was startled by the boldness of
+this doctrine. Then there came Une Dragonnade, par Mme. la Duchesse
+d’Ivry, which is all on your side. That was of the time of the Pastor
+Grigou, that one. The last was Les Dieux déchus, poème en 20 chants,
+par Mme. la D—— d’I. Guard yourself well from this Muse! If she takes a
+fancy to you she will never leave you alone. If you see her often, she
+will fancy you are in love with her, and tell her husband. She always
+tells my uncle—afterwards—after she has quarrelled with you and grown
+tired of you! Eh, being in London once, she had the idea to make
+herself a _Quakre;_ wore the costume, consulted a minister of that
+culte, and quarrelled with him as of rule. It appears the Quakers do
+not beat themselves, otherwise my poor uncle must have paid of his
+person.
+
+“The turn of the philosophers then came, the chemists, the natural
+historians, what know I? She made a laboratory in her hotel, and
+rehearsed poisons like Madame de Brinvilliers—she spent hours in the
+Jardin des Plantes. Since she has grown _affreusement maigre_ and wears
+mounting robes, she has taken more than ever to the idea that she
+resembles Mary Queen of Scots. She wears a little frill and a little
+cap. Every man she loves, she says, has come to misfortune. She calls
+her lodgings Lochleven. Eh! I pity the landlord of Lochleven! She calls
+ce gros Blackball, vous savez, that pillar of estaminets, that prince
+of mauvais-ton, her Bothwell; little Mijaud, the poor little pianist,
+she named her Rizzio; young Lord Greenhorn who was here with governor,
+a Monsieur of Oxfort, she christened her Darnley, and the Minister
+Anglican, her John Knox! The poor man was quite enchanted! Beware of
+this haggard siren, my little Clive!—mistrust her dangerous song! Her
+cave is _jonchée_ with the bones of her victims. Be you not one!”
+
+Far from causing Clive to avoid Madame la Duchesse, these cautions very
+likely would have made him only the more eager to make her
+acquaintance, but that a much nobler attraction drew him elsewhere. At
+first, being introduced to Madame d’Ivry’s salon, he was pleased and
+flattered, and behaved himself there merrily and agreeably enough. He
+had not studied Horace Vernet for nothing; he drew a fine picture of
+Kew rescuing her from the Arabs, with a plenty of sabres, pistols,
+burnouses, and dromedaries. He made a pretty sketch of her little girl
+Antoinette, and a wonderful likeness of Miss O’Grady, the little girl’s
+governess, the mother’s dame de compagnie;—Miss O’Grady, with the
+richest Milesian brogue, who had been engaged to give Antoinette the
+pure English accent. But the French lady’s great eyes and painted
+smiles would not bear comparison with Ethel’s natural brightness and
+beauty. Clive, who had been appointed painter in ordinary to the Queen
+of Scots, neglected his business, and went over to the English faction;
+so did one or two more of the Princess’s followers, leaving her Majesty
+by no means well pleased at their desertion.
+
+There had been many quarrels between M. d’Ivry and his next-of-kin.
+Political differences, private differences—a long story. The Duke, who
+had been wild himself, could not pardon the Vicomte de Florac for being
+wild. Efforts at reconciliation had been made which ended
+unsuccessfully. The Vicomte de Florac had been allowed for a brief
+space to be intimate with the chief of his family, and then had been
+dismissed for being too intimate. Right or wrong, the Duke was jealous
+of all young men who approached the Duchesse. “He is suspicious,”
+Madame de Florac indignantly said, “because he remembers: and he thinks
+other men are like himself.” The Vicomte discreetly said, “My cousin
+has paid me the compliment to be jealous of me,” and acquiesced in his
+banishment with a shrug.
+
+During the emigration the old Lord Kew had been very kind to exiles, M.
+d’Ivry amongst the number; and that nobleman was anxious to return to
+all Lord Kew’s family when they came to France the hospitality which he
+had received himself in England. He still remembered or professed to
+remember Lady Kew’s beauty. How many women are there, awful of aspect,
+at present, of whom the same pleasing legend is not narrated! It must
+be true, for do not they themselves confess it? I know of few things
+more remarkable or suggestive of philosophic contemplation than those
+physical changes.
+
+When the old Duke and the old Countess met together and talked
+confidentially, their conversation bloomed into a jargon wonderful to
+hear. Old scandals woke up, old naughtinesses rose out of their graves,
+and danced, and smirked, and gibbered again, like those wicked nuns
+whom Bertram and Robert le Diable evoke from their sepulchres whilst
+the bassoon performs a diabolical incantation. The Brighton Pavilion
+was tenanted; Ranelagh and the Pantheon swarmed with dancers and masks;
+Perdita was found again, and walked a minuet with the Prince of Wales.
+Mrs. Clarke and the Duke of York danced together—a pretty dance. The
+old Duke wore a _jabot_ and _ailes-de-pigeon_, the old Countess a hoop,
+and a cushion on her head. If haply the young folks came in, the elders
+modified their recollections, and Lady Kew brought honest old King
+George and good old ugly Queen Charlotte to the rescue. Her ladyship
+was sister of the Marquis of Steyne: and in some respects resembled
+that lamented nobleman. Their family had relations in France (Lady Kew
+had always a pied-a-terre at Paris, a bitter little scandal-shop, where
+_les bien-pensants_ assembled and retailed the most awful stories
+against the reigning dynasty). It was she who handed over le petit
+Kiou, when quite a boy, to Monsieur and Madame d’Ivry, to be _lancé_
+into Parisian society. He was treated as a son of the family by the
+Duke, one of whose many Christian names, his lordship, Francis George
+Xavier, Earl of Kew and Viscount Walham, bears. If Lady Kew hated any
+one (and she could hate very considerably) she hated her
+daughter-in-law, Walham’s widow, and the Methodists who surrounded her.
+Kew remain among a pack of psalm-singing old women and parsons with his
+mother! Fi donc! Frank was Lady Kew’s boy; she would form him, marry
+him, leave him her money if he married to her liking, and show him
+life. And so she showed it to him.
+
+Have you taken your children to the National Gallery in London, and
+shown them the “Marriage a la Mode?” Was the artist exceeding the
+privilege of his calling in painting the catastrophe in which those
+guilty people all suffer? If this fable were not true, if many and many
+of your young men of pleasure had not acted it, and rued the moral, I
+would tear the page. You know that in our Nursery Tales there is
+commonly a good fairy to counsel, and a bad one to mislead the young
+prince. You perhaps feel that in your own life there is a Good
+Principle imploring you to come into its kind bosom, and a Bad Passion
+which tempts you into its arms. Be of easy minds good-natured people!
+Let us disdain surprises and _coups-de-théâtre_ for once; and tell
+those good souls who are interested about him, that there is a Good
+Spirit coming to the rescue of our young Lord Kew.
+
+Surrounded by her court and royal attendants, La Reine Marie used
+graciously to attend the play-table, where luck occasionally declared
+itself for and against her Majesty. Her appearance used to create not a
+little excitement in the Saloon of Roulette, the game which she
+patronised, it being more “fertile of emotions” than the slower
+trente-et-quarante. She dreamed of numbers, had favourite incantations
+by which to conjure them: noted the figures made by peels of peaches
+and so forth, the numbers of houses, on hackney-coaches—was
+superstitious _comme toutes les rimes poétiques_. She commonly brought
+a beautiful agate bonbonniere full of gold pieces, when she played. It
+was wonderful to see her grimaces: to watch her behaviour: her appeals
+to heaven, her delight and despair. Madame la Baronne de la
+Cruchecassée played on one side of her, Madame la Comtesse de
+Schlangenbad on the other. When she had lost all her money her Majesty
+would condescend to borrow—not from those ladies:—knowing the royal
+peculiarity, they never had any money; they always lost; they swiftly
+pocketed their winnings and never left a mass on the table, or quitted
+it, as courtiers will, when they saw luck was going against their
+sovereign. The officers of her household were Count Punter, a
+Hanoverian, the Cavaliere Spada, Captain Blackball of a mysterious
+English regiment, which might be any one of the hundred and twenty in
+the Army List, and other noblemen and gentlemen, Greeks, Russians, and
+Spaniards. Mr. and Mrs. Jones (of England), who had made the princess’s
+acquaintance at Bagneres (where her lord still remained in the gout)
+and perseveringly followed her all the way to Baden, were dazzled by
+the splendour of the company in which they found themselves. Miss Jones
+wrote such letters to her dearest friend Miss Thompson, Cambridge
+Square, London, as caused that young person to crever with envy. Bob
+Jones, who had grown a pair of mustachios since he left home, began to
+think slightingly of poor little Fanny Thompson, now he had got into
+“the best Continental society.” Might not he quarter a countess’s coat
+on his brougham along with the Jones arms, or, more slap-up still, have
+the two shields painted on the panels with the coronet over? “Do you
+know the princess calls herself the Queen of Scots, and she calls me
+Julian Avenel?” says Jones delighted, to Clive, who wrote me about the
+transmogrification of our schoolfellow, an attorney’s son, whom I
+recollected a snivelling little boy at Grey Friars. “I say, Newcome,
+the princess is going to establish an order,” cried Bob in ecstasy.
+Every one of her aides-de-camp had a bunch of orders at his button,
+excepting, of course, poor Jones.
+
+Like all persons who beheld her, when Miss Newcome and her party made
+their appearance at Baden, Monsieur de Florac was enraptured with her
+beauty. “I speak of it constantly before the Duchesse. I know it
+pleases her,” so the Vicomte said. “You should have seen her looks when
+your friend M. Jones praised Miss Newcome! She ground her teeth with
+fury. Tiens ce petit sournois de Kiou! He always spoke of her as a mere
+sac d’argent that he was about to marry—an ingot of the cité—une fille
+de Lord Maire. Have all English bankers such pearls of daughters? If
+the Vicomtesse de Florac had but quitted the earth, dont elle fait
+l’ornement—I would present myself to the charmante meess and ride a
+steeple-chase with Kiou!” That he should win it the Viscount never
+doubted.
+
+When Lady Anne Newcome first appeared in the ballroom at Baden, Madame
+la Duchesse d’Ivry begged the Earl of Kew (_notre filleul_, she called
+him) to present her to his aunt miladi and her charming daughter. “My
+_filleul_ had not prepared me for so much grace,” she said, turning a
+look towards Lord Kew, which caused his lordship some embarrassment.
+Her kindness and graciousness were extreme. Her caresses and
+compliments never ceased all the evening. She told the mother and the
+daughter too that she had never seen any one so lovely as Ethel.
+Whenever she saw Lady Anne’s children in the walks she ran to them (so
+that Captain Blackball and Count Punter, A.D.C., were amazed at her
+tenderness), she _étouffé’d_ them with kisses. What lilies and roses!
+What lovely little creatures! What companions for her own Antoinette.
+“This is your governess, Miss Quigli; mademoiselle, you must let me
+present you to Miss O’Gredi, your compatriot, and I hope your children
+will be always together.” The Irish Protestant governess scowled at the
+Irish Catholic—there was a Boyne Water between them.
+
+Little Antoinette; a lonely little girl, was glad to find any
+companions. “Mamma kisses me on the promenade,” she told them in her
+artless way. “She never kisses me at home!” One day when Lord Kew with
+Florac and Clive were playing with the children, Antoinette said,
+“Pourquoi ne venez-vous plus chez nous, M. de Kew? And why does mamma
+say you are a _lâche?_ She said so yesterday to ces messieurs. And why
+does mamma say thou art only a vaurien, mon cousin? Thou art always
+very good for me. I love thee better than all those messieurs. Ma tante
+Florac a été bonne pour moi à Paris aussi—Ah! qu’elle a été bonne!”
+
+“C’est que les anges aiment bien les petits chérubins, and my mother is
+an angel, seest thou,” cries Florac, kissing her.
+
+“Thy mother is not dead,” said little Antoinette, “then why dost thou
+cry, my cousin?” And the three spectators were touched by this little
+scene and speech.
+
+Lady Anne Newcome received the caresses and compliments of Madame la
+Duchesse with marked coldness on the part of one commonly so very
+good-natured. Ethel’s instinct told her that there was something wrong
+in this woman, and she shrank from her with haughty reserve. The girl’s
+conduct was not likely to please the French lady, but she never relaxed
+in her smiles and her compliments, her caresses, and her professions of
+admiration. She was present when Clara Pulleyn fell; and, prodigal of
+_câlineries_ and consolation, and shawls and scent-bottles, to the
+unhappy young lady, she would accompany her home. She inquired
+perpetually after the health of _cette pauvre petite Miss Clara_. Oh,
+how she railed against _ces Anglaises_ and their prudery! Can you fancy
+her and her circle, the tea-table set in the twilight that evening, the
+court assembled, Madame de la Cruchecassée and Madame de Schlangenbad;
+and their whiskered humble servants, Baron Punter and Count Spada, and
+Marquis Iago, and Prince Iachimo, and worthy Captain Blackball? Can you
+fancy a moonlight conclave, and ghouls feasting on the fresh corpse of
+a reputation:—the gibes and sarcasms, the laughing and the gnashing of
+teeth? How they tear the dainty limbs, and relish the tender morsels!
+
+“The air of this place is not good for you, believe me, my little Kew;
+it is dangerous. Have pressing affairs in England; let your château
+burn down; or your intendant run away, and pursue him. Partez, mon
+petit Kiou; partez, or evil will come of it.” Such was the advice which
+a friend of Lord Kew gave the young nobleman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+Barnes’s Courtship
+
+
+Ethel had made various attempts to become intimate with her future
+sister-in-law; had walked, and ridden, and talked with Lady Clara
+before Barnes’s arrival. She had come away not very much impressed with
+respect for Lady Clara’s mental powers; indeed, we have said that Miss
+Ethel was rather more prone to attack women than to admire them, and
+was a little hard upon the fashionable young persons of her
+acquaintance and sex. In after life, care and thought subdued her
+pride, and she learned to look at society more good-naturedly; but at
+this time, and for some years after, she was impatient of commonplace
+people, and did not choose to conceal her scorn. Lady Clara was very
+much afraid of her. Those timid little thoughts, which would come out,
+and frisk and gambol with pretty graceful antics, and advance
+confidingly at the sound of Jack Belsize’s jolly voice, and nibble
+crumbs out of his hand, shrank away before Ethel, severe nymph with the
+bright eyes, and hid themselves under the thickets and in the shade.
+Who has not overheard a simple couple of girls, or of lovers possibly,
+pouring out their little hearts, laughing at their own little jokes,
+prattling and prattling away unceasingly, until mamma appears with her
+awful didactic countenance, or the governess with her dry moralities,
+and the colloquy straightway ceases, the laughter stops, the chirp of
+the harmless little birds is hushed. Lady Clara being of a timid
+nature, stood in as much awe of Ethel as of her father and mother;
+whereas her next sister, a brisk young creature of seventeen, who was
+of the order of romps or tomboys, was by no means afraid of Miss
+Newcome, and indeed a much greater favourite with her than her placid
+elder sister.
+
+Young ladies may have been crossed in love, and have had their
+sufferings, their frantic moments of grief and tears, their wakeful
+nights, and so forth; but it is only in very sentimental novels that
+people occupy themselves perpetually with that passion: and, I believe,
+what are called broken hearts are very rare articles indeed. Tom is
+jilted—is for a while in a dreadful state—bores all his male
+acquaintance with his groans and his frenzy—rallies from the
+complaint—eats his dinner very kindly—takes an interest in the next
+turf event, and is found at Newmarket, as usual, bawling out the odds
+which he will give or take. Miss has her paroxysm and recovery—Madame
+Crinoline’s new importations from Paris interest the young creature—she
+deigns to consider whether pink or blue will become her most—she
+conspires with her maid to make the spring morning dresses answer for
+the autumn—she resumes her books, piano, and music (giving up certain
+songs perhaps that she used to sing)—she waltzes with the Captain—gets
+a colour—waltzes longer, better, and ten times quicker than Lucy, who
+is dancing with the Major—replies in an animated manner to the
+Captain’s delightful remarks—takes a little supper—and looks quite
+kindly at him before she pulls up the carriage windows.
+
+Clive may not like his cousin Barnes Newcome, and many other men share
+in that antipathy, but all ladies do not. It is a fact that Barnes,
+when he likes, can make himself a very pleasant fellow. He is
+dreadfully satirical, that is certain; but many persons are amused by
+those dreadful satirical young men: and to hear fun made of our
+neighbours, even of some of our friends, does not make us very angry.
+Barnes is one of the very best waltzers in all society, that is the
+truth; whereas it must be confessed Some One Else was very heavy and
+slow, his great foot always crushing you, and he always begging your
+pardon. Barnes whirls a partner round a room ages after she is ready to
+faint. What wicked fun he makes of other people when he stops! He is
+not handsome, but in his face there is something odd-looking and
+distinguished. It is certain he has beautiful small feet and hands.
+
+He comes every day from the City, drops in, in his quiet unobtrusive
+way, and drinks tea at five o’clock; always brings a budget of the
+funniest stories with him, makes mamma laugh, Clara laugh, Henrietta,
+who is in the schoolroom still, die of laughing. Papa has the highest
+opinion of Mr. Newcome as a man of business: if he had had such a
+friend in early life his affairs would not be where they now are, poor
+dear kind papa! Do they want to go anywhere, is not Mr. Newcome always
+ready? Did he not procure that delightful room for them to witness the
+Lord Mayor’s show; and make Clara die of laughing at those odd City
+people at the Mansion House ball? He is at every party, and never tired
+though he gets up so early: he waltzes with nobody else: he is always
+there to put Lady Clara in the carriage: at the drawing-room he looked
+quite handsome in his uniform of the Newcome Hussars, bottle-green and
+silver lace: he speaks Politics so _exceedingly_ well with papa and
+gentlemen after dinner: he is a sound conservative, full of practical
+good sense and information, with no dangerous new-fangled ideas, such
+as young men have. When poor dear Sir Brian Newcome’s health gives way
+quite, Mr. Newcome will go into Parliament, and then he will resume the
+old barony which has been in abeyance in the family since the reign of
+Richard the Third. They had fallen quite, quite low. Mr. Newcome’s
+grandfather came to London with a satchel on his back, like
+Whittington. Isn’t it romantic?
+
+This process has been going on for months. It is not in one day that
+poor Lady Clara has been made to forget the past, and to lay aside her
+mourning. Day after day, very likely, the undeniable faults and many
+peccadilloes of—of that other person, have been exposed to her. People
+around the young lady may desire to spare her feelings, but can have no
+interest in screening Poor Jack from condign reprobation. A wild
+prodigal—a disgrace to his order—a son of old Highgate’s leading such a
+life, and making such a scandal! Lord Dorking believes Mr. Belsize to
+be an abandoned monster and fiend in human shape; gathers and relates
+all the stories that ever have been told to the young man’s
+disadvantage, and of these be sure there are enough, and speaks of him
+with transports of indignation. At the end of months of unwearied
+courtship, Mr. Barnes Newcome is honestly accepted, and Lady Clara is
+waiting for him at Baden, not unhappy to receive him; when walking on
+the promenade with her father, the ghost of her dead love suddenly
+rises before her, and the young lady faints to the ground.
+
+When Barnes Newcome thinks fit he can be perfectly placable in his
+demeanour and delicate in his conduct. What he said upon this painful
+subject was delivered with the greatest propriety. He did not for one
+moment consider that Lady Clara’s agitation arose from any present
+feeling in Mr. Belsize’s favour, but that she was naturally moved by
+the remembrance of the past, and the sudden appearance which recalled
+it. “And but that a lady’s name should never be made the subject of
+dispute between men,” Newcome said to Lord Dorking, with great dignity,
+“and that Captain Belsize has opportunely quitted the place, I should
+certainly have chastised him. He and another adventurer, against whom I
+have had to warn my own family, have quitted Baden this afternoon. I am
+glad that both are gone, Captain Belsize especially; for my temper, my
+lord, is hot, and I do not think I should have commanded it.”
+
+Lord Kew, when the elder lord informed him of this admirable speech of
+Barnes Newcome’s, upon whose character, prudence, and dignity the Earl
+of Dorking pronounced a fervent eulogium, shook his head gravely, and
+said, “Yes, Barnes was a dead shot, and a most determined fellow:” and
+did not burst out laughing until he and Lord Dorking had parted. Then
+to be sure he took his fill of laughter, he told the story to Ethel, he
+complimented Barnes on his heroic self-denial; the joke of the
+thundering big stick was nothing to it. Barnes Newcome laughed too; he
+had plenty of humour, Barnes. “I think you might have whopped Jack when
+he came out from his interview with the Dorkings,” Kew said: “the poor
+devil was so bewildered and weak, that Alfred might have thrashed him.
+At other times you would find it more difficult, Barnes my man.” Mr. B.
+Newcome resumed his dignity; said a joke was a joke, and there was
+quite enough of this one; which assertion we may be sure he
+conscientiously made.
+
+That meeting and parting between the old lovers passed with a great
+deal of calm and propriety on both sides. Miss’s parents of course were
+present when Jack at their summons waited upon them and their daughter,
+and made his hang-dog bow. My Lord Dorking said (poor Jack in the
+anguish of his heart had poured out the story to Clive Newcome
+afterwards), “Mr. Belsize, I have to apologise for words which I used
+in my heat yesterday, and which I recall and regret, as I am sure you
+do that there should have been any occasion for them.”
+
+Mr. Belsize looking at the carpet said he was very sorry.
+
+Lady Dorking here remarked, that as Captain Belsize was now at Baden,
+he might wish to hear from Lady Clara Pulleyn’s own lips that the
+engagement into which she had entered was formed by herself, certainly
+with the consent and advice of her family. “Is it not so, my dear?”
+
+Lady Clara said, “Yes, mamma,” with a low curtsey.
+
+“We have now to wish you good-bye, Charles Belsize,” said my lord, with
+some feeling. “As your relative, and your father’s old friend, I wish
+you well. I hope your future course in life may not be so unfortunate
+as the past year. I request that we may part friends. Good-bye,
+Charles. Clara, shake hands with Captain Belsize. My Lady Dorking, you
+will please to give Charles your hand. You have known him since he was
+a child; and—and—we are sorry to be obliged to part in this way.” In
+this wise Mr. Jack Belsize’s tooth was finally extracted; and for the
+moment we wish him and his brother-patient a good journey.
+
+Little lynx-eyed Dr. Von Finck, who attends most of the polite company
+at Baden, drove ceaselessly about the place that day, with the _real_
+version of the fainting-fit story, about which we may be sure the
+wicked and malicious, and the uninitiated, had a hundred absurd
+details. Lady Clara ever engaged to Captain Belsize? Fiddle-de-dee!
+Everybody knew the Captain’s affairs, and that he could no more think
+of marrying than flying. Lady Clara faint at seeing him! she fainted
+before he came up; she was always fainting, and had done so thrice in
+the last week to his knowledge. Lord Dorking had a nervous affection of
+his right arm, and was always shaking his stick. He did not say
+Villain, he said William; Captain Belsize’s name is William. It is not
+so in the Peerage? Is he called Jack in the Peerage? Those Peerages are
+always wrong. These candid explanations of course had their effect.
+Wicked tongues were of course instantaneously silent. People were
+entirely satisfied; they always are. The next night being Assembly
+night, Lady Clara appeared at the rooms and danced with Lord Kew and
+Mr. Barnes Newcome. All the society was as gracious and good-humoured
+as possible, and there was no more question of fainting than of burning
+down the Conversation-house. But Madame de Cruchecassée, and Madame de
+Schlangenbad, and those horrid people whom the men speak to, but whom
+the women salute with silent curtseys, persisted in declaring that
+there was no prude like an English prude; and to Dr. Finck’s oaths,
+assertions, explanations, only replied, with a shrug of their bold
+shoulders, “Taisez-vous, Docteur, vous n’êtes qu’une vieille bête.”
+
+Lady Kew was at the rooms, uncommonly gracious. Miss Ethel took a few
+turns of the waltz with Lord Kew, but this nymph looked more _farouche_
+than upon ordinary days. Bob Jones, who admired her hugely, asked leave
+to waltz with her, and entertained her with recollections of Clive
+Newcome at school. He remembered a fight in which Clive had been
+engaged, and recounted that action to Miss Newcome, who seemed to be
+interested. He was pleased to deplore Clive’s fancy for turning artist,
+and that Miss Newcome recommended him to have his likeness taken, for
+she said his appearance was exceedingly picturesque. He was going on
+with further prattle, but she suddenly cut Mr. Jones short, making him
+a bow, and going to sit down by Lady Kew. “And the next day, sir,” said
+Bob, with whom the present writer had the happiness of dining at a mess
+dinner at the Upper Temple, “when I met her on the walk, sir, she cut
+me as dead as a stone. The airs those swells give themselves is enough
+to make any man turn republican.”
+
+Miss Ethel indeed was haughty, very haughty, and of a difficult temper.
+She spared none of her party except her kind mother, to whom Ethel
+always was kind, and her father, whom, since his illnesses, she tended
+with much benevolence and care. But she did battle with Lady Kew
+repeatedly, coming to her Aunt Julia’s rescue, on whom her mother as
+usual exercised her powers of torturing. She made Barnes quail before
+her by the shafts of contempt which she flashed at him; and she did not
+spare Lord Kew, whose good-nature was no shield against her scorn. The
+old queen-mother was fairly afraid of her; she even left off beating
+Lady Julia when Ethel came in, of course taking her revenge in the
+young girl’s absence, but trying in her presence to soothe and please
+her. Against Lord Kew the young girl’s anger was most unjust, and the
+more cruel because the kindly young nobleman never spoke a hard word of
+any one mortal soul, and, carrying no arms, should have been assaulted
+by none. But his very good-nature seemed to make his young opponent
+only the more wrathful; she shot because his honest breast was bare; it
+bled at the wounds which she inflicted. Her relatives looked at her
+surprised at her cruelty, and the young man himself was shocked in his
+dignity and best feelings by his cousin’s wanton ill-humour.
+
+Lady Kew fancied she understood the cause of this peevishness, and
+remonstrated with Miss Ethel. “Shall we write a letter to Lucerne, and
+order Dick Tinto back again?” said her ladyship. “Are you such a fool,
+Ethel, as to be hankering after that young scapegrace, and his yellow
+beard? His drawings are very pretty. Why, I think he might earn a
+couple of hundred a year as a teacher, and nothing would be easier than
+to break your engagement with Kew, and whistle the drawing-master back
+again.”
+
+Ethel took up the whole heap of Clive’s drawings, lighted a taper,
+carried the drawings to the fireplace, and set them in a blaze. “A very
+pretty piece of work,” says Lady Kew, “and which proves satisfactorily
+that you don’t care for the young Clive at all. Have we arranged a
+correspondence? We are cousins, you know; we may write pretty cousinly
+letters to one another.” A month before the old lady would have
+attacked her with other arms than sarcasm, but she was scared now, and
+dared to use no coarser weapons. “Oh!” cried Ethel in a transport,
+“what a life ours is, and how you buy and sell, and haggle over your
+children! It is not Clive I care about, poor boy. Our ways of life are
+separate. I cannot break from my own family, and I know very well how
+you would receive him in it. Had he money, it would be different. You
+would receive him, and welcome him, and hold out your hands to him; but
+he is only a poor painter, and we forsooth are bankers in the City; and
+he comes among us on sufferance, like those concert-singers whom mamma
+treats with so much politeness, and who go down and have supper by
+themselves. Why should they not be as good as we are?”
+
+“M. de C——, my dear, is of a noble family,” interposed Lady Kew; “when
+he has given up singing and made his fortune, no doubt he can go back
+into the world again.”
+
+“Made his fortune, yes,” Ethel continued, “that is the cry. There never
+were, since the world began, people so unblushingly sordid! We own it,
+and are proud of it. We barter rank against money, and money against
+rank, day after day. Why did you marry my father to my mother? Was it
+for his wit? You know he might have been an angel and you would have
+scorned him. Your daughter was bought with papa’s money as surely as
+ever Newcome was. Will there be no day when this mammon-worship will
+cease among us?”
+
+“Not in my time or yours, Ethel,” the elder said, not unkindly; perhaps
+she thought of a day long ago before she was old herself.
+
+“We are sold,” the young girl went on, “we are as much sold as Turkish
+women; the only difference being that our masters may have but one
+Circassian at a time. No, there is no freedom for us. I wear my green
+ticket, and wait till my master comes. But every day as I think of our
+slavery, I revolt against it more. That poor wretch, that poor girl
+whom my brother is to marry, why did she not revolt and fly? I would,
+if I loved a man sufficiently, loved him better than the world, than
+wealth, than rank, than fine houses and titles,—and I feel I love these
+best,—I would give up all to follow him. But what can I be with my name
+and my parents? I belong to the world like all the rest of my family.
+It is you who have bred us up; you who are answerable for us. Why are
+there no convents to which we can fly? You make a fine marriage for me;
+you provide me with a good husband, a kind soul, not very wise, but
+very kind; you make me what you call happy, and I would rather be at
+the plough like the women here.”
+
+“No, you wouldn’t, Ethel,” replies the grandmother, drily. “These are
+the fine speeches of schoolgirls. The showers of rain would spoil your
+complexion—you would be perfectly tired in an hour, and come back to
+luncheon—you belong to your belongings, my dear, and are not better
+than the rest of the world:—very good-looking, as you know perfectly
+well, and not very good-tempered. It is lucky that Kew is. Calm your
+temper, at least before marriage; such a prize does not fall to a
+pretty girl’s lot every day. Why, you sent him away quite seared by
+your cruelty; and if he is not playing at roulette, or at billiards, I
+dare say he is thinking what a little termagant you are, and that he
+had best pause while it is yet time. Before I was married, your poor
+grandfather never knew I had a temper; of after-days I say nothing; but
+trials are good for all of us, and he bore his like an angel.”
+
+Lady Kew, too, on this occasion at least, was admirably good-humoured.
+She also when it was necessary could put a restraint on her temper,
+and, having this match very much at heart, chose to coax and to soothe
+her granddaughter rather than to endeavour to scold and frighten her.
+
+“Why do you desire this marriage so much, grandmamma,” the girl asked.
+“My cousin is not very much in love,—at least I should fancy not,” she
+added, blushing. “I am bound to own Lord Kew is not in the least eager,
+and I think if you were to tell him to wait for five years he would be
+quite willing. Why should you be so very anxious?”
+
+“Why, my dear? Because I think young ladies who want to go and work in
+the fields, should make hay while the sun shines; because I think it is
+high time that Kew should _ranger_ himself; because I am sure he will
+make the best husband, and Ethel the prettiest Countess in England.”
+And the old lady, seldom exhibiting any signs of affection, looked at
+her granddaughter very fondly. From her Ethel looked up into the glass,
+which very likely repeated on its shining face the truth her elder had
+just uttered. Shall we quarrel with the girl for that dazzling
+reflection; for owning that charming truth, and submitting to the
+conscious triumph? Give her her part of vanity, of youth, of desire to
+rule and be admired. Meanwhile Mr. Clive’s drawings have been crackling
+in the fireplace at her feet, and the last spark of that combustion is
+twinkling out unheeded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+Lady Kew at the Congress
+
+
+When Lady Kew heard that Madame d’Ivry was at Baden, and was informed
+at once of the French lady’s graciousness towards the Newcome family,
+and of her fury against Lord Kew, the old Countess gave a loose to that
+energetic temper with which nature had gifted her; a temper which she
+tied up sometimes and kept from barking and biting; but which when
+unmuzzled was an animal of whom all her ladyship’s family had a just
+apprehension. Not one of them but in his or her time had been wounded,
+lacerated, tumbled over, otherwise frightened or injured by this unruly
+brute. The cowards brought it sops and patted it; the prudent gave it a
+clear berth, and walked round so as not to meet it; but woe be to those
+of the family who had to bring the meal, and prepare the litter, and
+(to speak respectfully) share the kennel with Lady Kew’s “Black Dog!”
+Surely a fine furious temper, if accompanied with a certain magnanimity
+and bravery which often go together with it, is one of the most
+precious and fortunate gifts with which a gentleman or lady can be
+endowed. A person always ready to fight is certain of the greatest
+consideration amongst his or her family circle. The lazy grow tired of
+contending with him; the timid coax and flatter him; and as almost
+every one is timid or lazy, a bad-tempered man is sure to have his own
+way. It is he who commands, and all the others obey. If he is a
+gourmand, he has’ what he likes for dinner; and the tastes of all the
+rest are subservient to him. She (we playfully transfer the gender, as
+a bad temper is of both sexes) has the place which she likes best in
+the drawing-room; nor do her parents, nor her brothers and sisters,
+venture to take her favourite chair. If she wants to go to a party,
+mamma will dress herself in spite of her headache; and papa, who hates
+those dreadful soirées, will go upstairs after dinner and put on his
+poor old white neckcloth, though he has been toiling at chambers all
+day, and must be there early in the morning—he will go out with her, we
+say, and stay for the cotillon. If the family are taking their tour in
+the summer, it is she who ordains whither they shall go, and when they
+shall stop. If he comes home late, the dinner is kept for him, and not
+one dares to say a word though ever so hungry. If he is in a good
+humour, how every one frisks about and is happy! How the servants jump
+up at his bell and run to wait upon him! How they sit up patiently, and
+how eagerly they rush out to fetch cabs in the rain! Whereas for you
+and me, who have the tempers of angels, and never were known to be
+angry or to complain, nobody cares whether we are pleased or not. Our
+wives go to the milliners and send us the bill, and we pay it; our John
+finishes reading the newspaper before he answers our bell, and brings
+it to us; our sons loll in the arm-chair which we should like; fill the
+house with their young men, and smoke in the dining-room; our tailors
+fit us badly; our butchers give us the youngest mutton; our tradesmen
+dun us much more quickly than other people’s, because they know we are
+good-natured; and our servants go out whenever they like, and openly
+have their friends to supper in the kitchen. When Lady Kew said _Sic
+volo, sic jubeo_, I promise you few persons of her ladyship’s
+belongings stopped, before they did her biddings, to ask her reasons.
+
+If, which very seldom happens, there are two such imperious and
+domineering spirits in a family, unpleasantries of course will arise
+from their contentions; or, if out of doors the family Bajazet meets
+with some other violent Turk, dreadful battles ensue, all the allies on
+either side are brought in, and the surrounding neighbours perforce
+engaged in the quarrel. This was unluckily the case in the present
+instance. Lady Kew, unaccustomed to have her will questioned at home,
+liked to impose it abroad. She judged the persons around her with great
+freedom of speech. Her opinions were quoted, as people’s sayings will
+be; and if she made bitter speeches, depend on it they lost nothing in
+the carrying. She was furious against Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry, and
+exploded in various companies whenever that lady’s name was mentioned.
+“Why was she not with her husband? Why was the poor old Duke left to
+his gout, and this woman trailing through the country with her vagabond
+court of billiard-markers at her heels? She to call herself Mary Queen
+of Scots, forsooth!—well, she merited the title in some respects,
+though she had not murdered her husband as yet. Ah! I should like to be
+Queen Elizabeth if the Duchess is Queen of Scots!” said the old lady,
+shaking her old fist. And these sentiments being uttered in public,
+upon the promenade, to mutual friends, of course the Duchess had the
+benefit of Lady Kew’s remarks a few minutes after they were uttered;
+and her grace, and the distinguished princes, counts, and noblemen in
+her court, designated as billiard-markers by the old Countess, returned
+the latter’s compliments with pretty speeches of their own. Scandals
+were dug up respecting her ladyship, so old that one would have thought
+them forgotten these forty years,—so old that they happened before most
+of the Newcomes now extant were born, and surely therefore are out of
+the province of this contemporary biography. Lady Kew was indignant
+with her daughter (there were some moments when any conduct of her
+friends did not meet her ladyship’s approbation) even for the scant
+civility with which Lady Anne had received the Duchess’s advances.
+“Leave a card upon her!—yes, send a card by one of your footmen; but go
+in to see her—because she was at the window and saw you drive up.—Are
+you mad, Anne? That was the very reason you should not have come out of
+your carriage. But you are so weak and good-natured, that if a
+highwayman stopped you, you would say, ‘Thank you, sir,’ as you gave
+him your purse: yes, and if Mrs. Macheath called on you afterwards you
+would return the visit!”
+
+Even had these speeches been made _about_ the Duchess, and some of them
+not addressed to her, things might have gone on pretty well. If we
+quarrelled with all the people who abuse us behind our backs, and began
+to tear their eyes out as soon as we set ours on them, what a life it
+would be, and when should we have any quiet? Backbiting is all fair in
+society. Abuse me, and I will abuse you; but let us be friends when we
+meet. Have not we all entered a dozen rooms, and been sure, from the
+countenances of the amiable persons present, that they had been
+discussing our little peculiarities, perhaps as we were on the stairs?
+Was our visit, therefore, the less agreeable? Did we quarrel and say
+hard words to one another’s faces? No—we wait until some of our dear
+friends take their leave, and then comes our turn. My back is at my
+neighbour’s service; as soon as that is turned let him make what faces
+he thinks proper: but when we meet we grin and shake hands like
+well-bred folk, to whom clean linen is not more necessary than a clean
+sweet-looking countenance, and a nicely got-up smile, for company.
+
+Here was Lady Kew’s mistake. She wanted, for some reason, to drive
+Madame d’Ivry out of Baden; and thought there were no better means of
+effecting this object than by using the high hand, and practising those
+frowns upon the Duchess which had scared away so many other persons.
+But the Queen of Scots was resolute, too, and her band of courtiers
+fought stoutly round about her. Some of them could not pay their bills,
+and could not retreat: others had courage, and did not choose to fly.
+Instead of coaxing and soothing Madame d’Ivry, Madame de Kew thought by
+a brisk attack to rout and dislodge her. She began on almost the very
+first occasion when the ladies met. “I was so sorry to hear that
+Monsieur le Duc was ill at Bagneres, Madame la Duchesse,” the old lady
+began on their very first meeting, after the usual salutations had
+taken place.
+
+“Madame la Comtesse is very kind to interest herself in Monsieur
+d’Ivry’s health. Monsieur le Duc at his age is not disposed to travel.
+You, dear miladi, are more happy in being always able to retain the
+_goût des voyages!_”
+
+“I come to my family! my dear Duchess.”
+
+“How charmed they must be to possess you! Miladi Anne, you must be
+inexpressibly consoled by the presence of a mother so tender! Permit me
+to present Madame la Comtesse de la Cruchecassée to Madame la Comtesse
+de Kew. Miladi is sister to that amiable Marquis of Steyne, whom you
+have known, Ambrosine! Madame la Baronne de Schlangenbad, Miladi Kew.
+Do you not see the resemblance to milor? These ladies have enjoyed the
+hospitalities—the splendours of Gaunt House. They were of those famous
+routs of which the charming Mistress Crawley, _la semillante Becki_,
+made part! How sad the Hôtel de Gaunt must be under the present
+circumstances! Have you heard, miladi, of the charming Mistress Becki?
+Monsieur le Duc describes her as the most _spirituelle_ Englishwoman he
+ever met.” The Queen of Scots turns and whispers her lady of honour,
+and shrugs and taps her forehead. Lady Kew knows that Madame d’Ivry
+speaks of her nephew, the present Lord Steyne, who is not in his right
+mind. The Duchess looks round, and sees a friend in the distance whom
+she beckons. “Comtesse, you know already monsieur the Captain
+Blackball? He makes the delight of our society!” A dreadful man with a
+large cigar, a florid waistcoat, and billiards written on his
+countenance, swaggers forward at the Duchess’s summons. The Countess of
+Kew has not gained much by her attack. She has been presented to
+Cruchecassée and Schlangenbad. She sees herself on the eve of becoming
+the acquaintance of Captain Blackball.
+
+“Permit me, Duchess, to choose my _English_ friends at least for
+myself,” says Lady Kew, drumming her foot.
+
+“But, madam, assuredly! You do not love this good Monsieur de
+Blackball? Eh! the English manners are droll, pardon me for saying so.
+It is wonderful how proud you are as a nation, and how ashamed you are
+of your compatriots!”
+
+“There are some persons who are ashamed of nothing, Madame la
+Duchesse,” cries Lady Kew; losing her temper.
+
+“Is that _gracieuseté_ for me? How much goodness! This good Monsieur de
+Blackball is not very well bred; but, for an Englishman, he is not too
+bad. I have met with people who are more ill-bred than Englishmen in my
+travels.”
+
+“And they are?” said Lady Anne, who had been in vain endeavouring to
+put an end to this colloquy.
+
+“Englishwomen, madam! I speak not for you. You are kind; you—you are
+too soft, dear Lady Anne, for a persecutor.”
+
+The counsels of the worldly woman who governed and directed that branch
+of the Newcome family of whom it is our business to speak now for a
+little while, bore other results than those which the elderly lady
+desired and foresaw. Who can foresee everything and always? Not the
+wisest among us. When his Majesty Louis XIV., jockeyed his grandson on
+to the throne of Spain (founding thereby the present revered dynasty of
+that country), did he expect to peril his own, and bring all Europe
+about his royal ears? Could a late King of France, eager for the
+advantageous establishment of one of his darling sons, and anxious to
+procure a beautiful Spanish princess, with a crown and kingdom in
+reversion, for the simple and obedient youth, ever suppose that the
+welfare of his whole august race and reign would be upset by that smart
+speculation? We take only the most noble examples to illustrate the
+conduct of such a noble old personage as her ladyship of Kew, who
+brought a prodigious deal of trouble upon some of the innocent members
+of her family, whom no doubt she thought to better in life by her
+experienced guidance and undoubted worldly wisdom. We may be as deep as
+Jesuits, know the world ever so well, lay the best-ordered plans, and
+the profoundest combinations, and by a certain not unnatural turn of
+fate, we, and our plans and combinations, are sent flying before the
+wind. We may be as wise as Louis Philippe, that many-counselled Ulysses
+whom the respectable world admired so; and after years of patient
+scheming, and prodigies of skill, after coaxing, wheedling, doubling,
+bullying, wisdom, behold yet stronger powers interpose: and schemes,
+and skill and violence, are nought.
+
+Frank and Ethel, Lady Kew’s grandchildren, were both the obedient
+subjects of this ancient despot: this imperious old Louis XIV. in a
+black front and a cap and ribbon, this scheming old Louis Philippe in
+tabinet; but their blood was good and their tempers high; and for all
+her bitting and driving, and the training of her _manége_, the generous
+young colts were hard to break. Ethel, at this time, was especially
+stubborn in training, rebellious to the whip, and wild under harness;
+and the way in which Lady Kew managed her won the admiration of her
+family: for it was a maxim among these folks that no one could manage
+Ethel but Lady Kew. Barnes said no one could manage his sister but his
+grandmother. He couldn’t, that was certain. Mamma never tried, and
+indeed was so good-natured, that rather than ride the filly, she would
+put the saddle on her own back and let the filly ride her; no, there
+was no one but her ladyship capable of managing that girl, Barnes
+owned, who held Lady Kew in much respect and awe. “If the tightest hand
+were not kept on her, there’s no knowing what she mightn’t do,” said
+her brother. “Ethel Newcome, by Jove, is capable of running away with
+the writing-master.”
+
+After poor Jack Belsize’s mishap and departure, Barnes’s own bride
+showed no spirit at all, save one of placid contentment. She came at
+call and instantly, and went through whatever paces her owner demanded
+of her. She laughed whenever need was, simpered and smiled when spoken
+to, danced whenever she was asked; drove out at Barnes’s side in Kew’s
+phaeton, and received him certainly not with warmth, but with
+politeness and welcome. It is difficult to describe the scorn with
+which her sister-in-law regarded her. The sight of the patient timid
+little thing chafed Ethel, who was always more haughty and flighty and
+bold when in Clara’s presence than at any other time. Her ladyship’s
+brother, Captain Lord Viscount Rooster, before mentioned, joined the
+family party at this interesting juncture. My Lord Rooster found
+himself surprised, delighted, subjugated by Miss Newcome, her wit and
+spirit. “By Jove, she is a plucky one,” his lordship exclaimed. “To
+dance with her is the best fun in life. How she pulls all the other
+girls to pieces, by Jove, and how splendidly she chaffs everybody!
+But,” he added with the shrewdness and sense of humour which
+distinguished the young officer, “I’d rather dance with her than marry
+her—by a doosid long score—I don’t envy you that part of the business,
+Kew, my boy.” Lord Kew did not set himself up as a person to be envied.
+He thought his cousin beautiful: and with his grandmother, that she
+would make a very handsome Countess; and he thought the money which
+Lady Kew would give or leave to the young couple a very welcome
+addition to his means.
+
+On the next night, when there was a ball at the room, Miss Ethel chose
+to appear in a toilette the very grandest and finest which she had ever
+assumed, who was ordinarily exceedingly simple in her attire, and
+dressed below the mark of the rest of the world. Her clustering
+ringlets, her shining white shoulders, her splendid raiment (I believe
+indeed it was her court-dress which the young lady assumed) astonished
+all beholders. She _écrasé’d_ all other beauties by her appearance; so
+much so that Madame d’Ivry’s court could not but look, the men in
+admiration, the women in dislike, at this dazzling young creature. None
+of the countesses, duchesses, princesses, Russ, Spanish, Italian, were
+so fine or so handsome. There were some New York ladies at Baden as
+there are everywhere else in Europe now. Not even these were more
+magnificent than Miss Ethel. General Jeremiah J. Bung’s lady owned that
+Miss Newcome was fit to appear in any party in Fourth Avenue. She was
+the only well-dressed English girl Mrs. Bung had seen in Europe. A
+young German Durchlaucht deigned to explain to his aide-de-camp how
+very handsome he thought Miss Newcome. All our acquaintances were of
+one mind. Mr. Jones of England pronounced her stunning; the admirable
+Captain Blackball examined her points with the skill of an amateur, and
+described them with agreeable frankness. Lord Rooster was charmed as he
+surveyed her, and complimented his late companion-in-arms on the
+possession of such a paragon. Only Lord Kew was not delighted—nor did
+Miss Ethel mean that he should be. She looked as splendid as Cinderella
+in the prince’s palace. But what need for all this splendour? this
+wonderful toilette? this dazzling neck and shoulders, whereof the
+brightness and beauty blinded the eyes of lookers-on? She was dressed
+as gaudily as an actress of the Varietes going to a supper at Trois
+Frères. “It was Mademoiselle Mabille en habit de cœur,” Madame d’Ivry
+remarked to Madame Schlangenbad. Barnes, who with his bride-elect for a
+partner made a vis-a-vis for his sister and the admiring Lord Rooster,
+was puzzled likewise by Ethel’s countenance and appearance. Little Lady
+Clara looked like a little schoolgirl dancing before her.
+
+One, two, three, of the attendants of her Majesty the Queen of Scots
+were carried off in the course of the evening by the victorious young
+beauty, whose triumph had the effect, which the headstrong girl perhaps
+herself anticipated, of mortifying the Duchesse d’Ivry, of exasperating
+old Lady Kew, and of annoying the young nobleman to whom Miss Ethel was
+engaged. The girl seemed to take a pleasure in defying all three, a
+something embittered her, alike against her friends and her enemies.
+The old dowager chaffed and vented her wrath upon Lady Anne and Barnes.
+Ethel kept the ball alive by herself almost. She refused to go home,
+declining hints and commands alike. She was engaged for ever so many
+dances more. Not dance with Count Punter? it would be rude to leave him
+after promising him. Not waltz with Captain Blackball? He was not a
+proper partner for her? Why then did Kew know him? Lord Kew walked and
+talked with Captain Blackball every day. Was she to be so proud as not
+to know Lord Kew’s friends? She greeted the Captain with a most
+fascinating smile as he came up whilst the controversy was pending, and
+ended it by whirling round the room in his arms.
+
+Madame d’Ivry viewed with such pleasure as might be expected the
+defection of her adherents, and the triumph of her youthful rival, who
+seemed to grow more beautiful with each waltz, so that the other
+dancers paused to look at her, the men breaking out in enthusiasm, the
+reluctant women being forced to join in the applause. Angry as she was,
+and knowing how Ethel’s conduct angered her grandson, old Lady Kew
+could not help admiring the rebellious beauty, whose girlish spirit was
+more than a match for the imperious dowager’s tough old resolution. As
+for Mr. Barnes’s displeasure, the girl tossed her saucy head, shrugged
+her fair shoulders, and passed on with a scornful laugh. In a word,
+Miss Ethel conducted herself as a most reckless and intrepid young
+flirt, using her eyes with the most consummate effect, chattering with
+astounding gaiety, prodigal of smiles, gracious thanks and killing
+glances. What wicked spirit moved her? Perhaps had she known the
+mischief she was doing, she would have continued it still.
+
+The sight of this wilfulness and levity smote poor Lord Kew’s honest
+heart with cruel pangs of mortification. The easy young nobleman had
+passed many a year of his life in all sorts of wild company. The
+_chaumière_ knew him, and the balls of Parisian actresses, the
+coulisses of the opera at home and abroad. Those pretty heads of ladies
+whom nobody knows, used to nod their shining ringlets at Kew, from
+private boxes at theatres, or dubious Park broughams. He had run the
+career of young men of pleasure, and laughed and feasted with jolly
+prodigals and their company. He was tired of it: perhaps he remembered
+an earlier and purer life, and was sighing to return to it. Living as
+he had done amongst the outcasts, his ideal of domestic virtue was high
+and pure. He chose to believe that good women were entirely good.
+Duplicity he could not understand; ill-temper shocked him: wilfulness
+he seemed to fancy belonged only to the profane and wicked; not to good
+girls, with good mothers, in honest homes. Their nature was to love
+their families; to obey their parents; to tend their poor; to honour
+their husbands; to cherish their children. Ethel’s laugh woke him up
+from one of these simple reveries very likely, and then she swept round
+the ballroom rapidly, to the brazen notes of the orchestra. He never
+offered to dance with her more than once in the evening; went away to
+play, and returned to find her still whirling to the music. Madame
+d’Ivry remarked his tribulation and gloomy face, though she took no
+pleasure at his discomfiture, knowing that Ethel’s behaviour caused it.
+
+In plays and novels, and I dare say in real life too sometimes, when
+the wanton heroine chooses to exert her powers of fascination, and to
+flirt with Sir Harry or the Captain, the hero, in a pique, goes off and
+makes love to somebody else: both acknowledge their folly after a
+while, shake hands, and are reconciled, and the curtain drops, or the
+volume ends. But there are some people too noble and simple for these
+amorous scenes and smirking artifices. When Kew was pleased he laughed,
+when he was grieved he was silent. He did not deign to hide his grief
+or pleasure under disguises. His error, perhaps, was in forgetting that
+Ethel was very young; that her conduct was not design so much as
+girlish mischief and high spirits; and that if young men have their
+frolics, sow their wild oats, and enjoy their pleasure, young women may
+be permitted sometimes their more harmless vagaries of gaiety, and
+sportive outbreaks of wilful humour.
+
+When she consented to go home at length, Lord Kew brought Miss
+Newcome’s little white cloak for her (under the hood of which her
+glossy curls, her blushing cheeks, and bright eyes looked provokingly
+handsome), and encased her in this pretty garment without uttering one
+single word. She made him a saucy curtsey in return for this act of
+politeness, which salutation he received with a grave bow; and then he
+proceeded to cover up old Lady Kew, and to conduct her ladyship to her
+chariot. Miss Ethel chose to be displeased at her cousin’s displeasure.
+What were balls made for but that people should dance? She a flirt? She
+displease Lord Kew? If she chose to dance, she would dance; she had no
+idea of his giving himself airs; besides it was such fun taking away
+the gentlemen of Mary Queen of Scots’ court from her; such capital fun!
+So she went to bed, singing and performing wonderful roulades as she
+lighted her candle and retired to her room. She had had such a jolly
+evening!! such famous fun, and, I dare say (but how shall a novelist
+penetrate these mysteries?), when her chamber door was closed, she
+scolded her maid and was as cross as two sticks. You see there come
+moments of sorrow after the most brilliant victories; and you conquer
+and rout the enemy utterly, and then regret that you fought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+The End of the Congress of Baden
+
+
+Mention has been made of an elderly young person from Ireland, engaged
+by Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry, as companion and teacher of English for
+her little daughter. When Miss O’Grady, as she did some time
+afterwards, quitted Madame d’Ivry’s family, she spoke with great
+freedom regarding the behaviour of that duchess, and recounted horrors
+which she, the latter, had committed. A number of the most terrific
+anecdotes issued from the lips of the indignant Miss, whose volubility
+Lord Kew was obliged to check, not choosing that his countess, with
+whom he was paying a bridal visit to Paris, should hear such dreadful
+legends. It was there that Miss O’Grady, finding herself in misfortune,
+and reading of Lord Kew’s arrival at the Hôtel Bristol, waited upon his
+lordship and the Countess of Kew, begging them to take tickets in a
+raffle for an invaluable ivory writing-desk, sole relic of her former
+prosperity, which she proposed to give her friends the chance of
+acquiring: in fact, Miss O’Grady lived for some years on the produce of
+repeated raffles for this beautiful desk: many religious ladies of the
+Faubourg St. Germain taking an interest in her misfortunes, and
+alleviating them by the simple lottery system. Protestants as well as
+Catholics were permitted to take shares in Miss O’Grady’s raffles; and
+Lord Kew, good-natured then as always, purchased so many tickets, that
+the contrite O’Grady informed him of a transaction which had nearly
+affected his happiness, and in which she took a not very creditable
+share. “Had I known your lordship’s real character,” Miss O’G was
+pleased to say, “no tortures would have induced me to do an act for
+which I have undergone penance. It was that black-hearted woman, my
+lord, who maligned your lordship to me: that woman whom I called friend
+once, but who is the most false, depraved, and dangerous of her sex.”
+In this way do ladies’ companions sometimes speak of ladies when
+quarrels separate them, when confidential attendants are dismissed,
+bearing away family secrets in their minds, and revenge in their
+hearts.
+
+The day after Miss Ethel’s feats at the assembly, old Lady Kew went
+over to advise her granddaughter, and to give her a little timely
+warning about the impropriety of flirtations; above all, with such men
+as are to be found at watering-places, persons who are never seen
+elsewhere in society. “Remark the peculiarities of Kew’s temper, who
+never flies into a passion like you and me, my dear,” said the old lady
+(being determined to be particularly gracious and cautious); “when once
+angry he remains so, and is so obstinate that it is almost impossible
+to coax him into good-humour. It is much better, my love, to be like
+us,” continued the old lady, “to fly out in a rage and have it over;
+but que voulez-vous? such is Frank’s temper, and we must manage him.”
+So she went on, backing her advice by a crowd of examples drawn from
+the family history; showing how Kew was like his grandfather, her own
+poor husband; still more like his late father, Lord Walham; between
+whom and his mother there had been differences, chiefly brought on by
+my Lady Walham, of course, which had ended in the almost total
+estrangement of mother and son. Lady Kew then administered her advice,
+and told her stories with Ethel alone for a listener; and in a most
+edifying manner, she besought Miss Newcome to _ménager_ Lord Kew’s
+susceptibilities, as she valued her own future comfort in life, as well
+as the happiness of a most amiable man, of whom, if properly managed,
+Ethel might make what she pleased. We have said Lady Kew managed
+everybody, and that most of the members of her family allowed
+themselves to be managed by her ladyship.
+
+Ethel, who had permitted her grandmother to continue her sententious
+advice, while she herself sat tapping her feet on the floor, and
+performing the most rapid variations of that air which is called the
+Devil’s Tattoo, burst out, at length, to the elder lady’s surprise,
+with an outbreak of indignation, a flushing face, and a voice quivering
+with anger.
+
+“This most amiable man,” she cried out, “that you design for me, I know
+everything about this most amiable man, and thank you and my family for
+the present you make me! For the past year, what have you been doing?
+Every one of you! my father, my brother, and you yourself, have been
+filling my ears wit cruel reports against a poor boy, whom you chose to
+depict as everything that was dissolute and wicked, when there was
+nothing against him; nothing, but that he was poor. Yes, you yourself,
+grandmamma, have told me many and many a time, that Clive Newcome was
+not a fit companion for us; warned me against his bad courses, and
+painted him as extravagant, unprincipled, I don’t know how bad. How
+bad! I know how good he is; how upright, generous, and truth-telling:
+though there was not a day until lately, that Barnes did not make some
+wicked story against him,—Barnes, who, I believe, is bad himself,
+like—like other young men. Yes, I am sure there was something about
+Barnes in that newspaper which my father took away from me. And you
+come, and you lift up your hands, and shake your head, because I dance
+with one gentleman or another. You tell me I am wrong; mamma has told
+me so this morning. Barnes, of course, has told me so, and you bring me
+Frank as a pattern, and tell me to love and honour and obey _him!_ Look
+here,” and she drew out a paper and put it into Lady Kew’s hands. “Here
+is Kew’s history, and I believe it is true; yes, I am sure it is true.”
+
+The old dowager lifted her eyeglass to her black eyebrow, and read a
+paper written in English, and bearing no signature, in which many
+circumstances of Lord Kew’s life were narrated for poor Ethel’s
+benefit. It was not a worse life than that of a thousand young men of
+pleasure, but there were Kew’s many misdeeds set down in order: such a
+catalogue as we laugh at when Leporello trolls it, and sings his
+master’s victories in France, Italy, and Spain. Madame d’Ivry’s name
+was not mentioned in this list, and Lady Kew felt sure that the outrage
+came from her.
+
+With real ardour Lady Kew sought to defend her grandson from some of
+the attacks here made against him; and showed Ethel that the person who
+could use such means of calumniating him, would not scruple to resort
+to falsehood in order to effect her purpose.
+
+“Her purpose!” cries Ethel. “How do you know it is a woman?” Lady Kew
+lapsed into generalities. She thought the handwriting was a woman’s—at
+least it was not likely that a man should think of addressing an
+anonymous letter to a young lady, and so wreaking his hatred upon Lord
+Kew. “Besides, Frank has had no rivals—except—except one young
+gentleman who has carried his paint-boxes to Italy,” says Lady Kew.
+“You don’t think your dear Colonel’s son would leave such a piece of
+mischief behind him? You must act, my dear,” continued her ladyship,
+“as if this letter had never been written at all; the person who wrote
+it no doubt will watch you. Of course we are too proud to allow him to
+see that we are wounded; and pray, pray do not think of letting poor
+Frank know a word about this horrid transaction.”
+
+“Then the letter is true?” burst out Ethel. “You know it is true,
+grandmamma, and that is why you would have me keep it a secret from my
+cousin; besides,” she added, with a little hesitation, “your caution
+comes too late, Lord Kew has seen the letter.”
+
+“You fool!” screamed the old lady, “you were not so mad as to show it
+to him?”
+
+“I am sure the letter is true,” Ethel said, rising up very haughtily.
+“It is not by calling me bad names that your ladyship will disprove it.
+Keep them, if you please, for my Aunt Julia; she is sick and weak, and
+can’t defend herself. I do not choose to bear abuse from you, or
+lectures from Lord Kew. He happened to be here a short while since,
+when the letter arrived. He had been good enough to come to preach me a
+sermon on his own account. He to find fault with my actions!” cried
+Miss Ethel, quivering with wrath and clenching the luckless paper in
+her hand. “He to accuse me of levity, and to warn me against making
+improper acquaintances! He began his lectures too soon. I am not a
+lawful slave yet, and prefer to remain unmolested, at least as long as
+I am free.”
+
+“And you told Frank all this, Miss Newcome, and you showed him that
+letter?” said the old lady.
+
+“The letter was actually brought to me whilst his lordship was in the
+midst of his sermon,” Ethel replied. “I read it as he was making his
+speech,” she continued, gathering anger and scorn as she recalled the
+circumstances of the interview. “He was perfectly polite in his
+language. He did not call me a fool or use a single other bad name. He
+was good enough to advise me and to make such virtuous pretty speeches,
+that if he had been a bishop he could not have spoken better; and as I
+thought the letter was a nice commentary on his lordship’s sermon, I
+gave it to him. I gave it to him,” cried the young woman, “and much
+good may it do him. I don’t think my Lord Kew will preach to me again
+for some time.”
+
+“I don’t think he will indeed,” said Lady Kew, in a hard dry voice.
+“You don’t know what you may have done. Will you be pleased to ring the
+bell and order my carriage? I congratulate you on having performed a
+most charming morning’s work.”
+
+Ethel made her grandmother a very stately curtsey. I pity Lady Julia’s
+condition when her mother reached home.
+
+All who know Lord Kew may be pretty sure that in that unlucky interview
+with Ethel, to which the young lady has alluded, he just said no single
+word to her that was not kind, and just, and gentle. Considering the
+relation between them, he thought himself justified in remonstrating
+with her as to the conduct which she chose to pursue, and in warning
+her against acquaintances of whom his own experience had taught him the
+dangerous character. He knew Madame d’Ivry and her friends so well that
+he would not have his wife-elect a member of their circle. He could not
+tell Ethel what he knew of those women and their history. She chose not
+to understand his hints—did not, very likely, comprehend them. She was
+quite young, and the stories of such lives as theirs had never been
+told before her. She was indignant at the surveillance which Lord Kew
+exerted over her, and the authority which he began to assume. At
+another moment and in a better frame of mind she would have been
+thankful for his care, and very soon and ever after she did justice to
+his many admirable qualities—his frankness, honesty, and sweet temper.
+Only her high spirit was in perpetual revolt at this time against the
+bondage in which her family strove to keep her. The very worldly
+advantages of the position which they offered her served but to chafe
+her the more. Had her proposed husband been a young prince with a crown
+to lay at her feet, she had been yet more indignant very likely, and
+more rebellious. Had Kew’s younger brother been her suitor, or Kew in
+his place, she had been not unwilling to follow her parents’ wishes.
+Hence the revolt in which she was engaged—the wayward freaks and
+outbreaks her haughty temper indulged in. No doubt she saw the justice
+of Lord Kew’s reproofs. That self-consciousness was not likely to add
+to her good-humour. No doubt she was sorry for having shown Lord Kew
+the letter the moment after she had done that act, of which the poor
+young lady could not calculate the consequences that were now to ensue.
+
+Lord Kew, on glancing over the letter, at once divined the quarter
+whence it came. The portrait drawn of him was not unlike, as our
+characters described by those who hate us are not unlike. He had passed
+a reckless youth; indeed he was sad and ashamed of that past life,
+longed like the poor prodigal to return to better courses, and had
+embraced eagerly the chance afforded him of a union with a woman young,
+virtuous, and beautiful, against whom and against heaven he hoped to
+sin no more. If we have told or hinted at more of his story than will
+please the ear of modern conventionalism, I beseech the reader to
+believe that the writer’s purpose at least is not dishonest, nor
+unkindly. The young gentleman hung his head with sorrow over that sad
+detail of his life and its follies. What would he have given to be able
+to say to Ethel, “This is not true.”
+
+His reproaches to Miss Newcome of course were at once stopped by this
+terrible assault on himself. The letter had been put in the Baden
+post-box, and so had come to its destination. It was in a disguised
+handwriting. Lord Kew could form no idea even of the sex of the scribe.
+He put the envelope in his pocket, when Ethel’s back was turned. He
+examined the paper when he left her. He could make little of the
+superscription or of the wafer which had served to close the note. He
+did not choose to caution Ethel as to whether she should burn the
+letter or divulge it to her friends. He took his share of the pain, as
+a boy at school takes his flogging, stoutly and in silence.
+
+When he saw Ethel again, which he did in an hour’s time, the generous
+young gentleman held his hand out to her. “My dear,” he said, “if you
+had loved me you never would have shown me that letter.” It was his
+only reproof. After that he never again reproved or advised her.
+
+Ethel blushed. “You are very brave and generous, Frank,” said, bending
+her head, “and I am captious and wicked.” He felt the hot tear blotting
+on his hand from his cousin’s downcast eyes.
+
+He kissed her little hand. Lady Anne, who was in the room with her
+children when these few words passed between the two in a very low
+tone, thought it was a reconciliation. Ethel knew it was a renunciation
+on Kew’s part—she never liked him so much as at that moment. The young
+man was too modest and simple to guess himself what the girl’s feelings
+were. Could he have told them, his fate and hers might have been
+changed.
+
+“You must not allow our kind letter-writing friend,” Lord Kew
+continued, “to fancy we are hurt. We must walk out this afternoon, and
+we must appear very good friends.”
+
+“Yes, always, Kew,” said Ethel, holding out her hand again. The next
+minute her cousin was at the table carving roast-fowls, and
+distributing the portions to the hungry children.
+
+The assembly of the previous evening had been one of those which the
+_fermier des jeux_ at Baden beneficently provides for the frequenters
+of the place, and now was to come off a much more brilliant
+entertainment, in which poor Clive, who is far into Switzerland by this
+time, was to have taken a share. The Bachelors had agreed to give a
+ball, one of the last entertainments of the season: a dozen or more of
+them had subscribed the funds, and we may be sure Lord Kew’s name was
+at the head of the list, as it was of any list, of any scheme, whether
+of charity or fun. The English were invited, and the Russians were
+invited; the Spaniards and Italians, Poles, Prussians, and Hebrews; all
+the motley frequenters of the place, and the warriors in the Duke of
+Baden’s army. Unlimited supper was set in the restaurant. The
+dancing-room glittered with extra lights, and a profusion of cut-paper
+flowers decorated the festive scene. Everybody was present, those
+crowds with whom our story has nothing to do, and those two or three
+groups of persons who enact minor or greater parts in it. Madame d’Ivry
+came in a dress of stupendous splendour, even more brilliant than that
+in which Miss Ethel had figured at the last assembly. If the Duchess
+intended to _écraser_ Miss Newcome by the superior magnificence of her
+toilet, she was disappointed. Miss Newcome wore a plain white frock on
+the occasion, and resumed, Madame d’Ivry said, her _rôle_ of _ingenue_
+for that night.
+
+During the brief season in which gentlemen enjoyed the favour of Mary
+Queen of Scots, that wandering sovereign led them through all the paces
+and vagaries of a regular passion. As in a fair, where time is short
+and pleasures numerous, the master of the theatrical booth shows you a
+tragedy, a farce, and a pantomime, all in a quarter of an hour, having
+a dozen new audiences to witness his entertainments in the course of
+the forenoon; so this lady with her platonic lovers went through the
+complete dramatic course,—tragedies of jealousy, pantomimes of rapture,
+and farces of parting. There were billets on one side and the other;
+hints of a fatal destiny, and a ruthless, lynx-eyed tyrant, who held a
+demoniac grasp over the Duchess by means of certain secrets which he
+knew: there were regrets that we had not known each other sooner: why
+were we brought out of our convent and sacrificed to Monsieur le Duc?
+There were frolic interchanges of fancy and poesy: pretty _bouderies;_
+sweet reconciliations; yawns finally—and separation. Adolphe went out
+and Alphonse came in. It was the new audience; for which the bell rang,
+the band played, and the curtain rose; and the tragedy, comedy, and
+farce were repeated.
+
+Those Greenwich performers who appear in the theatrical pieces
+above-mentioned, make a great deal more noise than your stationary
+tragedians; and if they have to denounce a villain, to declare a
+passion, or to threaten an enemy, they roar, stamp, shake their fists,
+and brandish their sabres, so that every man who sees the play has
+surely a full pennyworth for his penny. Thus Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry
+perhaps a little exaggerated her heroines’ parts liking to strike her
+audiences quickly, and also to change them often. Like good performers,
+she flung herself heart and soul into the business of the stage, and
+was what she acted. She was Phedre, and if in the first part of the
+play she was uncommonly tender to Hippolyte, in the second she hated
+him furiously. She was Medea, and if Jason was _volage_, woe to Creusa!
+Perhaps our poor Lord Kew had taken the first character in a
+performance with Madame d’Ivry; for his behaviour in which part it was
+difficult enough to forgive him; but when he appeared at Baden the
+affianced husband of one of the most beautiful young creatures in
+Europe,—when his relatives scorned Madame d’Ivry,—no wonder she was
+maddened and enraged, and would have recourse to revenge, steel,
+poison.
+
+There was in the Duchess’s court a young fellow from the South of
+France, whose friends had sent him to _faire son droit_ at Paris, where
+he had gone through the usual course of pleasure and studies of the
+young inhabitants of the Latin Quarter. He had at one time exalted
+republican opinions, and had fired his shot with distinction at St.
+Méri. He was a poet of some little note—a book of his lyrics, Les Râles
+d’un Asphyxié, having made a sensation at the time of their appearance.
+He drank great quantities of absinthe of a morning; smoked incessantly;
+played roulette whenever he could get a few pieces; contributed to a
+small journal, and was especially great in his hatred of _l’infame
+Angleterre. Delenda est Carthago_ was tattooed beneath his
+shirt-sleeves. Fifine and Clarisse, young milliners of the students’
+district, had punctured this terrible motto on his manly right arm. _Le
+léopard_, emblem of England, was his aversion; he shook his fist at the
+caged monster in the Garden of Plants. He desired to have “Here lies an
+enemy of England” engraved upon his early tomb. He was skilled at
+billiards and dominoes, adroit in the use of arms, of unquestionable
+courage and fierceness. Mr. Jones of England was afraid of M. de
+Castillonnes, and cowered before his scowls and sarcasms. Captain
+Blackball, the other English aide-de-camp of the Duchesse d’Ivry, a
+warrior of undoubted courage, who had been “on the ground” more than
+once, gave him a wide berth, and wondered what the little beggar meant
+when he used to say, “Since the days of the Prince Noir, monsieur, my
+family has been at feud with l’Angleterre!” His family were grocers at
+Bordeaux, and his father’s name was M. Cabasse. He had married a noble
+in the revolutionary times; and the son at Paris called himself Victor
+Cabasse de Castillonnes; then Victor C. de Castillonnes; then M. de
+Castillonnes. One of the followers of the Black Prince had insulted a
+lady of the house of Castillonnes, when the English were lords of
+Guienne; hence our friend’s wrath against the Leopard. He had written,
+and afterwards dramatised a terrific legend describing the
+circumstances, and the punishment of the Briton by a knight of the
+Castillonnes family. A more awful coward never existed in a melodrama
+than that felon English knight. His _blanche-fille_, of course, died of
+hopeless love for the conquering Frenchman, her father’s murderer. The
+paper in which the feuilleton appeared died at the sixth number of the
+story. The theatre of the Boulevard refused the drama; so the author’s
+rage against _l’infame Albion_ was yet unappeased. On beholding Miss
+Newcome, Victor had fancied a resemblance between her and Agnes de
+Calverley, the blanche Miss of his novel and drama, and cast an eye of
+favour upon the young creature. He even composed verses in her honour
+(for I presume that the “Miss Betti” and the Princess Crimhilde of the
+poems which he subsequently published, were no other than Miss Newcome,
+and the Duchess, her rival). He had been one of the lucky gentlemen who
+had danced with Ethel on the previous evening. On the occasion of the
+ball, he came to her with a highflown compliment, and a request to be
+once more allowed to waltz with her—a request to which he expected a
+favourable answer, thinking, no doubt, that his wit, his powers of
+conversation, and the _amour qui flambait dans son regard_, had had
+their effect upon the charming Meess. Perhaps he had a copy of the very
+verses in his breast-pocket, with which he intended to complete his
+work of fascination. For her sake alone, he had been heard to say that
+he would enter into a truce with England, and forget the hereditary
+wrongs of his race.
+
+But the blanche Miss on this evening declined to waltz with him. His
+compliments were not of the least avail. He retired with them and his
+unuttered verses in his crumpled bosom. Miss Newcome only danced in one
+quadrille with Lord Kew, and left the party quite early, to the despair
+of many of the bachelors, who lost the fairest ornament of their ball.
+
+Lord Kew, however, had been seen walking with her in public, and
+particularly attentive to her during her brief appearance in the
+ballroom; and the old Dowager, who regularly attended all places of
+amusement, and was at twenty parties and six dinners the week before
+she died, thought fit to be particularly gracious to Madame d’Ivry upon
+this evening, and, far from shunning the Duchesse’s presence or being
+rude to her, as on former occasions, was entirely smiling and
+good-humoured. Lady Kew, too, thought there had been a reconciliation
+between Ethel and her cousin. Lady Anne had given her mother some
+account of the handshaking. Kew’s walk with Ethel, the quadrille which
+she had danced with him alone, induced the elder lady to believe that
+matters had been made up between the young people.
+
+So, by way of showing the Duchesse that her little shot of the morning
+had failed in its effect, as Frank left the room with his cousin, Lady
+Kew gaily hinted, “that the young earl was aux petits soins with Miss
+Ethel; that she was sure her old friend, the Duc d’Ivry, would be glad
+to hear that his godson was about to range himself. He would settle
+down on his estates. He would attend to his duties as an English peer
+and a country gentleman. We shall go home,” says the benevolent
+Countess, “and kill the veau gras, and you shall see our dear prodigal
+will become a very quiet gentleman.”
+
+The Duchesse said, “my Lady Kew’s plan was most edifying. She was
+charmed to hear that Lady Kew loved veal; there were some who thought
+that meat rather insipid.” A waltzer came to claim her hand at this
+moment; and as she twirled round the room upon that gentleman’s arm,
+wafting odours as she moved, her pink silks, pink feathers, pink
+ribands, making a mighty rustling, the Countess of Kew had the
+satisfaction of thinking that she had planted an arrow in that
+shrivelled little waist, which Count Punter’s arms embraced, and had
+returned the stab which Madame d’Ivry had delivered in the morning.
+
+Mr. Barnes, and his elect bride, had also appeared, danced, and
+disappeared. Lady Kew soon followed her young ones; and the ball went
+on very gaily, in spite of the absence of these respectable personages.
+
+Being one of the managers of the entertainment, Lord Kew returned to it
+after conducting Lady Anne and her daughter to their carriage, and now
+danced with great vigour, and with his usual kindness, selecting those
+ladies whom other waltzers rejected because they were too old, or too
+plain, or too stout, or what not. But he did not ask Madame d’Ivry to
+dance. He could condescend to dissemble so far as to hide the pain
+which he felt; but did not care to engage in that more advanced
+hypocrisy of friendship, which for her part, his old grandmother had
+not shown the least scruple in assuming.
+
+Amongst other partners, my lord selected that intrepid waltzer, the
+Gräfinn von Gumpelheim, who, in spite of her age, size, and large
+family, never lost a chance of enjoying her favourite recreation. “Look
+with what a camel my lord waltzes,” said M. Victor to Madame d’Ivry,
+whose slim waist he had the honour of embracing to the same music.
+“What man but an Englishman would ever select such a dromedary?”
+
+“Avant de se marier,” said Madame d’Ivry, “il faut avouer que my lord
+se permet d’enormes distractions.”
+
+“My lord marries himself! And when and whom?” cried the Duchesse’s
+partner.
+
+“Miss Newcome. Do not you approve of his choice? I thought the eyes of
+Stenio” (the Duchess called M. Victor, Stenio) “looked with some favour
+upon that little person. She is handsome, even very handsome. Is it not
+so often in life, Stenio? Are not youth and innocence (I give Miss
+Ethel the compliment of her innocence, now surtout that the little
+painter is dismissed)—are we not cast into the arms of jaded roues?
+Tender young flowers, are we not torn from our convent gardens, and
+flung into a world of which the air poisons our pure life, and withers
+the sainted buds of hope and love and faith? Faith! The mocking world
+tramples on it, n’est-ce pas? Love! The brutal world strangles the
+heaven-born infant at its birth. Hope! It smiled at me in my little
+convent chamber, played among the flowers which I cherished, warbled
+with the birds that I loved. But it quitted me at the door of the
+world, Stenio. It folded its white wings and veiled its radiant face!
+In return for my young love, they gave me—sixty years, the dregs of a
+selfish heart, egotism cowering over its fire, and cold for all its
+mantle of ermine! In place of the sweet flowers of my young years, they
+gave me these, Stenio!” and she pointed to her feathers and her
+artificial roses. “Oh, I should like to crush them under my feet!” and
+she put out the neatest little slipper. The Duchesse was great upon her
+wrongs, and paraded her blighted innocence to every one who would feel
+interested by that piteous spectacle. The music here burst out more
+swiftly and melodiously than before; the pretty little feet forgot
+their desire to trample upon the world. She shrugged the lean little
+shoulders—“Eh!” said the Queen of Scots, “dansons et oublions;” and
+Stenio’s arm once more surrounded her fairy waist (she called herself a
+fairy; other ladies called her a skeleton); and they whirled away in
+the waltz again and presently she and Stenio came bumping up against
+the stalwart Lord Kew and the ponderous Madame de Gumpelheim, as a
+wherry dashes against the oaken ribs of a steamer.
+
+The little couple did not fall; they were struck on to a neighbouring
+bench, luckily: but there was a laugh at the expense of Stenio and the
+Queen of Scots—and Lord Kew, settling his panting partner on to a seat,
+came up to make excuses for his awkwardness to the lady who had been
+its victim. At the laugh produced by the catastrophe, the Duchesse’s
+eyes gleamed with anger.
+
+“M. de Castillonnes,” she said to her partner, “have you had any
+quarrel with that Englishman?”
+
+“With ce milor? But no,” said Stenio.
+
+“He did it on purpose. There has been no day but his family has
+insulted me!” hissed out the Duchesse, and at this moment Lord Kew came
+up to make his apologies. He asked a thousand pardons of Madame la
+Duchesse for being so maladroit.
+
+“Maladroit! et tres maladroit, monsieur,” says Stenio, curling his
+moustache; “c’est bien le mot, monsieur!
+
+“Also, I make my excuses to Madame la Duchesse, which I hope she will
+receive,” said Lord Kew. The Duchesse shrugged her shoulders and sunk
+her head.
+
+“When one does not know how to dance, one ought not to dance,”
+continued the Duchesse’s knight.
+
+“Monsieur is very good to give me lessons in dancing,” said Lord Kew.
+
+“Any lessons which you please, milor!” cries Stenio; “and everywhere
+where you will them.”
+
+Lord Kew looked at the little man with surprise. He could not
+understand so much anger for so trifling an accident, which happens a
+dozen times in every crowded ball. He again bowed to the Duchesse, and
+walked away.
+
+“This is your Englishman—your Kew, whom you vaunt everywhere,” said
+Stenio to M. de Florac, who was standing by and witnessed the scene.
+“Is he simply bête, or is he poltroon as well? I believe him to be
+both.”
+
+“Silence, Victor!” cried Florac, seizing his arm, and drawing him away.
+“You know me, and that I am neither one or the other. Believe my word,
+that my Lord Kew wants neither courage nor wit!”
+
+“Will you be my witness, Florac?” continues the other.
+
+“To take him your excuses? yes. It is you who have insulted—”
+
+“Yes, parbleu, I have insulted!” says the Gascon.
+
+“—A man who never willingly offended soul alive. A man full of heart:
+the most frank: the most loyal. I have seen him put to the proof, and
+believe me he is all I say.”
+
+“Eh! so much the better for me!” cried the Southron. “I shall have the
+honour of meeting a gallant man: and there will be two on the field.”
+
+“They are making a tool of you, my poor Gascon,” said M. de Florac, who
+saw Madame d’Ivry’s eyes watching the couple. She presently took the
+arm of the noble Count de Punter, and went for fresh air into the
+adjoining apartment, where play was going on as usual; and Lord Kew and
+his friend Lord Rooster were pacing the room apart from the gamblers.
+
+My Lord Rooster, at something which Kew said, looked puzzled, and said,
+“Pooh, stuff, damned little Frenchman! Confounded nonsense!”
+
+“I was searching you, milor!” said Madame d’Ivry, in a most winning
+tone, tripping behind him with her noiseless little feet. “Allow me a
+little word. Your arm! You used to give it me once, mon filleul! I hope
+you think nothing of the rudeness of M. de Castillonnes; he is a
+foolish Gascon: he must have been too often to the buffet this
+evening.”
+
+Lord Kew said, No, indeed, he thought nothing of de Castillonnes’
+rudeness.
+
+“I am so glad! These heroes of the salle-d’armes have not the commonest
+manners. These Gascons are always flamberge au vent. What would the
+charming Miss Ethel say, if she heard of the dispute?”
+
+“Indeed there is no reason why she should hear of it,” said Lord Kew,
+“unless some obliging friend should communicate it to her.”
+
+“Communicate it to her—the poor dear! who would be so cruel as to give
+her pain?” asked the innocent Duchesse. “Why do you look at me so,
+Frank?”
+
+“Because I admire you,” said her interlocutor, with a bow. “I have
+never seen Madame la Duchesse to such advantage as to-day.”
+
+“You speak in enigmas! Come back with me to the ballroom. Come and
+dance with me once more. You used to dance with me. Let us have one
+waltz more, Kew. And then, and then, in a day or two I shall go back to
+Monsieur le Duc, and tell him that his filleul is going to marry the
+fairest of all Englishwomen and to turn hermit in the country, and
+orator in the Chamber of Peers. You have wit! ah si—you have wit!” And
+she led back Lord Kew, rather amazed himself at what he was doing, into
+the ballroom; so that the good-natured people who were there, and who
+beheld them dancing, could not refrain from clapping their hands at the
+sight of this couple.
+
+The Duchess danced as if she was bitten by that Neapolitan spider
+which, according to the legend, is such a wonderful dance-incentor. She
+would have the music quicker and quicker. She sank on Kew’s arm, and
+clung on his support. She poured out all the light of her languishing
+eyes into his face. Their glances rather confused than charmed him. But
+the bystanders were pleased; they thought it so good-hearted of the
+Duchesse, after the little quarrel, to make a public avowal of
+reconciliation!
+
+Lord Rooster looking on, at the entrance of the dancing-room, over
+Monsieur de Florac’s shoulder, said, “It’s all right! She’s a clipper
+to dance, the little Duchess.”
+
+“The viper!” said Florac, “how she writhes!”
+
+“I suppose that business with the Frenchman is all over,” says Lord
+Rooster. “Confounded piece of nonsense.”
+
+“You believe it finished? We shall see!” said Florac, who perhaps knew
+his fair cousin better. When the waltz was over, Kew led his partner to
+a seat, and bowed to her; but though she made room for him at her side,
+pointing to it, and gathering up her rustling robes so that he might
+sit down, he moved away, his face full of gloom. He never wished to be
+near her again. There was something more odious to him in her
+friendship than her hatred. He knew hers was the hand that had dealt
+that stab at him and Ethel in the morning. He went back and talked with
+his two friends in the doorway. “Couch yourself, my little Kiou,” said
+Florac. “You are all pale. You were best in bed, mon garçon!”
+
+“She has made me promise to take her in to supper,” Kew said, with a
+sigh.
+
+“She will poison you,” said the other. “Why have they abolished the
+roue chez nous? My word of honour they should retabliche it for this
+woman.”
+
+“There is one in the next room,” said Kew, with a laugh, “Come,
+Vicomte, let us try our fortune,” and he walked back into the
+play-room.
+
+That was the last night on which Lord Kew ever played a gambling game.
+He won constantly. The double zero seemed to obey him; so that the
+croupiers wondered at his fortune. Florac backed it; saying with the
+superstition of a gambler, “I am sure something goes to arrive to this
+boy.” From time to time M. de Florac went back to the dancing-room,
+leaving his mise under Kew’s charge. He always found his heaps
+increased; indeed the worthy Vicomte wanted a turn of luck in his
+favour. On one occasion he returned with a grave face, saying to Lord
+Rooster, “She has the other one in hand. We are going to see.”
+“Trente-six encor! et rouge gagne,” cried the croupier with his nasal
+tone, Monsieur de Florac’s pockets overflowed with double Napoleons,
+and he stopped his play, luckily, for Kew putting down his winnings,
+once, twice, thrice, lost them all.
+
+When Lord Kew had left the dancing-room, Madame d’Ivry saw Stenio
+following him with fierce looks, and called back that bearded bard.
+“You were going to pursue M. de Kew,” she said: “I knew you were. Sit
+down here, sir,” and she patted him down on her seat with her fan.
+
+“Do you wish that I should call him back, madame?” said the poet, with
+the deepest tragic accents.
+
+“I can bring him when I want him, Victor,” said the lady.
+
+“Let us hope others will be equally fortunate,” the Gascon said, with
+one hand in his breast, the other stroking his moustache.
+
+“Fi, monsieur, que vous sentez le tabac! je vous le défends,
+entendez-vous, monsieur?”
+
+“Pourtant, I have seen the day when Madame la Duchesse did not disdain
+a cigar,” said Victor. “If the odour incommodes, permit that I retire.”
+
+“And you also would quit me, Stenio? Do you think I did not mark your
+eyes towards Miss Newcome? your anger when she refused you to dance?
+Ah! we see all. A woman does not deceive herself, do you see? You send
+me beautiful verses, Poet. You can write as well of a statue or a
+picture, of a rose or a sunset, as of the heart of a woman. You were
+angry just now because I danced with M. de Kew. Do you think in a
+woman’s eyes jealousy is unpardonable?”
+
+“You know how to provoke it, madame,” continued the tragedian.
+
+“Monsieur,” replied the lady, with dignity, “am I to render you an
+account of all my actions, and ask your permission for a walk?”
+
+“In fact, I am but the slave, madame,” groaned the Gascon, “I am not
+the master.”
+
+“You are a very rebellious slave, monsieur,” continues the lady, with a
+pretty moue, and a glance of the large eyes artfully brightened by her
+rouge. “Suppose—suppose I danced with M. de Kew, not for his
+sake—Heaven knows to dance with him is not a pleasure—but for yours.
+Suppose I do not want a foolish quarrel to proceed. Suppose I know that
+he is ni sot ni poltron as you pretend. I overheard you, sir, talking
+with one of the basest of men, my good cousin, M. de Florac: but it is
+not of him I speak. Suppose I know the Comte de Kew to be a man, cold
+and insolent, ill-bred, and grossier, as the men of his nation are—but
+one who lacks no courage—one who is terrible when roused; might I have
+no occasion to fear, not for him, but——”
+
+“But for me! Ah, Marie! Ah, madame! Believe you that a man of my blood
+will yield a foot to any Englishman? Do you know the story of my race?
+do you know that since my childhood I have vowed hatred to that nation?
+Tenez, madame, this M. Jones who frequents your salon, it was but
+respect for you that has enabled me to keep my patience with this
+stupid islander. This Captain Blackball, whom you distinguish, who
+certainly shoots well, who mounts well to horse, I have always thought
+his manners were those of the marker of a billiard. But I respect him
+because he has made war with Don Carlos against the English. But this
+young M. de Kew, his laugh crisps me the nerves; his insolent air makes
+me bound; in beholding him I said to myself, I hate you; think whether
+I love him better after having seen him as I did but now, madame!”
+Also, but this Victor did not say, he thought Kew had laughed at him at
+the beginning of the evening, when the blanche Miss had refused to
+dance with him.
+
+“Ah, Victor, it is not him, but you that I would save,” said the
+Duchess. And the people round about, and the Duchess herself,
+afterwards said, yes, certainly, she had a good heart. She entreated
+Lord Kew; she implored M. Victor; she did everything in her power to
+appease the quarrel between him and the Frenchman.
+
+After the ball came the supper, which was laid at separate little
+tables, where parties of half a dozen enjoyed themselves. Lord Kew was
+of the Duchess’s party, where our Gascon friend had not a seat. But
+being one of the managers of the entertainment, his lordship went about
+from table to table, seeing that the guests at each lacked nothing. He
+supposed too that the dispute with the Gascon had possibly come to an
+end; at any rate, disagreeable as the other’s speech had been, he had
+resolved to put up with it, not having the least inclination to drink
+the Frenchman’s blood, or to part with his own on so absurd a quarrel.
+He asked people in his good-natured way to drink wine with him; and
+catching M. Victor’s eye scowling at him from a distant table, he sent
+a waiter with a champagne-bottle to his late opponent, and lifted his
+glass as a friendly challenge. The waiter carried the message to M.
+Victor, who, when he heard it, turned up his glass, and folded his arms
+in a stately manner. “M. de Castillonnes dit qu’il refuse, milor,” said
+the waiter, rather scared. “He charged me to bring that message to
+milor.” Florac ran across to the angry Gascon. It was not while at
+Madame d’Ivry’s table that Lord Kew sent his challenge and received his
+reply; his duties as steward had carried him away from that pretty
+early.
+
+Meanwhile the glimmering dawn peered into the windows of the
+refreshment-room, and behold, the sun broke in and scared all the
+revellers. The ladies scurried away like so many ghosts at cock-crow,
+some of them not caring to face that detective luminary. Cigars had
+been lighted ere this; the men remained smoking them with those
+sleepless German waiters still bringing fresh supplies of drink. Lord
+Kew gave the Duchesse d’Ivry his arm, and was leading her out; M. de
+Castillonnes stood scowling directly in their way, upon which, with
+rather an abrupt turn of the shoulder, and a “Pardon, monsieur,” Lord
+Kew pushed by, and conducted the Duchesse to her carriage. She did not
+in the least see what had happened between the two gentlemen in the
+passage; she ogled, and nodded, and kissed her hands quite
+affectionately to Kew as the fly drove away.
+
+Florac in the meanwhile had seized his compatriot, who had drunk
+champagne copiously with others, if not with Kew, and was in vain
+endeavouring to make him hear reason. The Gascon was furious; he vowed
+that Lord Kew had struck him. “By the tomb of my mother,” he bellowed,
+“I swear I will have his blood!” Lord Rooster was bawling out, “D——
+him, carry him to bed, and shut him up;” which remarks Victor did not
+understand, or two victims would doubtless have been sacrificed on his
+mamma’s mausoleum.
+
+When Kew came back (as he was only too sure to do), the little Gascon
+rushed forward with a glove in his hand, and having an audience of
+smokers round about him, made a furious speech about England, leopards,
+cowardice, insolent islanders, and Napoleon at St. Helena; and demanded
+reason for Kew’s conduct during the night. As he spoke, he advanced
+towards Lord Kew, glove in hand, and lifted it as if he was actually
+going to strike.
+
+“There is no need for further words,” said Lord Kew, taking his cigar
+out of his mouth. “If you don’t drop that glove, upon my word I will
+pitch you out of the window. Ha!—Pick the man up, somebody. You’ll bear
+witness, gentlemen, I couldn’t help myself. If he wants me in the
+morning, he knows where to find me.”
+
+“I declare that my Lord Kew has acted with great forbearance, and under
+the most brutal provocation—the most brutal provocation, entendez-vows,
+M. Cabasse?” cried out M. de Florac, rushing forward to the Gascon, who
+had now risen; “monsieur’s conduct has been unworthy of a Frenchman and
+a gallant homme.”
+
+“D—— it, he has had it on his nob, though,” said Lord Viscount Rooster,
+laconically.
+
+“Ah, Roosterre! ceci n’est pas pour rire,” Florac cried sadly, as they
+both walked away with Lord Kew; “I wish that first blood was all that
+was to be shed in this quarrel”
+
+“Gaw! how he did go down!” cried Rooster, convulsed with laughter.
+
+“I am very sorry for it,” said Kew, quite seriously; “I couldn’t help
+it. God forgive me.” And he hung down his head. He thought of the past,
+and its levities, and punishment coming after him _pede claudo_. It was
+with all his heart the contrite young man said “God forgive me.” He
+would take what was to follow as the penalty of what had gone before.
+
+“Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas immolat, mon pauvre Kiou,” said his
+French friend. And Lord Rooster, whose classical education had been
+much neglected, turned round and said, “Hullo, mate, what ship’s that?”
+
+Viscount Rooster had not been two hours in bed, when the Count de
+Punter (formerly of the Black Jägers) waited upon him upon the part of
+M. de Castillonnes and the Earl of Kew, who had referred him to the
+Viscount to arrange matters for a meeting between them. As the meeting
+must take place out of the Baden territory, and they ought to move
+before the police prevented them, the Count proposed that they should
+at once make for France; where, as it was an affair of honneur, they
+would assuredly be let to enter without passports.
+
+Lady Anne and Lady Kew heard that the gentlemen after the ball had all
+gone out on a hunting-party, and were not alarmed for four-and-twenty
+hours at least. On the next day none of them returned; and on the day
+after, the family heard that Lord Kew had met with rather a dangerous
+accident; but all the town knew he had been shot by M. de Castillonnes
+on one of the islands on the Rhine, opposite Kehl, where he was now
+lying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+Across the Alps
+
+
+Our discursive muse must now take her place in the little britzska in
+which Clive Newcome and his companions are travelling, and cross the
+Alps in that vehicle, beholding the snows on St. Gothard, and the
+beautiful region through which the Ticino rushes on its way to the
+Lombard lakes, and the corn-covered great plains of the Milanese; and
+that royal city, with the cathedral for its glittering crown, only less
+magnificent than the imperial dome of Rome. I have some long letters
+from Mr. Clive, written during this youthful tour, every step of which,
+from the departure at Baden, to the gate of Milan, he describes as
+beautiful; and doubtless, the delightful scenes through which the young
+man went, had their effect in soothing any private annoyances with
+which his journey commenced. The aspect of nature, in that fortunate
+route which he took, is so noble and cheering, that our private affairs
+and troubles shrink away abashed before that serene splendour. O sweet
+peaceful scene of azure lake, and snow-crowned mountain, so wonderfully
+lovely is your aspect, that it seems like heaven almost, and as if
+grief and care could not enter it! What young Clive’s private cares
+were I knew not as yet in those days; and he kept them out of his
+letters; it was only in the intimacy of future life that some of these
+pains were revealed to me.
+
+Some three months after taking leave of Miss Ethel, our young gentleman
+found himself at Rome, with his friend Ridley still for a companion.
+Many of us, young or middle-aged, have felt that delightful shock which
+the first sight of the great city inspires. There is one other place of
+which the view strikes one with an emotion even greater than that with
+which we look at Rome, where Augustus was reigning when He saw the day,
+whose birthplace is separated but by a hill or two from the awful gates
+of Jerusalem. Who that has beheld both can forget that first aspect of
+either? At the end of years the emotion occasioned by the sight still
+thrills in your memory, and it smites you as at the moment when you
+first viewed it.
+
+The business of the present novel, however, lies neither with priest
+nor pagan, but with Mr. Clive Newcome, and his affairs and his
+companions at this period of his life. Nor, if the gracious reader
+expects to hear of cardinals in scarlet, and noble Roman princes and
+princesses, will he find such in this history. The only noble Roman
+into whose mansion our friend got admission was the Prince Polonia,
+whose footmen wear the liveries of the English royal family, who gives
+gentlemen and even painters cash upon good letters of credit; and, once
+or twice in a season, opens his transtiberine palace and treats his
+customers to a ball. Our friend Clive used jocularly to say, he
+believed there were no Romans. There were priests in portentous hats;
+there were friars with shaven crowns; there were the sham peasantry,
+who dressed themselves out in masquerade costumes, with bagpipe and
+goatskin, with crossed leggings and scarlet petticoats, who let
+themselves out to artists at so many pauls per sitting; but he never
+passed a Roman’s door except to buy a cigar or to purchase a
+handkerchief. Thither, as elsewhere, we carry our insular habits with
+us. We have a little England at Paris, a little England at Munich,
+Dresden, everywhere. Our friend is an Englishman, and did at Rome as
+the English do.
+
+There was the polite English society, the society that flocks to see
+the Colosseum lighted up with blue fire, that flocks to the Vatican to
+behold the statues by torchlight, that hustles into the churches on
+public festivals in black veils and deputy-lieutenants’ uniforms, and
+stares, and talks, and uses opera-glasses while the pontiffs of the
+Roman Church are performing its ancient rites, and the crowds of
+faithful are kneeling round the altars; the society which gives its
+balls and dinners, has its scandal and bickerings, its aristocrats,
+parvenus, toadies imported from Belgravia; has its club, its hunt, and
+its Hyde Park on the Pincio: and there is the other little English
+world, the broad-hatted, long-bearded, velvet-jacketed, jovial colony
+of the artists, who have their own feasts, haunts, and amusements by
+the side of their aristocratic compatriots, with whom but few of them
+have the honour to mingle.
+
+J. J. and Clive engaged pleasant lofty apartments in the Via
+Gregoriana. Generations of painters had occupied these chambers and
+gone their way. The windows of their painting-room looked into a quaint
+old garden, where there were ancient statues of the Imperial time, a
+babbling fountain and noble orange-trees with broad clustering leaves
+and golden balls of fruit, glorious to look upon. Their walks abroad
+were endlessly pleasant and delightful. In every street there were
+scores of pictures of the graceful characteristic Italian life, which
+our painters seem one and all to reject, preferring to depict their
+quack brigands, contadini, pifferari, and the like, because Thompson
+painted them before Jones, and Jones before Thompson, and so on,
+backwards into time. There were the children at play, the women huddled
+round the steps of the open doorways, in the kindly Roman winter; grim,
+portentous old hags, such as Michael Angelo painted, draped in majestic
+raggery; mothers and swarming bambins; slouching countrymen, dark of
+beard and noble of countenance, posed in superb attitudes, lazy,
+tattered, and majestic. There came the red troops, the black troops,
+the blue troops of the army of priests; the snuffy regiments of
+Capuchins, grave and grotesque; the trim French abbés; my lord the
+bishop, with his footman (those wonderful footmen); my lord the
+cardinal, in his ramshackle coach and his two, nay three, footmen
+behind him;—flunkeys, that look as if they had been dressed by the
+costumier of a British pantomime; coach with prodigious emblazonments
+of hats and coats-of-arms, that seems as if it came out of the
+pantomime too, and was about to turn into something else. So it is,
+that what is grand to some persons’ eyes appears grotesque to others;
+and for certain sceptical persons, that step, which we have heard of,
+between the sublime and the ridiculous, is not visible.
+
+“I wish it were not so,” writes Clive, in one of the letters wherein he
+used to pour his full heart out in those days. “I see these people at
+their devotions, and envy them their rapture. A friend, who belongs to
+the old religion, took me, last week, into a church where the Virgin
+lately appeared in person to a Jewish gentleman, flashed down upon him
+from heaven in light and splendour celestial, and, of course,
+straightway converted him. My friend bade me look at the picture, and,
+kneeling down beside me, I know prayed with all his honest heart that
+the truth might shine down upon me too; but I saw no glimpse of heaven
+at all. I saw but a poor picture, an altar with blinking candles, a
+church hung with tawdry strips of red and white calico. The good, kind
+W—— went away, humbly saying ‘that such might have happened again if
+heaven so willed it.’ I could not but feel a kindness and admiration
+for the good man. I know his works are made to square with his faith,
+that he dines on a crust, lives as chaste as a hermit, and gives his
+all to the poor.
+
+“Our friend J. J., very different to myself in so many respects, so
+superior in all, is immensely touched by these ceremonies. They seem to
+answer to some spiritual want of his nature, and he comes away
+satisfied as from a feast, where I have only found vacancy. Of course
+our first pilgrimage was to St. Peter’s. What a walk! Under what noble
+shadows does one pass; how great and liberal the houses are, with
+generous casements and courts, and great grey portals which giants
+might get through and keep their turbans on. Why, the houses are twice
+as tall as Lamb Court itself; and over them hangs a noble dinge, a
+venerable mouldy splendour. Over the solemn portals are ancient mystic
+escutcheons—vast shields of princes and cardinals, such as Ariosto’s
+knights might take down; and every figure about them is a picture by
+himself. At every turn there is a temple: in every court a brawling
+fountain. Besides the people of the streets and houses, and the army of
+priests black and brown, there’s a great silent population of marble.
+There are battered gods tumbled out of Olympus and broken in the fall,
+and set up under niches and over fountains; there are senators
+namelessly, noselessly, noiselessly seated under archways, or lurking
+in courts and gardens. And then, besides these defunct ones, of whom
+these old figures may be said to be the corpses, there is the reigning
+family, a countless carved hierarchy of angels, saints, confessors of
+the latter dynasty which has conquered the court of Jove. I say, Pen, I
+wish Warrington would write the history of the Last of the Pagans. Did
+you never have a sympathy for them as the monks came rushing into their
+temples, kicking down their poor altars, smashing the fair calm faces
+of their gods, and sending their vestals a-flying? They are always
+preaching here about the persecution of the Christians. Are not the
+churches full of martyrs with choppers in their meek heads; virgins on
+gridirons; riddled St. Sebastians, and the like? But have they never
+persecuted in their turn? O me! You and I know better, who were bred up
+near to the pens of Smithfield, where Protestants and Catholics have
+taken their turn to be roasted.
+
+“You pass through an avenue of angels and saints on the bridge across
+Tiber, all in action; their great wings seem clanking, their marble
+garments clapping; St. Michael, descending upon the Fiend, has been
+caught and bronzified just as he lighted on the Castle of St. Angelo:
+his enemy doubtless fell crushing through the roof and so downwards. He
+is as natural as blank verse—that bronze angel-set, rhythmic,
+grandiose. You’ll see, some day or other, he’s a great sonnet, sir, I’m
+sure of that. Milton wrote in bronze; I am sure Virgil polished off his
+Georgics in marble—sweet calm shapes! exquisite harmonies of line! As
+for the Aeneid; that, sir, I consider to be so many bas-reliefs, mural
+ornaments which affect me not much.
+
+“I think I have lost sight of St. Peter’s, haven’t I? Yet it is big
+enough. How it makes your heart beat when you first see it! Ours did as
+we came in at night from Civita Vecchia, and saw a great ghostly
+darkling dome rising solemnly up into the grey night, and keeping us
+company ever so long as we drove, as if it had been an orb fallen out
+of heaven with its light put out. As you look at it from the Pincio,
+and the sun sets behind it, surely that aspect of earth and sky is one
+of the grandest in the world. I don’t like to say that the facade of
+the church is ugly and obtrusive. As long as the dome overawes, that
+facade is supportable. You advance towards it—through, oh, such a noble
+court! with fountains flashing up to meet the sunbeams; and right and
+left of you two sweeping half-crescents of great columns; but you pass
+by the courtiers and up to the steps of the throne, and the dome seems
+to disappear behind it. It is as if the throne was upset, and the king
+had toppled over.
+
+“There must be moments, in Rome especially, when every man of friendly
+heart, who writes himself English and Protestant, must feel a pang at
+thinking that he and his countrymen are insulated from European
+Christendom. An ocean separates us. From one shore or the other one can
+see the neighbour cliffs on clear days: one must wish sometimes that
+there were no stormy gulf between us; and from Canterbury to Rome a
+pilgrim could pass, and not drown beyond Dover. Of the beautiful parts
+of the great Mother Church I believe among us many people have no idea;
+we think of lazy friars, of pining cloistered virgins, of ignorant
+peasants worshipping wood and stones, bought and sold indulgences,
+absolutions, and the like commonplaces of Protestant satire. Lo! yonder
+inscription, which blazes round the dome of the temple, so great and
+glorious it looks like heaven almost, and as if the words were written
+in stars, it proclaims to all the world, this is that Peter, and on
+this rock the Church shall be built, against which Hell shall not
+prevail. Under the bronze canopy his throne is lit with lights that
+have been burning before it for ages. Round this stupendous chamber are
+ranged the grandees of his court. Faith seems to be realised in their
+marble figures. Some of them were alive but yesterday; others, to be as
+blessed as they, walk the world even now doubtless; and the
+commissioners of heaven, here holding their court a hundred years
+hence, shall authoritatively announce their beatification. The signs of
+their power shall not be wanting. They heal the sick, open the eyes of
+the blind, cause the lame to walk to-day as they did eighteen centuries
+ago. Are there not crowds ready to bear witness to their wonders? Isn’t
+there a tribunal appointed to try their claims; advocates to plead for
+and against; prelates and clergy and multitudes of faithful to back and
+believe them? Thus you shall kiss the hand of a priest to-day, who has
+given his to a friar whose bones are already beginning to work
+miracles, who has been the disciple of another whom the Church has just
+proclaimed a saint,—hand in hand they hold by one another till the line
+is lost up in heaven. Come, friend, let us acknowledge this, and go and
+kiss the toe of St. Peter. Alas! there’s the Channel always between us;
+and we no more believe in the miracles of St. Thomas of Canterbury,
+than that the bones of His Grace John Bird, who sits in St. Thomas’s
+chair presently, will work wondrous cures in the year 2000: that his
+statue will speak, or his portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence will wink.
+
+“So, you see, at those grand ceremonies which the Roman Church exhibits
+at Christmas, I looked on as a Protestant. Holy Father on his throne or
+in his palanquin, cardinals with their tails and their train-bearers,
+mitred bishops and abbots, regiments of friars and clergy, relics
+exposed for adoration, columns draped, altars illuminated, incense
+smoking, organs pealing, and boxes of piping soprani, Swiss guards with
+slashed breeches and fringed halberts;—between us and all this
+splendour of old-world ceremony, there’s an ocean flowing: and yonder
+old statue of Peter might have been Jupiter again, surrounded by a
+procession of flamens and augurs, and Augustus as Pontifex Maximus, to
+inspect the sacrifices,—and my feelings at the spectacle had been,
+doubtless, pretty much the same.
+
+“Shall I utter any more heresies? I am an unbeliever in Raphael’s
+‘Transfiguration’—the scream of that devil-possessed boy, in the lower
+part of the figure of eight (a stolen boy too), jars the whole music of
+the composition. On Michael Angelo’s great wall, the grotesque and
+terrible are not out of place. What an awful achievement! Fancy the
+state of mind of the man who worked it—as alone, day after day, he
+devised and drew those dreadful figures! Suppose in the days of the
+Olympian dynasty, the subdued Titan rebels had been set to ornament a
+palace for Jove, they would have brought in some such tremendous work:
+or suppose that Michael descended to the Shades, and brought up this
+picture out of the halls of Limbo. I like a thousand and a thousand
+times better to think of Raphael’s loving spirit. As he looked at women
+and children, his beautiful face must have shone like sunshine: his
+kind hand must have caressed the sweet figures as he formed them. If I
+protest against the ‘Transfiguration,’ and refuse to worship at that
+altar before which so many generations have knelt, there are hundreds
+of others which I salute thankfully. It is not so much in the set
+harangues (to take another metaphor), as in the daily tones and talk
+that his voice is so delicious. Sweet poetry, and music, and tender
+hymns drop from him: he lifts his pencil, and something gracious falls
+from it on the paper. How noble his mind must have been! it seems but
+to receive, and his eye seems only to rest on, what is great, and
+generous, and lovely. You walk through crowded galleries, where are
+pictures ever so large and pretentious; and come upon a grey paper, or
+a little fresco, bearing his mark-and over all the brawl and the throng
+recognise his sweet presence. ‘I would like to have been Giulio
+Romano,’ J. J. says (who does not care for Giulio’s pictures), ‘because
+then I would have been Raphael’s favourite pupil.’ We agreed that we
+would rather have seen him and William Shakspeare, than all the men we
+ever read of. Fancy poisoning a fellow out of envy—as Spagnoletto did!
+There are some men whose admiration takes that bilious shape. There’s a
+fellow in our mess at the Lepre, a clever enough fellow too—and not a
+bad fellow to the poor. He was a Gandishite. He is a genre and portrait
+painter, by the name of Haggard. He hates J. J. because Lord Fareham,
+who is here, has given J. J. an order; and he hates me, because I wear
+a clean shirt, and ride a cock-horse.
+
+“I wish you could come to our mess at the Lepre. It’s such a dinner:
+such a tablecloth: such a waiter: such a company! Every man has a beard
+and a sombrero: and you would fancy we were a band of brigands. We are
+regaled with woodcocks, snipes, wild swans, ducks, robins, and owls and
+οἰωνοῖσι τε πᾶσι for dinner; and with three pauls’ worth of wines and
+victuals the hungriest has enough, even Claypole the sculptor. Did you
+ever know him? He used to come to the Haunt. He looks like the
+Saracen’s head with his beard now. There is a French table still more
+hairy than ours, a German table, an American table. After dinner we go
+and have coffee and mezzo-caldo at the Café Greco over the way.
+Mezzo-caldo is not a bad drink—a little rum—a slice of fresh
+citron—lots of pounded sugar, and boiling water for the rest. Here in
+various parts of the cavern (it is a vaulted low place) the various
+nations have their assigned quarters, and we drink our coffee and
+strong waters, and abuse Guido, or Rubens, or Bernini _selon les
+goûts_, and blow such a cloud of smoke as would make Warrington’s lungs
+dilate with pleasure. We get very good cigars for a bajoccho and
+half—that is very good for us, cheap tobaccanalians; and capital when
+you have got no others. M’Collop is here: he made a great figure at a
+cardinal’s reception in the tartan of the M’Collop. He is splendid at
+the tomb of the Stuarts, and wanted to cleave Haggard down to the chine
+with his claymore for saying that Charles Edward was often drunk.
+
+“Some of us have our breakfasts at the Café Greco at dawn. The birds
+are very early birds here; and you’ll see the great sculptors—the old
+Dons, you know, who look down on us young fellows—at their coffee here
+when it is yet twilight. As I am a swell, and have a servant, J. J. and
+I breakfast at our lodgings. I wish you could see Terribile our
+attendant, and Ottavia our old woman! You will see both of them on the
+canvas one day. When he _hasn’t_ blacked our boots and has got our
+breakfast, Terribile the valet-de-chambre becomes Terribile the model.
+He has figured on a hundred canvases ere this, and almost ever since he
+was born. All his family were models. His mother having been a Venus,
+is now a Witch of Endor. His father is in the patriarchal line: he has
+himself done the cherubs, the shepherd-boys, and now is a grown man,
+and ready as a warrior, a pifferaro, a capuchin, or what you will.
+
+“After the coffee and the Café Greco we all go to the Life Academy.
+After the Life Academy, those who belong to the world dress and go out
+to tea-parties just as if we were in London. Those who are not in
+society have plenty of fun of their own—and better fun than the
+tea-party fun too. Jack Screwby has a night once a week, sardines and
+ham for supper, and a cask of Marsala in the corner. Your humble
+servant entertains on Thursdays: which is Lady Fitch’s night too; and I
+flatter myself some of the London dandies who are passing the winter
+here, prefer the cigars and humble liquors which we dispense, to tea
+and Miss Fitch’s performance on the pianoforte.
+
+“What is that I read in _Galignani_ about Lord K— and an affair of
+honour at Baden? Is it my dear kind jolly Kew with whom some one has
+quarrelled? I know those who will be even more grieved than I am,
+should anything happen to the best of good fellows. A great friend of
+Lord Kew’s, Jack Belsize commonly called, came with us from Baden
+through Switzerland, and we left him at Milan. I see by the paper that
+his elder brother is dead and so poor Jack will be a great man some
+day. I wish the chance had happened sooner if it was to befall at all.
+So my amiable cousin, Barnes Newcome Newcome, Esq., has married my Lady
+Clara Pulleyn; I wish her joy of her bridegroom. All I have heard of
+that family is from the newspaper. If you meet them, tell me anything
+about them.—We had a very pleasant time altogether at Baden. I suppose
+the accident to Kew will put off his marriage with Miss Newcome. They
+have been engaged, you know, ever so long.—And—do, do write to me and
+tell me something about London. It’s best I should—should stay here and
+work this winter and the next. J. J. has done a famous picture, and if
+I send a couple home, you’ll give them a notice in the _Pall Mall
+Gazette_—won’t you?—for the sake of old times and yours affectionately,
+Clive Newcome.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+In which M. de Florac is promoted
+
+
+However much Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry was disposed to admire and
+praise her own conduct in the affair which ended so unfortunately for
+poor Lord Kew, between whom and the Gascon her grace vowed that she had
+done everything in her power to prevent a battle, the old Duke, her
+lord, was, it appeared, by no means delighted with his wife’s
+behaviour, nay, visited her with his very sternest displeasure. Miss
+O’Grady, the Duchesse’s companion, and her little girl’s instructress,
+at this time resigned her functions in the Ivry family; it is possible
+that in the recriminations consequent upon the governess’s dismissal,
+the Miss Irlandaise, in whom the family had put so much confidence,
+divulged stories unfavourable to her patroness, and caused the
+indignation of the Duke, her husband. Between Florac and the Duchesse
+there was also open war and rupture. He had been one of Kew’s seconds
+in the latter’s affair with the Vicomte’s countryman. He had even cried
+out for fresh pistols, and proposed to engage Castillonnes, when his
+gallant principal fell; and though a second duel was luckily averted as
+murderous and needless, M. de Florac never hesitated afterwards, and in
+all companies, to denounce with the utmost virulence the instigator and
+the champion of the odious original quarrel. He vowed that the Duchesse
+had shot _le petit Kiou_ as effectually as if she had herself fired the
+pistol at his breast. Murderer, poisoner, Brinvilliers, a hundred more
+such epithets he used against his kinswoman, regretting that the good
+old times were past—that there was no Chambre Ardente to try her, and
+no rack and wheel to give her her due.
+
+The biographer of the Newcomes has no need (although he possesses the
+fullest information) to touch upon the Duchesse’s doings, further than
+as they relate to that most respectable English family. When the Duke
+took his wife into the country, Florac never hesitated to say that to
+live with her was dangerous for the old man, and to cry out to his
+friends of the Boulevards or the Jockey Club, “Ma parole d’honneur,
+cette femme le tuera!”
+
+Do you know, O gentle and unsuspicious readers, or have you ever
+reckoned as you have made your calculation of society, how many most
+respectable husbands help to kill their wives—how many respectable
+wives aid in sending their husbands to Hades? The wife of a
+chimney-sweep or a journeyman butcher comes shuddering before a police
+magistrate—her head bound up—her body scarred and bleeding with wounds,
+which the drunken ruffian, her lord, has administered: a poor
+shopkeeper or mechanic is driven out of his home by the furious
+ill-temper of the shrill virago his wife—takes to the public-house—to
+evil courses—to neglecting his business—to the gin-bottle—to _delirium
+tremens_—to perdition. Bow Street, and policemen, and the newspaper
+reporters, have cognisance and a certain jurisdiction over these vulgar
+matrimonial crimes; but in politer company how many murderous assaults
+are there by husband or wife—where the woman is not felled by the
+actual fist, though she staggers and sinks under blows quite as cruel
+and effectual; where, with old wounds yet unhealed, which she strives
+to hide under a smiling face from the world, she has to bear up and to
+be stricken down and to rise to her feet again, under fresh daily
+strokes of torture; where the husband, fond and faithful, has to suffer
+slights, coldness, insult, desertion, his children sneered away from
+their love for him, his friends driven from his door by jealousy, his
+happiness strangled, his whole life embittered, poisoned, destroyed! If
+you were acquainted with the history of every family in your street,
+don’t you know that in two or three of the houses there such tragedies
+have been playing? Is not the young mistress of Number 20 already
+pining at her husband’s desertion? The kind master of Number 30 racking
+his fevered brains and toiling through sleepless nights to pay for the
+jewels on his wife’s neck, and the carriage out of which she ogles
+Lothario in the Park? The fate under which man or woman falls, blow of
+brutal tyranny, heartless desertion, weight of domestic care too heavy
+to bear—are not blows such as these constantly striking people down? In
+this long parenthesis we are wandering ever so far away from M. le Duc
+and Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry, and from the vivacious Florac’s
+statement regarding his kinsman, that that woman will kill him.
+
+There is this at least to be said, that if the Duc d’Ivry did die he
+was a very old gentleman, and had been a great viveur for at least
+threescore years of his life. As Prince de Moncontour in his father’s
+time before the Revolution, during the Emigration, even after the
+Restoration, M. le Duc had vecu with an extraordinary vitality. He had
+gone through good and bad fortune: extreme poverty, display and
+splendour, affairs of love—affairs of honour,—and of one disease or
+another a man must die at the end. After the Baden business—and he had
+dragged off his wife to Champagne—the Duke became greatly broken; he
+brought his little daughter to a convent at Paris, putting the child
+under the special guardianship of Madame de Florac, with whom and with
+whose family in these latter days the old chief of the house effected a
+complete reconciliation. The Duke was now for ever coming to Madame de
+Florac; he poured all his wrongs and griefs into her ear with garrulous
+senile eagerness. “That little Duchesse is a monstre, a femme d’Eugene
+Sue,” the Vicomte used to say; “the poor old Duke he cry—ma parole
+d’honneur, he cry and I cry too when he comes to recount to my poor
+mother, whose sainted heart is the _asile_ of all griefs, a real Hotel
+Dieu, my word the most sacred, with beds for all the afflicted, with
+sweet words, like Sisters of Charity, to minister to them:—I cry, mon
+bon Pendennis, when this _vieillard_ tells his stories about his wife
+and tears his white hairs to the feet of my mother.”
+
+When the little Antoinette was separated by her father from her mother,
+the Duchesse d’Ivry, it might have been expected that that poetess
+would have dashed off a few more _cris de l’âme_, shrieking according
+to her wont, and baring and beating that shrivelled maternal bosom of
+hers, from which her child had been just torn. The child skipped and
+laughed to go away to the convent. It was only when she left Madame de
+Florac that she used to cry; and when urged by that good lady to
+exhibit a little decorous sentiment in writing to her mamma, Antoinette
+would ask, in her artless way, “Pourquoi? Mamma used never to speak to
+me except sometimes before the world, before ladies, that understands
+itself. When her gentleman came, she put me to the door; then she gave
+me tapes, _oh oui_, she gave me tapes! I cry no more; she has so much
+made to cry M. le Duc, that it is quite enough of one in a family.” So
+Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry did not weep, even in print, for the loss of
+her pretty little Antoinette; besides, she was engaged, at that time,
+by other sentimental occupations. A young grazier of their neighbouring
+town, of an aspiring mind and remarkable poetic talents, engrossed the
+Duchesse’s platonic affections at this juncture. When he had sold his
+beasts at market, he would ride over and read Rousseau and Schiller
+with Madame la Duchesse, who formed him. His pretty young wife was
+rendered miserable by all these readings, but what could the poor
+little ignorant countrywoman know of Platonism? Faugh! there is more
+than one woman we see in society smiling about from house to house,
+pleasant and sentimental and formosa superne enough; but I fancy a
+fish’s tail is flapping under her fine flounces, and a forked fin at
+the end of it!
+
+Finer flounces, finer bonnets, more lovely wreaths, more beautiful
+lace, smarter carriages, bigger white bows, larger footmen, were not
+seen, during all the season of 18—, than appeared round about St.
+George’s, Hanover Square, in the beautiful month of June succeeding
+that September when so many of our friends the Newcomes were assembled
+at Baden. Those flaunting carriages, powdered and favoured footmen,
+were in attendance upon members of the Newcome family and their
+connexions, who were celebrating what is called a marriage in high life
+in the temple within. Shall we set down a catalogue of the dukes,
+marquises, earls, who were present; cousins of the lovely bride? Are
+they not already in the _Morning Herald_ and _Court Journal_, as well
+as in the _Newcome Sentinel_ and _Independent_, and the _Dorking
+Intelligence_ and _Chanticlere Weekly Gazette?_ There they are, all
+printed at full length sure enough; the name of the bride, Lady Clara
+Pulleyn, the lovely and accomplished daughter of the Earl and Countess
+of Dorking; of the beautiful bridesmaids, the Ladies Henrietta,
+Belinda, Adelaide Pulleyn, Miss Newcome, Miss Alice Newcome, Miss Maude
+Newcome, Miss Anna Maria (Hobson) Newcome; and all the other persons
+engaged in the ceremony. It was performed by the Right Honourable
+Viscount Gallowglass, Bishop of Ballyshannon, brother-in-law to the
+bride, assisted by the Honourable and Reverend Hercules O’Grady, his
+lordship’s chaplain, and the Reverend John Bulders, Rector of St.
+Mary’s, Newcome. Then follow the names of all the nobility who were
+present, and of the noble and distinguished personages who signed the
+book. Then comes an account of the principal dresses, chefs-d’œuvre of
+Madame Crinoline; of the bride’s coronal of brilliants, supplied by
+Messrs. Morr and Stortimer;—of the veil of priceless Chantilly lace,
+the gift of the Dowager Countess of Kew. Then there is a description of
+the wedding-breakfast at the house of the bride’s noble parents, and of
+the cake, decorated by Messrs. Gunter with the most delicious taste and
+the sweetest hymeneal allusions.
+
+No mention was made by the fashionable chronicler of a slight
+disturbance which occurred at St. George’s, and which was indeed out of
+the province of such a genteel purveyor of news. Before the marriage
+service began, a woman of vulgar appearance and disorderly aspect,
+accompanied by two scared children who took no part in the disorder
+occasioned by their mother’s proceeding, except by their tears and
+outcries to augment the disquiet, made her appearance in one of the
+pews of the church, was noted there by persons in the vestry, was
+requested to retire by a beadle, and was finally induced to quit the
+sacred precincts of the building by the very strongest persuasion of a
+couple of policemen; X and Y laughed at one another, and nodded their
+heads knowingly as the poor wretch with her whimpering boys was led
+away. They understood very well who the personage was who had come to
+disturb the matrimonial ceremony; it did not commence until Mrs. De
+Lacy (as this lady chose to be called) had quitted this temple of
+Hymen. She slunk through the throng of emblazoned carriages, and the
+press of footmen arrayed as splendidly as Solomon in his glory. John
+jeered at Thomas, William turned his powdered head, and signalled
+Jeames, who answered with a corresponding grin, as the woman with sobs,
+and wild imprecations, and frantic appeals, made her way through the
+splendid crowd escorted by her aides-de-camp in blue. I dare say her
+little history was discussed at many a dinner-table that day in the
+basement story of several fashionable houses. I know that at clubs in
+St. James’s the facetious little anecdote was narrated. A young fellow
+came to Bays’s after the marriage breakfast and mentioned the
+circumstance with funny comments; although the _Morning Post_, in
+describing this affair in high life, naturally omitted all mention of
+such low people as Mrs. De Lacy and her children.
+
+Those people who knew the noble families whose union had been
+celebrated by such a profusion of grandees, fine equipages, and
+footmen, brass bands, brilliant toilets, and wedding favours, asked how
+it was that Lord Kew did not assist at Barnes Newcome’s marriage; other
+persons in society inquired waggishly why Jack Belsize was not present
+to give Lady Clara away.
+
+As for Jack Belsize, his clubs had not been ornamented by his presence
+for a year past. It was said he had broken the bank at Hombourg last
+autumn; had been heard of during the winter at Milan, Venice, and
+Vienna; and when, a few months after the marriage of Barnes Newcome and
+Lady Clara, Jack’s elder brother died, and he himself became the next
+in succession to the title and estates of Highgate, many folks said it
+was a pity little Barney’s marriage had taken place so soon. Lord Kew
+was not present, because Kew was still abroad; he had had a gambling
+duel with a Frenchman, and a narrow squeak for his life. He had turned
+Roman Catholic, some men said; others vowed that he had joined the
+Methodist persuasion. At all events Kew had given up his wild courses,
+broken with the turf, and sold his stud off; he was delicate yet, and
+his mother was taking care of him; between whom and the old dowager of
+Kew, who had made up Barney’s marriage, as everybody knew, there was no
+love lost.
+
+Then who was the Prince de Moncontour, who, with his princess, figured
+at this noble marriage? There was a Moncontour, the Duc d’Ivry’s son,
+but he died at Paris before the revolution of ’30: one or two of the
+oldsters at Bays’s, Major Pendennis, General Tufto, old Cackleby—the
+old fogies, in a word—remembered the Duke of Ivry when he was here
+during the Emigration, and when he was called Prince de Moncontour, the
+title of the eldest son of the family. Ivry was dead, having buried his
+son before him, and having left only a daughter by that young woman
+whom he married, and who led him such a life. Who was this present
+Moncontour?
+
+He was a gentleman to whom the reader has already been presented,
+though when we lately saw him at Baden he did not enjoy so magnificent
+a title. Early in the year of Barnes Newcome’s marriage, there came to
+England, and to our modest apartment in the Temple, a gentleman
+bringing a letter of recommendation from our dear young Clive, who said
+that the bearer, the Vicomte de Florac, was a great friend of his, and
+of the Colonel’s, who had known his family from boyhood. A friend of
+our Clive and our Colonel was sure of a welcome in Lamb Court; we gave
+him the hand of hospitality, the best cigar in the box, the easy-chair
+with only one broken leg; the dinner in chambers and at the club, the
+banquet at Greenwich (where, _ma foi_, the little _whites baites_
+elicited his profound satisfaction); in a word, did our best to honour
+that bill which our young Clive had drawn upon us. We considered the
+young one in the light of a nephew of our own; we took a pride in him,
+and were fond of him; and as for the Colonel, did we not love and
+honour him; would we not do our utmost in behalf of any stranger who
+came recommended to us by Thomas Newcome’s good word? So Florac was
+straightway admitted to our companionship. We showed him the town, and
+some of the modest pleasures thereof; we introduced him to the Haunt,
+and astonished him by the company which he met there. Between Brent’s
+“Deserter” and Mark Wilder’s “Garryowen,” Florac sang—
+
+Tiens voici ma pipe, voilà mon bri—quet;
+Et quand la Tulipe fait le noir tra—jet
+Que tu sois la seule dans le régi—ment
+Avec la brûle-gueule de ton cher z’a—mant;
+
+
+to the delight of Tom Sarjent, who, though he only partially
+comprehended the words of the song, pronounced the singer to be a rare
+gentleman, full of most excellent differences. We took our Florac to
+the Derby; we presented him in Fitzroy Square, whither we still
+occasionally went, for Clive’s and our dear Colonel’s sake.
+
+The Vicomte pronounced himself strongly in favour of the blanche misse
+little Rosey Mackenzie, of whom we have lost sight for some few
+chapters. Mrs. Mac he considered, my faith, to be a woman superb. He
+used to kiss the tips of his own fingers, in token of his admiration
+for the lovely widow; he pronounced her again more pretty than her
+daughter; and paid her a thousand compliments, which she received with
+exceeding good-humour. If the Vicomte gave us to understand presently
+that Rosey and her mother were both in love with him, but that for all
+the world he would not meddle with the happiness of his dear little
+Clive, nothing unfavourable to the character or constancy of the
+before-mentioned ladies must be inferred from M. de Florac’s speech;
+his firm conviction being, that no woman could pass many hours in his
+society without danger to her subsequent peace of mind.
+
+For some little time we had no reason to suspect that our French friend
+was not particularly well furnished with the current coin of the realm.
+Without making any show of wealth, he would, at first, cheerfully
+engage in our little parties: his lodgings in the neighbourhood of
+Leicester Square, though dingy, were such as many noble foreign exiles
+have inhabited. It was not until he refused to join some pleasure-trip
+which we of Lamb Court proposed, honestly confessing his poverty, that
+we were made aware of the Vicomte’s little temporary calamity; and, as
+we became more intimate with him, he acquainted us, with great
+openness, with the history of all his fortunes. He described
+energetically that splendid run of luck which had set in at Baden with
+Clive’s loan: his winnings, at that fortunate period, had carried him
+through the winter with considerable brilliancy, but bouillotte and
+Mademoiselle Atala, of the Variétés (_une ogresse, mon cher!_ who
+devours thirty of our young men every year in her cavern, in the Rue de
+Bréda), had declared against him, and the poor Vicomte’s pockets were
+almost empty when he came to London.
+
+He was amiably communicative regarding himself, and told us his virtues
+and his faults (if indeed a passion for play and for women could be
+considered as faults in a gay young fellow of two or three and forty),
+with a like engaging frankness. He would weep in describing his angel
+mother: he would fly off again into tirades respecting the wickedness,
+the wit, the extravagance, the charms of the young lady of the
+Variétés. He would then (in conversation) introduce us to Madame de
+Florac, _née_ Higg, of Manchesterre. His prattle was incessant, and to
+my friend Mr. Warrington especially he was an object of endless delight
+and amusement and wonder. He would roll and smoke countless paper
+cigars, talking unrestrainedly when we were not busy, silent when we
+were engaged; he would only rarely partake of our meals, and altogether
+refused all offers of pecuniary aid. He disappeared at dinner-time into
+the mysterious purlieus of Leicester Square, and dark ordinaries only
+frequented by Frenchmen. As we walked with him in the Regent Street
+precincts, he would exchange marks of recognition with many dusky
+personages, smoking bravos; and whiskered refugees of his nation.
+
+“That gentleman,” he would say, “who has done me the honour to salute
+me, is a coiffeur of the most celebrated; he forms the _delices_ of our
+table-d’hôte. ‘Bon jour, mon cher monsieur!’ We are friends, though not
+of the same opinion. Monsieur is a republican of the most
+distinguished; conspirator of profession, and at this time engaged in
+constructing an infernal machine to the address of His Majesty, Louis
+Philippe, King of the French.” “Who is my friend with the scarlet beard
+and the white paletot? My good Warrington! you do not move in the
+world; you make yourself a hermit, my dear! Not know monsieur!—monsieur
+is secretary to Mademoiselle Caracoline, the lovely rider at the circus
+of Astley; I shall be charmed to introduce you to this amiable society
+some day at our table-d’hôte.”
+
+Warrington vowed that the company of Florac’s friends would be
+infinitely more amusing than the noblest society ever chronicled in the
+_Morning Post;_ but we were neither sufficiently familiar with the
+French language to make conversation in that tongue as pleasant to us
+as talking in our own; and so were content with Florac’s description of
+his compatriots, which the Vicomte delivered in that charming
+French-English of which he was a master.
+
+However threadbare in his garments, poor in purse, and eccentric in
+morals our friend was, his manners were always perfectly gentlemanlike,
+and he draped himself in his poverty with the grace of a Spanish
+grandee. It must be confessed, that the grandee loved the estaminet
+where he could play billiards with the first comer; that he had a
+passion for the gambling-house; that he was a loose and disorderly
+nobleman: but, in whatever company he found himself, a certain
+kindness, simplicity, and politeness distinguished him always. He bowed
+to the damsel who sold him a penny cigar, as graciously as to a
+duchess; he crushed a _manant’s_ impertinence or familiarity as
+haughtily as his noble ancestors ever did at the Louvre, at Marli, or
+Versailles. He declined to _obtempérer_ to his landlady’s request to
+pay his rent, but he refused with a dignity which struck the woman with
+awe; and King Alfred, over the celebrated muffin (on which Gandish and
+other painters have exercised their genius), could not have looked more
+noble than Florac in a robe-de-chambre, once gorgeous, but shady now as
+became its owner’s clouded fortunes; toasting his bit of bacon at his
+lodgings, when the fare even of his table-d’hôte had grown too dear for
+him.
+
+As we know from Gandish’s work, that better times were in store for the
+wandering monarch, and that the officers came acquainting him that his
+people demanded his presence _à grands cris_, when of course King
+Alfred laid down the toast and resumed the sceptre; so in the case of
+Florac, two humble gentlemen, inhabitants of Lamb Court, and members of
+the Upper temple, had the good luck to be the heralds as it were, nay
+indeed, the occasion, of the rising fortunes of the Prince de
+Moncontour. Florac had informed us of the death of his cousin the Duc
+d’Ivry, by whose demise the Vicomte’s father, the old Count de Florac,
+became the representative of the house of Ivry, and possessor, through
+his relative’s bequest, of an old château still more gloomy and
+spacious than the count’s own house in the Faubourg St. Germain—a
+château, of which the woods, domains, and appurtenances had been lopped
+off by the Revolution. “Monsieur le Comte,” Florac says, “has not
+wished to change his name at his age; he has shrugged his old shoulder,
+and said it was not the trouble to make to engrave a new card; and for
+me,” the philosophical Vicomte added, “of what good shall be a title of
+prince in the position where I find myself?” It is wonderful for us who
+inhabit a country where rank is worshipped with so admirable a
+reverence, to think that there are many gentlemen in France who
+actually have authentic titles and do not choose to bear them.
+
+Mr. George Warrington was hugely amused with this notion of Florac’s
+ranks and dignities. The idea of the Prince purchasing penny cigars; of
+the Prince mildly expostulating with his landlady regarding the rent;
+of his punting for half-crowns at a neighbouring hall in Air Street,
+whither the poor gentleman desperately ran when he had money in his
+pocket, tickled George’s sense of humour. It was Warrington who gravely
+saluted the Vicomte, and compared him to King Alfred, on that afternoon
+when we happened to call upon him and found him engaged in cooking his
+modest dinner.
+
+We were bent upon an excursion to Greenwich, and on having our friend’s
+company on that voyage, and we induced the Vicomte to forgo his bacon,
+and be our guest for once. George Warrington chose to indulge in a
+great deal of ironical pleasantry in the course of the afternoon’s
+excursion. As we went down the river, he pointed out to Florac the very
+window in the Tower where the captive Duke of Orleans used to sit when
+he was an inhabitant of that fortress. At Greenwich, which palace
+Florac informed us was built by Queen Elizabeth, George showed the very
+spot where Raleigh laid his cloak down to enable Her Majesty to step
+over a puddle. In a word, he mystified M. de Florac; such was Mr.
+Warrington’s reprehensible spirit.
+
+It happened that Mr. Barnes Newcome came to dine at Greenwich on the
+same day when our little party took place. He had come down to meet
+Rooster and one or two other noble friends whose names he took care to
+give us, cursing them at the same time for having thrown him over.
+Having missed his own company, Mr. Barnes condescended to join ours,
+Warrington gravely thanking him for the great honour which he conferred
+upon us by volunteering to take a place at our table. Barnes drank
+freely, and was good enough to resume his acquaintance with Monsieur de
+Florac, whom he perfectly well recollected at Baden, but had thought
+proper to forget on the one or two occasions when they had met in
+public since the Vicomte’s arrival in this country. There are few men
+who can drop and resume an acquaintance with such admirable
+self-possession as Barnes Newcome. When, over our dessert, by which
+time all tongues were unloosed and each man talked gaily, George
+Warrington feelingly thanked Barnes in a little mock speech, for his
+great kindness in noticing us, presenting him at the same time to
+Florac as the ornament of the City, the greatest banker of his age, the
+beloved kinsman of their friend Clive, who was always writing about
+him; Barnes said, with one of his accustomed curses, he did not know
+whether Mr. Warrington was “chaffing” him or not, and indeed could
+never make him out. Warrington replied that he never could make himself
+out: and if ever Mr. Barnes could, George would thank him for
+information on that subject.
+
+Florac, like most Frenchmen very sober in his potations, left us for a
+while over ours, which were conducted after the more liberal English
+manner, and retired to smoke his cigar on the terrace. Barnes then
+freely uttered his sentiments regarding him, which were not more
+favourable than those which the young gentleman generally emitted
+respecting gentlemen whose backs were turned. He had known a little of
+Florac the year before at Baden: he had been mixed up with Kew in that
+confounded row in which Kew was hit; he was an adventurer, a pauper, a
+blackleg, a regular Greek; he had heard Florac was of old family, that
+was true; but what of that? He was only one of those d—— French counts;
+everybody was a count in France confound ’em! The claret was
+beastly—not fit for a gentleman to drink!—He swigged off a great bumper
+as he was making the remark: for Barnes Newcome abuses the men and
+things which he uses, and perhaps is better served than more grateful
+persons.
+
+“Count!” cries Warrington, “what do you mean by talking about beggarly
+counts? Florac’s family is one of the noblest and most ancient in
+Europe. It is more ancient than your illustrious friend, the
+barber-surgeon; it was illustrious before the house, ay, or the pagoda
+of Kew was in existence.” And he went on to describe how Florac by the
+demise of his kinsman, was now actually Prince de Moncontour, though he
+did not choose to assume that title. Very likely the noble Gascon drink
+in which George had been indulging, imparted a certain warmth and
+eloquence to his descriptions of Florac’s good qualities, high birth,
+and considerable patrimony; Barnes looked quite amazed and scared at
+these announcements, then laughed and declared once more that
+Warrington was chaffing him.
+
+“As sure as the Black Prince was lord of Acquitaine—as sure as the
+English were masters of Bordeaux—and why did we ever lose the country?”
+cries George, filling himself a bumper,—“every word I have said about
+Florac is true;” and Florac coming in at this juncture havin just
+finished his cigar, George turned round and made him a fine speech in
+the French language, in which he lauded his constancy and good-humour
+under evil fortune, paid him two or three more cordial compliments, and
+finished by drinking another great bumper to his good health.
+
+Florac took a little wine, replied “with effusion” to the toast which
+his excellent, his noble friend had just carried. We rapped our glasses
+at the end of the speech. The landlord himself seemed deeply touched by
+it as he stood by with a fresh bottle. “It is good wine—it is honest
+wine—it is capital wine” says George, “and honni soit qui mal y pence!
+What business have you, you little beggar, to abuse it? My ancestor
+drank the wine and wore the motto round his leg long before a Newcome
+ever showed his pale face in Lombard Street.” George Warrington never
+bragged about his pedigree except under certain influences. I am
+inclined to think that on this occasion he really did find the claret
+very good.
+
+“You don’t mean to say,” says Barnes, addressing Florac in French, on
+which he piqued himself, “que vous avez un tel manche à votre nom, et
+que vous ne l’usez pas?”
+
+Florac shrugged his shoulders; he at first did not understand that
+familiar figure of English speech, or what was meant by “having a
+handle to your name.” “Moncontour cannot dine better than Florac,” he
+said. “Florac has two louis in his pocket, and Moncontour exactly forty
+shillings. Florac’s proprietor will ask Moncontour to-morrow for five
+weeks’ rent; and as for Florac’s friends, my dear, they will burst out
+laughing to Moncontour’s nose!” “How droll you English are!” this acute
+French observer afterwards said, laughing, and recalling the incident.
+Did you not see how that little Barnes, as soon as he knew my title of
+Prince, changed his manner and became all respect towards me? This,
+indeed, Monsieur de Florac’s two friends remarked with no little
+amusement. Barnes began quite well to remember their pleasant days at
+Baden, and talked of their acquaintance there: Barnes offered the
+Prince the vacant seat in his brougham, and was ready to set him down
+anywhere that he wished in town.
+
+“Bah!” says Florac; “we came by the steamer, and I prefer the
+_péniboat_.” But the hospitable Barnes, nevertheless, called upon
+Florac the next day. And now having partially explained how the Prince
+de Moncontour was present at Mr. Barnes Newcome’s wedding, let us show
+how it was that Barnes’s first-cousin, the Earl of Kew, did not attend
+that ceremony.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+Returns to Lord Kew
+
+
+We do not propose to describe at length or with precision the
+circumstances of the duel which ended so unfortunately for young Lord
+Kew. The meeting was inevitable: after the public acts and insult of
+the morning, the maddened Frenchman went to it convinced that his
+antagonist had wilfully outraged him, eager to show his bravery upon
+the body of an Englishman, and as proud as if he had been going into
+actual war. That commandment, the sixth in our decalogue, which forbids
+the doing of murder, and the injunction which directly follows on the
+same table, have been repealed by a very great number of Frenchmen for
+many years past; and to take the neighbour’s wife, and his life
+subsequently, has not been an uncommon practice with the politest
+people in the world. Castillonnes had no idea but that he was going to
+the field of honour; stood with an undaunted scowl before his enemy’s
+pistol; and discharged his own and brought down his opponent with a
+grim satisfaction, and a comfortable conviction afterwards that he had
+acted _en galant homme_. “It was well for this milor that he fell at
+the first shot, my dear,” the exemplary young Frenchman remarked; “a
+second might have been yet more fatal to him; ordinarily I am sure of
+my _coup_, and you conceive that in an affair so grave it was
+absolutely necessary that one or other should remain on the ground.”
+Nay, should M. de Kew recover from his wound, it was M. de
+Castillonnes’ intention to propose a second encounter between himself
+and that nobleman. It had been Lord Kew’s determination never to fire
+upon his opponent, a confession which he made not to his second, poor
+scared Lord Rooster, who bore the young Earl to Kehl, but to some of
+his nearest relatives, who happened fortunately to be not far from him
+when he received his wound, and who came with all the eagerness of love
+to watch by his bedside.
+
+We have said that Lord Kew’s mother, Lady Walham, and her second son
+were staying at Hombourg, when the Earl’s disaster occurred. They had
+proposed to come to Baden to see Kew’s new bride, and to welcome her;
+but the presence of her mother-in-law deterred Lady Walham, who gave up
+her heart’s wish in bitterness of spirit, knowing very well that a
+meeting between the old Countess and herself could only produce the
+wrath, pain, and humiliation which their coming together always
+occasioned. It was Lord Kew who bade Rooster send for his mother, and
+not for Lady Kew; and as soon as she received those sad tidings, you
+may be sure the poor lady hastened to the bed where her wounded boy
+lay.
+
+The fever had declared itself, and the young man had been delirious
+more than once. His wan face lighted up with joy when he saw his
+mother; he put his little feverish hand out of the bed to her—“I knew
+you would come, dear,” he said, “and you know I never would have fired
+upon the poor Frenchman.” The fond mother allowed no sign of terror or
+grief to appear upon her face, so as to disturb her first-born and
+darling; but no doubt she prayed by his side as such loving hearts know
+how to pray, for the forgiveness of his trespass, who had forgiven
+those who sinned against him. “I knew I should be hit, George,” said
+Kew to his brother when they were alone; “I always expected some such
+end as this. My life has been very wild and reckless; and you, George,
+have always been faithful to our mother. You will make a better Lord
+Kew than I have been, George. God bless you.” George flung himself down
+with sobs by his brother’s bedside, and swore Frank had always been the
+best fellow, the best brother, the kindest heart, the warmest friend in
+the world. Love—prayer—repentance, thus met over the young man’s bed.
+Anxious and humble hearts, his own the least anxious and the most
+humble, awaited the dread award of life or death; and the world, and
+its ambition and vanities, were shut out from the darkened chamber
+where the awful issue was being tried.
+
+Our history has had little to do with characters resembling this lady.
+It is of the world, and things pertaining to it. Things beyond it, as
+the writer imagines, scarcely belong to the novelist’s province. Who is
+he, that he should assume the divine’s office; or turn his desk into a
+preacher’s pulpit? In that career of pleasure, of idleness, of crime we
+might call it (but that the chronicler of worldly matters had best be
+chary of applying hard names to acts which young men are doing in the
+world every day), the gentle widowed lady, mother of Lord Kew, could
+but keep aloof, deploring the course upon which her dear young prodigal
+had entered; and praying with that saintly love, those pure
+supplications, with which good mothers follow their children, for her
+boy’s repentance and return. Very likely her mind was narrow; very
+likely the precautions which she had used in the lad’s early days, the
+tutors and directors she had set about him, the religious studies and
+practices to which she would have subjected him, had served only to vex
+and weary the young pupil, and to drive his high spirit into revolt. It
+is hard to convince a woman perfectly pure in her life and intentions,
+ready to die if need were for her own faith, having absolute confidence
+in the instruction of her teachers, that she and they (with all their
+sermons) may be doing harm. When the young catechist yawns over his
+reverence’s discourse, who knows but it is the doctor’s vanity which is
+enraged, and not Heaven which is offended? It may have been, in the
+differences which took place between her son and her, the good Lady
+Walham never could comprehend the lad’s side of the argument; or how
+his Protestantism against her doctrines should exhibit itself on the
+turf, the gaming-table, or the stage of the opera-house; and thus but
+for the misfortune under which poor Kew now lay bleeding, these two
+loving hearts might have remained through life asunder. But by the
+boy’s bedside; in the paroxysms of his fever; in the wild talk of his
+delirium; in the sweet patience and kindness with which he received his
+dear nurse’s attentions; the gratefulness with which he thanked the
+servants who waited on him; the fortitude with which he suffered the
+surgeon’s dealings with his wounds;—the widowed woman had an
+opportunity to admire with an exquisite thankfulness the generous
+goodness of her son; and in those hours, those sacred hours passed in
+her own chamber, of prayers, fears, hopes, recollections, and
+passionate maternal love, wrestling with fate for her darling’s
+life;—no doubt the humbled creature came to acknowledge that her own
+course regarding him had been wrong; and, even more for herself than
+for him, implored forgiveness.
+
+For some time George Barnes had to send but doubtful and melancholy
+bulletins to Lady Kew and the Newcome family at Baden, who were all
+greatly moved and affected by the accident which had befallen poor Kew.
+Lady Kew broke out in wrath, and indignation. We may be sure the
+Duchesse d’Ivry offered to condole with her upon Kew’s mishap the day
+after the news arrived at Baden; and, indeed, came to visit her. The
+old lady had just received other disquieting intelligence. She was just
+going out, but she bade her servant to inform the Duchess that she was
+never more at home to the Duchesse d’Ivry. The message was not
+delivered properly, or the person for whom it was intended did not
+choose to understand it, for presently, as the Countess was hobbling
+across the walk on her way to her daughter’s residence, she met the
+Duchesse d’Ivry, who saluted her with a demure curtsey and a
+commonplace expression of condolence. The Queen of Scots was surrounded
+by the chief part of her court, saving of course MM. Castillonnes and
+Punter absent on service. “We were speaking of this deplorable affair,”
+said Madame d’Ivry (which indeed was the truth, although she said it).
+“How we pity you, madame!” Blackball and Loder, Cruchecassée and
+Schlangenbad, assumed sympathetic countenances.
+
+Trembling on her cane, the old Countess glared out upon Madame d’Ivry.
+“I pray you, madame,” she said in French, “never again to address me
+the word. If I had, like you, assassins in my pay, I would have you
+killed; do you hear me?” and she hobbled on her way. The household to
+which she went was in terrible agitation; the kind Lady Anne frightened
+beyond measure, poor Ethel full of dread, and feeling guilty almost as
+if she had been the cause, as indeed she was the occasion, of Kew’s
+misfortune. And the family had further cause of alarm from the shock
+which the news had given to Sir Brian. It has been said that he had had
+illnesses of late which caused his friends much anxiety. He had passed
+two months at Aix-la-Chapelle, his physicians dreading a paralytic
+attack; and Madame d’Ivry’s party still sauntering on the walk, the men
+smoking their cigars, the women breathing their scandal, now beheld Dr.
+Finck issuing from Lady Anne’s apartments, and wearing such a face of
+anxiety, that the Duchesse asked with some emotion, “Had there been a
+fresh bulletin from Kehl?”
+
+“No, there had been no fresh bulletin from Kehl; but two hours since
+Sir Brian Newcome had had a paralytic seizure.”
+
+“Is he very bad?”
+
+“No,” says Dr. Finck, “he is not very bad.”
+
+“How inconsolable M. Barnes will be!” said the Duchesse, shrugging her
+haggard shoulders. Whereas the fact was that Mr. Barnes retained
+perfect presence of mind under both of the misfortunes which had
+befallen his family. Two days afterwards the Duchesse’s husband arrived
+himself, when we may presume that exemplary woman was too much engaged
+with her own affairs to be able to be interested about the doings of
+other people. With the Duke’s arrival the court of Mary Queen of Scots
+was broken up. Her Majesty was conducted to Lochleven, where her tyrant
+soon dismissed her very last lady-in-waiting, the confidential Irish
+secretary, whose performance had produced such a fine effect amongst
+the Newcomes.
+
+Had poor Sir Brian Newcome’s seizure occurred at an earlier period of
+the autumn, his illness no doubt would have kept him for some months
+confined at Baden; but as he was pretty nearly the last of Dr. Von
+Finck’s bath patients, and that eminent physician longed to be off to
+the Residenz, he was pronounced in a fit condition for easy travelling
+in rather a brief period after his attack, and it was determined to
+transport him to Mannheim, and thence by water to London and Newcome.
+
+During all this period of their father’s misfortune no sister of
+charity could have been more tender, active, cheerful, and watchful
+than Miss Ethel. She had to wear a kind face, and exhibit no anxiety
+when occasionally the feeble invalid made inquiries regarding poor Kew
+at Baden; to catch the phrases as they came from him; to acquiesce, or
+not to deny, when Sir Brian talked of the marriages—both
+marriages—taking place at Christmas. Sir Brian was especially eager for
+his daughter’s, and repeatedly, with his broken words, and smiles, and
+caresses, which were now quite senile, declared that his Ethel would
+make the prettiest countess in England. There came a letter or two from
+Clive, no doubt, to the young nurse in her sick-room. Manly and
+generous, full of tenderness and affection, as those letters surely
+were, they could give but little pleasure to the young lady—indeed,
+only add to her doubts and pain.
+
+She had told none of her friends as yet of those last words of Kew’s,
+which she interpreted as a farewell on the young nobleman’s part. Had
+she told them they were likely would not have understood Kew’s meaning
+as she did, and persisted in thinking that the two were reconciled. At
+any rate, whilst he and her father were still lying stricken by the
+blows which had prostrated them both, all questions of love and
+marriage had been put aside. Did she love him? She felt such a kind
+pity for his misfortune, such an admiration for his generous gallantry,
+such a remorse for her own wayward conduct and cruel behaviour towards
+this most honest, and kindly, and affectionate gentleman, that the sum
+of regard which she could bestow upon him might surely be said to
+amount to love. For such a union as that contemplated between them,
+perhaps for any marriage, no greater degree of attachment was necessary
+as the common cement. Warm friendship and thorough esteem and
+confidence (I do not say that our young lady calculated in this
+matter-of-fact way) are safe properties invested in the prudent
+marriage stock, multiplying and bearing an increasing value with every
+year. Many a young couple of spendthrifts get through their capital of
+passion in the first twelve months, and have no love left for the daily
+demands of after life. O me! for the day when the bank account is
+closed, and the cupboard is empty, and the firm of Damon and Phyllis
+insolvent!
+
+Miss Newcome, we say, without doubt, did not make her calculations in
+this debtor and creditor fashion; it was only the gentlemen of that
+family who went to Lombard Street. But suppose she thought that regard,
+and esteem, and, affection being sufficient, she could joyfully, and
+with almost all her heart bring such a portion to Lord Kew; that her
+harshness towards him as contrasted with his own generosity, and above
+all with his present pain, infinitely touched her; and suppose she
+fancied that there was another person in the world to whom, did fates
+permit, she could offer not esteem, affection, pity only, but something
+ten thousand times more precious? We are not in the young lady’s
+secrets, but if she has some as she sits by her father’s chair and bed,
+who day or night will have no other attendant; and, as she busies
+herself to interpret his wants, silently moves on his errands,
+administers his potions, and watches his sleep, thinks of Clive absent
+and unhappy, of Kew wounded and in danger, she must have subject enough
+of thought and pain. Little wonder that her cheeks are pale and her
+eyes look red; she has her cares to endure now in the world, and her
+burden to bear in it, and somehow she feels she is alone, since that
+day when poor Clive’s carriage drove away.
+
+In a mood of more than ordinary depression and weakness Lady Kew must
+have found her granddaughter, upon one of the few occasions after the
+double mishap when Ethel and her elder were together. Sir Brian’s
+illness, as it may be imagined, affected a lady very slightly, who was
+of an age when these calamities occasion but small disquiet, and who,
+having survived her own father, her husband, her son, and witnessed
+their lordships’ respective demises with perfect composure, could not
+reasonably be called upon to feel any particular dismay at the probable
+departure from this life of a Lombard Street banker, who happened to be
+her daughter’s husband. In fact, not Barnes Newcome himself could await
+that event more philosophically. So, finding Ethel in this melancholy
+mood, Lady Kew thought a drive in the fresh air would be of service to
+her, and Sir Brian happening to be asleep, carried the young girl away
+in her barouche.
+
+They talked about Lord Kew, of whom the accounts were encouraging, and
+who is mending in spite of his silly mother and her medicines, “and as
+soon as he is able to move we must go and fetch him, my dear,” Lady Kew
+graciously said, “before that foolish woman has made a methodist of
+him. He is always led by the woman who is nearest him, and I know one
+who will make of him just the best little husband in England.” Before
+they had come to this delicate point the lady and her grandchild had
+talked Kew’s character over, the girl, you may be sure, having spoken
+feelingly and eloquently about his kindness and courage, and many
+admirable qualities. She kindled when she heard the report of his
+behaviour at the commencement of the fracas with M. de Castillonnes,
+his great forbearance and good-nature, and his resolution and
+magnanimity when the moment of collision came.
+
+But when Lady Kew arrived at that period of her discourse in which she
+stated that Kew would make the best little husband in England, poor
+Ethel’s eyes filled with tears; we must remember that her high spirit
+was worn down by watching and much varied anxiety, and then she
+confessed that there had been no reconciliation, as all the family
+fancied, between Frank and herself—on the contrary, a parting, which
+she understood to be final; and she owned that her conduct towards her
+cousin had been most captious and cruel, and that she could not expect
+they should ever again come together. Lady Kew, who hated sick-beds and
+surgeons except for herself, who hated her daughter-in-law above all,
+was greatly annoyed at the news which Ethel gave her; made light of if,
+however, and was quite confident that a very few words from her would
+place matters on their old footing, and determined on forthwith setting
+out for Kehl. She would have carried Ethel with her, but that the poor
+Baronet with cries and moans insisted on retaining his nurse, and
+Ethel’s grandmother was left to undertake this mission by herself, the
+girl remaining behind acquiescent, not unwilling, owning openly a great
+regard and esteem for Kew, and the wrong which she had done him,
+feeling secretly a sentiment which she had best smother. She had
+received a letter from that other person, and answered it with her
+mother’s cognisance, but about this little affair neither Lady Anne nor
+her daughter happened to say a word to the manager of the whole family.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+In which Lady Kew leaves his Lordship quite convalescent
+
+
+Immediately after Lord Kew’s wound, and as it was necessary to apprise
+the Newcome family of the accident which had occurred, the good-natured
+young Kew had himself written a brief note to acquaint his relatives
+with his mishap, and had even taken the precaution to antedate a couple
+of billets to be despatched on future days; kindly forgeries, which
+told the Newcome family and the Countess of Kew, that Lord Kew was
+progressing very favourably, and that his hurt was trifling. The fever
+had set in, and the young patient was lying in great danger, as most of
+the laggards at Baden knew, when his friends there were set at ease by
+this fallacious bulletin. On the third day after the accident, Lady
+Walham arrived with her younger son, to find Lord Kew in the fever
+which ensued after the wound. As the terrible anxiety during the
+illness had been Lady Walham’s, so was hers the delight of the
+recovery. The commander-in-chief of the family, the old lady at Baden,
+showed her sympathy by sending couriers, and repeatedly issuing orders
+to have news of Kew. Sick-beds scared her away invariably. When illness
+befell a member of her family she hastily retreated from before the
+sufferer, showing her agitation of mind, however, by excessive
+ill-humour to all the others within her reach.
+
+A fortnight passed, a ball had been found and extracted, the fever was
+over, the wound was progressing favourably, the patient advancing
+towards convalescence, and the mother, with her child once more under
+her wing, happier than she had been for seven years past, during which
+her young prodigal had been running the thoughtless career of which he
+himself was weary, and which had occasioned the fond lady such anguish.
+Those doubts which perplex many a thinking man, and, when formed and
+uttered, give many a fond and faithful woman pain so exquisite, had
+most fortunately never crossed Kew’s mind. His early impressions were
+such as his mother had left them, and he came back to her, as she would
+have him, as a little child; owning his faults with a hearty humble
+repentance, and with a thousand simple confessions, lamenting the
+errors of his past days. We have seen him tired and ashamed of the
+pleasures which he was pursuing, of the companions who surrounded him,
+of the brawls and dissipations which amused him no more; in those hours
+of danger and doubt, when he had lain, with death perhaps before him,
+making up his account of the vain life which probably he would be
+called upon to surrender, no wonder this simple, kindly, modest, and
+courageous soul thought seriously of the past and of the future; and
+prayed, and resolved, if a future were awarded to him, it should make
+amends for the days gone by; and surely as the mother and son read
+together the beloved assurance of the divine forgiveness, and of that
+joy which angels feel in heaven for a sinner repentant, we may fancy in
+the happy mother’s breast a feeling somewhat akin to that angelic
+felicity, a gratitude and joy of all others the loftiest, the purest,
+the keenest. Lady Walham might shrink with terror at the Frenchman’s
+name, but her son could forgive him, with all his heart, and kiss his
+mother’s hand, and thank him as the best friend of his life.
+
+During all the days of his illness, Kew had never once mentioned
+Ethel’s name, and once or twice as his recovery progressed, when with
+doubt and tremor his mother alluded to it, he turned from the subject
+as one that was disagreeable and painful. Had she thought seriously on
+certain things? Lady Walham asked. Kew thought not, “but those who are
+bred up as you would have them, mother, are often none the better,” the
+humble young fellow said. “I believe she is a very good girl. She is
+very clever, she is exceedingly handsome, she is very good to her
+parents and her brothers and sisters; but—” he did not finish the
+sentence. Perhaps he thought, as he told Ethel afterwards, that she
+would have agreed with Lady Walham even worse than with her imperious
+old grandmother.
+
+Lady Walham then fell to deplore Sir Brian’s condition, accounts of
+whose seizure of course had been despatched to the Kehl party, and to
+lament that a worldly man as he was should have such an affliction, so
+near the grave and so little prepared for it. Here honest Kew, however,
+held out. “Every man for himself, mother,” says he. “Sir Brian was bred
+up very strictly, perhaps too strictly as a young man. Don’t you know
+that that good Colonel, his elder brother, who seems to me about the
+most honest and good old gentleman I ever met in my life, was driven
+into rebellion and all sorts of wild courses by old Mrs. Newcome’s
+tyranny over him? As for Sir Brian, he goes to church every Sunday: has
+prayers in the family every day: I’m sure has led a hundred times
+better life than I have, poor old Sir Brian. I often have thought,
+mother, that though our side was wrong, you could not be altogether
+right, because I remember how my tutor, and Mr. Bonner, and Dr. Laud,
+when they used to come down to us at Kewbury, used to make themselves
+so unhappy about other people.” So the widow withdrew her unhappiness
+about Sir Brian; she was quite glad to hope for the best regarding that
+invalid.
+
+With some fears yet regarding her son,—for many of the books with which
+the good lady travelled could not be got to interest him; at some he
+would laugh outright,—with fear mixed with the maternal joy that he was
+returned to her, and had quitted his old ways; with keen feminine
+triumph, perhaps, that she had won him back, and happiness at his daily
+mending health, all Lady Walham’s hours were passed in thankful and
+delighted occupation. George Barnes kept the Newcomes acquainted with
+the state of his brother’s health. The skilful surgeon from Strasbourg
+reported daily better and better of him, and the little family were
+living in great peace and contentment, with one subject of dread,
+however, hanging over the mother of the two young men, the arrival of
+Lady Kew, as she was foreboding, the fierce old mother-in-law who had
+worsted Lady Walham in many a previous battle.
+
+It was what they call the summer of St. Martin, and the weather was
+luckily very fine; Kew could presently be wheeled into the garden of
+the hotel, whence he could see the broad turbid current of the swollen
+Rhine: the French bank fringed with alders, the vast yellow fields
+behind them, the great avenue of poplars stretching away to the
+Alsatian city, and its purple minster yonder. Good Lady Walham was for
+improving the shining hour by reading amusing extracts from her
+favourite volumes, gentle anecdotes of Chinese and Hottentot converts,
+and incidents from missionary travel. George Barnes, a wily young
+diplomatist, insinuated _Galignani_, and hinted that Kew might like a
+novel; and a profane work called Oliver Twist having appeared about
+this time, which George read out to his family with admirable emphasis,
+it is a fact that Lady Walham became so interested in the parish boy’s
+progress, that she took his history into her bedroom (where it was
+discovered, under Blatherwick’s Voice from Mesopotamia, by her
+ladyship’s maid), and that Kew laughed so immensely at Mr. Bumble, the
+Beadle, as to endanger the reopening of his wound.
+
+While, one day, they were so harmlessly and pleasantly occupied, a
+great whacking of whips, blowing of horns, and whirring of wheels was
+heard in the street without. The wheels stopped at their hotel gate;
+Lady Walham started up; ran through the garden door, closing it behind
+her; and divined justly who had arrived. The landlord was bowing; the
+courier pushing about; waiters in attendance; one of them, coming up to
+pale-faced Lady Walham; said, “Her Excellency the Frau Gräfinn von Kew
+is even now absteiging.”
+
+“Will you be good enough to walk into our salon, Lady Kew?” said the
+daughter-in-law, stepping forward and opening the door of that
+apartment. The Countess, leaning on her staff, entered that darkened
+chamber. She ran up towards an easy-chair, where she supposed Lord Kew
+was. “My dear Frank!” cries the old lady; “my dear boy, what a pretty
+fright you have given us all! They don’t keep you in this horrid noisy
+room facing that——Ho—what is this?” cries the Countess, closing her
+sentence abruptly.
+
+“It is not Frank. It is only a bolster, Lady Kew, and I don’t keep him
+in a noisy room towards the street,” said Lady Walham.
+
+“Ho! how do you do? This is the way to him, I suppose;” and she went to
+another door—it was a cupboard full of the relics of Frank’s illness,
+from which Lady Walham’s mother-in-law shrunk back aghast. “Will you
+please to see that I have a comfortable room, Maria; and one for my
+maid, next me? I will thank you to see yourself,” the Empress of Kew
+said, pointing with her stick, before which many a time the younger
+lady had trembled.
+
+This time Lady Walham only rang the bell. “I don’t speak German; and
+have never been on any floor of the house but this. Your servant had
+better see to your room, Lady Kew. That next is mine; and I keep the
+door, which you are trying, locked on other side.”
+
+“And I suppose Frank is locked up there!” cried the old lady, “with a
+basin of gruel and a book of Watts’s hymns.” A servant entered at this
+moment, answering Lady Walham’s summons. “Peacock, the Countess of Kew
+says that she proposes to stay here this evening. Please to ask the
+landlord to show her ladyship rooms,” said Lady Walham; and by this
+time she had thought of a reply to Lady Kew’s last kind speech.
+
+“If my son were locked up in my room, madam, his mother is surely the
+best nurse for him. Why did you not come to him three weeks sooner,
+when there was nobody with him?”
+
+Lady Kew said nothing, but glared and showed her teeth—those pearls set
+in gold.
+
+“And my company may not amuse Lord Kew—”
+
+“He-e-e!” grinned the elder, savagely.
+
+“—But at least it is better than some to which you introduced my son,”
+continued Lady Kew’s daughter-in-law, gathering force and wrath as she
+spoke. “Your ladyship may think lightly of me, but you can hardly think
+so ill of me as of the Duchesse d’Ivry, I should suppose, to whom you
+sent my boy, to form him, you said; about whom, when I remonstrated—for
+though I live out of the world I hear of it sometimes—you were pleased
+to tell me that I was a prude and a fool. It is you I thank for
+separating my child from me—yes, you—for so many years of my life; and
+for bringing me to him when he was bleeding and almost a corpse, but
+that God preserved him to the widow’s prayers;—and you, you were by,
+and never came near him.”
+
+“I—I did not come to see you—or—or—for this kind of scene, Lady
+Walham,” muttered the other. Lady Kew was accustomed to triumph, by
+attacking in masses, like Napoleon. Those who faced her routed her.
+
+“No; you did not come for me, I know very well,” the daughter went on.
+“You loved me no better than you loved your son, whose life, as long as
+you meddled with it, you made wretched. You came here for my boy.
+Haven’t you done him evil enough? And now God has mercifully preserved
+him, you want to lead him back again into ruin and crime. It shall not
+be so, wicked woman! bad mother! cruel, heartless parent!—George!”
+(Here her younger son entered the room, and she ran towards him with
+fluttering robes and seized his hands.) “Here is your grandmother; here
+is the Countess of Kew, come from Baden at last; and she wants—she
+wants to take Frank from us, my dear, and to—give—him—back to
+the—Frenchwoman again. No, no! Oh, my God! Never! never!” And she flung
+herself into George Barnes’s arms, fainting with an hysteric burst of
+tears.
+
+“You had best get a strait-waistcoat for your mother, George Barnes,”
+Lady Kew said, scorn and hatred in her face. (If she had been Iago’s
+daughter, with a strong likeness to her sire, Lord Steyne’s sister
+could not have looked more diabolical.) “Have you had advice for her?
+Has nursing poor Kew turned her head? I came to see _him_. Why have I
+been left alone for half an hour with this madwoman? You ought not to
+trust her to give Frank medicine. It is positively——”
+
+“Excuse me,” said George, with a bow; “I don’t think the complaint has
+as yet exhibited itself in my mother’s branch of the family. (She
+always hated me,” thought George; “but if she had by chance left me a
+legacy, there it goes.) You would like, ma’am, to see the rooms
+upstairs? Here is the landlord to conduct your ladyship. Frank will be
+quite ready to receive you when you come down. I am sure I need not beg
+of your kindness that nothing may be said to agitate him. It is barely
+three weeks since M. de Castillonnes’s ball was extracted; and the
+doctors wish he should be kept as quiet as possible.”
+
+Be sure that the landlord, the courier, and the persons engaged in
+showing the Countess of Kew the apartments above spent an agreeable
+time with Her Excellency the Frau Gräfinn von Kew. She must have had
+better luck in her encounter with these than in her previous passages
+with her grandson and his mother; for when she issued from her
+apartment in a new dress and fresh cap, Lady Kew’s face wore an
+expression of perfect serenity. Her attendant may have shook her fist
+behind her, and her man’s eyes and face looked Blitz and Donnerwetter;
+but their mistress’s features wore that pleased look which they assumed
+when she had been satisfactorily punishing somebody. Lord Kew had by
+this time got back from the garden to his own room, where he awaited
+grandmamma. If the mother and her two sons had in the interval of Lady
+Kew’s toilette tried to resume the history of Bumble the Beadle, I fear
+they could not have found it very comical.
+
+“Bless me, my dear child! How well you look! Many a girl would give the
+world to have such a complexion. There is nothing like a mother for a
+nurse! Ah, no! Maria, you deserve to be the Mother Superior of a House
+of Sisters of Charity, you do. The landlord has given me a delightful
+apartment, thank you. He is an extortionate wretch; but I have no doubt
+I shall be very comfortable. The Dodsburys stopped here, I see by the
+travellers’ book-quite right, instead of sleeping at that odious buggy
+Strasbourg. We have had a sad, sad time, my dears, at Baden. Between
+anxiety about poor Sir Brian, and about you, you naughty boy, I am sure
+I wonder how I have got through it all. Doctor Finck would not let me
+come away to-day; would I but come.”
+
+“I am sure it was uncommonly kind, ma’am,” says poor Kew, with a rueful
+face.
+
+“That horrible woman against whom I always warned but you—but young men
+will not take the advice of old grandmammas—has gone away these ten
+days. Monsieur le Duc fetched her; and if he locked her up at
+Moncontour, and kept her on bread-and-water; for the rest of her life,
+I am sure he would serve her right. When a woman once forgets religious
+principles, Kew, she is sure to go wrong. The Conversation-room is shut
+up. The Dorkings go on Tuesday. Clara is really a dear little artless
+creature; one that you will like, Maria—and as for Ethel, I really
+think she is an angel. To see her nursing her poor father is the most
+beautiful sight; night after night she has sate up with him. I know
+where she would like to be, the dear child. And if Frank falls ill
+again, Maria, he won’t need a mother or useless old grandmother to
+nurse him. I have got some pretty messages to deliver from her; but
+they are for your private ears, my lord; not even mammas and brothers
+may hear them.”
+
+“Do not go, mother! Pray stay, George!” cried the sick man (and again
+Lord Steyne’s sister looked uncommonly like that lamented marquis). “My
+cousin is a noble young creature,” he went on. “She has admirable good
+qualities, which I appreciate with all my heart; and her beauty, you
+know how I admire it. I have thought of her a great deal as I was lying
+on the bed yonder” (the family look was not so visible in Lady Kew’s
+face), “and—and—I wrote to her this very morning; she will have the
+letter by this time, probably.”
+
+“Bien! Frank!” Lady Kew smiled (in her supernatural way) almost as much
+as her portrait, by Harlowe, as you may see it at Kewbury to this very
+day. She is represented seated before an easel, painting a miniature of
+her son, Lord Walham.
+
+“I wrote to her on the subject of the last conversation we had
+together,” Frank resumed, in rather a timid voice, “the day before my
+accident. Perhaps she did not tell you, ma’am, of what passed between
+us. We had had a quarrel; one of many. Some cowardly hand, which we
+both of us can guess at, had written to her an account of my past life,
+and she showed me the letter. Then I told her, that if she loved me she
+never would have showed it me: without any other words of reproof. I
+bade her farewell. It was not much, the showing that letter; but it was
+enough. In twenty differences we have had together, she had been unjust
+and captious, cruel towards me, and too eager, as I thought, for other
+people’s admiration. Had she loved me, it seemed to me Ethel would have
+shown less vanity and better temper. What was I to expect in life
+afterwards from a girl who before her marriage used me so? Neither she
+nor I could be happy. She could be gentle enough, and kind, and anxious
+to please any man whom she loves, God bless her! As for me, I suppose,
+I’m not worthy of so much talent and beauty, so we both understood that
+that was a friendly farewell; and as I have been lying on my bed
+yonder, thinking, perhaps, I never might leave it, or if I did, that I
+should like to lead a different sort of life to that which ended in
+sending me there, my resolve of last month was only confirmed. God
+forbid that she and I should lead the lives of some folks we know; that
+Ethel should marry without love, perhaps to fall into it afterwards;
+and that I, after this awful warning I have had, should be tempted to
+back into that dreary life I was leading. It was wicked, ma’am, I knew
+it was; many and many a day I used to say so to myself, and longed to
+get rid of it. I am a poor weak devil, I know, I am only too easily led
+into temptation, and I should only make matters worse if I married a
+woman who cares for the world more than for me, and would not make me
+happy at home.”
+
+“Ethel care for the world!” gasped out Lady Kew; “a most artless,
+simple, affectionate creature; my dear Frank, she——”
+
+He interrupted her, as a blush came rushing over his pale face. “Ah!”
+said he, “if I had been the painter, and young Clive had been Lord Kew,
+which of us do you think she would have chosen? And she was right. He
+is a brave, handsome, honest young fellow, and is a thousand times
+cleverer and better than I am.”
+
+“Not better, dear, thank God,” cried his mother, coming round to the
+other side of his sofa, and seizing her son’s hand.
+
+“No, I don’t think he is better, Frank,” said the diplomatist, walking
+away to the window. And as for grandmamma at the end of this little
+speech and scene, her ladyship’s likeness to her brother, the late
+revered Lord Steyne, was more frightful than ever.
+
+After a minute’s pause, she rose up on her crooked stick, and said, “I
+really feel I am unworthy to keep company with so much exquisite
+virtue. It will be enhanced, my lord, by the thought of the pecuniary
+sacrifice which you are making, for I suppose you know that I have been
+hoarding—yes, and saving, and pinching,—denying myself the necessities
+of life, in order that my grandson might one day have enough to support
+his rank. Go and live and starve in your dreary old house, and marry a
+parson’s daughter, and sing psalms with your precious mother; and I
+have no doubt you and she—she who has thwarted me all through life, and
+whom I hated,—yes, I hated from the moment she took my son from me, and
+brought misery into my family, will be all the happier when she thinks
+that she has made a poor, fond, lonely old woman more lonely and
+miserable. If you please, George Barnes, be good enough to tell my
+people that I shall go back to Baden,” and waving her children away
+from her, the old woman tottered out of the room on her crutch.
+
+So the wicked fairy drove away disappointed in the chariot with the
+very dragons which had brought her away in the morning, and just had
+time to get their feed of black bread. I wonder whether they were the
+horses Clive and J. J. and Jack Belsize had used when they passed on
+their road to Switzerland? Black Care sits behind all sorts of horses,
+and gives a trinkgelt to postillions all over the map. A thrill of
+triumph may be permitted to Lady Walham after her victory over her
+mother-in-law. What Christian woman does not like to conquer another?
+and if that other were a mother-in-law, would the victory be less
+sweet? Husbands and wives both will be pleased that Lady Walham has had
+the better of this bout: and you, young boys and virgins, when your
+turn comes to be married, you will understand the hidden meaning of
+this passage. George Barnes got Oliver Twist out, and began to read
+therein. Miss Nancy and Fanny again were summoned before this little
+company to frighten and delight them. I dare say even Fagin and Miss
+Nancy failed with the widow, so absorbed was she with the thoughts of
+the victory which she had just won. For the evening service, in which
+her sons rejoiced her fond heart by joining, she lighted on a psalm
+which was as a _Te Deum_ after the battle—the battle of Kehl by Rhine,
+where Kew’s soul, as his mother thought, was the object of contention
+between the enemies. I have said, this book is all about the world and
+a respectable family dwelling in it. It is not a sermon, except where
+it cannot help itself, and the speaker pursuing the destiny of his
+narrative finds such a homily before him. O friend, in your life and
+mine, don’t we light upon such sermons daily?—don’t we see at home as
+well as amongst our neighbours that battle betwixt Evil and Good? Here
+on one side is Self and Ambition and Advancement; and Right and Love on
+the other. Which shall we let to triumph for ourselves—which for our
+children?
+
+The young men were sitting smoking the vesper cigar. (Frank would do
+it, and his mother actually lighted his cigar for him now, enjoining
+him straightway after to go to bed.) Kew smoked and looked at a
+star—shining above in the heaven. “Which is that star?” he asked: and
+the accomplished young diplomatist answered it was Jupiter.
+
+“What a lot of things you know, George!” cries the senior, delighted;
+“you ought to have been the elder, you ought, by Jupiter! But you have
+lost your chance this time.”
+
+“Yes, thank God!” says George.
+
+“And I am going to be all right—and to turn over a new leaf, old
+boy—and paste down the old ones, eh? I wrote to Martins this morning to
+have all my horses sold; and I’ll never beg—so help me—so help me,
+Jupiter. I made a vow—a promise to myself, you see, that I wouldn’t if
+I recovered. And I wrote to Cousin Ethel this morning.—As I thought
+over the matter yonder, I felt quite certain I was right, and that we
+could never, never pull together. Now the Countess is gone, I wonder
+whether I was right—to give up sixty thousand pounds, and the prettiest
+girl in London?”
+
+“Shall I take horses and go after her? My mother’s gone to bed, she
+won’t know,” asked George. “Sixty thousand is a lot of money to lose.”
+
+Kew laughed. “If you were to go and tell our grandmother that I could
+not live the night through, and that you would be Lord Kew in the
+morning, and your son Viscount Walham, I think the Countess would make
+up a match between you and the sixty thousand pounds, and the prettiest
+girl in England: she would, by—by Jupiter. I intend only to swear by
+the heathen gods now, Georgy.—No, I am not sorry I wrote to Ethel. What
+a fine girl she is!—I don’t mean her beauty merely, but such a
+noble-bred one! And to think that there she is in the market to be
+knocked down to—I say, I was going to call that three-year-old,
+Ethelinda.—We must christen her over again for Tattersall’s, Georgy.”
+
+A knock is heard through an adjoining door, and a maternal voice cries,
+“It is time to go to bed.” So the brothers part, and, let us hope,
+sleep soundly.
+
+The Countess of Kew, meanwhile, has returned to Baden; where, though it
+is midnight when she arrives, and the old lady has had two long
+bootless journeys, you will be grieved to hear, that she does not sleep
+a single wink. In the morning she hobbles over to the Newcome quarters;
+and Ethel comes down to her pale and calm. How is her father? He has
+had a good night: he is a little better, speaks more clearly, has a
+little more the use of his limbs.
+
+“I wish _I_ had had a good night!” groans out the Countess.
+
+“I thought you were going to Lord Kew, at Kehl,” remarked her
+granddaughter.
+
+“I did go, and returned with wretches who would not bring me more than
+five miles an hour! I dismissed that brutal grinning courier; and I
+have given warning to that fiend of a maid.”
+
+“And Frank is pretty well, grandmamma?”
+
+“Well! He looks as pink as a girl in her first season! I found him, and
+his brother George, and their mamma. I think Maria was hearing them
+their catechism,” cries the old lady.
+
+“N. and M. together! Very pretty,” says Ethel, gravely. “George has
+always been a good boy, and it is quite time for my Lord Kew to begin.”
+
+The elder lady looked at her descendant, but Miss Ethel’s glance was
+impenetrable. “I suppose you can fancy, my dear, why I came back?” said
+Lady Kew.
+
+“Because you quarrelled with Lady Walham, grandmamma. I think I have
+heard that there used to be differences between you.” Miss Newcome was
+armed for defence and attack; in which cases we have said Lady Kew did
+not care to assault her. “My grandson told me that he had written to
+you,” the Countess said.
+
+“Yes: and had you waited but half an hour yesterday, you might have
+spared me the humiliation of that journey.”
+
+“_You_—the humiliation—Ethel!”
+
+“Yes, _me_,” Ethel flashed out. “Do you suppose it is none to have me
+bandied about from bidder to bidder, and offered for sale to a
+gentleman who will not buy me? Why have you and all my family been so
+eager to get rid of me? Why should you suppose or desire that Lord Kew
+should like me? Hasn’t he the Opera; and such friends as Madame la
+Duchesse d’Ivry, to whom your ladyship introduced him in early life? He
+told me so: and she was good enough to inform me of the rest. What
+attractions have I in comparison with such women? And to this man from
+whom I am parted by good fortune; to this man who writes to remind me
+that we are separated—your ladyship must absolutely go and entreat him
+to give me another trial! It is too much, grandmamma. Do please to let
+me stay where I am; and worry me with no more schemes for my
+establishment in life. Be contented with the happiness which you have
+secured for Clara Pulleyn and Barnes; and leave me to take care of my
+poor father. Here I know I am doing right. Here, at least, there is no
+such sorrow, and doubt, and shame, for me, as my friends have tried to
+make me endure. There is my father’s bell. He likes me to be with him
+at breakfast and to read his paper to him.”
+
+“Stay a little, Ethel,” cried the Countess, with a trembling voice. “I
+am older than your father, and you owe me a little obedience—that is,
+if children do owe any obedience to their parents nowadays. I don’t
+know. I am an old woman—the world perhaps has changed since my time;
+and it is you who ought to command, I dare say, and we to follow.
+Perhaps I have been wrong all through life, and in trying to teach my
+children to do as I was made to do. God knows I have had very little
+comfort from them: whether they did or whether they didn’t. You and
+Frank I had set my heart on; I loved you out of all my
+grandchildren—was it very unnatural that I should wish to see you
+together? For that boy I have been saving money these years past. He
+flies back to the arms of his mother, who has been pleased to hate me
+as only such virtuous people can; who took away my own son from me; and
+now his son—towards whom the only fault I ever committed was to spoil
+him and be too fond of him. Don’t leave me too, my child. Let me have
+something that I can like at my years. And I like your pride, Ethel,
+and your beauty, my dear; and I am not angry with your hard words; and
+if I wish to see you in the place in life which becomes you—do I do
+wrong? No. Silly girl! There—give me the little hand. How hot it is!
+Mine is as cold as a stone—and shakes, doesn’t it?—Eh! it was a pretty
+hand once! What did Anne—what did your mother say to Frank’s letter.
+
+“I did not show it to her,” Ethel answered.
+
+“Let me see it, my dear,” whispered Lady Kew, in a coaxing way.
+
+“There it is,” said Ethel pointing to the fireplace, where there lay
+some torn fragments and ashes of paper. It was the same fireplace at
+which Clive’s sketches had been burned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+Amongst the Painters
+
+
+When Clive Newcome comes to be old, no doubt he will remember his Roman
+days as amongst the happiest which fate ever awarded him. The
+simplicity of the student’s life there, the greatness and friendly
+splendour of the scenes surrounding him, the delightful nature of the
+occupation in which he is engaged, the pleasant company of comrades,
+inspired by a like pleasure over a similar calling, the labour, the
+meditation, the holiday and the kindly feast afterwards, should make
+the Art-students the happiest of youth, did they but know their good
+fortune. Their work is for the most part delightfully easy. It does not
+exercise the brain too much, but gently occupies it, and with a subject
+most agreeable to the scholar. The mere poetic flame, or jet of
+invention, needs to be lighted up but very seldom, namely, when the
+young painter is devising his subject, or settling the composition
+thereof. The posing of figures and drapery; the dexterous copying of
+the line; the artful processes of cross-hatching, of stumping, of
+laying on lights, and what not; the arrangement of colour, and the
+pleasing operations of glazing and the like, are labours for the most
+part merely manual. These, with the smoking of a proper number of
+pipes, carry the student through his day’s work. If you pass his door
+you will very probably hear him singing at his easel. I should like to
+know what young lawyer, mathematician, or divinity scholar can sing
+over his volumes, and at the same time advance with his labour? In
+every city where Art is practised there are old gentlemen who never
+touched a pencil in their lives, but find the occupation and company of
+artists so agreeable that they are never out of the studios; follow one
+generation of painters after another; sit by with perfect contentment
+while Jack is drawing his pifferaro, or Tom designing his cartoon, and
+years afterwards when Jack is established in Newman Street, and Tom a
+Royal Academician, shall still be found in their rooms, occupied now by
+fresh painters and pictures, telling the youngsters, their successors,
+what glorious fellows Jack and Tom were. A poet must retire to privy
+places and meditate his rhymes in secret; a painter can practise his
+trade in the company of friends. Your splendid _chef d’école_, a Rubens
+or a Horace Vernet, may sit with a secretary reading to him; a troop of
+admiring scholars watching the master’s hand; or a company of court
+ladies and gentlemen (to whom he addresses a few kind words now and
+again) looking on admiringly; whilst the humblest painter, be he ever
+so poor, may have a friend watching at his easel, or a gentle wife
+sitting by with her work in her lap, and with fond smiles or talk or
+silence cheering his labour.
+
+Amongst all ranks and degrees of painters assembled at Rome, Mr. Clive
+found companions and friends. The cleverest man was not the best artist
+very often: the ablest artist not the best critic nor the best
+companion. Many a man could give no account of the faculty within him,
+but achieved success because he could not help it; and did, in an hour
+and without effort, that which another could not effect with half a
+life’s labour. There were young sculptors who had never read a line of
+Homer, who took on themselves nevertheless to interpret and continue
+the heroic Greek art. There were young painters with the strongest
+natural taste for low humour, comic singing, and Cyder-Cellar
+jollifications, who would imitate nothing under Michael Angelo, and
+whose canvases teemed with tremendous allegories of fates, furies,
+genii of death and battle. There were long-haired lads who fancied the
+sublime lay in the Peruginesque manner, and depicted saintly personages
+with crisp draperies, crude colours, and haloes of gold-leaf. Our
+friend marked all these practitioners of Art with their various
+oddities and tastes, and was welcomed in the ateliers of all of them,
+from the grave dons and seniors, the senators of the French and English
+Academy, down to the jovial students who railed at the elders over
+their cheap cups at the Lepre. What a gallant, starving, generous,
+kindly life, many of them led! What fun in their grotesque airs, what
+friendship and gentleness in their poverty! How splendidly Carlo talked
+of the marquis his cousin, and the duke his intimate friend! How great
+Federigo was on the subject of his wrongs, from the Academy at home, a
+pack of tradesmen who could not understand high art, and who had never
+seen a good picture! With what haughtiness Augusto swaggered about at
+Sir John’s soirées, though he was known to have borrowed Fernando’s
+coat, and Luigi’s dress-boots! If one or the other was ill, how nobly
+and generously his companions flocked to comfort him, took turns to
+nurse the sick man through nights of fever, contributed out of their
+slender means to help him through his difficulty. Max, who loves fine
+dresses and the carnival so, gave up a costume and a carriage so as to
+help Paul, when he sold his picture (through the agency of Pietro, with
+whom he had quarrelled, and who recommended him to a patron), gave a
+third of the money back to Max, and took another third portion to
+Lazaro, with his poor wife and children, who had not got a single order
+all that winter—and so the story went on. I have heard Clive tell of
+two noble young Americans who came to Europe to study their art; of
+whom the one fell sick, whilst the other supported his penniless
+comrade, and out of sixpence a day absolutely kept but a penny for
+himself, giving the rest to his sick companion. “I should like to have
+known that good Samaritan, Sir,” our Colonel said, twirling his
+mustachios, when we saw him again, and his son told him that story.
+
+J. J., in his steady silent way, worked on every day, and for many
+hours every day. When Clive entered their studio of a morning, he found
+J. J. there, and there he left him. When the Life Academy was over, at
+night, and Clive went out to his soirées, J. J. lighted his lamp and
+continued his happy labour. He did not care for the brawling
+supper-parties of his comrades; liked better to stay at home than to go
+into the world, and was seldom abroad of a night except during the
+illness of Luigi before mentioned, when J. J. spent constant evenings
+at the other’s bedside. J. J. was fortunate as well as skilful: people
+in the world took a liking to the modest young man, and he had more
+than one order for pictures. The Artists’ Club, at the Lepre, set him
+down as close with his money; but a year after he left Rome, Lazaro and
+his wife, who still remained there, told a different tale. Clive
+Newcome, when he heard of their distress, gave them something—as much
+as he could spare; but J. J. gave more, and Clive was as eager in
+acknowledging and admiring his friend’s generosity as he was in
+speaking of his genius. His was a fortunate organisation indeed. Study
+was his chief amusement. Self-denial came easily to him. Pleasure, or
+what is generally called so, had little charm for him. His ordinary
+companions were pure and sweet thoughts; his out-door enjoyment the
+contemplation of natural beauty; for recreation, the hundred pleasant
+dexterities and manipulations of his craft were ceaselessly interesting
+to him: he would draw every knot in an oak panel, or every leaf in an
+orange-tree, smiling, and taking a gay delight over the simple feats of
+skill: whenever you found him he seemed watchful and serene, his modest
+virgin-lamp always lighted and trim. No gusts of passion extinguished
+it; no hopeless wandering in the darkness afterwards led him astray.
+Wayfarers through the world, we meet now and again with such purity;
+and salute it, and hush whilst it passes on.
+
+We have it under Clive Newcome’s own signature, that he intended to
+pass a couple of years in Italy, devoting himself exclusively to the
+study of his profession. Other besides professional reasons were
+working secretly in the young man’s mind, causing him to think that
+absence from England was the best cure for a malady under which he
+secretly laboured. But change of air may cure some sick people more
+speedily than the sufferers ever hoped; and also it is on record, that
+young men with the very best intentions respecting study, do not fulfil
+them, and are led away from their scheme by accident, or pleasure, or
+necessity, or some good cause. Young Clive worked sedulously two or
+three months at his vocation at Rome, secretly devouring, no doubt, the
+pangs of sentimental disappointment under which he laboured; and he
+drew from his models, and he sketched round about everything that
+suited his pencil on both sides of Tiber; and he laboured at the Life
+Academy of nights—a model himself to other young students. The symptoms
+of his sentimental malady began to abate. He took an interest in the
+affairs of Jack, and Tom, and Harry round about him: Art exercised its
+great healing influence on his wounded spirit, which to be sure had
+never given in. The meeting of the painters at the Café Greco, and at
+their private houses, was very jovial, pleasant, and lively. Clive
+smoked his pipe, drank his glass of Marsala, sang his song, and took
+part in the general chorus as gaily as the jolliest of the boys. He was
+the cock of the whole painting school, the favourite of all; and to be
+liked by the people, you may be pretty sure that we for our parts must
+like them.
+
+Then, besides the painters, he had, as he has informed us, the other
+society of Rome. Every winter there is a gay and pleasant English
+colony in that capital, of course more or less remarkable for rank,
+fashion, and agreeability with every varying year. In Clive’s year some
+very pleasant folks set up their winter quarters in the usual
+foreigners’ resort round about the Piazza di Spagna. I was amused to
+find, lately, looking over the travels of the respectable M. de
+Poellnitz, that, a hundred and twenty years ago, the same quarter, the
+same streets and palaces, scarce changed from those days, were even
+then polite foreigners’ resort. Of one or two of the gentlemen Clive
+had made the acquaintance in the hunting-field; others he had met
+during his brief appearance in the London world. Being a youth of great
+personal agility, fitted thereby to the graceful performance of polkas,
+etc.; having good manners, and good looks, and good credit with Prince
+Poloni, or some other banker, Mr. Newcome was thus made very welcome to
+the Anglo-Roman society; and as kindly received in genteel houses,
+where they drank tea and danced the galop, as in those dusky taverns
+and retired lodgings where his bearded comrades, the painters held
+their meetings.
+
+Thrown together every day, and night after night; flocking to the same
+picture-galleries, statue-galleries, Pincian drives, and church
+functions, the English colonists at Rome perforce became intimate, and
+in many cases friendly. They have an English library where the various
+meets for the week are placarded: on such a day the Vatican galleries
+are open: the next is the feast of Saint So-and-so: on Wednesday there
+will be music and vespers at the Sistine Chapel—on Thursday, the Pope
+will bless the animals—sheep, horses, and what-not: and flocks of
+English accordingly rush to witness the benediction of droves of
+donkeys. In a word, the ancient city of the Cæsars, the august fanes of
+the Popes, with their splendour and ceremony, are all mapped out and
+arranged for English diversion; and we run in a crowd to high mass at
+St. Peter’s, or to the illumination on Easter Day, as we run when the
+bell rings to the Bosjesmen at Cremorne, or the fireworks at Vauxhall.
+
+Running to see fireworks alone, rushing off to examine Bosjesmen by
+one’s self, is a dreary work: I should think very few men would have
+the courage to do it unattended, and personally would not prefer a pipe
+in their own rooms. Hence if Clive went to see all these sights, as he
+did, it is to be concluded that he went in company; and if he went in
+company and sought it, we may suppose that little affair which annoyed
+him at Baden no longer tended to hurt his peace of mind very seriously.
+The truth is, our countrymen are pleasanter abroad than at home; most
+hospitable, kindly, and eager to be pleased and to please. You see a
+family half a dozen times in a week in the little Roman circle, whom
+you shall not meet twice in a season afterwards in the enormous London
+round. When Easter is over and everybody is going away at Rome, you and
+your neighbour shake hands, sincerely sorry to part: in London we are
+obliged to dilute our kindness so that there is hardly any smack of the
+original milk. As one by one the pleasant families dropped off with
+whom Clive had spent his happy winter; as Admiral Freeman’s carriage
+drove away, whose pretty girls he had caught at St. Peter’s kissing St.
+Peter’s toe; as Dick Denby’s family ark appeared with all Denby’s sweet
+young children kissing farewells to him out of the window; as those
+three charming Miss Baliols with whom he had that glorious day in the
+Catacombs; as friend after friend quitted the great city with kind
+greetings, warm pressures of the hand, and hopes of meeting in a yet
+greater city on the banks of the Thames, young Clive felt a depression
+of spirit. Rome was Rome, but it was pleasanter to see it in company;
+our painters are smoking still at the Oafs Greco, but a society all
+smoke and all painters did not suit him. If Mr. Clive is not a Michael
+Angelo or a Beethoven, if his genius is not gloomy, solitary, gigantic,
+shining alone, like a lighthouse, a storm round about him, and breakers
+dashing at his feet, I cannot help myself: he is as Heaven made him,
+brave, honest, gay, and friendly, and persons of a gloomy turn must not
+look to him as a hero.
+
+So Clive and his companion worked away with all their hearts from
+November until far into April when Easter came, and the glorious gala
+with which the Roman Church celebrates that holy season. By this time
+Clive’s books were full of sketches. Ruins, imperial and mediæval;
+peasants and bagpipemen; Passionists with shaven polls; Capuchins and
+the equally hairy frequenters of the Café Greco; painters of all
+nations who resort there; Cardinals and their queer equipages and
+attendants; the Holy Father himself (it was Gregory sixteenth of the
+name); the dandified English on the Pincio and the wonderful Roman
+members of the hunt—were not all these designed by the young man and
+admired by his friends in after-days? J. J.’s sketches were few, but he
+had painted two beautiful little pictures, and sold them for so good a
+price that Prince Polonia’s people were quite civil to him. He had
+orders for yet more pictures, and having worked very hard, thought
+himself authorised to accompany Mr. Clive upon a pleasure-trip to
+Naples, which the latter deemed necessary after his own tremendous
+labours. He for his part had painted no pictures, though he had
+commenced a dozen and turned them to the wall; but he had sketched, and
+dined, and smoked, and danced, as we have seen. So the little britzska
+was put behind horses again, and our two friends set out on their tour,
+having quite a crowd of brother-artists to cheer them, who had
+assembled and had a breakfast for the purpose at that comfortable
+osteria near the Lateran Gate. How the fellows flung their hats up, and
+shouted, “Lebe wohl,” and “Adieu,” and “God bless you, old boy,” in
+many languages! Clive was the young swell of the artists of that year,
+and adored by the whole of the jolly company. His sketches were
+pronounced on all hands to be admirable: it was agreed that if he chose
+he might do anything.
+
+So with promises of a speedy return they left behind them the noble
+city, which all love who once have seen it, and of which we think
+afterwards ever with the kindness and the regard of home. They dashed
+across the Campagna and over the beautiful hills of Albano, and sped
+through the solemn Pontine Marshes, and stopped to roost at Terracing
+(which was not at all like Fra Diavolo’s Terracing at Covent Garden, as
+J. J. was distressed to remark), and so, galloping onwards through a
+hundred ancient cities that crumble on the shores of the beautiful
+Mediterranean, behold, on the second day as they ascended a hill about
+noon. Vesuvius came in view, its great shape shimmering blue in the
+distant haze, its banner of smoke in the cloudless sky. And about five
+o’clock in the evening (as everybody will who starts from Terracing
+early and pays the postboy well), the travellers came to an ancient
+city walled and fortified, with drawbridges over the shining moats.
+
+“Here is CAPUA,” says J. J., and Clive burst out laughing: thinking of
+_his_ Capua which he had left—how many months—years it seemed ago! From
+Capua to Naples is a fine straight road, and our travellers were landed
+at the latter place at suppertime; where, if they had quarters at the
+Vittoria Hotel, they were as comfortable as any gentlemen painters need
+wish to be in this world.
+
+The aspect of the place was so charming and delightful to Clive:—the
+beautiful sea stretched before his eyes when waking, Capri a fairy
+island in the distance, in the amethyst rocks of which Sirens might be
+playing—that fair line of cities skirting the shore glittering white
+along the purple water—over the whole brilliant scene Vesuvius rising
+with cloudlets playing round its summit, and the country bursting out
+into that glorious vegetation with which sumptuous nature decorates
+every spring—this city and scene of Naples were so much to Clive’s
+liking that I have a letter from him dated a couple of days after the
+young man’s arrival, in which he announces his intention of staying
+there for ever, and gives me an invitation to some fine lodgings in a
+certain palazzo, on which he has cast his eye. He is so enraptured with
+the place, that he says to die and be buried there even would be quite
+a treat, so charming is the cemetery where the Neapolitan dead repose.
+
+The Fates did not, however, ordain that Clive Newcome should pass all
+his life at Naples. His Roman banker presently forwarded a few letters
+to his address; some which had arrived after his departure, others
+which had been lying at the Poste Restante, with his name written in
+perfectly legible characters, but which the authorities of the post,
+according to their custom, would not see when Clive sent for them.
+
+It was one of these letters which Clive clutched the most eagerly. It
+had been lying since October, actually, at the Roman post, though Clive
+had asked for letters there a hundred times. It was that little letter
+from Ethel, in reply to his own, whereof we have made mention in a
+previous chapter. There was not much in the little letter. Nothing, of
+course, that Virtue or Grandmamma might not read over the young
+writer’s shoulder. It was affectionate, simple, rather melancholy;
+described in a few words Sir Brian’s seizure and present condition;
+spoke of Lord Kew, who was mending rapidly, as if Clive, of course, was
+aware of his accident; of the children, of Clive’s father, and ended
+with a hearty “God bless you,” to Clive, from his sincere Ethel.
+
+“You boast of its being over. You see it is not over,” says Clive’s
+monitor and companion. “Else, why should you have dashed at that letter
+before all the others, Clive?” J. J. had been watching, not without
+interest, Clive’s blank face as he read the young lady’s note.
+
+“How do you know who wrote the letter?” asks Clive.
+
+“I can read the signature in your face,” says the other; “and I could
+almost tell the contents of the note. Why have you such a tell-tale
+face, Clive?”
+
+“It is over; but when a man has once, you know, gone through an affair
+like that,” says Clive, looking very grave, “he—he’s anxious to hear of
+Alice Grey, and how she’s getting on, you see, my good friend.” And he
+began to shout out as of old—
+
+“Her heart it is another’s, she—never—can—be—mine;”
+
+
+and to laugh at the end of the song. “Well, well,” says he; “it is a
+very kind note, a very proper little note; the expression elegant, J.
+J., the sentiment is most correct. All the little t’s most properly
+crossed, and all the little i’s have dots over their little heads. It’s
+a sort of a prize note, don’t you see; and one such, as in the old
+spelling-book story, the good boy received a plum-cake for writing.
+Perhaps you weren’t educated on the old spelling-book, J. J.? My good
+old father taught me to read out of his—I say, I think it was a shame
+to keep the old boy waiting whilst I have been giving an audience to
+this young lady. Dear old father!” and he apostrophised the letter. “I
+beg your pardon, sir; Miss Newcome requested five minutes’
+conversation, and I was obliged, from politeness, you know, to receive.
+There’s nothing between us; nothing but what’s most correct, upon my
+honour and conscience.” And he kissed his father’s letter, and calling
+out again, “Dear old father!” proceeded to read as follows:—
+
+“‘Your letters, my dearest Clive, have been the greatest comfort to me.
+I seem to hear you as I read them. I can’t but think that this, the
+_modern and natural style_, is a great progress upon the
+_old-fashioned_ manner of my day, when we used to begin to our fathers,
+‘Honoured Father,’ or even ‘Honoured Sir’ some _precisians_ used to
+write still from Mr. Lord’s Academy, at Tooting, where I went before
+Grey Friars—though I suspect parents were no more _honoured_ in those
+days than nowadays. I know one who had rather be trusted than honoured;
+and you may call me what you please, so as you do that.
+
+“‘It is not only to me your letters give pleasure. Last week I took
+yours from Baden Baden, No. 3, September 15, into Calcutta, and could
+not help showing it at Government House, where I dined. Your sketch of
+the old Russian Princess and her little boy, gambling, was _capital_.
+Colonel Buckmaster, Lord Bagwig’s private secretary, knew her, and says
+it is to a _T_. And I read out to some of my young fellows what you
+said about play, and how you had given it over. I very much fear some
+of the young rogues are at dice and brandy-pawnee before tiffin. What
+you say of young Ridley, I take _cum grano_. His sketches I thought
+very agreeable; but to compare them to _a certain gentleman’s_——Never
+mind, I shall not try to make him think too well of himself. I kissed
+dear Ethel’s hand in your letter. I write her a long letter by this
+mail.
+
+“‘If Paul de Florac in any way resembles his mother, between you and
+him there ought to be a very warm regard. I knew her when I was a boy,
+long before you were born or thought of; and in wandering forty years
+through the world since, I have seen no woman in my eyes so good or so
+beautiful. Your cousin Ethel reminded me of her; as handsome, but not
+so _lovely_. Yes, it was that pale lady you saw at Paris, with eyes
+full of care, and hair streaked with grey. So it will be the turn of
+you young folks, come eight more _lustres_, and your heads will be bald
+like mine, or grey like Madame de Florac’s, and bending over the ground
+where we are lying in quiet. I understand from you that young Paul is
+not in very flourishing circumstances. If he still is in need, mind and
+be his banker, and _I will be yours_. Any child of hers must never want
+when I have a spare guinea. I do not mind telling you, sir, that I
+cared for her more than millions of guineas once; and half broke my
+heart about her when I went to India, as a young chap. So, if any such
+misfortunes happen to _you_, consider, my boy, you are not the _only_
+one.
+
+“‘Binnie writes me word that he has been ailing. I hope you are a good
+correspondent with him. What made me turn to him just after speaking of
+unlucky love affairs? Could I be thinking about little Rosie Mackenzie?
+She is a sweet little lass, and James will leave her a pretty piece of
+money. _Verbum sap_. I should like you to marry; but God forbid you
+should marry for a million of gold mohurs.
+
+“‘And gold mohurs bring me to another subject. Do you know I narrowly
+missed losing half a lakh of rupees which I had at an agent’s here? And
+who do you think warned me about him? Our friend Rummun Loll, who has
+lately been in England, and with whom I made the voyage from
+Southampton. He is a man of wonderful tact and observation. I used to
+think meanly of the honesty of natives and treat them haughtily, as I
+recollect doing this very gentleman at your Uncle Newcome’s in
+Bryanstone Square. He heaped coals of fire on my head by saving my
+money for me; and I have placed it with interest in his house. If I
+would but listen to him, my capital might be trebled in a year, he
+says, and the interest immensely increased. He enjoys the greatest
+esteem among the moneyed men here; keeps a splendid establishment and
+house here in Barrackpore; is princely in his benefactions. He talks to
+me about the establishment of a bank, of which the profits are so
+enormous and the scheme so (seemingly) clear, that I don’t know whether
+I mayn’t be tempted to take a few shares. _Nous verrons_. Several of my
+friends are longing to have a finger in it; but be sure this, I shall
+do nothing rashly and without the very _best advice_.
+
+“‘I have not been frightened yet by your draughts upon me. Draw as many
+of these as you please. You know I don’t half like the other kind of
+drawing, except as a _délassement:_ but if you chose to be a weaver,
+like my grandfather, I should not say you nay. Don’t stint yourself of
+money or of honest pleasure. Of what good is money, unless we can make
+those we love happy with it? There would be no need for me to save, if
+you were to save too. So, and as you know as well as I what our means
+are, in every honest way use them. I should like you not to pass the
+whole of next year in Italy, but to come home and pay a visit to honest
+James Binnie. I wonder how the old barrack in Fitzroy Square looks
+without me? Try and go round by Paris on your way home, and pay your
+visit, and carry your father’s fond remembrances to Madame la Comtesse
+de Florac. I don’t say remember me to my brother, as I write Brian by
+this mail. Adieu, mon fils! je t’embrasse!—and am always my Clive’s
+affectionate father, T. N.’”
+
+“Isn’t he a noble old trump?” That point had been settled by the young
+men any time these three years. And now Mr. J. J. remarked that when
+Clive had read his father’s letter once, then he read Ethel’s over
+again, and put it in his breast-pocket, and was very disturbed in mind
+that day, pishing and pshawing at the statue-gallery which they went to
+see at the Museo.
+
+“After all,” says Clive, “what rubbish these second-rate statues are!
+what a great hulking abortion is this brute of a Farnese Hercules!
+There’s only one bit in the whole gallery that is worth a
+twopenny-piece.”
+
+It was the beautiful fragment called Psyche. J. J. smiled as his
+comrade spoke in admiration of this statue—in the slim shape, in the
+delicate formation of the neck, in the haughty virginal expression, the
+Psyche is not unlike the Diana of the Louvre—and the Diana of the
+Louvre we have said was like a certain young lady.
+
+“After all,” continues Clive, looking up at the great knotted legs of
+that clumsy caricatured porter which Glykon the Athenian sculptured in
+bad times of art surely,—“she could not write otherwise than she
+did—don’t you see? Her letter is quite kind and affectionate. You see
+she says she shall always hear of me with pleasure: hopes I’ll come
+back soon, and bring some good pictures with me, since pictures I will
+do. She thinks small beer of painters, J. J.—well, we don’t think small
+beer of ourselves, my noble friend. I—I suppose it must be over by this
+time, and I may write to her as the Countess of Kew.” The custode of
+the apartment had seen admiration and wonder expressed by hundreds of
+visitors to his marble Giant: but he had never known Hercules occasion
+emotion before, as in the case of the young stranger; who, after
+staring a while at the statue, dashed his hand across his forehead with
+a groan, and walked away from before the graven image of the huge
+Strongman, who had himself been made such a fool by women.
+
+“My father wants me to go and see James and Madame de Florac,” says
+Clive, as they stride down the street to the Toledo.
+
+J. J. puts his arm through his companion’s, which is deep the pocket of
+his velvet paletot. “You must not go home till you hear it is over,
+Clive,” whispers J. J.
+
+“Of course not, old boy,” says the other, blowing tobacco out of his
+shaking head.
+
+Not very long after their arrival, we may be sure they went to Pompeii,
+of which place, as this is not an Italian tour, but a history of Clive
+Newcome, Esquire, and his most respectable family, we shall offer to
+give no description. The young man had read Sir Bulwer Lytton’s
+delightful story, which has become the history of Pompeii, before they
+came thither, and Pliny’s description, _apud_ the Guide-Book. Admiring
+the wonderful ingenuity with which the English writer had illustrated
+the place by his text, as if the houses were so many pictures to which
+he had appended a story, Clive, the wag, who was always indulging his
+vein for caricature, was proposing that that they should take the same
+place, names, people, and make a burlesque story: “What would be a
+better figure,” says he, “than Pliny’s mother, whom the historian
+describes as exceedingly corpulent, and walking away from the
+catastrophe with slaves holding cushions behind her, to shield her
+plump person from the cinders! Yes, old Mrs. Pliny shall be my heroine!”
+says Clive. A picture of her on a dark grey paper and touched up with
+red at the extremities, exists in Clive’s album to the present day.
+
+As they were laughing, rattling, wondering, mimicking, the cicerone
+attending them with his nasal twaddle, anon pausing and silent,
+yielding to the melancholy pity and wonder which the aspect of that
+strange and smiling place inspires,—behold they come upon another party
+of English, two young men accompanying a lady.
+
+“What, Clive!” cries one.
+
+“My dear, dear Lord Kew!” shouts the other; and as the young man rushes
+up and grasps the two hands of the other, they begin to blush——
+
+Lord Kew and his family resided in a neighbouring hotel on the Chiafa
+at Naples; and that very evening on returning from the Pompeian
+excursion, the two painters were invited to take tea by those friendly
+persons. J. J. excused himself, and sate at home drawing all night.
+Clive went, and passed a pleasant evening; in which all sorts of future
+tours and pleasure-parties were projected by the young men. They were
+to visit Pæstum, Capri, Sicily; why not Malta and the East? asked Lord
+Kew.
+
+Lady Walham was alarmed. Had not Kew been in the East already? Clive
+was surprised and agitated too. Could Kew think of going to the East,
+and making long journeys when he had—he had other engagements that
+would necessitate his return home? No, he must not go to the East, Lord
+Kew’s mother avowed; Kew had promised to stay with her during the
+summer at Castellammare, and Mr. Newcome must come and paint their
+portraits there—all their portraits. She would like to have an entire
+picture-gallery of Kews, if her son would remain at home during the
+sittings.
+
+At an early hour Lady Walham retired to rest, exacting Clive’s promise
+to come to Castellammare; and George Barnes disappeared to array
+himself in an evening costume, and to pay his round of visits as became
+a young diplomatist. This part of diplomatic duty does not commence
+until after the opera at Naples; and society begins when the rest of
+the world has gone to bed.
+
+Kew and Clive sate till one o’clock in the morning, when the latter
+returned to his hotel. Not one of those fine parties at Pæstum, Sicily,
+etc. was carried out. Clive did not go to the East at all, and it was
+J. J, who painted Lord Kew’s portrait that summer at Castellammare. The
+next day Clive went for his passport to the embassy; and a steamer
+departing direct for Marseilles on that very afternoon, behold Mr.
+Newcome was on board of her; Lord Kew and his brother and J. J. waving
+their hats to him as the vessel left the shore.
+
+Away went the ship cleaving swiftly through the azure waters; but not
+swiftly enough for Clive. J. J. went back with a sigh to his sketchbook
+and easels. I suppose the other young disciple of Art had heard
+something which caused him to forsake his sublime mistress for one who
+was much more capricious and earthly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+Returns from Rome to Pall Mall
+
+
+One morning in the month of July, when there was actually sunshine in
+Lamb Court, and the two gentlemen who occupied the third-floor chambers
+there in partnership, were engaged, as their custom was, over their
+pipes, and their manuscripts, and their _Times_ newspaper, behold a
+fresh sunshine burst into their room in the person of a young Clive,
+with a bronzed face, and a yellow beard and mustachios, and those
+bright cheerful eyes, the sight of which was always so welcome to both
+of us. “What, Clive! What, the young one! What, Benjamin!” shout
+Pendennis and Warrington. Clive had obtained a very high place indeed
+in the latter’s affections, so much so, that if I could have found it
+in my heart to be jealous of such a generous brave fellow, I might have
+grudged him his share of Warrington’s regard. He blushed up with
+pleasure to see us again. Pidgeon, our boy, introduced him with a
+jubilant countenance; and Flanagan, the laundress, came smirking out of
+the bedroom, eager to get a nod of recognition from him, and bestow a
+smile of welcome upon everybody’s favourite, Clive.
+
+In two minutes an arm-chair full of magazines, slips of copy, and books
+for review, was emptied over the neighbouring coal-scuttle, and Clive
+was in the seat, a cigar in his mouth, as comfortable as if he had
+never been away. When did he come? Last night. He was back in Charlotte
+Street, at his old lodgings: he had been to breakfast in Fitzroy Square
+that morning; James Binnie chirped for joy at seeing him. His father
+had written to him desiring him to come back and see James Binnie;
+pretty Miss Rosey was very well, thank you: and Mrs. Mack? Wasn’t Mrs.
+Mackenzie delighted to behold him? “Come, sir, on your honour and
+conscience, didn’t the widow give you a kiss on your return?” Clive
+sends an uncut number of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ flying across the room
+at the head of the inquirer; but blushes as sweetly, that I have very
+little doubt some such pretty meeting had taken place.
+
+What a pity it is he had not been here a short while since for a
+marriage in high life, to give away his dear Barnes, and sign the book,
+along with the other dignitaries! We described that ceremony to him,
+and announced the promotion of his friend, Florac, now our friend also,
+Director of the Great Anglo-Gallic Railway, the Prince de Moncontour.
+Then Clive told us of his deeds during the winter; of the good fun he
+had had at Rome, and the jolly fellows he had met there. Was he going
+to astonish the world by some grand pictures? He was not. The more he
+worked, the more discontented he was with his performances somehow: but
+J. J. was coming out very strong, J. J. was going to be a stunner. We
+turned with pride and satisfaction to that very number of the _Pall
+Mall Gazette_ which the youth had flung at us, and showed him a fine
+article by F. Bayham, Esq., in which the picture sent home by J. J. was
+enthusiastically lauded by the great critic.
+
+So he was back amongst us, and it seemed but yesterday he had quitted
+us. To Londoners everything seems to have happened but yesterday;
+nobody has time to miss his neighbour who goes away. People go to the
+Cape, or on a campaign, or on a tour round the world, or to India, and
+return with a wife and two or three children, and we fancy it was only
+the other day they left us, so engaged is every man in his individual
+speculations, studies, struggles; so selfish does our life make
+us:—selfish but not ill-natured. We are glad to see an old friend,
+though we do not weep when he leaves us. We humbly acknowledge, if fate
+calls us away likewise, that we are no more missed than any other atom.
+
+After talking for a while, Mr. Clive must needs go into the City,
+whither I accompanied him. His interview with Messrs. Jolly and Baines,
+at the house in Fog Court, must have been very satisfactory; Clive came
+out of the parlour with a radiant countenance. “Do you want any money,
+old boy?” says he; “the dear old governor has placed a jolly sum to my
+account, and Mr. Baines has told me how delighted Mrs. Baines and the
+girls will be to see me at dinner. He says my father has made a lucky
+escape out of one house in India, and a famous investment in another.
+Nothing could be more civil; how uncommonly kind and friendly everybody
+is in London! Everybody!” Then bestowing ourselves in a hansom cab,
+which had probably just deposited some other capitalist in the City, we
+made for the West End of the town, where Mr. Clive had some important
+business to transact with his tailors. He discharged his outstanding
+little account with easy liberality, blushing as he pulled out of his
+pocket a new chequebook, page 1 of which he bestowed on the delighted
+artist. From Mr. B.’s shop to Mr. Truefitt’s, is but a step. Our young
+friend was induced to enter the hairdresser’s, and leave behind him a
+great portion of the flowing locks and the yellow beard, which he had
+brought with him from Rome. With his mustachios he could not be induced
+to part; painters and cavalry officers having a right to those
+decorations. And why should not this young fellow wear smart clothes,
+and a smart moustache, and look handsome, and take his pleasure, and
+bask in his sun when it shone? Time enough for flannel and a fire when
+the winter comes; and for grey hair and cork-soled boots in the natural
+decline of years.
+
+Then we went to pay a visit at a hotel in Jermyn Street to our friend
+Florac who was now magnificently lodged there. A powdered giant lolling
+in the hall, his buttons emblazoned with prodigious coronets, took our
+cards up to the Prince. As the door of an apartment on the first floor
+opened, we heard a cry as of joy; and that nobleman in a magnificent
+Persian dressing-gown, rushing from the room, plunged down the stairs,
+and began kissing Clive, to the respectful astonishment of the Titan in
+livery.
+
+“Come that I present you, my friends,” our good little Frenchman
+exclaimed “to Madame la—to my wife!” We entered the drawing-room; a
+demure little little lady, of near sixty years of age, was seated
+there, and we were presented in form to Madame Princesse de Moncontour,
+nee Higg, of Manchester. She made us a stiff little curtsey, but looked
+not ill-natured; indeed, few women could look at Clive Newcome’s
+gallant figure and brave smiling countenance and keep a frown on their
+own very long.
+
+“I have ’eard of you from somebodys else besides the Prince,” said the
+lady, with rather a blush “Your uncle has spoke to me hoften about you,
+Mr. Clive, and about your good father.”
+
+“C’est son Directeur,” whispers Florac to me. I wondered which of the
+firm of Newcome had taken that office upon him.
+
+“Now you are come to England,” the lady continued (whose Lancashire
+pronunciation being once indicated, we shall henceforth, out of respect
+to the Princess’s rank generally pretermit),—“now you are come to
+England we hope to see you often. Not here in this noisy hotel, which I
+can’t bear, but in the country. Our house is only three miles from
+Newcome—not such a grand place as your uncle’s; but I hope we shall see
+you there a great deal, and your friend Mr. Pendennis, if he is passing
+that way.” The invitation to Mr. Pendennis, I am bound to say, was
+given in terms by no means so warm as those in which the Princess’s
+hospitality to Clive were professed.
+
+“Shall we meet you at your Huncle ’Obson’s?” the lady continued to
+Clive; “his wife is a most charming, well-informed woman, has been most
+kind and civil and we dine there to-day. Barnes and his wife is gone to
+spend the honeymoon at Newcome. Lady Clara is a sweet dear thing, and
+her pa and ma most affable, I am sure. What a pity Sir Brian couldn’t
+attend the marriage! There was everybody there in London, a’most. Sir
+Harvey Diggs says he is mending very slowly. In life we are in death,
+Mr. Newcome! Isn’t it sad to think of him, in the midst of all his
+splendour and prosperity, and he so infirm and unable to enjoy them!
+But let us hope for the best, and that his health will soon come
+round!”
+
+With these and similar remarks, in which poor Florac took but a very
+small share (for he seemed dumb and melancholy in the company of the
+Princess, his elderly spouse), the visit sped on. Mr. Pendennis, to
+whom very little was said, having leisure to make his silent
+observations upon the person to whom he had been just presented.
+
+As there lay on the table two neat little packages, addressed “The
+Princess de Moncontour”—an envelope to the same address, with “The
+Prescription, No. 9396,” further inscribed on the paper, and a sheet of
+notepaper, bearing cabalistic characters, and the signature of that
+most fashionable physician, Sir Harvey Diggs, I was led to believe that
+the lady of Moncontour was, or fancied herself, in a delicate state of
+health. By the side of the physic for the body was medicine for the
+soul—a number of pretty little books in middle-age bindings, in antique
+type many of theist, adorned with pictures of the German school,
+representing demure ecclesiastics, with their heads on one side,
+children in long starched nightgowns, virgins bearing lilies, and so
+forth, from which it was to be concluded that the owner of the volumes
+was not so hostile to Rome as she had been at an earlier period of her
+religious life; and that she had migrated (in spirit) from Clapham to
+Knightsbridge—so many wealthy mercantile families have likewise done in
+the body. A long strip of embroidery, of the Gothic pattern,
+furthermore betrayed her present inclinations; and the person observing
+these things, whilst nobody was taking any notice of him, was amused
+when the accuracy of his conjectures was confirmed by the reappearance
+of the gigantic footman, calling out “’Oneyman,” in a loud voice, and
+preceding that divine into the room.
+
+“C’est le Directeur. Venez fumer dans ma chambre, Pen,” growled Florac
+as Honeyman came sliding over the carpet, his elegant smile changing to
+a blush when he beheld Clive, his nephew, seated by the Princess’s
+side. This, then, was the uncle who had spoken about Clive and his
+father to Madame de Florac. Charles seemed in the best condition. He
+held out two bran-new lavender-coloured kid gloves to shake hands with
+his dear Clive; Florac and Mr. Pendennis vanished out of the room as he
+appeared, so that no precise account can be given of this affecting
+interview.
+
+When I quitted the hotel, a brown brougham, with a pair of beautiful
+horses, the harness and panels emblazoned with the neatest little ducal
+coronets you ever saw, and a cypher under each crown as easy to read as
+the arrow-headed inscriptions on one of Mr. Layard’s Assyrian chariots,
+was in waiting, and I presumed that Madame la Princesse was about to
+take an airing.
+
+Clive had passed the avuncular banking-house in the City, without
+caring to face his relatives there. Mr. Newcome was now in sole
+command, Mr. Barnes being absent at Newcome, the Baronet little likely
+ever to enter bank-parlour again. But his bounden duty was to wait on
+the ladies; and of course, only from duty’s sake, he went the very
+first day and called in Park Lane.
+
+“The family was habsent ever since the marriage simminery last week,”
+the footman, who had accompanied the party to Baden, informed Clive
+when he opened the door, and recognised that gentleman. “Sir Brian
+pretty well, thank you, sir. The family was at Brighting. That is Miss
+Newcome is in London staying with her grandmamma in Queen Street,
+Mayfear, sir.” The varnished doors closed upon Jeames within; the
+brazen knockers grinned their familiar grin at Clive, and he went down
+the blank steps discomfited. Must it be owned that he went to a Club,
+and looked in the Directory for the number of Lady Kew’s house in Queen
+Street? Her ladyship had a furnished house for the season. No such
+noble name to be found among the inhabitants of Queen Street.
+
+Mr. Hobson was from home; that is, Thomas had orders not to admit
+strangers on certain days, or before certain hours; so that Aunt Hobson
+saw Clive without being seen by the young man. I cannot say how much he
+regretted that mischance. His visits of propriety were thus all paid;
+and he went off to dine dutifully with James Binnie, after which meal
+he came to a certain rendezvous given to him by some bachelors friends
+for the evening.
+
+James Binnie’s eyes lightened up with pleasure on beholding his young
+Clive; the youth, obedient to his father’s injunction, had hastened to
+Fitzroy Square immediately after taking possession of his old
+lodgings—his, during the time of his absence. The old properties and
+carved cabinets, the picture of his father looking melancholy out of
+the canvas, greeted Clive strangely on the afternoon of his arrival. No
+wonder he was glad to get away from a solitude peopled with a number of
+dismal recollections, to the near hospitality of Fitzroy Square and his
+guardian and friend there.
+
+James had not improved in health during Clive’s ten months’ absence. He
+had never been able to walk well, or take his accustomed exercise,
+after his fall. He was no more used to riding than the late Mr. Gibbon,
+whose person James’s somewhat resembled, and of whose philosophy our
+Scottish friend was an admiring scholar. The Colonel gone, James would
+have arguments with Mr. Honeyman over their claret, bring down the
+famous XVth and XVIth chapters of the Decline and Fall upon him, and
+quite get the better of the clergyman. James, like many other sceptics,
+was very obstinate, and for his part believed that almost all parsons
+had as much belief as the Roman augurs in their ceremonies. Certainly,
+poor Honeyman, in their controversies, gave up one article after
+another, flying from James’s assault; but the battle over, Charles
+Honeyman would pick up these accoutrements which he had flung away in
+his retreat, wipe them dry, and put them on again.
+
+Lamed by his fall, and obliged to remain much within doors, where
+certain society did not always amuse him, James Binnie sought
+excitement in the pleasures of the table, partaking of them the more
+freely now that his health could afford them the less. Clive, the sly
+rogue, observed a great improvement in the commissariat since his good
+father’s time, ate his dinner with thankfulness, and made no remarks.
+Nor did he confide to us for a while his opinion that Mrs. Mack bored
+the good gentleman most severely; that he pined away under her
+kindnesses; sneaked off to his study-chair and his nap; was only too
+glad when some of the widow’s friends came, or she went out; seeming to
+breathe more freely when she was gone, and drink his wine more cheerily
+when rid of the intolerable weight of her presence.
+
+I protest the great ills of life are nothing—the loss of your fortune
+is a mere flea-bite; the loss of your wife—how many men have supported
+it and married comfortably afterwards? It is not what you lose, but
+what you have daily to bear that is hard. I can fancy nothing more
+cruel, after a long easy life of bachelorhood, than to have to sit day
+after day with a dull, handsome woman opposite; to have to answer her
+speeches about the weather, housekeeping and what not; to smile
+appropriately when she is disposed to be lively (that laughing at the
+jokes is the hardest part), and to model your conversation so as to
+suit her intelligence, knowing that a word used out of its downright
+signification will not be understood by your fair breakfast-maker.
+Women go through this simpering and smiling life, and bear it quite
+easily. Theirs is a life of hypocrisy. What good woman does not laugh
+at her husband’s or father’s jokes and stories time after time, and
+would not laugh at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, if he told them?
+Flattery is their nature—to coax, flatter and sweetly befool some one
+is every woman’s business. She is none if she declines this office. But
+men are not provided with such powers of humbug or endurance—they
+perish and pine away miserably when bored—or they shrink off to the
+club or public-house for comfort. I want to say as delicately as I can,
+and never liking to use rough terms regarding a handsome woman, that
+Mrs. Mackenzie, herself being in the highest spirits and the best
+humour, extinguished her half-brother, James Binnie, Esq.; that she was
+as a malaria to him, poisoning his atmosphere, numbing his limbs,
+destroying his sleep—that day after day as he sate down at breakfast,
+and she levelled commonplaces at her dearest James, her dearest James
+became more wretched under her. And no one could see what his complaint
+was. He called in the old physicians at the Club. He dosed himself with
+poppy, and mandragora and blue pill—lower and lower went poor James’s
+mercury. If he wanted to move to Brighton or Cheltenham, well and good.
+Whatever were her engagements, or whatever pleasures darling Rosey
+might have in store, dear thing!—at her age, my dear Mrs. Newcome,
+would not one do all to make a young creature happy?—under no
+circumstances could I _think_ of leaving my poor brother.
+
+Mrs. Mackenzie thought herself a most highly principled woman, Mrs.
+Newcome had also a great opinion of her. These two ladies had formed a
+considerable friendship in the past months, the captain’s widow having
+an unaffected reverence for the banker’s lady and thinking her one of
+the best informed and most superior women in the world. When she had a
+high opinion of a person Mrs. Mack always wisely told it. Mrs. Newcome
+in her turn thought Mrs. Mackenzie a very clever, agreeable, ladylike
+woman,—not accomplished, but one could not have everything. “No, no, my
+dear,” says simple Hobson, “never would do to have every woman as
+clever as you are, Maria. Women would have it all their own way then.”
+
+Maria, as her custom was, thanked God for being so virtuous and clever,
+and graciously admitted Mrs. and Miss Mackenzie into the circle of
+adorers of that supreme virtue and talent. Mr. Newcome took little
+Rosey and her mother to some parties. When any took place in Bryanstone
+Square, they were generally allowed to come to tea.
+
+When on the second day of his arrival the dutiful Clive went to dine
+with Mr. James, the ladies, in spite of their raptures at his return
+and delight at seeing him, were going in the evening to his aunt. Their
+talk was about the Princess all dinner-time. The Prince and Princess
+were to dine in Bryanstone Square. The Princess had ordered such and
+such things at the jeweller’s—the Princess would take rank over an
+English Earl’s daughter—over Lady Anne Newcome, for instance. “Oh,
+dear! I wish the Prince and Princess were smothered in the Tower,”
+growled James Binnie; “since you have got acquainted with ’em I have
+never heard of anything else.”
+
+Clive, like a wise man, kept his counsel about the Prince and Princess,
+with whom we have seen that he had had the honour of an interview that
+very day. But after dinner Rosey came round and whispered to her mamma,
+and after Rosey’s whisper mamma flung her arms round Rosey’s neck and
+kissed her, and called her a thoughtful darling. “What do you think
+this creature says, Clive?” says Mrs. Mack, still holding her darling’s
+little hand. “I wonder I had not thought of it myself.”
+
+“What is it, Mrs. Mackenzie?” asks Clive, laughing.
+
+“She says why should not you come to your aunt’s with us? We are sure
+Mrs. Newcome would be most happy to see you.”
+
+Rosey, with a little hand put to mamma’s mouth, said, “Why did you
+tell?—you naughty mamma! Isn’t she a naughty mamma, Uncle James?” More
+kisses follow after this sally, of which Uncle James receives one with
+perfect complacency: mamma crying out as Rosey retires to dress, “That
+darling child is always thinking of others—always!”
+
+Clive says, “he will sit and smoke a cheroot with Mr. Binnie, if they
+please.” James’s countenance falls. “We have left off _that_ sort of
+thing here, my dear Clive, a long time,” cries Mrs. Mackenzie,
+departing from the dining-room.
+
+“But we have improved the claret, Clive, my boy!” whispers Uncle James.
+“Let us have another bottle, and we will drink to the dear Colonel’s
+good health and speedy return—God bless him! I say, Clive, Tom seems to
+have had a most fortunate escape out of Winter’s house—thanks to our
+friend Rummun Loll, and to have got into a capital good thing with this
+Bundelcund bank. They speak famously of it at Hanover Square, and I see
+the _Hurkara_ quotes the shares at a premium already.”
+
+Clive did not know anything about the Bundelcund bank, except a few
+words found in a letter from his father, which he had in the City this
+morning, “and an uncommonly liberal remittance the governor has sent me
+home, sir.” Upon which they fill another bumper to the Colonel’s
+health.
+
+Mamma and Rosey come and show their pretty pink dresses before going to
+Mrs. Newcome’s, and Clive lights a cigar in the hall—and isn’t there a
+jubilation at the Haunt when the young fellow’s face appears above the
+smoke-clouds there?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+An Old Story
+
+
+Many of Clive’s Roman friends were by this time come to London, and the
+young man renewed his acquaintance with them, and had speedily a
+considerable circle of his own. He thought fit to allow himself a good
+horse or two, and appeared in the Park among other young dandies. He
+and Monsieur de Moncontour were sworn allies. Lord Fareham, who had
+purchased J. J.’s picture, was Clive’s very good friend: Major
+Pendennis himself pronounced him to be a young fellow of agreeable
+manners, and very favourably vu (as the Major happened to know) in some
+very good quarters.
+
+Ere many days Clive had been to Brighton to see Lady Anne and Sir
+Brian, and good Aunt Honeyman, in whose house the Baronet was lodged:
+and I suppose he found out, by some means or other, where Lady Kew
+lived in Mayfair.
+
+But her ladyship was not at home, nor was she at home on the second
+day, nor did there come any note from Ethel to her cousin. She did not
+ride in the Park as of old. Clive, _bien vu_ as he was, did not belong
+to that great world as yet, in which he would be pretty sure to meet
+her every night at one of those parties where everybody goes. He read
+her name in the paper morning after morning, as having been present at
+Lady This’s entertainment and Lady That’s ministerial _réunion_. At
+first he was too shy to tell what the state of the case was, and took
+nobody into his confidence regarding his little _tendre_.
+
+There he was riding through Queen Street, Mayfair, attired in splendid
+raiment: never missing the Park; actually going to places of worship in
+the neighbourhood; and frequenting the opera—a waste of time which one
+would never have expected in a youth of his nurture. At length a
+certain observer of human nature remarking his state, rightly
+conjectured that he must be in love, and taxed him with the soft
+impeachment—on which the young man, no doubt anxious to open his heart
+to some one, poured out all that story which has before been narrated;
+and told how he thought his passion cured, and how it was cured; but
+when he heard from Kew at Naples that the engagement was over between
+him and Miss Newcome, Clive found his own flame kindle again with new
+ardour. He was wild to see her. He dashed off from Naples instantly on
+receiving the news that she was free. He had been ten days in London
+without getting a glimpse of her. “That Mrs. Mackenzie bothers me so I
+hardly know where to turn,” said poor Clive, “and poor little Rosey is
+made to write me a note about something twice a day. She’s a good dear
+little thing—little Rosey—and I really had thought once of—of—oh, never
+mind that! Oh, Pen! I’m up another tree now! and a poor miserable young
+beggar I am!” In fact, Mr. Pendennis was installed as confidant, _vice_
+J. J.—absent on leave.
+
+This is a part, which, especially for a few days, the present
+biographer has always liked well enough. For a while, at least, I think
+almost every man or woman is interesting when in love. If you know of
+two or three such affairs going on in any soirée to which you may be
+invited—is not the party straightway amusing? Yonder goes Augustus
+Tomkins, working his way through the rooms to that far corner where
+demure Miss Hopkins is seated, to whom the stupid grinning Bumpkins
+thinks he is making himself agreeable. Yonder sits Miss Fanny
+_distraite_, and yet trying to smile as the captain is talking his
+folly, the parson his glib compliments. And see, her face lights up all
+of a sudden: her eyes beam with delight at the captain’s stories, and
+at that delightful young clergyman likewise. It is because Augustus has
+appeared; their eyes only meet for one semi-second, but that is enough
+for Miss Fanny. Go on, captain, with your twaddle!—Proceed, my reverend
+friend, with your smirking commonplaces! In the last two minutes the
+world has changed for Miss Fanny. That moment has come for which she
+has been fidgeting and longing and scheming all day! How different an
+interest, I say, has a meeting of people for a philosopher who knows of
+a few such little secrets, to that which your vulgar looker-on feels
+who comes but to eat the ices, and stare at the ladies’ dresses and
+beauty! There are two frames of mind under which London society is
+bearable to a man—to be an actor in one of those sentimental
+performances above hinted at; or to be a spectator and watch it. But as
+for the mere _dessus de cartes_—would not an arm-chair and the dullest
+of books be better than that dull game?
+
+So I not only became Clive’s confidant in this affair, but took a
+pleasure in extracting the young fellow’s secrets from him, or rather
+in encouraging him to pour them forth. Thus was the great part of the
+previous tale revealed to me: thus Jack Belsize’s misadventures, of the
+first part of which we had only heard in London (and whither he
+returned presently to be reconciled to his father, after his elder
+brother’s death). Thus my Lord Kew’s secret history came into my
+possession; let us hope for the public’s future delectation, and the
+chronicler’s private advantage. And many a night until daylight did
+appear has poor Clive stamped his chamber or my own, pouring his story
+out to me, his griefs and raptures; recalling, in his wild young way,
+recollections of Ethel’s sayings and doings; uttering descriptions of
+her beauty, and raging against the cruelty which she exhibited towards
+him.
+
+As soon as the new confidant heard the name of the young lover’s
+charmer, to do Mr. Pendennis justice, he endeavoured to fling as much
+cold water upon Clive’s flame as a small private engine could be
+brought to pour on such a conflagration. “Miss Newcome! my dear Clive,”
+says the confidant, “do you know what you are aspiring to? For the last
+three months Miss Newcome has been the greatest lioness in London: the
+reigning beauty winning the horse: the first favourite out of the whole
+Belgravian harem. No young woman of this year has come near her: those
+of past seasons she has distanced and utterly put to shame. Miss
+Blackcap, Lady Blanch Blackcap’s daughter, was (as perhaps you are not
+aware) considered by her mamma the great beauty of last season; and it
+was considered rather shabby of the young Marquis of Farintosh to leave
+town without offering to change Miss Blackcap’s name. Heaven bless you!
+this year Farintosh will not look at Miss Blackcap! _He_ finds people
+at home when (ha! I see you wince, my suffering innocent!)—when he
+calls in Queen Street; yes, and Lady Kew, who is one of the cleverest
+women in England, will listen for hours to Lord Farintosh’s
+conversation; than whom the Rotten Row of Hyde Park cannot show a
+greater booby. Miss Blackcap may retire, like Jephthah’s daughter, for
+all Farintosh will relieve her. Then, my dear fellow, there were, as
+possibly you do not know, Lady Hermengilde and Lady Yseult, Lady
+Rackstraw’s lovely twins, whose appearance created such a sensation at
+Lady Hautbois’ first—was it her first or was it her second?—yes, it was
+her second—breakfast. Whom weren’t they going to marry? Crackthorpe was
+mad, they said, about both.—Bustington, Sir John Fobsby, the young
+Baronet with the immense Northern property—the Bishop of Windsor was
+actually said to be smitten with one of them, but did not like to
+offer, as her present M—y, like Qu—n El-z-b-th of gracious memory, is
+said to object to bishops, as bishops, marrying. Where is Bustington?
+Where is Crackthorpe? Where is Fobsby, the young Baronet of the North?
+My dear fellow, when those two girls come into a room now, they make no
+more sensation than you or I. Miss Newcome has carried their admirers
+away from them: Fobsby has actually, it is said, proposed for her: and
+the real reason of that affair between Lord Bustington and Captain
+Crackthorpe of the Royal Horse Guards Green, was a speech of
+Bustington’s, hinting that Miss Newcome had not behaved well in
+throwing Lord Kew over. Don’t you know what old Lady Kew will do with
+this girl, Clive? She will marry Miss Newcome to the best man. If a
+richer and better _parti_ than Lord Farintosh presents himself—then it
+will be Farintosh’s turn to find that Lady Kew is not at home. Is there
+any young man in the Peerage unmarried and richer than Farintosh? I
+forget. Why does not some one publish a list of the young male nobility
+and baronetage, their names, weights, and probable fortunes? I don’t
+mean for the matrons of Mayfair—they have the list by heart and study
+it in secret—but for young men in the world; so that they may know what
+their chances are, and who naturally has the pull over them. Let me
+see—there is young Lord Gaunt, who will have a great fortune, and is
+desirable because you know his father is locked up—but he is only ten
+years old—no—they can scarcely bring him forward as Farintosh’s rival.
+
+“You look astonished, my poor boy? You think it is wicked in me to talk
+in this brutal way about bargain and sale; and say that your heart’s
+darling is, at this minute, being paced up and down the Mayfair market
+to be taken away by the best bidder. Can you count purses with Sultan
+Farintosh? Can you compete even with Sir John Fobsby of the North? What
+I say is wicked and worldly, is it? So it is; but it is true, as true
+as Tattersall’s—as true as Circassia or Virginia. Don’t you know that
+the Circassian girls are proud of their bringing up, and take rank
+according to the prices which they fetch? And you go and buy yourself
+some new clothes, and a fifty-pound horse, and put a penny rose in your
+button-hole, and ride past her window, and think to win this prize? Oh,
+you idiot! A penny rosebud! Put money in your purse. A fifty-pound hack
+when a butcher rides as good a one!—Put money in your purse. A brave
+young heart, all courage and love and honour! Put money in thy
+purse—t’other coin don’t pass in the market—at least, where old Lady
+Kew has the stall.”
+
+By these remonstrances, playful though serious, Clive’s adviser sought
+to teach him wisdom about his love affair; and the advice was received
+as advice upon those occasions usually is.
+
+After calling thrice and writing to Miss Newcome, there came a little
+note from that young lady, saying, “Dear Clive,—We were so sorry we
+were out when you called. We shall be at home to-morrow at lunch, when
+Lady Kew hopes you will come, and see yours ever, E. N.”
+
+Clive went—poor Clive! He had the satisfaction of shaking Ethel’s hand
+and a finger of Lady Kew; of eating a mutton-chop in Ethel’s presence;
+of conversing about the state of art at Rome with Lady Kew, and
+describing the last works of Gibson and Macdonald. The visit lasted but
+for half an hour. Not for one minute was Clive allowed to see Ethel
+alone. At three o’clock Lady Kew’s carriage was announced, and our
+young gentleman rose to take his leave, and had the pleasure of seeing
+the most noble Peer, Marquis of Farintosh and Earl of Rossmont, descend
+from his lordship’s brougham and enter at Lady Kew’s door, followed by
+a domestic bearing a small stack of flowers from Covent Garden.
+
+It befell that the good-natured Lady Fareham had a ball in these days;
+and meeting Clive in the Park, her lord invited him to the
+entertainment. Mr. Pendennis had also the honour of a card. Accordingly
+Clive took me up at Bays’s, and we proceeded to the ball together.
+
+The lady of the house, smiling upon all her guests, welcomed with
+particular kindness her young friend from Rome. “Are you related to
+_the_ Miss Newcome, Lady Anne Newcome’s daughter? Her cousin? She will
+be here to-night.” Very likely Lady Fareham did not see Clive wince and
+blush at this announcement, her ladyship having to occupy herself with
+a thousand other people. Clive found a dozen of his Roman friends in
+the room, ladies young and middle-aged, plain and handsome, all glad to
+see his kind face. The house was splendid; the ladies magnificently
+dressed; the ball beautiful, though it appeared a little dull until
+that event took place whereof we treated two pages back (in the
+allegory of Mr. Tomkins and Miss Hopkins), and Lady Kew and her
+granddaughter made their appearance.
+
+That old woman, who began to look more and more like the wicked fairy
+of the stories, who is not invited to the Princess’s Christening Feast,
+had this advantage over her likeness, that she was invited everywhere;
+though how she, at her age, could fly about to so many parties, unless
+she was a fairy, no one could say. Behind the fairy, up the marble
+stairs, came the most noble Farintosh, with that vacuous leer which
+distinguishes his lordship. Ethel seemed to be carrying the stack of
+flowers which the Marquis had sent to her. The noble Bustington
+(Viscount Bustington, I need scarcely tell the reader, is the heir of
+the house of Podbury), the Baronet of the North, the gallant
+Crackthorpe, the first men in town, in a word, gathered round the young
+beauty, forming her court; and little Dick Hitchin, who goes
+everywhere, you may be sure was near her with a compliment and a smile.
+Ere this arrival, the twins had been giving themselves great airs in
+the room—the poor twins! when Ethel appeared they sank into shuddering
+insignificance, and had to put up with the conversation and attentions
+of second-rate men, belonging to second-rate clubs in heavy dragoon
+regiments. One of them actually walked with a dancing barrister; but he
+was related to a duke, and it was expected the Lord Chancellor would
+give him something very good.
+
+Before he saw Ethel, Clive vowed he was aware of her. Indeed, had not
+Lady Fareham told him Miss Newcome was coming? Ethel, on the contrary,
+not expecting him, or not having the prescience of love, exhibited
+signs of surprise when she beheld him, her eyebrows arching, her eyes
+darting looks of pleasure. When grandmamma happened to be in another
+room, she beckoned Clive to her, dismissing Crackthorpe and Fobsby,
+Farintosh and Bustington, the amorous youth who around her bowed, and
+summoning Mr. Clive to an audience with the air of a young princess.
+
+And so she was a princess; and this the region of her special dominion.
+The wittiest and handsomest, she deserved to reign in such a place, by
+right of merit and by general election. Clive felt her superiority, and
+his own shortcomings: he came up to her as to a superior person.
+Perhaps she was not sorry to let him see how she ordered away grandees
+and splendid Bustingtons, informing them, with a superb manner, that
+she wished to speak to her cousin—that handsome young man with the
+light moustache yonder.
+
+“Do you know many people? This is your first appearance in society?
+Shall I introduce you to some nice girls to dance with?” What very
+pretty buttons!”
+
+“Is that what you wanted to say?” asked Clive, rather bewildered.
+
+“What does one say at a ball? One talks conversation suited to the
+place. If I were to say to Captain Crackthorpe, ‘What pretty buttons!’
+he would be delighted. But you—you have a soul above buttons, I
+suppose.”
+
+“Being, as you say, a stranger in this sort of society, you see I am
+not accustomed to—to the exceeding brilliancy of its conversation,”
+said Clive.
+
+“What! you want to go away, and we haven’t seen each other for near a
+year!” cries Ethel, in quite a natural voice. “Sir John Fobsby, I’m
+very sorry—but do let me off this dance. I have just met my cousin,
+whom I have not seen for a whole year, and I want to talk to him.”
+
+“It was not my fault that you did not see me sooner. I wrote to you
+that I only got your letter a month ago. You never answered the second
+I wrote you from Rome. Your letter lay there at the post ever so long,
+and was forwarded to me at Naples.”
+
+“_Where?_” asked Ethel.
+
+“I saw Lord Kew there.” Ethel was smiling with all her might, and
+kissing her hand to the twins, who passed at that moment with their
+mamma. “Oh, indeed, you saw—how do you do?—Lord Kew.”
+
+“And, having seen him, I came over to England,” said Clive.
+
+Ethel looked at him, gravely. “What am I to understand by that,
+Clive?—You came over because it was very hot at Naples, and because you
+wanted to see your friends here, n’est-ce pas? How glad mamma was to
+see you! You know she loves you as if you were her own son.”
+
+“What, as much as that angel, Barnes!” cries Clive, bitterly;
+“impossible.”
+
+Ethel looked once more. Her present mood and desire was to treat Clive
+as a chit, as a young fellow without consequence—a thirteenth younger
+brother. But in his looks and behaviour there was that which seemed to
+say not too many liberties were to be taken with him.
+
+“Why weren’t you here a month sooner, and you might have seen the
+marriage? It was a very pretty thing. Everybody was there. Clara, and
+so did Barnes really, looked quite handsome.”
+
+“It must have been beautiful,” continued Clive; “quite a touching
+sight, I am sure. Poor Charles Belsize could not be present because his
+brother was dead; and——”
+
+“And what else, pray, Mr. Newcome!” cries Miss, in great wrath, her
+pink nostrils beginning to quiver. “I did not think, really, that when
+we met after so many months, I was to be insulted; yes, insulted, by
+the mention of that name.”
+
+“I most humbly ask pardon,” said Clive, with a grave bow. “Heaven
+forbid that I should wound your sensibility, Ethel! It is, as you say,
+my first appearance in society. I talk about things or persons that I
+should not mention. I should talk about buttons, should I? which you
+were good enough to tell me was the proper subject of conversation.
+Mayn’t I even speak of connexions of the family? Mr. Belsize, through
+this marriage, has the honour of being connected with you; and even I,
+in a remote degree, may boast of a sort of an ever—so—distant
+cousinship with him. What an honour for me!”
+
+“Pray, what is the meaning of all this?” cries Miss Ethel, surprised,
+and perhaps alarmed. Indeed, Clive scarcely knew. He had been chafing
+all the while he talked with her; smothering anger as he saw the young
+men round about her; revolting against himself for the very humility of
+his obedience, and angry at the eagerness and delight with which he had
+come at her call.
+
+“The meaning is, Ethel”—he broke out, seizing the opportunity—“that
+when a man comes a thousand miles to see you, and shake your hand, you
+should give it him a little more cordially than you choose to do to me;
+that when a kinsman knocks at your door, time after time, you should
+try and admit him; and that when you meet him you should treat him like
+an old friend: not as you treated me when my Lady Kew vouchsafed to give
+me admittance; not as you treat these fools that are fribbling round
+about you,” cries Mr. Clive, in a great rage, folding his arms, and
+glaring round on a number of the most innocent young swells; and he
+continued looking as if he would like to knock a dozen of their heads
+together. “Am I keeping Miss Newcome’s admirers from her?”
+
+“That is not for me to say,” she said, quite gently. He was; but to see
+him angry did not displease Miss Newcome.
+
+“That young man who came for you just now,” Clive went on—“that Sir
+John——”
+
+“Are you angry with me because I sent him away?” said Ethel, putting
+out a hand. “Hark! there is the music. Take me in and waltz with me.
+Don’t you know it is not _my_ door at which you knocked?” she said,
+looking up into his face as simply and kindly as of old. She whirled
+round the dancing-room with him in triumph, the other beauties
+dwindling before her: she looked more and more beautiful with each
+rapid move of the waltz, her colour heightening and her eyes seeming to
+brighten. Not till the music stopped did she sink down on a seat,
+panting, and smiling radiant—as many many hundred years ago I remember
+to have seen Taglioni after a conquering _pas seul_. She nodded a
+“thank you” to Clive. It seemed that there was a perfect
+reconciliation. Lady Kew came in just at the end of the dance, scowling
+when she beheld Ethel’s partner; but in reply to her remonstrances,
+Ethel shrugged her fair shoulders, with a look which seemed to say _je
+le veux_, gave an arm to her grandmother, an walked off, saucily
+protecting her.
+
+Clive’s friend had been looking on observingly and curiously as the
+scene between them had taken place, and at the dance with which the
+reconciliation had been celebrated. I must tell you that this arch
+young creature had formed the object of my observation for some months
+past, and that I watched her as I have watched a beautiful panther at
+the Zoological Gardens, so bright of eye, so sleek of coat, so slim in
+form, so sweet and agile in her spring.
+
+A more brilliant young coquette than Miss Newcome, in her second
+season, these eyes never looked upon, that is the truth. In her first
+year, being engaged to Lord Kew, she was perhaps a little more reserved
+and quiet. Besides, her mother went out with her that first season, to
+whom Miss Newcome except for a little occasional flightiness, was
+invariably obedient and ready to come to call. But when Lady Kew
+appeared as her duenna, the girl’s delight seemed to be to plague the
+old lady, and she would dance with the very youngest sons merey to put
+grandmamma in a passion. In this way poor young Cubley (who has two
+hundred a year of allowance, besides eighty, and an annual rise of five
+in the Treasury) actually thought that Ethel was in love with him, and
+consulted with the young men in his room in Downing Street, whether two
+hundred and eighty a year, with five pound more next year, would be
+enough for them to keep house on? Young Tandy of the Temple, Lord
+Skibbereen’s younger son, who sate in the House for some time on the
+Irish Catholic side, was also deeply smitten, and many a night in our
+walks home from the parties at the other end of the town, would
+entertain me with his admiration and passion for her.
+
+“If you have such a passion for her, why not propose?” it was asked of
+Mr. Tandy.
+
+“Propose! propose to a Russian Archduchess,” cries young Tandy. “She’s
+beautiful, she’s delightful, she’s witty. I have never seen anything
+like her eyes; they send me wild—wild,” says Tandy—(slapping his
+waistcoat under Temple Bar)—“but a more audacious little flirt never
+existed since the days of Cleopatra.”
+
+With this opinion likewise in my mind, I had been looking on during
+Clive’s proceedings with Miss Ethel—not, I say, without admiration of
+the young lady who was leading him such a dance. The waltz over, I
+congratulated him on his own performance. His Continental practice had
+greatly improved him. “And as for your partner, it is delightful to see
+her,” I went on. “I always like to be by when Miss Newcome dances. I
+had sooner see her than anybody since Taglioni. Look at her now, with
+her neck up, and her little foot out, just as she is preparing to
+start! Happy Lord Bustington!”
+
+“You are angry with her because she cut you,” growls Clive. “You know
+you said she cut you, or forgot you; and your vanity’s wounded, that is
+why you are so satirical.”
+
+“How can Miss Newcome remember all the men who are presented to her?”
+says the other. “Last year she talked to me because she wanted to know
+about you. This year she doesn’t talk: because I suppose she doesn’t
+want to know about you any more.”
+
+“Hang it. Do—on’t, Pen,” cries Clive, as a schoolboy cries out to
+another not to hit him.
+
+“She does not pretend to observe: and is in full conversation with the
+amiable Bustington. Delicious interchange of noble thoughts! But she is
+observing us talking, and knows that we are talking about her. If ever
+you marry her, Clive, which is absurd, I shall lose you for a friend.
+You will infallibly tell her what I think of her: and she will order
+you to give me up.” Clive had gone off in a brown study, as his
+interlocutor continued. “Yes, she is a flirt. She can’t help her
+nature. She tries to vanquish every one who comes near her. She is a
+little out of breath from waltzing, and so she pretends to be listening
+to poor Bustington, who is out of breath too, but puffs out his best in
+order to make himself agreeable, with what a pretty air she appears to
+listen! Her eyes actually seem to brighten.”
+
+“_What?_” says Clive, with a start.
+
+I could not comprehend the meaning of the start: nor did I care much to
+know: supposing that the young man was waking up from some lover’s
+reverie: and the evening sped away, Clive not quitting the ball until
+Miss Newcome and the Countess of Kew had departed. No further
+communication appeared to take place between the cousins that evening.
+I think it was Captain Crackthorpe who gave the young lady an arm into
+her carriage; Sir John Fobsby having the happiness to conduct the old
+Countess, and carrying the pink bag for the shawls, wrappers, etc., on
+which her ladyship’s coronet and initials are emblazoned. Clive may
+have made a movement as if to step forward, but a single finger from
+Miss Newcome warned him back.
+
+Clive and his two friends in Lamb Court had made an engagement for the
+next Saturday to dine at Greenwich; but on the morning of that day
+there came a note from him to say that he thought of going down to see
+his aunt, Miss Honeyman, and begged to recall his promise to us.
+Saturday is a holiday with gentlemen of our profession. We had invited
+F. Bayham, Esquire, and promised ourselves a merry evening, and were
+unwilling to baulk ourselves of the pleasure on account of the absence
+of our young Roman. So we three went to London Bridge Station at an
+early hour, proposing to breathe the fresh air of Greenwich Park before
+dinner. And, at London Bridge, by the most singular coincidence, Lady
+Kew’s carriage drove up to the Brighton entrance, and Miss Ethel and
+her maid stepped out of the brougham.
+
+When Miss Newcome and her maid entered the Brighton station, did Mr.
+Clive, by another singular coincidence, happen also to be there? What
+more natural and dutiful than that he should go and see his aunt, Miss
+Honeyman? What more proper than that Miss Ethel should pass the
+Saturday and Sunday with her sick father; and take a couple of
+wholesome nights’ rest after those five weary past evenings, for each
+of which we may reckon a couple of soirées and a ball? And that
+relations should travel together, the young lady being protected by her
+_femme-de-chambre;_ that surely, as every one must allow, was perfectly
+right and proper.
+
+That a biographer should profess to know everything which passes, even
+in a confidential talk in a first-class carriage between two lovers,
+seems perfectly absurd; not that grave historians do not pretend to the
+same wonderful degree of knowledge—reporting meetings of the most
+occult of conspirators; private interviews between monarchs and their
+ministers, even the secret thoughts and motives of those personages,
+which possibly the persons themselves did not know;—all for which the
+present writer will pledge his known character for veracity is, that on
+a certain day certain parties had a conversation, of which the upshot
+was so-and-so. He guesses, of course, at a great deal of what took
+place; knowing the characters, and being informed at some time of their
+meeting. You do not suppose that I bribed the _femme-de-chambre_, or
+that those two City gents, who sate in the same carriage with our young
+friends, and could not hear a word they said, reported their talk to
+me? If Clive and Ethel had had a coupe to themselves, I would yet
+boldly tell what took place, but the coupe was taken by other three
+young City gents who smoked the whole way.
+
+“Well, then,” the bonnet begins close up to the hat, “tell me, sir, is
+it true that you were so very much _épris_ of the Miss Freemans at
+Rome; and that afterwards you were so wonderfully attentive to the
+third Miss Baliol? Did you draw her portrait? You know you drew her
+portrait. You painters always pretend to admire girls with auburn hair,
+because Titian and Raphael painted it. Has the Fornarina red hair? Why,
+we are at Croydon, I declare!”
+
+“The Fornarina”—the hat replies to the bonnet, “if that picture at the
+Borghese Palace be an original, or a likeness of her—is not a handsome
+woman, with vulgar eyes and mouth, and altogether a most
+mahogany-coloured person. She is so plain, in fact, I think that very
+likely it is the real woman; for it is with their own fancies that men
+fall in love,—or rather every woman is handsome to the lover. You know
+how old Helen must have been.”
+
+“I don’t know any such thing, or anything about her. Who was Helen?”
+asks the bonnet; and indeed she did not know.
+
+“It’s a long story, and such an old scandal now, that there is no use
+in repeating it,” says Clive.
+
+“You only talk about Helen because you wish to turn away the
+conversation from Miss Freeman,” cries the young lady—“from Miss
+Baliol, I mean.”
+
+“We will talk about whichever you please. Which shall we begin to pull
+to pieces?” says Clive. You see, to be in this carriage—to be actually
+with _her_—to be looking into those wonderful lucid eyes—to see her
+sweet mouth dimpling, and hear her sweet voice ringing with its
+delicious laughter—to have that hour and a half his own, in spite of
+all the world-dragons, grandmothers, _convenances_, the future—made the
+young fellow so happy, filled his whole frame and spirit with a delight
+so keen, that no wonder he was gay, and brisk, and lively.
+
+“And so you knew of my goings-on?” he asked. O me! they were at Reigate
+by this time; there was Gatton Park flying before them on the wings of
+the wind.
+
+“I know of a number of things,” says the bonnet, nodding with ambrosial
+curls.
+
+“And you would not answer the second letter I wrote to you?
+
+“We were in great perplexity. One cannot be always answering young
+gentlemen’s letters. I had considerable doubt about answering a note I
+got from Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square,” says the lady’s chapeau.
+“No, Clive, we must not write to one another,” she continued more
+gravely, “or only very, very seldom. Nay, my meeting you here to-day is
+by the merest chance, I am sure; for when I mentioned at Lady Fareham’s
+the other evening that I was going to see papa at Brighton to-day, I
+never for one moment thought of seeing you in the train. But as you are
+here, it can’t be helped; and I may as well tell you that there are
+obstacles.”
+
+“What, _other_ obstacles?” Clive gasped out.
+
+“Nonsense—you silly boy! No other obstacles but those which always have
+existed, and must. When we parted—that is, when you left us at Baden,
+you knew it was for the best. You had your profession to follow, and
+could not go on idling about—about a family of sick people and
+children. Every man has his profession, and you yours, as you would
+have it. We are so nearly allied that we may—we may like each other
+like brother and sister almost. I don’t know what Barnes would say if
+he heard me! Wherever you and your father are, how can I ever think of
+you but—but you know how? I always shall, always. There are certain
+feelings we have which I hope never can change; though, if you please,
+about them I intend never to speak any more. Neither you nor I can
+alter our conditions, but must make the best of them. You shall be a
+fine clever painter; and I,—who knows what will happen to me? I know
+what is going to happen to-day; I am going to see papa and mamma, and
+be as happy as I can till Monday morning.”
+
+“I know what I wish would happen now,” said Clive,—they were going
+screaming through a tunnel.
+
+“What?” said the bonnet in the darkness: and the engine was roaring so
+loudly, that he was obliged to put his head quite close to say—
+
+“I wish the tunnel would fall in and close upon us, or that we might
+travel on for ever and ever.”
+
+Here there was a great jar of the carriage, and the lady’s-maid, and I
+think Miss Ethel, gave a shriek. The lamp above was so dim that the
+carriage was almost totally dark. No wonder the lady’s-maid was
+frightened! but the daylight came streaming in, and all poor Clive’s
+wishes of rolling and rolling on for ever were put an end to by the
+implacable sun in a minute.
+
+Ah, why was it the quick train? Suppose it had been the parliamentary
+train?—even that too would have come to an end. They came and said,
+“Tickets, please,” and Clive held out the three of their party—his, and
+Ethel’s, and her maid’s. I think for such a ride as that he was right
+to give up Greenwich. Mr. Kuhn was in waiting with a carriage for Miss
+Ethel. She shook hands with Clive, returning his pressure.
+
+“I may come and see you?” he said.
+
+“You may come and see mamma—yes.”
+
+“And where are you staying?”
+
+“Bless my soul—they were staying at Miss Honeyman’s!” Clive burst into
+a laugh. Why, he was going there too! Of course Aunt Honeyman had no
+room for him, her house being quite full with the other Newcomes.
+
+It was a most curious coincidence their meeting; but altogether Lady
+Anne thought it was best to say nothing about the circumstance to
+grandmamma. I myself am puzzled to say which would have been the better
+course to pursue under the circumstances; there were so many courses
+open. As they had gone so far, should they go on farther together?
+Suppose they were going to the same house at Brighton, oughtn’t they to
+have gone in the same carriage, with Kuhn and the maid of course?
+Suppose they met by chance at the station, ought they to have travelled
+in separate carriages? I ask any gentleman and father of a family, when
+he was immensely smitten with his present wife, Mrs. Brown, if he had
+met her travelling with her maid, in the mail, when there was a vacant
+place, what would he himself have done?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+Injured Innocence
+
+
+From Clive Newcome, Esq., to Lieut.-Col. Newcome, C.B.
+
+“Brighton, June 12, 18—.
+
+“My Dearest Father,—As the weather was growing very hot at Naples, and
+you wished I should come to England to see Mr. Binnie, I came
+accordingly, and have been here three weeks, and write to you from Aunt
+Honeyman’s parlour at Brighton, where you ate your last dinner before
+embarking for India. I found your splendid remittance calling in Fog
+Court, and have invested a part of the sum in a good horse to ride,
+upon which I take my diversion with other young dandies in the Park.
+Florac is in England, but he has no need of your kindness. Only think!
+he is Prince de Moncontour now, the second title of the Duc d’Ivry’s
+family; and M. le Comte de Florac is Duc d’Ivry in consequence of the
+demise of t’other old gentleman. I believe the late duke’s wife
+shortened his life. Oh, what a woman! She caused a duel between Lord
+Kew and a Frenchman, which has in its turn occasioned all sorts of evil
+and division in families, as you shall hear.
+
+“In the first place, in consequence of the duel and of incompatibility
+of temper, the match between Kew and E. N. has been broken off. I met
+Lord Kew at Naples with his mother and brother, nice quiet people as
+you would like them. Kew’s wound and subsequent illness have altered
+him a good deal. He has become much _more serious_ than he used to be;
+not ludicrously so at all, but he says he thinks his past life has been
+useless and even criminal, and he wishes to change it. He has sold his
+horses, and sown his wild oats. He has turned quite a sober quiet
+gentleman.
+
+“At our meeting he told me of what had happened between him and Ethel,
+of whom he spoke _most kindly and generously_, but avowing his opinion
+that they never could have been happy in married life. And now I think
+my dear old father will see that there may be another reason besides my
+desire to see Mr. Binnie, which has brought me tumbling back to England
+again. If need be to speak, I never shall have, I hope, any secrets
+from you. I have not said much about one which has given me the deuce’s
+disquiet for ten months past, because there was no good in talking
+about it, or vexing you needlessly with reports of my griefs and woes.
+
+“Well, when we were at Baden in September last, and E. and I wrote
+those letters in common to you, I dare say you can fancy what my
+feelings might have been towards such a beautiful young creature, who
+has a hundred faults, for which I love her just as much as for the good
+that is in her. I became dreadfully smitten indeed, and knowing that
+she was engaged to Lord Kew, I did as you told me you did once when the
+enemy was too strong for you—_I ran away_. I had a bad time of it for
+two or three months. At Rome, however, I began to take matters more
+easily, my naturally fine appetite returned, and at the end of the
+season I found myself uncommonly happy in the society of the Miss
+Baliols and the Miss Freemans; but when Kew told me at Naples of what
+had happened, there was straightway a _fresh eruption_ in my heart, and
+I was fool enough to come almost without sleep to London in order to
+catch a glimpse of the bright eyes of E. N.
+
+“She is now in this very house upstairs with one aunt, whilst the other
+lets lodgings to her. I have seen her but very seldom indeed since I
+came to London, where Sir Brian and Lady Anne do not pass the season,
+and Ethel goes about to a dozen parties every week with old Lady Kew,
+who neither loves you nor me. Hearing E. say she was coming down to her
+parents at Brighton, I made so bold as to waylay her at the train
+(though I didn’t tell her that I passed three hours in the
+waiting-room); and we made the journey together, and she was very kind
+and beautiful; and though I suppose I might just as well ask the Royal
+Princess to have me, I can’t help hoping and longing and hankering
+after her. And Aunt Honeyman must have found out that I am fond of her,
+for the old lady has received me with a scolding. Uncle Charles seems
+to be in very good condition again. I saw him in full clerical
+feather—at Madame de Moncontour’s, a good-natured body who drops her
+_h_’s, though Florac is not aware of their absence. Pendennis and
+Warrington, I know, would send you their regards. Pen is conceited, but
+much kinder in reality than he has the air of being. Fred Bayham is
+doing well, and prospering in his mysterious way.
+
+“Mr. Binnie is not looking at all well: and Mrs. Mack—well, as I know
+you never attack a lady behind her lovely back, I won’t say a word of
+Mrs. Mack—but she has taken possession of Uncle James, and seems to me
+to weigh upon him somehow. Rosey is as pretty and good-natured as ever,
+and has learned two new songs; but you see, with my sentiments in
+another quarter, I feel as it were guilty and awkward in company of
+Rosey and her mamma. They have become the very greatest friends with
+Bryanstone Square, and Mrs. Mack is always citing Aunt Hobson as the
+most superior of women, in which opinion, I daresay, Aunt Hobson
+concurs.
+
+“Good-bye, my dearest father; my sheet is full; I wish I could put my
+arm in yours and pace up and down the pier with you, and tell you more
+and more. But you know enough now, and that I am your affectionate son
+always, C. N.”
+
+In fact, when Mr. Clive appeared at Steyne Gardens stepping out of the
+fly, and handing Miss Ethel thence, Miss Honeyman of course was very
+glad to see her nephew, and saluted him with a little embrace to show
+her sense of pleasure at his visit. But the next day, being Sunday,
+when Clive, with a most engaging smile on his countenance, walked over
+to breakfast from his hotel, Miss Honeyman would scarcely speak to him
+during the meal, looked out at him very haughtily from under her Sunday
+cap, and received his stories about Italy with “Oh! ah! indeed!” in a
+very unkind manner. And when breakfast was over, and she had done
+washing her china, she fluttered up to Clive with such an agitation
+of plumage, redness of craw, and anger of manner, as a maternal hen
+shows if she has reason to think you menace her chickens. She fluttered
+up to Clive, I say, and cried out, “Not in _this_ house, Clive,—not in
+this house, I beg you to understand _that!_”
+
+Clive, looking amazed, said, “Certainly not, ma’am; I never did do it
+in the house, as I know you don’t like it. I was going into the
+Square.” The young man meaning that he was about to smoke, and
+conjecturing that his aunt’s anger applied to that practice.
+
+“_You_ know very well what I mean, sir! Don’t try to turn _me_ off in
+that highty-tighty way. My dinner to-day is at half-past one. You can
+dine or not as you like,” and the old lady flounced out of the room.
+
+Poor Clive stood rolling his cigar in sad perplexity of spirit, until
+Mrs. Honeyman’s servant Hannah entered, who, for her part, grinned and
+looked particularly sly. “In the name of goodness, Hannah, what is the
+row about?” cries Mr. Clive. “What is my aunt scolding at? What are you
+grinning at, you old Cheshire cat?”
+
+“Git long, Master Clive,” says Hannah, patting the cloth.
+
+“Get along! why get along, and where am I to get along to?”
+
+“Did ’ee do ut really now, Master Clive?” cries Mrs. Honeyman’s
+attendant, grinning with the utmost good-humour. “Well, she be as
+pretty a young lady as ever I saw; and as I told my missis, ‘Miss
+Martha,’ says I, ‘there’s a pair on ’em.’ Though missis was mortal
+angry to be sure. She never could bear it.”
+
+“Bear _what?_ you old goose!” cries Clive, who by these playful names
+had been wont to designate Hannah these twenty years past.
+
+“A young gentleman and a young lady a kissing of each other in the
+railway coach,” says Hannah, jerking up with her finger to the ceiling,
+as much as to say, “There she is! Lar, she be a pretty young creature,
+that she be! and so I told Miss Martha.” Thus differently had the news
+which had come to them on the previous night affected the old lady and
+her maid.
+
+The news was, that Miss Newcome’s maid (a giddy thing from the county,
+who had not even learned as yet to hold her tongue) had announced with
+giggling delight to Lady Anne’s maid, who was taking tea with Mrs.
+Hicks, that Mr. Clive had given Miss Ethel a kiss in the tunnel, and
+she supposed it was a match. This intelligence Hannah Hicks took to her
+mistress, of whose angry behaviour to Clive the next morning you may
+now understand the cause.
+
+Clive did not know whether to laugh or to be in a rage. He swore that
+he was as innocent of all intention of kissing Miss Ethel as of
+embracing Queen Elizabeth. He was shocked to think of his cousin,
+walking above, fancy-free in maiden meditation, whilst this
+conversation regarding her was carried on below. How could he face her,
+or her mother, or even her maid, now he had cognisance of this naughty
+calumny? “Of course Hannah had contradicted it?” “Of course I have a
+done no such indeed,” replied Master Clive’s old friend; “of course I
+have set ’em down a bit; for when little Trimmer said it, and she
+supposed it was all settled between you, seeing how it had been a going
+on in foreign parts last year, Mrs. Pincott says, ‘Hold your silly
+tongue, Trimmer,’ she says; ‘Miss Ethel marry a painter, indeed,
+Trimmer!’ says she, ‘while she has refused to be a Countess,’ she says;
+‘and can be a Marchioness any day, and will be a Marchioness. Marry a
+painter, indeed!’ Mrs. Pincott says; ‘Trimmer, I’m surprised at your
+impidence.’ So, my dear, I got angry at that,” Clive’s champion
+continued, “and says I, if my young master ain’t good enough for any
+young lady in this world, says I, I’d like you to show her to me: and
+if his dear father, the Colonel, says I, ain’t as good as your old
+gentleman upstairs, says I, who has gruel and dines upon doctor’s
+stuff, the Mrs. Pincott, says I, my name isn’t what it is, says I.
+Those were my very words, Master Clive, my dear; and then Mrs. Pincott
+says, Mrs. Hicks, she says, you don’t understand society, she says; you
+don’t understand society, he! he!” and the country lady, with
+considerable humour, gave an imitation of the town lady’s manner.
+
+At this juncture Miss Honeyman re-entered the parlour, arrayed in her
+Sunday bonnet, her stiff and spotless collar, her Cashmere shawl, and
+Agra brooch, and carrying her Bible and Prayer-Book each stitched in
+its neat cover of brown silk. “Don’t stay chattering here, you idle
+woman,” she cried to her attendant with extreme asperity. “And you,
+sir, if you wish to smoke your cigar, you had best walk down to the
+cliff where the Cockneys are!” she added, glowering at Clive.
+
+“Now I understand it all,” Clive said, trying to deprecate her anger.
+“My dear good aunt, it’s a most absurd mistake; upon my honour, Miss
+Ethel is as innocent as you are.”
+
+“Innocent or not, this house is not intended for assignations, Clive!
+As long as Sir Brian Newcome lodges here, you will be pleased to keep
+away from it, sir; and though I don’t approve of Sunday travelling, I
+think the very best thing you can do is to put yourself in the train
+and go back to London.”
+
+And now, young people, who read my moral pages, you will see how highly
+imprudent it is to sit with your cousins in railway carriages; and how,
+though you may not mean the slightest harm in the world, a great deal
+may be attributed to you; and how, when you think you are managing your
+little absurd love-affairs ever so quietly, Jeames and Betsy in the
+servants’-hall are very likely talking about them, and you are putting
+yourself in the power of those menials. If the perusal of these lines
+has rendered one single young couple uncomfortable, surely my amiable
+end is answered, and I have written not altogether in vain.
+
+Clive was going away, innocent though he was, yet quivering under his
+aunt’s reproof, and so put out of countenance that he had not even
+thought of lighting the great cigar which he stuck into his foolish
+mouth; when a shout of “Clive! Clive!” from half a dozen little voices
+roused him, and presently as many little Newcomes came toddling down
+the stairs, and this one clung round his knees, and that at the skirts
+of his coat, and another took his hand and said, he must come and walk
+with them on the beach.
+
+So away went Clive to walk with his cousins, and then to see his old
+friend Miss Cann, with whom and the elder children he walked to church,
+and issuing thence greeted Lady Anne and Ethel (who had also attended
+the service) in the most natural way in the world.
+
+While engaged in talking with these, Miss Honeyman came out of the
+sacred edifice, crisp and stately in the famous Agra brooch and
+Cashmere shawls. The good-natured Lady Anne had a smile and a kind word
+for her as for everybody. Clive went up to his maternal aunt to offer
+his arm. “You must give him up to us for dinner, Miss Honeyman, if you
+please to be so very kind. He was so good-natured in escorting Ethel
+down,” Lady Anne said.
+
+“Hm! my lady,” says Miss Honeyman, perking her head up in her collar.
+Clive did not know whether to laugh or not, but a fine blush
+illuminated his countenance. As for Ethel, she was and looked perfectly
+unconscious. So, rustling in her stiff black silk, Martha Honeyman
+walked with her nephew silent by the shore of the much-sounding sea.
+The idea of courtship, of osculatory processes, of marrying and giving
+in marriage, made this elderly virgin chafe and fume, she never having,
+at any period of her life, indulged in any such ideas or practices, and
+being angry against them, as childless wives will sometimes be angry
+and testy against matrons with their prattle about their nurseries.
+Now, Miss Cann was a different sort of spinster, and loved a bit of
+sentiment with all her heart, from which I am led to conclude—but, pray,
+is this the history of Miss Cann or of the Newcomes?
+
+All these Newcomes then entered into Miss Honeyman’s house, where a
+number of little knives and forks were laid for them. Ethel was cold
+and thoughtful; Lady Anne was perfectly good-natured as her wont was.
+Sir Brian came in on the arm of his valet presently, wearing that look
+of extra neatness which invalids have, who have just been shaved and
+combed, and made ready by their attendants to receive company. He was
+voluble: though there was a perceptible change in his voice: he talked
+chiefly of matters which had occurred forty years ago, and especially
+of Clive’s own father, when he was a boy, in a manner which interested
+the young man and Ethel. “He threw me down in a chaise—sad chap—always
+reading Orme’s History of India—wanted marry Frenchwoman. He wondered
+Mrs. Newcome didn’t leave Tom anything—’pon my word, quite s’prise.”
+The events of to-day, the House of Commons, the City, had little
+interest for him. All the children went up and shook him by the hand,
+with awe in their looks, and he patted their yellow heads vacantly and
+kindly. He asked Clive (several times) where he had been? and said he
+himself had had a slight ’tack—vay slight—was getting well ev’y
+day—strong as a horse—go back to Parliament d’rectly. And then he
+became a little peevish with Parker, his man, about his broth. The man
+retired, and came back presently, with profound bows and gravity, to
+tell Sir Brian dinner was ready, and he went away quite briskly at this
+news, giving a couple of fingers to Clive before he disappeared into
+the upper apartments. Good-natured Lady Anne was as easy about this as
+about the other events of this world. In later days, with what a
+strange feeling we remember that last sight we have of the old friend;
+that nod of farewell, and shake of the hand, that last look of the face
+and figure as the door closes on him, or the coach drives away! So the
+roast mutton was ready, and all the children dined very heartily.
+
+The infantile meal had not been long concluded, when servants announced
+“the Marquis of Farintosh;” and that nobleman made his appearance to
+pay his respects to Miss Newcome and Lady Anne. He brought the very
+last news of the very last party in London, where “Really, upon my
+honour, now, it was quite a stupid party, because Miss Newcome wasn’t
+there. It was now, really.”
+
+Miss Newcome remarked, “If he said so upon his honour, of course she
+was satisfied.”
+
+“As you weren’t there,” the young nobleman continued, “the Miss
+Rackstraws came out quite strong; really they did now, upon my honour.
+It was quite a quiet thing. Lady Merriborough hadn’t even got a new
+gown on. Lady Anne, you shirk London society this year, and we miss
+you: we expected you to give us two or three things this season; we did
+now, really. I said to Tufthunt, only yesterday, Why has not Lady Anne
+Newcome given anything? You know Tufthunt? They say he’s a clever
+fellow, and that—but he’s a low little beast, and I hate him.”
+
+Lady Anne said, “Sir Brian’s bad state of health prevented her from
+going out this season, or receiving at home.”
+
+“It don’t prevent your mother from going out, though,” continued my
+lord. “Upon my honour, I think unless she got two or three things every
+night, I think she’d die. Lady Kew’s like one of those horses, you
+know, that unless they go they drop.”
+
+“Thank you for my mother,” said Lady Anne.
+
+“She is, upon my honour. Last night I know she was at ever so many
+places. She dined at the Bloxams’, for I was there. Then she said she
+was going to sit with old Mrs. Crackthorpe, who has broke her
+collar-bone (that Crackthorpe in the Life Guards, her grandson, is a
+brute, and I hope she won’t leave him a shillin’); and then she came on
+to Lady Hawkstone’s, where I heard her say she had been at the—at the
+Flowerdales’, too. People begin to go to those Flowerdales’. Hanged—if
+I know where they won’t go next. Cotton-spinner, wasn’t he?”
+
+“So were we, my lord,” says Miss Newcome.
+
+“Oh, yes, I forgot! But you’re of an old family—very old family.”
+
+“We can’t help it,” said Miss Ethel, archly. Indeed, she thought she
+was.
+
+“Do you believe in the barber-surgeon?” asked Clive. And my lord looked
+at him with a noble curiosity, as much as to say, “Who the deuce was
+the barber-surgeon? and who the devil are you?”
+
+“Why should we disown our family?” Miss Ethel said, simply. “In those
+early days I suppose people did—did all sorts of things, and it was not
+considered at all out of the way to be surgeon to William the
+Conqueror.”
+
+“Edward the Confessor,” interposed Clive. “And it must be true, because
+I have seen a picture of the barber-surgeon, a friend of mine,
+M’Collop, did the picture, and I dare say it is for sale still”
+
+Lady Anne said “she should be delighted to see it.” Lord Farintosh
+remembered that the M’Collop had the moor next to his in Argyleshire,
+but did not choose to commit himself with the stranger, and preferred
+looking at his own handsome face and admiring it in the glass until the
+last speaker had concluded his remarks.
+
+As Clive did not offer any further conversation, but went back to a
+table, where he began to draw the barber-surgeon, Lord Farintosh
+resumed the delightful talk. “What infernal bad glasses these are in
+these Brighton lodging-houses! They make a man look quite green, really
+they do—and there’s nothing green in me, is there, Lady Anne?”
+
+“But you look very unwell, Lord Farintosh; indeed you do,” Miss Newcome
+said, gravely. “I think late hours, and smoking, and going to that
+horrid Platt’s, where I dare say you go——”
+
+“Go? Don’t I? But don’t call it horrid; really, now, don’t call it
+horrid!” cried the noble Marquis.
+
+“Well—something has made you look far from well. You know how very well
+Lord Farintosh used to look, mamma—and to see him now, in only his
+second season—oh, it is melancholy!”
+
+“God bless my soul, Miss Newcome! what do you mean? I think I look
+pretty well,” and the noble youth passed his hand through his hair. “It
+is a hard life, I know; that tearin’ about night after night, and
+sittin’ up till ever so much o’clock; and then all these races, you
+know, comin’ one after another—it’s enough to knock up any fellow. I’ll
+tell you what I’ll do, Miss Newcome. I’ll go down to Codlington, to my
+mother; I will, upon my honour, and lie quiet all July, and then I’ll
+go to Scotland—and you shall see whether I don’t look better next
+season.”
+
+“Do, Lord Farintosh!” said Ethel, greatly amused, as much, perhaps, at
+the young Marquis as at her cousin Clive, who sat whilst the other was
+speaking, fuming with rage, at his table.
+
+“What are you doing, Clive?” she asks.
+
+“I was trying to draw; Lord knows who—Lord Newcome, who was killed at
+the battle of Bosworth,” said the artist, and the girl ran to look at
+the picture.
+
+“Why, you have made him like Punch!” cries the young lady.
+
+“It’s a shame caricaturing one’s own flesh and blood, isn’t it?” asked
+Clive, gravely.
+
+“What a droll, funny picture!” exclaims Lady Anne. “Isn’t it capital,
+Lord Farintosh?”
+
+“I dare say—I confess I don’t understand that sort of thing,” says his
+lordship. “Don’t, upon my honour. There’s Odo Carton, always making
+those caricatures—_I_ don’t understand ’em. You’ll come up to town
+to-morrow, won’t you? And you’re goin’ to Lady Hm’s, and to Hm and
+Hm’s, ain’t you?” (The names of these aristocratic places of resort
+were quite inaudible.) “You mustn’t let Miss Blackcap have it all her
+own way, you know, that you mustn’t.”
+
+“She won’t have it all her own way,” says Miss Ethel. “Lord Farintosh,
+will you do me a favour? Lady Innishowan is your aunt?”
+
+“Of course she is my aunt.”
+
+“Will you be so very good as to get a card for her party on Tuesday,
+for my cousin, Mr. Clive Newcome? Clive, please be introduced to the
+Marquis of Farintosh.”
+
+The young Marquis perfectly well recollected those mustachios and their
+wearer on a former night, though he had not thought fit to make any
+sign of recognition. “Anything you wish, Miss Newcome,” he said;
+“delighted, I’m sure;” and turning to Clive—In the army, I suppose?”
+
+“I am an artist,” says Clive, turning very red.
+
+“Oh, really, I didn’t know!” cries the nobleman; and my lord bursting
+out laughing presently as he was engaged in conversation with Miss
+Ethel on the balcony, Clive thought, very likely with justice, “He is
+making fun of my mustachios. Confound him! I should like to pitch him
+over into the street.” But this was only a kind wish on Mr. Newcome’s
+part; not followed out by any immediate fulfilment.
+
+As the Marquis of Farintosh seemed inclined to prolong his visit, and
+his company was exceedingly disagreeable to Clive, the latter took his
+departure for an afternoon walk, consoled to think that he should have
+Ethel to himself at the evening’s dinner, when Lady Anne would be
+occupied about Sir Brian, and would be sure to be putting the children
+to bed, and, in a word, would give him a quarter of an hour of
+delightful _tête-à-tête_ with the beautiful Ethel.
+
+Clive’s disgust was considerable when he came to dinner at length, and
+found Lord Farintosh, likewise invited, and sprawling in the
+drawing-room. His hopes of a _tête-à-tête_ were over. Ethel and Lady
+Anne and my lord talked, as all people will, about their mutual
+acquaintance: what parties were coming off, who was going to marry
+whom, and so forth. And as the persons about whom they conversed were
+in their own station of life, and belonged to the fashionable world, of
+which Clive had but a slight knowledge, he chose to fancy that his
+cousin was giving herself airs, and to feel sulky and uneasy during
+their dialogue.
+
+Miss Newcome had faults of her own, and was worldly enough as perhaps
+the reader has begun to perceive; but in this instance no harm, sure,
+was to be attributed to her. If two gossips in Aunt Honeyman’s parlour
+had talked over the affairs of Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown, Clive would not
+have been angry; but a young man of spirit not unfrequently mistakes
+his vanity for independence: and it is certain that nothing is more
+offensive to us of the middle class than to hear the names of great
+folks constantly introduced into conversation.
+
+So Clive was silent and ate no dinner, to the alarm of Martha, who had
+put him to bed many a time, and always had a maternal eye over him.
+When he actually refused currant and raspberry tart, and custard, the
+_chef d’œuvre_ of Miss Honeyman, for which she had seen him absolutely
+cry in his childhood, the good Martha was alarmed.
+
+“Law, Master Clive!” she said, “do ’ee eat some. Missis made it, you
+know she did;” and she insisted on bringing back the tart to him.
+
+Lady Anne and Ethel laughed at this eagerness on the worthy old woman’s
+part. “Do ’ee eat some, Clive,” says Ethel, imitating honest Mrs.
+Hicks, who had left the room.
+
+“It’s doosid good,” remarked Lord Farintosh.
+
+“Then do ’ee eat some more,” said Miss Newcome: on which the young
+nobleman, holding out his plate, observed with much affability, that
+the cook of the lodgings was really a stunner for tarts.
+
+“The cook! dear me, it’s not the _cook!_” cries Miss Ethel. “Don’t you
+remember the princess in the Arabian Nights, who was such a stunner for
+tarts, Lord Farintosh?”
+
+Lord Farintosh couldn’t say that he did.
+
+“Well, I thought not; but there was a princess in Arabia or China, or
+somewhere, who made such delicious tarts and custards that nobody’s
+could compare with them; and there is an old lady in Brighton who has
+the same wonderful talent. She is the mistress of this house.”
+
+“And she is my aunt, at your lordship’s service,” said Mr. Clive, with
+great dignity.
+
+“Upon my honour! _did_ you make ’em, Lady Anne?” asked my lord.
+
+“The Queen of Hearts made tarts!” cried out Miss Newcome, rather
+eagerly, and blushing somewhat.
+
+“My good old aunt, Miss Honeyman, made this one,” Clive would go on to
+say.
+
+“Mr. Honeyman’s sister, the preacher, you know, where we go on Sunday,”
+Miss Ethel interposed.
+
+“The Honeyman pedigree is not a matter of very great importance,” Lady
+Anne remarked gently. “Kuhn, will you have the goodness to take away
+these things? When did you hear of Colonel Newcome, Clive?”
+
+An air of deep bewilderment and perplexity had spread over Lord
+Farintosh’s fine countenance whilst this talk about pastry had been
+going on. The Arabian Princess, the Queen of Hearts making tarts, Miss
+Honeyman? Who the deuce were all these? Such may have been his
+lordship’s doubts and queries. Whatever his cogitations were he did not
+give utterance to them, but remained in silence for some time, as did
+the rest of the little party. Clive tried to think he had asserted his
+independence by showing that he was not ashamed of his old aunt; but
+the doubt may be whether there was any necessity for presenting her in
+this company, and whether Mr. Clive had not much better have left the
+tart question alone.
+
+Ethel evidently thought so: for she talked and rattled in the most
+lively manner with Lord Farintosh for the rest of the evening, and
+scarcely chose to say a word to her cousin. Lady Anne was absent with
+Sir Brian and her children for the most part of the time: and thus
+Clive had the pleasure of listening to Miss Newcome uttering all sorts
+of odd little paradoxes, firing the while sly shots at Mr. Clive, and,
+indeed, making fun of his friends, exhibiting herself in not the most
+agreeable light. Her talk only served the more to bewilder Lord
+Farintosh, who did not understand a tithe of her allusions: for Heaven,
+which had endowed the young Marquis with personal charms, a large
+estate, an ancient title and the pride belonging to it, had not
+supplied his lordship with a great quantity of brains, or a very
+feeling heart.
+
+Lady Anne came back from the upper regions presently, with rather a
+grave face, and saying that Sir Brian was not so well this evening,
+upon which the young men rose to depart. My lord said he had “a most
+delightful dinner and a most delightful tart, ’pon his honour,” and was
+the only one of the little company who laughed at his own remark. Miss
+Ethel’s eyes flashed scorn at Mr. Clive when that unfortunate subject
+was introduced again.
+
+My lord was going back to London to-morrow. Was Miss Newcome going
+back? Wouldn’t he like to go back in the train with her!—another
+unlucky observation. Lady Anne said, “it would depend on the state of
+Sir Brian’s health the next morning whether Ethel would return; and
+both of you gentlemen are too young to be her escort,” added the kind
+lady. Then she shook hands with Clive, as thinking she had said
+something too severe for him.
+
+Farintosh in the meantime was taking leave of Miss Newcome. “Pray,
+pray,” said his lordship, “don’t throw me over at Lady Innishowan’s.
+You know I hate balls and never go to ’em, except when you go. I hate
+dancing, I do, ’pon my honour.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Miss Newcome, with a curtsey.
+
+“Except with one person—only one person, upon my honour. I’ll remember
+and get the invitation for your friend. And if you would but try that
+mare, I give you my honour I bred her at Codlington. She’s a beauty to
+look at, and as quiet as a lamb.”
+
+“I don’t want a horse like a lamb,” replied the young lady.
+
+“Well—she’ll go like blazes now: and over timber she’s splendid now.
+She is, upon my honour.”
+
+“When I come to London perhaps you may trot her out,” said Miss Ethel,
+giving him her hand and a fine smile.
+
+Clive came up biting his lips. “I suppose you don’t condescend to ride
+Bhurtpore any more now?” he said.
+
+“Poor old Bhurtpore! The children ride him now,” said Miss Ethel—giving
+Clive at the same time a dangerous look of her eyes, as though to see
+if her shot had hit. Then she added, “No—he has not been brought up to
+town this year: he is at Newcome, and I like him very much.” Perhaps
+she thought the shot had struck too deep.
+
+But if Clive was hurt he did not show his wound. “You have had him
+these four years—yes, it’s four years since my father broke him for
+you. And you still continue to like him? What a miracle of constancy!
+You use him sometimes in the country—when you have no better horse—what
+a compliment to Bhurtpore!”
+
+“Nonsense!” Miss Ethel here made Clive a sign in her most imperious
+manner to stay a moment when Lord Farintosh had departed.
+
+But he did not choose to obey this order. “Good night,” he said.
+“Before I go I must shake hands with my aunt downstairs.” And he was
+gone, following close upon Lord Farintosh, who I dare say thought, “Why
+the deuce can’t he shake hands with his aunt up here?” and when Clive
+entered Miss Honeyman’s back-parlour, making a bow to the young
+nobleman, my lord went away more perplexed than ever: and the next day
+told friends at White’s what uncommonly queer people those Newcomes
+were. “I give you my honour there was a fellow at Lady Anne’s whom they
+call Clive, who is a painter by trade—his uncle is a preacher—his
+father is a horse-dealer, and his aunt lets lodgings and cooks the
+dinner.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+Returns to some Old Friends
+
+
+The haggard youth burst into my chambers, in the Temple, on the very
+next morning, and confided to me the story which has been just here
+narrated. When he had concluded it, with many ejaculations regarding
+the heroine of the tale, “I saw her, sir,” he added, “walking with the
+children and Miss Cann as I drove round in the fly to the station—and
+didn’t even bow to her.”
+
+“Why did you go round by the cliff?” asked Clive’s friend.
+
+“That is not the way from the Steyne Arms to the railroad.”
+
+“Hang it,” says Clive, turning very red, “I wanted to pass just under
+her windows, and if I saw her, not to see her: and that’s what I did.”
+
+“Why did she walk on the cliff?” mused Clive’s friend, “at that early
+hour? Not to meet Lord Farintosh, I should think, he never gets up
+before twelve. It must have been to see you. Didn’t you tell her you
+were going away in the morning?”
+
+“I tell you what she does with me,” continues Mr. Clive. “Sometimes she
+seems to like me, and then she leaves me. Sometimes she is quite
+kind—kind she always is—I mean, you know, Pen—_you_ know what I mean;
+and then up comes the old Countess, or a young Marquis, or some fellow
+with a handle to his name, and she whistles me off till the next
+convenient opportunity.”
+
+“Women are like that, my ingenuous youth,” says Clive’s counsellor.
+
+“_I_ won’t stand it. _I_ won’t be made a fool of!” he continues. “She
+seems to expect everybody to bow to her, and moves through the world
+with her imperious airs. Oh, how confoundedly handsome she is with
+them! I tell you what. I feel inclined to tumble down and feel one of
+her pretty little feet on my neck and say, There! Trample my life out.
+Make a slave of me. Let me get a silver collar and mark ‘Ethel’ on it,
+and go through the world with my badge.”
+
+“And a blue ribbon for a footman to hold you by; and a muzzle to wear
+in the dog-days. Bow! wow!” says Mr. Pendennis.
+
+(At this noise Mr. Warrington puts his head in from the neighbouring
+bedchamber, and shows a beard just lathered for shaving. “We are
+talking sentiment! Go back till you are wanted!” says Mr. Pendennis.
+Exit he of the soap-suds.)
+
+“Don’t make fun of a fellow,” Clive continues, laughing ruefully. “You
+see I must talk about it to somebody. I shall die if I don’t.
+Sometimes, sir, I rise up in my might and I defy her lightning. The
+sarcastic dodge is the best: I have borrowed that from you Pen, old
+boy. That puzzles her: that would beat her if I could but go on with
+it. But there comes a tone of her sweet voice, a look out of those
+killing grey eyes, and all my frame is in a thrill and a tremble. When
+she was engaged to Lord Kew I did battle with the confounded
+passion—and I ran away from it like an honest man, and the gods
+rewarded me with ease of mind after a while. But now the thing rages
+worse than ever. Last night, I give you my honour, I heard every one of
+the confounded hours toll, except the last, when I was dreaming of my
+father, and the chambermaid woke me with a hot water jug.”
+
+“Did she scald you? What a cruel chambermaid! I see you have shaven the
+mustachios off.”
+
+“Farintosh asked me whether I was going in the army,” said Clive, “and
+she laughed. I thought I had best dock them. Oh, I would like to cut my
+head off as well as my hair!”
+
+“Have you ever asked her to marry you?” asked Clive’s friend.
+
+“I have seen her but five times since my return from abroad,” the lad
+went on; “there has been always somebody by. Who am I? a painter with
+five hundred a year for an allowance. Isn’t she used to walk up on
+velvet and dine upon silver; and hasn’t she got marquises and barons,
+and all sorts of swells, in her train? I daren’t ask her——”
+
+Here his friend hummed Montrose’s lines—“He either fears his fate too
+much, or his desert is small, who dares not put it to the touch, and
+win or lose it all.”
+
+“I own I dare not ask her. If she were to refuse me, I know I should
+never ask again. This isn’t the moment, when all Swelldom is at her
+feet, for me to come forward and say, ‘Maiden, I have watched thee
+daily, and I think thou lovest me well.’ I read that ballad to her at
+Baden, sir. I drew a picture of the Lord of Burleigh wooing the maiden,
+and asked what she would have done?”
+
+“Oh, you _did?_ I thought, when we were at Baden, we were so modest
+that we did not even whisper our condition?”
+
+“A fellow can’t help letting it be seen and hinting it,” says Clive,
+with another blush. “They can read it in our looks fast enough; and
+what is going on in our minds, hang them! I recollect she said, in her
+grave, cool way, that after all the Lord and Lady of Burleigh did not
+seem to have made a very good marriage, and that the lady would have
+been much happier in marrying one of her own degree.”
+
+“That was a very prudent saying for a young lady of eighteen,” remarks
+Clive’s friend.
+
+“Yes; but it was not an unkind one. Say Ethel thought—thought what was
+the case; and being engaged herself, and knowing how friends of mine
+had provided a very pretty little partner for me—she is a dear, good
+little girl, little Rosey; and twice as good, Pen, when her mother is
+away—knowing this and that, I say, suppose Ethel wanted to give me a
+hint to keep quiet, was she not right in the counsel she gave me? She
+is not fit to be a poor man’s wife. Fancy Ethel Newcome going into the
+kitchen and making pies like Aunt Honeyman!”
+
+“The Circassian beauties don’t sell under so many thousand purses,”
+remarked Mr. Pendennis. “If there’s a beauty in a well-regulated
+Georgian family, they fatten her; they feed her with the best _Racahout
+des Arabes_. They give her silk robes, and perfumed baths; have her
+taught to play on the dulcimer and dance and sing; and when she is
+quite perfect, send her down to Constantinople for the Sultan’s
+inspection. The rest of the family think never of grumbling, but eat
+coarse meat, bathe in the river, wear old clothes, and praise Allah for
+their sister’s elevation. Bah! Do you suppose the Turkish system
+doesn’t obtain all over the world? My poor Clive, this article in the
+Mayfair Market is beyond your worship’s price. Some things in this
+world are made for our betters, young man. Let Dives say grace for his
+dinner, and the dogs and Lazarus be thankful for the crumbs. Here comes
+Warrington, shaven and smart as if he was going out a-courting.”
+
+Thus it will be seen, that in his communication with certain friends
+who approached nearer to his own time of life, Clive was much more
+eloquent and rhapsodical than in the letter which he wrote to his
+father, regarding his passion for Miss Ethel. He celebrated her with
+pencil and pen. He was for ever drawing the outline of her head, the
+solemn eyebrow, the nose (that wondrous little nose), descending from
+the straight forehead, the short upper lip, and chin sweeping in a full
+curve to the neck, etc. etc. A frequenter of his studio might see a
+whole gallery of Ethels there represented: when Mrs. Mackenzie visited
+that place, and remarked one face and figure repeated on a hundred
+canvases and papers, grey, white, and brown, I believe she was told
+that the original was a famous Roman model, from whom Clive had studied
+a great deal during his residence in Italy; on which Mrs. Mack gave it
+as her opinion that Clive was a sad wicked young fellow. The widow
+thought rather the better of him for being a sad wicked young fellow;
+and as for Miss Rosey, she, was of course of mamma’s way of thinking.
+Rosey went through the world constantly smiling at whatever occurred.
+She was good-humoured through the dreariest long evenings at the most
+stupid parties; sate good-humouredly for hours at Shoolbred’s whilst
+mamma was making purchases; heard good-humouredly those old old stories
+of her mother’s day after day; bore an hour’s joking or an hour’s
+scolding with equal good-humour; and whatever had been the occurrences
+of her simple day, whether there was sunshine or cloudy weather, or
+flashes of lightning and bursts of rain, I fancy Miss Mackenzie slept
+after them quite undisturbedly, and was sure to greet the morrow’s dawn
+with a smile.
+
+Had Clive become more knowing in his travels, had Love or Experience
+opened his eyes, that they looked so differently now upon objects which
+before used well enough to please them? It is a fact that, until he
+went abroad, he thought widow Mackenzie a dashing, lively, agreeable
+woman: he used to receive her stories about Cheltenham, the colonies,
+the balls at Government House, the observations which the bishop made,
+and the peculiar attention of the Chief Justice to Mrs. Major M’Shane,
+with the Major’s uneasy behaviour—all these to hear at one time did
+Clive not ungraciously incline. “Our friend, Mrs. Mack,” the good old
+Colonel used to say, “is a clever woman of the world, and has seen a
+great deal of company.” That story of Sir Thomas Sadman dropping a
+pocket-handkerchief in his court at Colombo, which the Queen’s Advocate
+O’Goggarty picked up, and on which Laura MacS. was embroidered, whilst
+the Major was absolutely in the witness-box giving evidence against a
+native servant who had stolen one of his cocked-hats—that story always
+made good Thomas Newcome laugh, and Clive used to enjoy it too, and the
+widow’s mischievous fun in narrating it; and now, behold, one day when
+Mrs. Mackenzie recounted the anecdote in her best manner to Messrs.
+Pendennis and Warrington, and Frederick Bayham, who had been invited to
+meet Mr. Clive in Fitzroy Square—when Mr. Binnie chuckled, when Rosey,
+as in duty bound, looked discomposed and said, “Law, mamma!”—not one
+sign of good-humour, not one ghost of a smile, made its apparition on
+Clive’s dreary face. He painted imaginary portraits with a strawberry
+stalk; he looked into his water-glass as though he would plunge and
+drown there; and Bayham had to remind him that the claret jug was
+anxious to have another embrace from its constant friend, F. B. When
+Mrs. Mack went away distributing smiles, Clive groaned out, “Good
+heavens! how that story does bore me!” and lapsed into his former
+moodiness, not giving so much as a glance to Rosey, whose sweet face
+looked at him kindly for a moment, as she followed in the wake of her
+mamma.
+
+“The mother’s the woman for my money,” I heard F. B. whisper to
+Warrington. “Splendid figure-head, sir—magnificent build, sir, from
+bows to stern—I like ’em of that sort. Thank you, Mr. Binnie, I _will_
+take a back-hander, as Clive don’t seem to drink. The youth, sir, has
+grown melancholy with his travels; I’m inclined to think some noble
+Roman has stolen the young man’s heart. Why did you not send us over a
+picture of the charmer, Clive? Young Ridley, Mr. Binnie, you will be
+happy to hear, is bidding fair to take a distinguished place in the
+world of arts. His picture has been greatly admired; and my good friend
+Mrs. Ridley tells me that Lord Todmorden has sent him over an order to
+paint him a couple of pictures at a hundred guineas apiece.”
+
+“I should think so. J. J.’s pictures will be worth five times a hundred
+guineas ere five years are over,” says Clive.
+
+“In that case it wouldn’t be a bad speculation for our friend
+Sherrick,” remarked F. B., “to purchase a few of the young man’s works.
+I would, only I haven’t the capital to spare. Mine has been vested in
+an Odessa venture, sir, in a large amount of wild oats, which up to the
+present moment make me no return. But it will always be a consolation
+to me to think that I have been the means—the humble means—of
+furthering that deserving young man’s prospects in life.”
+
+“You, F. B.! and how?” we asked.
+
+“By certain humble contributions of mine to the press,” answered
+Bayham, majestically. “Mr. Warrington, the claret happens to stand with
+you; and exercise does it good, sir. Yes, the articles, trifling as
+they may appear, have attracted notice,” continued F. B., sipping his
+wine with great gusto. “They are noticed, Pendennis, give me leave to
+say, by parties who don’t value so much the literary or even the
+political part of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, though both, I am told by
+those who read them, are conducted with considerable—consummate
+ability. John Ridley sent a hundred pounds over to his father, the
+other day, who funded it in his son’s name. And Ridley told the story
+to Lord Todmorden, when the venerable nobleman congratulated him on
+having such a child. I wish F. B. had one of the same sort, sir.” In
+which sweet prayer we all of us joined with a laugh.
+
+One of us had told Mrs. Mackenzie (let the criminal blush to own that
+quizzing his fellow-creatures used at one time to form part of his
+youthful amusement) that F. B. was the son of a gentleman of most
+ancient family and vast landed possessions, and as Bayham was
+particularly attentive to the widow, and grandiloquent in his remarks,
+she was greatly pleased by his politeness, and pronounced him a most
+_distingué_ man—reminding her, indeed, of General Hopkirk, who
+commanded in Canada. And she bade Rosey sing for Mr. Bayham, who was in
+a rapture at the young lady’s performances, and said no wonder such an
+accomplished daughter came from such a mother, though how such a mother
+could have a daughter of such an age he, F. B., was at a loss to
+understand. Oh, sir! Mrs. Mackenzie was charmed and overcome at this
+novel compliment. Meanwhile the little artless Rosey warbled on her
+pretty ditties.
+
+“It _is_ a wonder,” growled out Mr. Warrington, “that that sweet girl
+can belong to such a woman. I don’t understand much about women, but
+that one appears to me to be—hum!”
+
+“What, George?” asked Warrington’s friend.
+
+“Well, an ogling, leering, scheming, artful old campaigner,” grumbled
+the misogynist. “As for the little girl, I should like to have her to
+sing to me all night long. Depend upon it she would make a much better
+wife for Clive than that fashionable cousin of his he is hankering
+after. I heard him bellowing about her the other day in chambers, as I
+was dressing. What the deuce does the boy want with a wife at all?” And
+Rosey’s song being by this time finished, Warrington went up with a
+blushing face and absolutely paid a compliment to Miss Mackenzie—an
+almost unheard-of effort on George’s part.
+
+“I wonder whether it is every young fellow’s lot,” quoth George, as we
+trudged home together, “to pawn his heart away to some girl that’s not
+worth the winning? Psha! it’s all mad rubbish this sentiment. The women
+ought not to be allowed to interfere with us: married if a man must be,
+a suitable wife should be portioned out to him, and there an end of it.
+Why doesn’t the young man marry this girl, and get back to his business
+and paint his pictures? Because his father wishes it—and the old Nabob
+yonder, who seems a kindly-disposed, easy-going, old heathen
+philosopher. Here’s a pretty little girl: money I suppose in
+sufficiency—everything satisfactory, except, I grant you, the
+campaigner. The lad might daub his canvases, christen a child a year,
+and be as happy as any young donkey that browses on this common of
+ours—but he must go and heehaw after a zebra forsooth! a _lusus naturæ_
+is she! I never spoke to a woman of fashion, thank my stars—I don’t
+know the nature of the beast; and since I went to our race-balls, as a
+boy, scarcely ever saw one; as I don’t frequent operas and parties in
+London like you young flunkeys of the aristocracy. I heard you talking
+about this one; I couldn’t help it, as my door was open and the young
+one was shouting like a madman. What! does he choose to hang on on
+sufferance and hope to be taken, provided Miss can get no better? Do
+you mean to say that is the genteel custom, and that women in your
+confounded society do such things every day? Rather than have such a
+creature I would take a savage woman, who should nurse my dusky brood;
+and rather than have a daughter brought up to the trade I would bring
+her down from the woods and sell her in Virginia.” With which burst of
+indignation our friend’s anger ended for that night.
+
+Though Mr. Clive had the felicity to meet his cousin Ethel at a party
+or two in the ensuing weeks of the season, every time he perused the
+features of Lady Kew’s brass knocker in Queen Street, no result came of
+the visit. At one of their meetings in the world Ethel fairly told him
+that her grandmother would not receive him. “You know, Clive, I can’t
+help myself: nor would it be proper to make you signs out of the
+window. But you must call for all that: grandmamma may become more
+good-humoured: or if you don’t come she may suspect I told you not to
+come: and to battle with her day after day is no pleasure, sir, I
+assure you. Here is Lord Farintosh coming to take me to dance. You must
+not speak to me all the evening, mind that, sir,” and away goes the
+young lady in a waltz with the Marquis.
+
+On the same evening—as he was biting his nails, or cursing his fate, or
+wishing to invite Lord Farintosh into the neighbouring garden of
+Berkeley Square, whence the policeman might carry to the station-house
+the corpse of the survivor,—Lady Kew would bow to him with perfect
+graciousness; on other nights her ladyship would pass and no more
+recognise him than the servant who opened the door.
+
+If she was not to see him at her grandmother’s house, and was not
+particularly unhappy at his exclusion, why did Miss Newcome encourage
+Mr. Clive so that he should try and see _her?_ If Clive could not get
+into the little house in Queen Street, why was Lord Farintosh’s
+enormous cab-horse looking daily into the first-floor windows of that
+street? Why were little quiet dinners made for him, before the opera,
+before going to the play, upon a half-dozen occasions, when some of the
+old old Kew port was brought out of the cellar, where cobwebs had
+gathered round it ere Farintosh was born? The dining-room was so tiny
+that not more than five people could sit at the little round table:
+that is, not more than Lady Kew and her granddaughter, Miss Crochet,
+the late vicar’s daughter, at Kewbury, one of the Miss Toadins, and
+Captain Walleye, or Tommy Henchman, Farintosh’s kinsman, and admirer,
+who were of no consequence, or old Fred Tiddler, whose wife was an
+invalid, and who was always ready at a moment’s notice? Crackthorpe
+once went to one of these dinners, but that young soldier being a frank
+and high-spirited youth, abused the entertainment and declined more of
+them. “I tell you what I was wanted for,” the Captain told his mess and
+Clive at the Regent’s Park barracks afterwards, “I was expected to go
+as Farintosh’s Groom of the Stole, don’t you know, to stand, or if I
+could sit, in the back seat of the box, whilst his Royal Highness made
+talk with the Beauty; to go out and fetch the carriage, and walk
+downstairs with that d—— crooked old dowager, that looks as if she
+usually rode on a broomstick, by Jove, or else with that bony old
+painted sheep-faced companion, who’s raddled like an old bell-wether. I
+think, Newcome, you seem rather hit by the Belle Cousine—so was I last
+season; so were ever so many of the fellows. By Jove, sir! there’s
+nothing I know more comfortable or inspiritin’ than a younger son’s
+position, when a marquis cuts in with fifteen thousand a year! We fancy
+we’ve been making running, and suddenly we find ourselves nowhere. Miss
+Mary, or Miss Lucy, or Miss Ethel, saving your presence, will no more
+look at us, than my dog will look at a bit of bread, when I offer her
+this cutlet. Will you—old woman! no, you old slut, that you won’t!” (to
+Mag, an Isle of Skye terrier, who, in fact, prefers the cutlet, having
+snuffed disdainfully at the bread)—“that you won’t, no more than any of
+your sex. Why, do you suppose, if Jack’s eldest brother had been
+dead—Barebones Belsize they used to call him (I don’t believe he was a
+bad fellow, though he was fond of psalm-singing)—do you suppose that
+Lady Clara would have looked at that cock-tail Barney Newcome? Beg your
+pardon, if he’s your cousin—but a more odious little snob I never saw.”
+
+“I give you up Barnes,” said Clive, laughing; “anybody may shy at him
+and I shan’t interfere.”
+
+“I understand, but at nobody else of the family. Well, what I mean is,
+that that old woman is enough to spoil any young girl she takes in
+hand. She dries ’em up, and poisons ’em, sir; and I was never more glad
+than when I heard that Kew had got out of her old clutches. Frank is a
+fellow that will always be led by some woman or another; and I’m only
+glad it should be a good one. They say his mother’s serious, and that;
+but why shouldn’t she bet?” continues honest Crackthorpe, puffing his
+cigar with great energy. “They say the old dowager doesn’t believe in
+God nor devil: but that she’s in such a funk to be left in the dark
+that she howls, and raises the doose’s own delight if her candle goes
+out. Toppleton slept next room to her at Groningham, and heard her;
+didn’t you, Top?”
+
+“Heard her howling like an old cat on the tiles,” says
+Toppleton,—“thought she was at first. My man told me that she used to
+fling all sorts of things—boot-jacks and things, give you my honour—at
+her maid, and that the woman was all over black and blue.”
+
+“Capital head that is Newcome has done of Jack Belsize!” says
+Crackthorpe, from out of his cigar.
+
+“And Kew’s too—famous likeness! I say, Newcome, if you have ’em printed
+the whole brigade’ll subscribe. Make your fortune, see if you won’t,”
+cries Toppleton.
+
+“He’s such a heavy swell, he don’t want to make his fortune,”
+ejaculates Butts.
+
+“Butts, old boy, he’ll paint you for nothing, and send you to the
+Exhibition, where some widow will fall in love with you, and you shall
+be put as frontispiece for the ‘Book of Beauty,’ by Jove,” cries
+another military satirist—to whom Butts:
+
+“You hold your tongue, you old Saracen’s Head; they’re going to have
+you done on the bear’s-grease pots. I say, I suppose Jack’s all right
+now. When did he write to you last, Cracky?”
+
+“He wrote from Palermo—a most jolly letter from him and Kew. He hasn’t
+touched a card for nine months; is going to give up play. So is Frank,
+too, grown quite a good boy. So will you, too, Butts, you old
+miscreant, repent of your sins, pay your debts, and do something
+handsome for that poor deluded milliner in Albany Street. Jack says
+Kew’s mother has written over to Lord Highgate a beautiful letter—and
+the old boy’s relenting, and they’ll come together again—Jack’s eldest
+son now, you know. Bore for Lady Susan only having girls.”
+
+“Not a bore for Jack, though,” cries another. And what a good fellow
+Jack was; and what a trump Kew is; how famously he stuck by him: went
+to see him in prison and paid him out! and what good fellows we all
+are, in general, became the subject of the conversation, the latter
+part of which took place in the smoking-room of the Regent’s Park
+Barracks, then occupied by that regiment of Life Guards of which Lord
+Kew and Mr. Belsize had been members. Both were still fondly remembered
+by their companions; and it was because Belsize had spoken very warmly
+of Clive’s friendliness to him that Jack’s friend the gallant
+Crackthorpe had been interested in our hero, and found an opportunity
+of making his acquaintance.
+
+With these frank and pleasant young men Clive soon formed a
+considerable intimacy: and if any of his older and peaceful friends
+chanced to take their afternoon airing in the Park, and survey the
+horsemen there, we might have the pleasure of beholding Mr. Newcome in
+Rotten Row, riding side by side with other dandies who had mustachios
+blonde or jet, who wore flowers in their buttons (themselves being
+flowers of spring), who rode magnificent thoroughbred horses, scarcely
+touching their stirrups with the tips of their varnished boots, and who
+kissed the most beautiful primrose-coloured kid gloves to lovely ladies
+passing them in the Ride. Clive drew portraits of half the officers of
+the Life Guards Green; and was appointed painter in ordinary to that
+distinguished corps. His likeness of the Colonel would make you die
+with laughing: his picture of the Surgeon was voted a masterpiece. He
+drew the men in the saddle, in the stable, in their flannel dresses,
+sweeping their flashing swords about, receiving lancers, repelling
+infantry,—nay, cutting—a sheep in two, as some of the warriors are
+known to be able to do at one stroke. Detachments of Life Guardsmen
+made their appearance in Charlotte Street, which was not very distant
+from their barracks; the most splendid cabs were seen prancing before
+his door; and curly-whiskered youths, of aristocratic appearance,
+smoking cigars out of his painting-room window. How many times did
+Clive’s next-door neighbour, little Mr. Finch, the miniature-painter,
+run to peep through his parlour blinds, hoping that a sitter was
+coming, and “a carriage-party” driving up! What wrath Mr. Scowler,
+A.R.A., was in, because a young hop-o’-my-thumb dandy, who wore gold
+chains and his collars turned down, should spoil the trade and draw
+portraits for nothing! Why did none of the young men come to Scowler?
+Scowler was obliged to own that Mr. Newcome had considerable talent,
+and a good knack at catching a likeness. He could not paint a bit, to
+be sure, but his heads in black-and-white were really tolerable; his
+sketches of horses very vigorous and lifelike. Mr. Gandish said if
+Clive would come for three or four years into his academy he could make
+something of him. Mr. Smee shook his head, and said he was afraid, that
+kind of loose, desultory study, that keeping of aristocratic company,
+was anything but favourable to a young artist—Smee, who would walk five
+miles to attend an evening party of ever so little a great man!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+In which Mr. Charles Honeyman appears in an Amiable Light
+
+
+Mr. Frederick Bayham waited at Fitzroy Square while Clive was yet
+talking with his friends there, and favoured that gentleman with his
+company home to the usual smoky refreshment. Clive always rejoiced in
+F. B.’s society, whether he was in a sportive mood, or, as now, in a
+solemn and didactic vein. F. B. had been more than ordinarily majestic
+all the evening. “I dare say you find me a good deal altered, Clive,”
+he remarked; “I am a good deal altered. Since that good Samaritan, your
+kind father, had compassion on a poor fellow fallen among thieves
+(though I don’t say, mind you, he was much better than his company), F.
+B. has mended some of his ways. I am trying a course of industry, sir.
+Powers, perhaps naturally great, have been neglected over the wine-cup
+and the die. I am beginning to feel my way; and my chiefs yonder, who
+have just walked home with their cigars in their mouths, and without as
+much as saying, F. B., my boy, shall we go to the Haunt and have a cool
+lobster and a glass of table-beer,—which they certainly do not consider
+themselves to be,—I say, sir, the Politician and the Literary Critic”
+(there was a most sarcastic emphasis laid on these phrases,
+characterising Messrs. Warrington and Pendennis) “may find that there
+is a humble contributor to the _Pall Mall Gazette_, whose name, may be,
+the amateur shall one day reckon even higher than their own. Mr.
+Warrington I do not say so much—he is an able man, sir, an able
+man;—but there is that about your exceedin self-satisfied friend, Mr.
+Arthur Pendennis, which—well, well—let time show. You did not—get
+the—hem—paper at Rome and Naples, I suppose?”
+
+“Forbidden by the Inquisition,” says Clive, delighted; “and at Naples
+the king furious against it.”
+
+“I _don’t wonder_ they don’t like it at Rome, sir. There’s serious
+matter in it which may set the prelates of a certain Church rather in a
+tremor. You haven’t read—the—ahem—the Pulpit Pencillings in the _P. M.
+G.?_ Slight sketches, mental and corporeal, of our chief divines now in
+London—and signed Latimer?”
+
+“I don’t do much in that way,” said Clive.
+
+“So much the worse for you, my young friend. Not that I mean to judge
+any other fellow harshly—I mean any other fellow sinner harshly—or that
+I mean that those Pulpit Pencillings would be likely to do you any
+great good. But, such as they are, they have been productive of
+benefit.—Thank you, Mary, and my dear, the tap is uncommonly good, and
+I drink to your future husband’s good health.—A glass of good sound
+beer refreshes after all that claret. Well, sir, to return to the
+Pencillings, pardon my vanity in saying, that though Mr. Pendennis
+laughs at them, they have been of essential service to the paper. They
+give it a character, they rally round it the respectable classes. They
+create correspondence. I have received many interesting letters,
+chiefly from females, about the Pencillings. Some complain that their
+favourite preachers are slighted; others applaud because the clergymen
+they sit under are supported by F. B. _I_ am Laud Latimer, sir,—though
+I have heard the letters attributed to the Rev. Mr. Bunker, and to a
+Member of Parliament eminent in the religious world.”
+
+“So you are the famous Laud Latimer?” cries Clive, who had, in fact,
+seen letters signed by those right reverend names in our paper.
+
+“Famous is hardly the word. One who scoffs at everything—I need not say
+I allude to Mr. Arthur Pendennis—would have had the letters signed—the
+Beadle, of the Parish. He calls me the Venerable Beadle sometimes—it
+being, I grieve to say, his way to deride grave subjects. You wouldn’t
+suppose now, my young Clive, that the same hand which pens the Art
+criticisms, occasionally, when His Highness Pendennis is lazy, takes a
+minor theatre, or turns the sportive epigram, or the ephemeral
+paragraph, should adopt a grave theme on a Sunday, and chronicle the
+sermons of British divines? For eighteen consecutive Sunday evenings,
+Clive, in Mrs. Ridley’s front parlour, which I now occupy, vice Miss
+Cann promoted, I have written the Pencillings—scarcely allowing a drop
+of refreshment, except under extreme exhaustion, to pass my lips.
+Pendennis laughs at the Pencillings. He wants to stop them; and says
+they bore the public.—I don’t want to _think_ a man is jealous, who was
+himself the cause of my engagement at the _P. M. G._,—perhaps my powers
+were not developed then.”
+
+“Pen thinks he writes better now than when he began,” remarked Clive;
+“I have heard him say so.”
+
+“His opinion of his own writings is high, whatever their date. Mine,
+sir, are only just coming into notice. They begin to know F. B., sir,
+in the sacred edifices of his metropolitan city. I saw the Bishop of
+London looking at me last Sunday week, and am sure his chaplain
+whispered him, ‘It’s Mr. Bayham, my lord, nephew of your lordship’s
+right reverend brother, the Lord Bishop of Bullocksmithy.’ And last
+Sunday being at church—at Saint Mungo the Martyr’s, Rev. Sawders—by
+Wednesday I got in a female hand—Mrs. Sawders’s, no doubt—the biography
+of the Incumbent of St. Mungo; an account of his early virtues; a copy
+of his poems; and a hint that he was the gentleman destined for the
+vacant Deanery.
+
+“Ridley is not the only man I have helped in this world,” F. B.
+continued. “Perhaps I should blush to own it—I _do_ blush: but I feel
+the ties of early acquaintance, and I own that I have puffed your
+uncle, Charles Honeyman, most tremendously. It was partly for the sake
+of the Ridleys and the tick he owes ’em: partly for old times’ sake.
+Sir, are you aware that things are greatly changed with Charles
+Honeyman, and that the poor F. B. has very likely made his fortune?”
+
+“I am delighted to hear it,” cried Clive; “and how, F. B., have you
+wrought this miracle?”
+
+“By common sense and enterprise, lad—by a knowledge of the world and a
+benevolent disposition. You’ll see Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel bears a
+very different aspect now. That miscreant Sherrick owns that he owes me
+a turn, and has sent me a few dozen of wine—without any stamped paper
+on my part in return—as an acknowledgment of my service. It chanced,
+sir, soon after your departure for Italy, that going to his private
+residence respecting a little bill to which a heedless friend had put
+his hand, Sherrick invited me to partake of tea in the bosom of his
+family. I was thirsty—having walked in from Jack Straw’s Castle at
+Hampstead, where poor Kitely and I had been taking a chop—and accepted
+the proffered entertainment. The ladies of the family gave us music
+after the domestic muffin—and then, sir, a great idea occurred to me.
+You know how magnificently Miss Sherrick and the mother sing? Thy sang
+Mozart, sir. Why, I asked of Sherrick, should those ladies who sing
+Mozart to a piano, not sing Handel to an organ?
+
+“‘Dash it, you don’t mean a hurdy-gurdy?’”
+
+“‘Sherrick,’ says I, ‘you are no better than a heathen ignoramus. I
+mean why shouldn’t they sing Handel’s Church Music, and Church Music in
+general in Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel? Behind the screen up in the
+organ-loft what’s to prevent ’em? By Jingo! Your singing-boys have gone
+to the Cave of Harmony; you and your choir have split—why should not
+these ladies lead it?’ He caught at the idea. You never heard the
+chants more finely given—and they would be better still if the
+congregation would but hold their confounded tongues. It was an
+excellent though a harmless dodge, sir: and drew immensely, to speak
+profanely. They dress the part, sir, to admiration—a sort of nunlike
+costume they come in: Mrs. Sherrick has the soul of an artist still—by
+Jove, sir, when they have once smelt the lamps, the love of the trade
+never leaves ’em. The ladies actually practised by moonlight in the
+Chapel, and came over to Honeyman’s to an oyster afterwards. The thing
+took, sir. People began to take box-seats, I mean, again:—and Charles
+Honeyman, easy in his mind through your noble father’s generosity,
+perhaps inspirited by returning good fortune, has been preaching more
+eloquently than ever. He took some lessons of Husler, of the Haymarket,
+sir. His sermons are old, I believe; but so to speak, he has got them
+up with new scenery, dresses, and effects, sir. They have flowers, sir,
+about the buildin’—pious ladies are supposed to provide ’em, but,
+_entre nous_, Sherrick contracts for them with Nathan, or some one in
+Covent Garden. And—don’t tell this now, upon your honour!”
+
+“Tell what, F. B.?” asks Clive.
+
+“I got up a persecution against your uncle for Popish practices:
+summoned a meetin’ at the Running Footman, in Bolingbroke Street.
+Billings the butterman; Sharwood, the turner and blacking-maker; and
+the Honourable Phelin O’Curragh, Lord Scullabogue’s son, made speeches.
+Two or three respectable families (your aunt, Mrs. What-d’-you-call-’em
+Newcome, amongst the number) quitted the Chapel in disgust—I wrote an
+article of controversial biography in the _P. M. G.;_ set the business
+going in the daily press; and the thing was done, sir. That property is
+a paying one to the Incumbent, and to Sherrick over him. Charles’s
+affairs are getting all right, sir. He never had the pluck to owe much,
+and if it be a sin to have wiped his slate clean, satisfied his
+creditors, and made Charles easy—upon my conscience, I must confess
+that F. B. has done it. I hope I may never do anything worse in this
+life, Clive. It ain’t bad to see him doing the martyr, sir: Sebastian
+riddled with paper pellets; Bartholomew on a cold gridiron. Here comes
+the lobster. Upon my word, Mary, a finer fish I’ve seldom seen.”
+
+Now surely this account of his uncle’s affairs and prosperity was
+enough to send Clive to Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel, and it was not
+because Miss Ethel had said that she and Lady Kew went there that Clive
+was induced to go there too? He attended punctually on the next Sunday,
+and in the incumbent’s pew, whither the pew-woman conducted him, sate
+Mr. Sherrick in great gravity, with large gold pins, who handed him, at
+the anthem, a large, new, gilt hymn-book.
+
+An odour of millefleurs rustled by them as Charles Honeyman accompanied
+by his ecclesiastical valet, passed the pew from the vestry, and took
+his place at the desk. Formerly he used to wear a flaunting scarf over
+his surplice, which was very wide and full; and Clive remembered when
+as a boy he entered the sacred robing-room, how his uncle used to pat
+and puff out the scarf and the sleeves of his vestment, and to arrange
+the natty curl on his forehead and take his place, a fine example of
+florid church decoration. Now the scarf was trimmed down to be as
+narrow as your neckcloth, and hung loose and straight over the back;
+the ephod was cut straight and as close and short as might be,—I
+believe there was a little trimming of lace to the narrow sleeves, and
+a slight arabesque of tape, or other substance, round the edge of the
+surplice. As for the curl on the forehead, it was no more visible than
+the Maypole in the Strand, or the Cross at Charing. Honeyman’s hair was
+parted down the middle, short in front, and curling delicately round
+his ears and the back of his head. He read the service in a swift
+manner, and with a gentle twang. When the music began, he stood with
+head on one side, and two slim fingers on the book, as composed as a
+statue in a mediæval niche. It was fine to hear Sherrick, who had an
+uncommonly good voice, join in the musical parts of the service. The
+produce of the market-gardener decorated the church here and there; and
+the impresario of the establishment, having picked up a Flemish painted
+window from old Moss in Wardour Street, had placed it in his chapel.
+Labels of faint green and gold, with long Gothic letters painted
+thereon, meandered over the organ-loft and galleries, and strove to
+give as mediæval a look to Lady Whittlesea’s as the place was capable
+of assuming.
+
+In the sermon Charles dropped the twang with the surplice, and the
+priest gave way to the preacher. He preached short stirring discourses
+on the subjects of the day. It happened that a noble young prince, the
+hope of a nation, and heir of a royal house, had just then died by a
+sudden accident. Absalom, the son of David, furnished Honeyman with a
+parallel. He drew a picture of the two deaths, of the grief of kings,
+of the fate that is superior to them. It was, indeed, a stirring
+discourse, and caused thrills through the crowd to whom Charles
+imparted it. “Famous, ain’t it?” says Sherrick, giving Clive a hand
+when the rite was over. “How he’s come out, hasn’t he? Didn’t think he
+had it in him.” Sherrick seemed to have become of late impressed with
+the splendour of Charles’s talents, and spoke of him—was it not
+disrespectful?—as a manager would of a successful tragedian. Let us
+pardon Sherrick: he had been in the theatrical way. “That Irishman was
+no go at all,” he whispered to Mr. Newcome, “got rid of him,—let’s see,
+at Michaelmas.”
+
+On account of Clive’s tender years, and natural levity, a little
+inattention may be allowed to the youth, who certainly looked about him
+very eagerly during the service. The house was filled by the ornamental
+classes, the bonnets of the newest Parisian fashion. Away in a darkling
+corner, under the organ, sate a squad of footmen. Surely that powdered
+one in livery wore Lady Kew’s colours? So Clive looked under all the
+bonnets, and presently spied old Lady Kew’s face, as grim and yellow as
+her brass knocker, and by it Ethel’s beauteous countenance. He dashed
+out of church when the congregation rose to depart. “Stop and see
+Honeyman, won’t you?” asked Sherrick, surprised.
+
+“Yes, yes; come back again,” said Clive, and was gone.
+
+He kept his word, and returned presently. The young Marquis and an
+elderly lady were in Lady Kew’s company. Clive had passed close under
+Lady Kew’s venerable Roman nose without causing that organ to bow in
+ever so slight a degree towards the ground. Ethel had recognised him
+with a smile and a nod. My lord was whispering one of his noble
+pleasantries in her ear. She laughed at the speech or the speaker. The
+steps of a fine belozenged carriage were let down with a bang. The
+Yellow One had jumped up behind it, by the side of his brother Giant
+Canary. Lady Kew’s equipage had disappeared, and Mrs. Canterton’s was
+stopping the way.
+
+Clive returned to the chapel by the little door near to the Vestiarium.
+All the congregation had poured out by this time. Only two ladies were
+standing near the pulpit; and Sherrick, with his hands rattling his
+money in his pockets, was pacing up and down the aisle.
+
+“Capital house, Mr. Newcome, wasn’t it? I counted no less than fourteen
+nobs. The Princess of Moncontour and her husband, I suppose, that chap
+with the beard, who yawns so during the sermon. I’m blessed, if I
+didn’t think he’d have yawned his head off. Countess of Kew, and her
+daughter; Countess of Canterton, and the Honourable Miss Fetlock—no,
+Lady Fetlock. A Countess’s daughter is a lady, I’m dashed if she ain’t.
+Lady Glenlivat and her sons; the most noble the Marquis of Farintosh,
+and Lord Enry Roy; that makes seven—no, nine—with the Prince and
+Princess.—Julia, my dear, you came out like a good un to-day. Never
+heard you in finer voice. Remember Mr. Clive Newcome?”
+
+Mr. Clive made bows to the ladies, who acknowledged him by graceful
+curtsies. Miss Sherrick was always looking to the vestry-door.
+
+“How’s the old Colonel? The best feller—excuse my calling him a
+feller—but he is, and a good one too. I went to see Mr. Binnie, my
+other tenant. He looks a little yellow about the gills, Mr. Binnie.
+Very proud woman that is who lives with him—uncommon haughty. When will
+you come down and take your mutton in the Regent’s Park, Mr. Clive?
+There’s some tolerable good wine down there. Our reverend gent drops in
+and takes a glass, don’t he, missis?”
+
+“We shall be most ’appy to see Mr. Newcome, I’m sure,” says the
+handsome and good-natured Mrs. Sherrick. “Won’t we, Julia?”
+
+“Oh, certainly,” says Julia, who seems rather absent. And behold, at
+this moment the reverend gent enters from the vestry. Both the ladies
+run towards him, holding forth their hands.
+
+“Oh, Mr. Honeyman! What a sermon! Me and Julia cried so up in the
+organ-loft; we thought you would have heard us. Didn’t we, Julia?”
+
+“Oh, yes,” says Julia, whose hand the pastor is now pressing.
+
+“When you described the young man, I thought of my poor boy, didn’t I,
+Julia?” cries the mother, with tears streaming down her face.
+
+“We had a loss more than ten years ago,” whispers Sherrick to Clive
+gravely. “And she’s always thinking of it. Women are so.”
+
+Clive was touched and pleased by this exhibition of kind feeling.
+
+“You know his mother was an Absalom,” the good wife continues, pointing
+to her husband. “Most respectable diamond merchants in——”
+
+“Hold your tongue, Betsy, and leave my poor old mother alone; do now,”
+says Mr. Sherrick darkly. Clive is in his uncle’s fond embrace by this
+time, who rebukes him for not having called in Walpole Street.
+
+“Now, when will you two gents come up to my shop to ’ave a family
+dinner?” asks Sherrick.
+
+“Ah, Mr. Newcome, do come,” says Julia in her deep rich voice, looking
+up to him with her great black eyes. And if Clive had been a vain
+fellow like some folks, who knows but he might have thought he had made
+an impression on the handsome Julia?
+
+“Thursday, now make it Thursday, if Mr. H. is disengaged. Come along,
+girls, for the flies bites the ponies when they’re a-standing still and
+makes ’em mad this weather. Anything you like for dinner? Cut of salmon
+and cucumber? No, pickled salmon’s best this weather.”
+
+“Whatever you give me, you know I’m thankful!” says Honeyman, in a
+sweet sad voice, to the two ladies, who were standing looking at him,
+the mother’s hand clasped in the daughter’s.
+
+“Should you like that Mendelssohn for the Sunday after next? Julia
+sings it splendid!”
+
+“No, I don’t, ma.”
+
+“You do, dear! She’s a good, good _dear_, Mr. H., that’s what she is.”
+
+“You must not call—a—him, in that way. _Don’t_ say Mr. H., ma,” says
+Julia.
+
+“Call me what you please!” says Charles, with the most heart-rending
+simplicity; and Mrs. Sherrick straightway kisses her daughter. Sherrick
+meanwhile has been pointing out the improvement of the chapel to Clive
+(which now has indeed a look of the Gothic Hall at Rosherville), and
+has confided to him the sum for which he screwed the painted window out
+of old Moss. “When he come to see it up in this place, sir, the old man
+was mad, I give you my word! His son ain’t no good: says he knows you.
+He’s such a screw, that chap, that he’ll overreach himself, mark my
+words. At least, he’ll never die rich. Did you ever hear of _me_
+screwing? No, I spend my money like a man. How those girls are a-goin’
+on about their music with Honeyman! I don’t let ’em sing in the
+evening, or him do duty more than once a day; and you can calc’late how
+the music draws, because in the evenin’ there ain’t half the number of
+people here. Rev. Mr. Journyman does the duty now—quiet Hogford
+man—ill, I suppose, this morning. H. sits in his pew, where we was; and
+coughs; that’s to say, I told him to cough. The women like a
+consumptive parson, sir. Come, gals!”
+
+Clive went to his uncle’s lodgings, and was received by Mr. and Mrs.
+Ridley with great glee and kindness. Both of those good people had made
+it a point to pay their duty to Mr. Clive immediately on his return to
+England, and thank him over and over again for his kindness to John
+James. Never, never would they forget his goodness, and the Colonel’s,
+they were sure. A cake, a heap of biscuits, a pyramid of jams, six
+frizzling mutton-chops, and four kinds of hot wine, came bustling up to
+Mr. Honeyman’s room twenty minutes after Clive had entered it,—as a
+token of the Ridleys’ affection for him.
+
+Clive remarked, with a smile, the _Pall Mall Gazette_ upon a
+side-table, and in the chimney-glass almost as many cards as in the
+time of Honeyman’s early prosperity. That he and his uncle should be
+very intimate together, was impossible, from the nature of the two men;
+Clive being frank, clear-sighted, and imperious; Charles, timid, vain,
+and double-faced, conscious that he was a humbug, and that most people
+found him out, so that he would quiver and turn away, and be more
+afraid of young Clive and his direct straightforward way, than of many
+older men. Then there was the sense of the money transactions between
+him and the Colonel, which made Charles Honeyman doubly uneasy. In
+fine, they did not like each other; but, as he is a connection of the
+most respectable Newcome family, surely he is entitled to a page or two
+in these their memoirs.
+
+Thursday came, and with it Mr. Sherrick’s entertainment, to which also
+Mr. Binnie and his party had been invited to meet Colonel Newcome’s
+son. Uncle James and Rosey brought Clive in their carriage; Mrs.
+Mackenzie sent a headache as an apology. She chose to treat Uncle
+James’s landlord with a great deal of hauteur, and to be angry with her
+brother for visiting such a person. “In fact, you see how fond I must
+be of dear little Rosey, Clive, that I put up with all mamma’s tantrums
+for her sake,” remarks Mr. Binnie.
+
+“Oh, uncle!” says little Rosey, and the old gentleman stopped her
+remonstrances with a kiss.
+
+“Yes,” says he, “your mother _does_ have tantrums, miss; and though you
+never complain, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. You will not tell on
+me” (it was “Oh, uncle!” again); “and Clive won’t, I am sure.—This
+little thing, sir,” James went on, holding Rosey’s pretty little hand
+and looking fondly in her pretty little face, “is her old uncle’s only
+comfort in life. I wish I had had her out to India to me, and never
+come back to this great dreary town of yours. But I was tempted home by
+Tom Newcome; and I’m too old to go back, sir. Where the stick falls let
+it lie. Rosey would have been whisked out of my house, in India, in a
+month after I had her there. Some young fellow would have taken her
+away from me; and now she has promised never to leave her old Uncle
+James, hasn’t she?”
+
+“No, never, uncle,” said Rosey.
+
+“_We_ don’t want to fall in love, do we, child? We don’t want to be
+breaking our hearts like some young folks, and dancing attendance at
+balls night after night, and capering about in the Park to see if we
+can get a glimpse of the beloved object, eh, Rosey?”
+
+Rosey blushed. It was evident that she and Uncle James both knew of
+Clive’s love affair. In fact, the front seat and back seat of the
+carriage both blushed. And as for the secret, why Mrs. Mackenzie and
+Mrs. Hobson had talked it a hundred times over.
+
+“This little Rosey, sir, has promised to take care of me on this side
+of Styx,” continued Uncle James; “and if she could but be left alone
+and to do it without mamma—there, I won’t say a word more against
+her—we should get on none the worse.”
+
+“Uncle James, I must make a picture of you, for Rosey,” said Clive,
+good-humouredly. And Rosey said, “Oh, thank you, Clive,” and held out
+that pretty little hand, and looked so sweet and kind and happy, that
+Clive could not but be charmed at the sight of so much innocence and
+candour.
+
+“Quasty peecoly Rosiny,” says James, in a fine Scotch Italian, “e la
+piu bella, la piu cara, ragazza ma la mawdry e il diav——”
+
+“Don’t, uncle!” cried Rosey, again; and Clive laughed at Uncle James’s
+wonderful outbreak in a foreign tongue.
+
+“Eh! I thought ye didn’t know a word of the sweet language, Rosey! It’s
+just the Lenguy Toscawny in Bocky Romawny that I thought to try in
+compliment to this young monkey who has seen the world.” And by this
+time Saint John’s Wood was reached, and Mr. Sherrick’s handsome villa,
+at the door of which the three beheld the Rev. Charles Honeyman
+stepping out of a neat brougham.
+
+The drawing-room contained several pictures of Mrs. Sherrick when she
+was in the theatrical line; Smee’s portrait of her, which was never
+half handsome enough—for my Betsy, Sherrick said indignantly; the print
+of her in Artaxerxes, with her signature as Elizabeth Folthorpe (not in
+truth a fine specimen of calligraphy) the testimonial presented to her
+on the conclusion of the triumphal season of 18—, at Drury Lane, by her
+ever grateful friend Adolphus Smacker, Lessee, who, of course, went to
+law with her next year; and other Thespian emblems. But Clive remarked,
+with not a little amusement, that the drawing-room tables were now
+covered with a number of those books which he had seen at Madame de
+Moncontour’s, and many French and German ecclesiastical gimcracks, such
+as are familiar to numberless readers of mine. These were the Lives of
+St. Botibol of Islington and St. Willibald of Bareacres, with pictures
+of those confessors. Then there was the Legend of Margery Dawe, Virgin
+and Martyr, with a sweet double frontispiece, representing (1) the
+sainted woman selling her feather-bed for the benefit of the poor; and
+(2) reclining upon straw, the leanest of invalids. There was Old Daddy
+Longlegs, and how he was brought to say his Prayers; a Tale for
+Children, by a Lady, with a preface dated St. Chad’s Eve, and signed
+“C. H.” The Rev. Charles Honeyman’s Sermons, delivered at Lady
+Whittlesea’s Chapel. Poems of Early Days, by Charles Honeyman, A.M. The
+Life of good Dame Whittlesea, by do, do. Yes, Charles had come out in
+the literary line; and there in a basket was a strip of Berlin work, of
+the very same Gothic pattern which Madame de Moncontour was weaving;
+and which you afterwards saw round the pulpit of Charles’s chapel.
+Rosey was welcomed most kindly by the kind ladies; and as the gentlemen
+sat over their wine after dinner in the summer evening, Clive beheld
+Rosey and Julia pacing up and down the lawn, Miss Julia’s arm around
+her little friend’s waist: he thought they would make a pretty little
+picture.
+
+“My girl ain’t a bad one to look at, is she?” said the pleased father.
+“A fellow might look far enough, and see not prettier than them two.”
+
+Charles sighed out that there was a German print, the “Two Leonoras,”
+which put him in mind of their various styles of beauty.
+
+“I wish I could paint them,” said Clive.
+
+“And why not, sir?” asks his host. “Let me give you your first
+commission now, Mr. Clive; I wouldn’t mind paying a good bit for a
+picture of my Julia. I forget how much old Smee got for Betsy’s, the
+old humbug!”
+
+Clive said it was not the will, but the power that was deficient. He
+succeeded with men, but the ladies were too much for him as yet.
+
+“Those you’ve done up at Albany Street Barracks are famous: I’ve seen
+’em,” said Mr. Sherrick; and remarking that his guest looked rather
+surprised at the idea of his being in such company, Sherrick said,
+“What, you think they are too great swells for me? Law bless you, I
+often go there. I’ve business with several of ’em; had with Captain
+Belsize, with the Earl of Kew, who’s every inch the gentleman—one of
+nature’s aristocracy, and paid up like a man. The Earl and me has had
+many dealings together:”
+
+Honeyman smiled faintly, and nobody complying with Mr. Sherrick’s
+boisterous entreaties to drink more, the gentlemen quitted the
+dinner-table, which had been served in a style of prodigious splendour,
+and went to the drawing-room for a little music.
+
+This was all of the gravest and best kind; so grave indeed, that James
+Binnie might be heard in a corner giving an accompaniment of little
+snores to the singers and the piano. But Rosey was delighted with the
+performance, and Sherrick remarked to Clive, “That’s a good gal, that
+is; I like that gal; she ain’t jealous of Julia cutting her out in the
+music, but listens as pleased as any one. She’s a sweet little pipe of
+her own, too. Miss Mackenzie, if ever you like to go to the opera, send
+a word either to my West End or my City office. I’ve boxes every week,
+and you’re welcome to anything I can give you.”
+
+So all agreed that the evening had been a very pleasant one; and they
+of Fitzroy Square returned home talking in a most comfortable friendly
+way—that is, two of them, for Uncle James fell asleep again, taking
+possession of the back seat; and Clive and Rosey prattled together. He
+had offered to try and take all the young ladies’ likenesses. “You know
+what a failure the last was, Rosey?”—he had very nearly said “dear
+Rosey.”
+
+“Yes, but Miss Sherrick is so handsome, that you will succeed better
+with her than with my round face, Mr. Newcome.”
+
+“Mr. _What?_” cries Clive.
+
+“Well, Clive, then,” says Rosey, in a little voice.
+
+He sought for a little hand which was not very far away. “You know we
+are like brother and sister, dear Rosey?” he said this time.
+
+“Yes,” said she, and gave a little pressure of the hand. And then Uncle
+James woke up; and it seemed as if the whole drive didn’t occupy a
+minute, and they shook hands very very kindly at the door of Fitzroy
+Square.
+
+Clive made a famous likeness of Miss Sherrick, with which Mr. Sherrick
+was delighted, and so was Mr. Honeyman, who happened to call upon his
+nephew once or twice when the ladies happened to be sitting. Then Clive
+proposed to the Rev. Charles Honeyman to take _his_ head off; and made
+an excellent likeness in chalk of his uncle—that one, in fact, from
+which the print was taken which you may see any day at Hogarth’s, in
+the Haymarket, along with a whole regiment of British divines. Charles
+became so friendly, that he was constantly coming to Charlotte Street,
+once or twice a week.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Sherrick came to look at the drawing, were charmed with
+it; and when Rosey was sitting, they came to see her portrait, which
+again was not quite so successful. One Monday, the Sherricks and
+Honeyman too happened to call to see the picture of Rosey, who trotted
+over with her uncle to Clive’s studio, and they all had a great laugh
+at a paragraph in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, evidently from F. B.’s hand,
+to the following effect:—
+
+“Conversion In High Life.—A foreign nobleman of princely rank, who has
+married an English lady, and has resided among us for some time, is
+likely, we hear and trust, to join the English Church. The Prince de
+M-nc-nt-r has been a constant attendant at Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel, of
+which the Rev. C. Honeyman is the eloquent incumbent; and it is said
+this sound and talented divine has been the means of awakening the
+prince to a sense of the erroneous doctrines in which he has been bred.
+His ancestors were Protestant, and fought by the side of Henry IV. at
+_Ivry_. In Louis XIV.’s time, they adopted the religion of that
+persecuting monarch. We sincerely trust that the present heir of the
+house of Ivry will see fit to return to the creed which his forefathers
+so unfortunately abjured.”
+
+The ladies received this news with perfect gravity; and Charles uttered
+a meek wish that it might prove true. As they went away, they offered
+more hospitalities to Clive and Mr. Binnie and his niece. They liked
+the music: would they not come and hear it again?
+
+When they had departed with Mr. Honeyman, Clive could not help saying
+to Uncle James, “Why are those people always coming here; praising me;
+and asking me to dinner? Do you know, I can’t help thinking that they
+rather want me as a pretender for Miss Sherrick?”
+
+Binnie burst into a loud guffaw, and cried out, “O vanitas vanitawtum!”
+Rosa laughed too.
+
+“I don’t think it any joke at all,” said Clive.
+
+“Why, you stupid lad, don’t you see it is Charles Honeyman the girl’s
+in love with?” cried Uncle James. “Rosey saw it in the very first
+instant we entered their drawing-room three weeks ago.”
+
+“Indeed, and how?” asked Clive.
+
+“By—by the way she looked at him,” said little Rosey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+A Stag of Ten
+
+
+The London season was very nearly come to an end, and Lord Farintosh
+had danced I don’t know how many times with Miss Newcome, had drunk
+several bottles of the old Kew port, had been seen at numerous
+breakfasts, operas, races, and public places by the young lady’s side,
+and had not as yet made any such proposal as Lady Kew expected for her
+granddaughter. Clive going to see his military friends in the Regent’s
+Park once, and finish Captain Butts’s portrait in barracks, heard two
+or three young men talking, and one say to another, “I bet you three to
+two Farintosh don’t marry her, and I bet you even that he don’t ask
+her.” Then as he entered Mr. Butts’s room, where these gentlemen were
+conversing, there was a silence and an awkwardness. The young fellows
+were making an “event” out of Ethel’s marriage, and sporting their
+money freely on it.
+
+To have an old countess hunting a young marquis so resolutely that all
+the world should be able to look on and speculate whether her game
+would be run down by that staunch toothless old pursuer—that is an
+amusing sport, isn’t it? and affords plenty of fun and satisfaction to
+those who follow the hunt. But for a heroine of a story, be she ever so
+clever, handsome, and sarcastic, I don’t think for my part, at this
+present stage of the tale, Miss Ethel Newcome occupies a very dignified
+position. To break her heart in silence for Tomkins who is in love with
+another; to suffer no end of poverty, starvation, capture by ruffians,
+ill-treatment by a bullying husband, loss of beauty by the small-pox,
+death even at the end of the volume; all these mishaps a young heroine
+must endure (and has endured in romances over and over again), without
+losing the least dignity, or suffering any diminution of the
+sentimental reader’s esteem. But a girl of great beauty, high temper,
+and strong natural intellect, who submits to be dragged hither and
+thither in an old grandmother’s leash, and in pursuit of a husband who
+will run away from the couple, such a person, I say, is in a very
+awkward position as a heroine; and I declare if I had another ready to
+my hand (and unless there were extenuating circumstances) Ethel should
+be deposed at this very sentence.
+
+But a novelist must go on with his heroine, as a man with his wife, for
+better or worse, and to the end. For how many years have the Spaniards
+borne with their gracious queen, not because she was faultless, but
+because she was there? So Chambers and grandees cried, God save her.
+Alabarderos turned out: drums beat, cannons fired, and people saluted
+Isabella Segunda, who was no better than the humblest washerwoman of
+her subjects. Are we much better than our neighbours? Do we never yield
+to our peculiar temptation, our pride, or our avarice or our vanity, or
+what not? Ethel is very wrong certainly. But recollect, she is very
+young. She is in other people’s hands. She has been bred up and
+governed by a very worldly family, and taught their traditions. We
+would hardly, for instance, the staunchest Protestant in England would
+hardly be angry with poor Isabella Segunda for being a Catholic. So if
+Ethel worships at a certain image which a great number of good folks in
+England bow to, let us not be too angry with her idolatry, and bear
+with our queen a little before we make our pronunciamiento.
+
+No, Miss Newcome, yours is not a dignified position in life, however
+you may argue that hundreds of people in the world are doing like you.
+O me! what a confession it is, in the very outset of life and blushing
+brightness of youth’s morning, to own that the aim with which a young
+girl sets out, and the object of her existence, is to marry a rich man;
+that she was endowed with beauty so that she might buy wealth, and a
+title with it; that as sure as she has a soul to be saved, her business
+here on earth is to try and get a rich husband. That is the career for
+which many a woman is bred and trained. A young man begins the world
+with some aspirations at least; he will try to be good and follow the
+truth; he will strive to win honours for himself, and never do a base
+action; he will pass nights over his books, and forgo ease and pleasure
+so that he may achieve a name. Many a poor wretch who is worn-out now
+and old, and bankrupt of fame and money too, has commenced life at any
+rate with noble views and generous schemes, from which weakness,
+idleness, passion, or overpowering hostile fortune have turned him
+away. But a girl of the world, _bon Dieu!_ the doctrine with which she
+begins is that she is to have a wealthy husband: the article of faith
+in her catechism is, “I believe in elder sons, and a house in town, and
+a house in the country!” They are mercenary as they step fresh and
+blooming into the world out of the nursery. They have been schooled
+there to keep their bright eyes to look only on the prince and the
+duke, Croesus and Dives. By long cramping and careful process, their
+little natural hearts have been squeezed up, like the feet of their
+fashionable little sisters in China. As you see a pauper’s child, with
+an awful premature knowledge of the pawnshop, able to haggle at market
+with her wretched halfpence, and battle bargains at hucksters’ stalls,
+you shall find a young beauty, who was a child in the schoolroom a year
+since, as wise and knowing as the old practitioners on that exchange;
+as economical of her smiles, as dexterous in keeping back or producing
+her beautiful wares; as skilful in setting one bidder against another;
+as keen as the smartest merchant in Vanity Fair.
+
+If the young gentlemen of the Life Guards Green who were talking about
+Miss Newcome and her suitors, were silent when Clive appeared amongst
+them, it was because they were aware not only of his relationship to
+the young lady, but his unhappy condition regarding her. Certain men
+there are who never tell their love, but let concealment, like a worm
+in the bud, feed on their damask cheeks; others again must be not
+always thinking, but talking, about the darling object. So it was not
+very long before Captain Crackthorpe was taken into Clive’s confidence,
+and through Crackthorpe very likely the whole mess became acquainted
+with his passion. These young fellows, who had been early introduced
+into the world, gave Clive small hopes of success, putting to him, in
+their downright phraseology, the point of which he was already aware,
+that Miss Newcome was intended for his superiors, and that he had best
+not make his mind uneasy by sighing for those beautiful grapes which
+were beyond his reach.
+
+But the good-natured Crackthorpe, who had a pity for the young
+painter’s condition, helped him so far (and gained Clive’s warmest
+thanks for his good offices), by asking admission for Clive to
+entertain evening parties of the _beau-monde_, where he had the
+gratification of meeting his charmer. Ethel was surprised and pleased,
+and Lady Kew surprised and angry, at meeting Clive Newcome at these
+fashionable houses; the girl herself was touched very likely at his
+pertinacity in following her. As there was no actual feud between them,
+she could not refuse now and again to dance with her cousin; and thus
+he picked up such small crumbs of consolation as a youth in his state
+can get; lived upon six words vouchsafed to him in a quadrille, or
+brought home a glance of the eyes which she had presented to him in a
+waltz, or the remembrance of a squeeze of the hand on parting or
+meeting. How eager he was to get a card to this party or that! how
+attentive to the givers of such entertainments! Some friends of his
+accused him of being a tuft-hunter and flatterer of the aristocracy, on
+account of his politeness to certain people; the truth was, he wanted
+to go wherever Miss Ethel was; and the ball was blank to him which she
+did not attend.
+
+This business occupied not only one season, but two. By the time of the
+second season, Mr. Newcome had made so many acquaintances that he
+needed few more introductions into society. He was very well known as a
+good-natured handsome young man, and a very good waltzer, the only son
+of an Indian officer of large wealth, who chose to devote himself to
+painting, and who was supposed to entertain an unhappy fondness for his
+cousin the beautiful Miss Newcome. Kind folks who heard of this little
+_tendre_, and were sufficiently interested in Mr. Clive, asked him to
+their houses in consequence. I dare say those people who were good to
+him may have been themselves at one time unlucky in their own
+love-affairs.
+
+When the first season ended without a declaration from my lord, Lady
+Kew carried off her young lady to Scotland, where it also so happened
+that Lord Farintosh was going to shoot, and people made what surmises
+they chose upon this coincidence. Surmises, why not? You who know the
+world, know very well that if you see Mrs. So-and-so’s name in the list
+of people at an entertainment, on looking down the list you will
+presently be sure to come on Mr. What-d’-you-call-’em’s. If Lord and
+Lady of Suchandsuch Castle, received a distinguished circle (including
+Lady Dash), for Christmas or Easter, without reading farther the names
+of the guests, you may venture on any wager that Captain Asterisk is
+one of the company. These coincidences happen every day; and some
+people are so anxious to meet other people, and so irresistible is the
+magnetic sympathy, I suppose, that they will travel hundreds of miles
+in the worst of weather to see their friends, and break your door open
+almost, provided the friend is inside it.
+
+I am obliged to own the fact, that for many months Lady Kew hunted
+after Lord Farintosh. This rheumatic old woman went to Scotland, where,
+as he was pursuing the deer, she stalked his lordship: from Scotland
+she went to Paris, where he was taking lessons in dancing at the
+Chaumière; from Paris to an English country-house, for Christmas, where
+he was expected, but didn’t come—not being, his professor said, quite
+complete in the polka, and so on. If Ethel were privy to these
+manœuvres, or anything more than an unwittingly consenting party, I say
+we would depose her from her place of heroine at once. But she was
+acting under her grandmother’s orders, a most imperious, irresistible,
+managing old woman, who exacted everybody’s obedience, and managed
+everybody’s business in her family. Lady Anne Newcome being in
+attendance on her sick husband, Ethel was consigned to the Countess of
+Kew, her grandmother, who hinted that she should leave Ethel her
+property when dead, and whilst alive expected the girl should go about
+with her. She had and wrote as many letters as a Secretary of State
+almost. She was accustomed to set off without taking anybody’s advice,
+or announcing her departure until within an hour or two of the event.
+In her train moved Ethel, against her own will, which would have led
+her to stay at home with her father, but at the special wish and order
+of her parents. Was such a sum as that of which Lady Kew had the
+disposal (Hobson Brothers knew the amount of it quite well) to be left
+out of the family? Forbid it, all ye powers! Barnes—who would have
+liked the money himself, and said truly that he would live with his
+grandmother anywhere she liked if he could get it,—Barnes joined most
+energetically with Sir Brian and Lady Anne in ordering Ethel’s
+obedience to Lady Kew. You know how difficult it is for one young woman
+not to acquiesce when the family council strongly orders. In fine, I
+hope there was a good excuse for the queen of this history, and that it
+was her wicked domineering old prime minister who led her wrong.
+Otherwise I say, we would have another dynasty. Oh, to think of a
+generous nature, and the world, and nothing but the world, to occupy
+it!—of a brave intellect, and the milliner’s bandboxes, and the scandal
+of the coteries, and the fiddle-faddle etiquette of the Court for its
+sole exercise! of the rush and hurry from entertainment to
+entertainment; of the constant smiles and cares of representation; of
+the prayerless rest at night, and the awaking to a godless morrow! This
+was the course of life to which Fate, and not her own fault altogether,
+had for awhile handed over Ethel Newcome. Let those pity her who can
+feel their own weakness and misgoing; let those punish her who are
+without fault themselves.
+
+Clive did not offer to follow her to Scotland, he knew quite well that
+the encouragement he had had was only of the smallest; that as a
+relation she received him frankly and kindly enough; but checked him
+when he would have adopted another character. But it chanced that they
+met in Paris, whither he went in the Easter of the ensuing year, having
+worked to some good purpose through the winter, and despatched as on a
+former occasion his three or four pictures, to take their chance at the
+Exhibition.
+
+Of these it is our pleasing duty to be able to corroborate to some
+extent, Mr. F. Bayham’s favourable report. Fancy sketches and
+historical pieces our young man had eschewed; having convinced himself
+either that he had not an epic genius, or that to draw portraits of his
+friends, was a much easier task than that which he had set himself
+formerly. Whilst all the world was crowding round a pair of J. J,.’s
+little pictures, a couple of chalk heads were admitted into the
+Exhibition (his great picture of Captain Crackthorpe on horseback, in
+full uniform, I must admit was ignominiously rejected), and the friends
+of the parties had the pleasure of recognising in the miniature room,
+No. 1246, “Picture of an Officer,”—viz., Augustus Butts, Esq., of the
+Life Guards Green; and “Portrait of the Rev. Charles Honeyman,” No.
+1272. Miss Sherrick the hangers refused; Mr. Binnie, Clive had spoiled,
+as usual, in the painting; the heads, however, before-named, were voted
+to be faithful likenesses, and executed in a very agreeable and
+spirited manner. F. Bayham’s criticism on these performances, it need
+not be said, was tremendous. “Since the days of Michael Angelo you
+would have thought there never had been such drawings.” In fact, F. B.,
+as some other critics do, clapped his friends so boisterously on the
+back, and trumpeted their merits with such prodigious energy, as to
+make his friends themselves sometimes uneasy.
+
+Mr. Clive, whose good father was writing home more and more wonderful
+accounts of the Bundelcund Bank, in which he had engaged, and who was
+always pressing his son to draw for more money, treated himself to
+comfortable rooms at Paris, in the very same hotel where the young
+Marquis of Farintosh occupied lodgings much more splendid, and where he
+lived, no doubt, so as to be near the professor, who was still teaching
+his lordship the polka. Indeed, it must be said that Lord Farintosh
+made great progress under this artist, and that he danced very much
+better in his third season than in the first and second years after he
+had come upon the town. From the same instructor the Marquis learned
+the latest novelties in French conversation, the choicest oaths and
+phrases (for which he was famous), so that although his French grammar
+was naturally defective, he was enabled to order a dinner at
+Philippe’s, and to bully a waiter, or curse a hackney-coachman with
+extreme volubility. A young nobleman of his rank was received with the
+distinction which was his due, by the French sovereign of that period;
+and at the Tuileries, and the houses of the French nobility, which he
+visited, Monsieur le Marquis de Farintosh excited considerable remark,
+by the use of some of the phrases which his young professor had taught
+to him. People even went so far as to say that the Marquis was an
+awkward and dull young man, of the very worst manners.
+
+Whereas the young Clive Newcome—and it comforted the poor fellow’s
+heart somewhat, and be sure pleased Ethel, who was looking on at his
+triumphs—was voted the most charming young Englishman who had been seen
+for a long time in our salons. Madame de Florac, who loved him as a son
+of her own, actually went once or twice into the world in order to see
+his _début_. Madame de Moncontour inhabited a part of the Hotel de
+Florac, and received society there. The French people did not
+understand what bad English she talked, though they comprehended Lord
+Farintosh’s French blunders. “Monsieur Newcome is an artist! What a
+noble career!” cries a great French lady, the wife of a Marshal to the
+astonished Miss Newcome. “This young man is the cousin, of the charming
+mees? You must be proud to possess such a nephew, madame!” says another
+French lady to the Countess of Kew (who, you may be sure, is delighted
+to have such a relative). And the French lady invites Clive to her
+receptions expressly in order to make herself agreeable to the old
+Comtesse. Before the cousins have been three minutes together in Madame
+de Florac’s salon, she sees that Clive is in love with Ethel Newcome.
+She takes the boy’s hand and says, “_J’ai votre secret, mon ami;_” and
+her eyes regard him for a moment as fondly, as tenderly, as ever they
+looked at his father. Oh, what tears have they shed, gentle eyes! Oh,
+what faith has it kept, tender heart! If love lives through all life;
+and survives through all sorrow; and remains steadfast with us through
+all changes; and in all darkness of spirit burns brightly; and, if we
+die, deplores us for ever, and loves still equally; and exists with the
+very last gasp and throb of the faithful bosom—whence it passes with
+the pure soul, beyond death; surely it shall be immortal? Though we who
+remain are separated from it, is it not ours in Heaven? If we love
+still those we lose, can we altogether lose those we love? Forty years
+have passed away. Youth and dearest memories revisit her, and Hope
+almost wakes up again out of its grave, as the constant lady holds the
+young man’s hand, and looks at the son of Thomas Newcome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+The Hotel de Florac
+
+
+Since the death of the Duc d’Ivry, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots,
+the Comte de Florac, who is now the legitimate owner of the ducal
+title, does not choose to bear it, but continues to be known in the
+world by his old name. The old Count’s world is very small. His doctor,
+and his director, who comes daily to play his game of piquet; his
+daughter’s children, who amuse him by their laughter, and play round
+his chair in the garden of his hotel; his faithful wife, and one or two
+friends as old as himself, form his society. His son the Abbé is with
+them but seldom. The austerity of his manners frightens his old father,
+who can little comprehend the religionism of the new school. After
+going to hear his son preach through Lent at Notre-Dame, where the Abbé
+de Florac gathered a great congregation, the old Count came away quite
+puzzled at his son’s declamations. “I do not understand your new
+priests,” he says; “I knew my son had become a Cordélier; I went to
+hear him, and found he was a Jacobin. Let me make my salut in quiet, my
+good Léonore. My director answers for me, and plays a game at trictrac
+into the bargain with me.” Our history has but little to do with this
+venerable nobleman. He has his chamber looking out into the garden of
+his hotel; his faithful old domestic to wait upon him; his House of
+Peers to attend when he is well enough, his few acquaintances to help
+him to pass the evening. The rest of the hotel he gives up to his son,
+the Vicomte de Florac, and Madame la Princesse de Moncontour, his
+daughter-in-law.
+
+When Florac has told his friends of the Club why it is he has assumed a
+new title—as a means of reconciliation (a reconciliation all
+philosophical, my friends) with his wife nee Higg of Manchester, who
+adores titles like all Anglaises, and has recently made a great
+succession, everybody allows that the measure was dictated by prudence,
+and there is no more laughter at his change of name. The Princess takes
+the first floor of the hotel at the price paid for it by the American
+General, who has returned to his original pigs at Cincinnati. Had not
+Cincinnatus himself pigs on his farm, and was he not a general and
+member of Congress too? The honest Princess has a bedchamber, which, to
+her terror, she is obliged to open of reception-evenings, when
+gentlemen and ladies play cards there. It is fitted up in the style of
+Louis XVI. In her bed is an immense looking-glass, surmounted by stucco
+cupids: it is an alcove which some powdered Venus, before the
+Revolution, might have reposed in. Opposite that looking-glass, between
+the tall windows, at some forty feet distance, is another huge mirror,
+so that when the poor Princess is in bed, in her prim old curl-papers,
+she sees a vista of elderly princesses twinkling away into the dark
+perspective; and is so frightened that she and Betsy, her Lancashire
+maid, pin up the jonquil silk curtains over the bed-mirror after the
+first night; though the Princess never can get it out of her head that
+her image is still there, behind the jonquil hangings, turning as she
+turns, waking as she wakes, etc. The chamber is so vast and lonely that
+she has a bed made for Betsy in the room. It is, of course, whisked
+away into a closet on reception-evenings. A boudoir, rose-tendre, with
+more cupids and nymphs by Boucher, sporting over door-panels—nymphs who
+may well shock old Betsy and her old mistress—is the Pricess’s
+morning-room. “Ah, mum, what would Mr. Humper at Manchester, Mr. Jowls
+of Newcome” (the minister whom, in early days, Miss Higg used to sit
+under) “say if they was browt into this room?” But there is no question
+of Jowls and Mr. Humper, excellent dissenting divines, who preached to
+Miss Higg, being brought into the Princesse de Moncontour’s boudoir.
+
+That paragraph, respecting a conversion in high life, which F. B. in
+his enthusiasm inserted in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, caused no small
+excitement in the Florac family. The Florac family read the _Pall Mall
+Gazette_, knowing that Clive’s friends were engaged in that periodical.
+When Madame de Florac, who did not often read newspapers, happened to
+cast her eye upon that poetic paragraph of F. B.’s, you may fancy, with
+what a panic it filled the good and pious lady. Her son become a
+Protestant! After all the grief and trouble his wildness had occasioned
+to her, Paul forsake his religion! But that her husband was so ill and
+aged as not to be able to bear her absence, she would have hastened to
+London to rescue her son out of that perdition. She sent for her
+younger son, who undertook the embassy; and the Prince and Princesse de
+Moncontour, in their hotel at London, were one day surprised by the
+visit of the Abbé de Florac.
+
+As Paul was quite innocent of any intention of abandoning his religion,
+the mother’s kind heart was very speedily set at rest by her envoy. Far
+from Paul’s conversion to Protestantism, the Abbé wrote home the most
+encouraging accounts of his sister-in-law’s precious dispositions. He
+had communications with Madame de Moncontour’s Anglican director, a man
+of not powerful mind, wrote M. l’Abbé, though of considerable repute
+for eloquence in his Sect. The good dispositions of his sister-in-law
+were improved by the French clergyman, who could be most captivating
+and agreeable when a work of conversion was in hand. The visit
+reconciled the family to their English relative, in whom good-nature
+and many other good qualities were to be seen now that there were hopes
+of reclaiming her. It was agreed that Madame de Moncontour should come
+and inhabit the Hôtel de Florac at Paris: perhaps the Abbé tempted the
+worthy lady by pictures of the many pleasures and advantages she would
+enjoy in that capital. She was presented at her own court by the French
+ambassadress of that day: and was received at the Tuileries with a
+cordiality which flattered and pleased her.
+
+Having been presented herself, Madame la Princesse in turn presented to
+her august sovereign Mrs. T. Higg and Miss Higg, of Manchester, Mrs.
+Samuel Higg, of Newcome; the husbands of those ladies (the Princess’s
+brothers) also sporting a court-dress for the first time. Sam Higg’s
+neighbour, the member for Newcome; Sir Brian Newcome, Bart., was too
+ill to act as Higg’s sponsor before majesty; but Barnes Newcome was
+uncommonly civil to the two Lancashire gentlemen; though their politics
+were different to his, and Sam had voted against Sir Brian at his last
+election. Barnes took them to dine at a club—recommended his tailor—and
+sent Lady Clara Pulleyn to call on Mrs. Higg—who pronounced her to be a
+pretty young woman and most haffable. The Countess of Dorking would
+have been delighted to present these ladies had the Princess not
+luckily been in London to do that office. The Hobson Newcomes were very
+civil to the Lancashire party, and entertained them splendidly at
+dinner. I believe Mrs. and Mr. Hobson themselves went to court this
+year, the latter in a deputy-lieutenant’s uniform.
+
+If Barnes Newcome was so very civil to the Higg family we may suppose
+he had good reason. The Higgs were very strong in Newcome, and it was
+advisable to conciliate them. They were very rich, and their account
+would not be disagreeable at the bank. Madame de Moncontour’s—a large
+easy private account—would be more pleasant still. And, Hobson Brothers
+having entered largely into the Anglo-Continental Railway, whereof
+mention has been made, it was a bright thought of Barnes to place the
+Prince of Moncontour, etc. etc., on the French Direction of the
+Railway; and to take the princely prodigal down to Newcome with his new
+title, and reconcile him to his wife and the Higg family. Barnes we may
+say invented the principality: rescued the Vicomte de Florac out of his
+dirty lodgings in Leicester Square, and sent the Prince of Moncontour
+back to his worthy middle-aged wife again. The disagreeable dissenting
+days were over. A brilliant young curate of Doctor Bulders, who also
+wore long hair, straight waistcoats, and no shirt-collars, had already
+reconciled the Vicomtesse de Florac to the persuasion, whereof the
+ministers are clad in that queer uniform. The landlord of their hotel
+at St. James’s got his wine from Sherrick, and sent his families to
+Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel. The Rev. Charles Honeyman’s eloquence and
+amiability were appreciated by his new disciple—thus the historian has
+traced here step by step how all these people became acquainted.
+
+Sam Higg, whose name was very good on ’Change in Manchester and London,
+joined the direction of the Anglo-Continental. A brother had died
+lately, leaving his money amongst them, and his wealth had added
+considerably to Madame de Florac’s means; his sister invested a portion
+of her capital in the railway in her husband’s name. The shares were at
+a premium, and gave a good dividend. The Prince de Moncontour took his
+place with great gravity at the Paris board, whither Barnes made
+frequent flying visits. The sense of capitalism sobered and dignified
+Paul de Florac: at the age of five-and-forty he was actually giving up
+being a young man, and was not ill pleased at having to enlarge his
+waistcoats, and to show a little grey in his moustache. His errors were
+forgotten: he was bien vu by the Government. He might have had the
+Embassy Extraordinary to Queen Pomaré; but the health of Madame la
+Princesse was delicate. He paid his wife visits every morning: appeared
+at her parties and her opera box, and was seen constantly with her in
+public. He gave quiet little dinners still, at which Clive was present
+sometimes: and had a private door and key to his apartments, which were
+separated by all the dreary length of the reception-rooms from the
+mirrored chamber and jonquil couch where the Princess and Betsy
+reposed. When some of his London friends visited Paris he showed us
+these rooms and introduced us duly to Madame la Princesse. He was as
+simple and as much at home in the midst of these splendours, as in the
+dirty little lodgings in Leicester Square, where he painted his own
+boots, and cooked his herring over the tongs. As for Clive, he was the
+infant of the house: Madame la Princesse could not resist his kind
+face; and Paul was as fond of him in his way as Paul’s mother in hers.
+Would he live at the Hôtel de Florac? There was an excellent atélier in
+the pavilion, with a chamber for his servant. “No! you will be most at
+ease in apartments of your own. You will have here but the society of
+women. I do not rise till late: and my affairs, my board, call me away
+for the greater part of the day. Thou wilt but be annuyé to play
+trictrac with my old father. My mother waits on him. My sister au
+second is given up entirely to her children, who always have the
+_pituite_. Madame la Princesse is not amusing for a young man. Come and
+go when thou wilt, Clive, my garçon, my son: thy cover is laid. Wilt
+thou take the portraits of all the family? Hast thou want of money? I
+had at thy age and almost ever since, _mon ami;_ but now we swim in
+gold, and when there is a louis in my purse, there are ten francs for
+thee.” To show his mother that he did not think of the Reformed
+Religion, Paul did not miss going to mass with her on Sunday. Sometimes
+Madame Paul went too, between whom and her mother-in-law there could
+not be any liking, but there was now great civility. They saw each
+other once a day: Madame Paul always paid her visit to the Comte de
+Florac: and Betsy, her maid, made the old gentleman laugh by her
+briskness and talk. She brought back to her mistress the most wonderful
+stories which the old man told her about his doings during the
+emigration—before he married Madame la Comtesse—when he gave lessons in
+dancing, parbleu! There was his fiddle still, a trophy of those old
+times. He chirped, and coughed, and sang, in his cracked old voice, as
+he talked about them. “Lor! bless you, mum,” says Betsy, “he must have
+been a terrible old man!” He remembered the times well enough, but the
+stories he sometimes told over twice or thrice in an hour. I am afraid
+he had not repented sufficiently of those wicked old times: else why
+did he laugh and giggle so when he recalled them? He would laugh and
+giggle till he was choked with his old cough: and old S. Jean, his man,
+came and beat M. le Comte on the back, and made M. le Comte take a
+spoonful of his syrup.
+
+Between two such women as Madame de Florac and Lady Kew, of course
+there could be little liking or sympathy. Religion, love, duty, the
+family, were the French lady’s constant occupation,—duty and the
+family, perhaps, Lady Kew’s aim too,—only the notions of duty were
+different in either person. Lady Kew’s idea of duty to her relatives
+being to push them on in the world: Madame de Florac’s to soothe, to
+pray, to attend them with constant watchfulness, to strive to mend them
+with pious counsel. I don’t know that one lady was happier than the
+other. Madame de Florac’s eldest son was a kindly prodigal: her second
+had given his whole heart to the Church: her daughter had centred hers
+on her own children, and was jealous if their grandmother laid a finger
+on them. So Léonore de Florac was quite alone. It seemed as if Heaven
+had turned away all her children’s hearts from her. Her daily business
+in life was to nurse a selfish old man, into whose service she had been
+forced in early youth, by a paternal decree which she never questioned;
+giving him obedience, striving to give him respect,—everything but her
+heart, which had gone out of her keeping. Many a good woman’s life is
+no more cheerful; a spring of beauty, a little warmth and sunshine of
+love, a bitter disappointment, followed by pangs and frantic tears,
+then a long monotonous story of submission. “Not here, my daughter, is
+to be your happiness,” says the priest; “whom Heaven loves it
+afflicts.” And he points out to her the agonies of suffering saints of
+her sex; assures her of their present beatitudes and glories; exhorts
+her to bear her pains with a faith like theirs; and is empowered to
+promise her a like reward.
+
+The other matron is not less alone. Her husband and son are dead,
+without a tear for either,—to weep was not in Lady Kew’s nature. Her
+grandson, whom she had loved perhaps more than any human being, is
+rebellious and estranged from her; her children, separated from her,
+save one whose sickness and bodily infirmity the mother resents as
+disgraces to herself. Her darling schemes fail somehow. She moves from
+town to town, and ball to ball, and hall to castle, for ever uneasy and
+always alone. She sees people scared at her coming; is received by
+sufferance and fear rather than by welcome; likes perhaps the terror
+which she inspires, and to enter over the breach rather than through
+the hospitable gate. She will try and command wherever she goes; and
+trample over dependants and society, with a grim consciousness that it
+dislikes her, a rage at its cowardice, and an unbending will to
+domineer. To be old, proud, lonely, and not have a friend in the
+world—that is her lot in it. As the French lady may be said to resemble
+the bird which the fables say feeds her young with her blood; this one,
+if she has a little natural liking for her brood, goes hunting hither
+and thither and robs meat for them; And so, I suppose, to make the
+simile good, we must compare the Marquis of Farintosh to a lamb for the
+nonce, and Miss Ethel Newcome to a young eaglet. Is it not a rare
+provision of nature (or fiction of poets, who have their own natural
+history) that the strong-winged bird can soar to the sun and gaze at
+it, and then come down from heaven and pounce on a piece of carrion?
+
+After she became acquainted with certain circumstances, Madame de
+Florac was very interested about Ethel Newcome, and strove in her
+modest way to become intimate with her. Miss Newcome and Lady Kew
+attended Madame de Moncontour’s Wednesday evenings. “It is as well, my
+dear, for the interests of the family that we should be particularly
+civil to these people,” Lady Kew said; and accordingly she came to the
+Hôtel de Florac, and was perfectly insolent to Madame la Princesse
+every Thursday evening. Towards Madame de Florac, even Lady Kew could
+not be rude. She was so gentle as to give no excuse for assault: Lady
+Kew vouchsafed to pronounce that Madame de Florac was “très grande
+dame;”—“of the sort which is almost impossible to find nowadays,” Lady
+Kew said, who thought she possessed this dignity in her own person.
+When Madame de Florac, blushing, asked Ethel to come and see her,
+Ethel’s grandmother consented with the utmost willingness. “She is very
+_dévote_, I have heard, and will try and convert you. Of course you
+will hold your own about that sort of thing; and have the good sense to
+keep off theology. There is no Roman Catholic _parti_ in England or
+Scotland that is to be thought for a moment. You will see they will
+marry young Lord Derwenwater to an Italian princess; but he is only
+seventeen, and his directors never lose sight of him. Sir Bartholomew
+Bawkes will have a fine property when Lord Campion dies, unless Lord
+Campion leaves the money to the convent where his daughter is—and, of
+the other families, who is there? I made every inquiry purposely—that
+is, of course, one is anxious to know about the Catholics as about
+one’s own people: and little Mr. Rood, who was one of my poor brother
+Steyne’s lawyers, told me there is not one young man of that party at
+this moment who can be called a desirable person. Be very civil to
+Madame de Florac; she sees some of the old legitimists, and you know I
+am _brouillée_ with that party of late years.”
+
+“There is the Marquis de Montluc, who has a large fortune for France,”
+said Ethel, gravely; “he has a humpback, but he is very spiritual.
+Monsieur de Cadillan paid me some compliments the other night, and even
+asked George Barnes what my dot was, He is a widower, and has a wig and
+two daughters. Which do you think would be the greatest encumbrance,
+grandmamma,—a humpback, or a wig and two daughters? I like Madame de
+Florac; for the sake of the borough, I must try and like poor Madame de
+Moncontour, and I will go and see them whenever you please.”
+
+So Ethel went to see Madame de Florac. She was very kind to Madame de
+Préville’s children, Madame de Florac’s grandchildren; she was gay and
+gracious with Madame de Moncontour. She went again and again to the
+Hotel de Florac, not caring for Lady Kew’s own circle of statesmen and
+diplomatists, Russian, and Spanish, and French, whose talk about the
+courts of Europe,—who was in favour at St. Petersburg, and who was in
+disgrace at Schoenbrunn,—naturally did not amuse the lively young
+person. The goodness of Madame de Florac’s life, the tranquil grace and
+melancholy kindness with which the French lady received her, soothed
+and pleased Miss Ethel. She came and reposed in Madame de Florac’s
+quiet chamber, or sate in the shade in the sober old garden of her
+hotel; away from all the trouble and chatter of the salons, the gossip
+of the embassies, the fluttering ceremonial of the Parisian ladies’
+visits in their fine toilettes, the _fadaises_ of the dancing dandies,
+and the pompous mysteries of the old statesmen who frequented her
+grandmother’s apartment. The world began for her at night; when she
+went in the train of the old Countess from hotel to hotel, and danced
+waltz after waltz with Prussian and Neapolitan secretaries, with
+princes’ officers of ordonnance,—with personages even more lofty very
+likely,—for the court of the Citizen King was then in its splendour;
+and there must surely have been a number of nimble young royal
+highnesses who would like to dance with such a beauty as Miss Newcome.
+The Marquis of Farintosh had a share in these polite amusements. His
+English conversation was not brilliant as yet, although his French was
+eccentric; but at the court balls, whether he appeared in his uniform
+of the Scotch Archers, or in his native Glenlivat tartar there
+certainly was not in his own or the public estimation a handsomer young
+nobleman in Paris that season. It has been said that he was greatly
+improved in dancing; and, for a young man of his age, his whiskers were
+really extraordinarily large and curly.
+
+Miss Newcome, out of consideration for her grandmother’s strange
+antipathy to him, did not inform Lady Kew that a young gentleman by the
+name of Clive occasionally came to visit the Hôtel de Florac. At first,
+with her French education, Madame de Florac never would have thought of
+allowing the cousins to meet in her house; but with the English it was
+different. Paul assured her that in the English châteaux, _les Meess_
+walked for entire hours with the young men, made parties of the fish,
+mounted to horse with them, the whole with the permission of the
+mothers. “When I was at Newcome, Miss Ethel rode with me several
+times,” Paul said; “_à preuve_ that we went to visit an old relation of
+the family, who adores Clive and his father.” When Madame de Florac
+questioned her son about the young Marquis to whom it was said Ethel
+was engaged, Florac flouted the idea. “Engaged! This young Marquis is
+engaged to the Théâtre des Variétés, my mother. He laughs at the notion
+of an engagement.” When one charged him with it of late at the club;
+and asked how Mademoiselle Louqsor—she is so tall, that they call her
+the Louqsor—she is an _Odalisque Obélisque_, ma mère; when one asked
+how the Louqsor would pardon his pursuit of Miss Newcome, my Ecossois
+permitted himself to say in full club, that it was Miss Newcome pursued
+him,—that nymph, that Diane, that charming and peerless young creature!
+On which, as the others laughed, and his friend Monsieur Walleye
+applauded, I dared to say in my turn, “Monsieur le Marquis, as a young
+man, not familiar with our language, you have said what is not true,
+milor, and therefore luckily not mischievous. I have the honour to
+count of my friends the parents of the young lady of whom you have
+spoken. You never could have intended to say that a young miss who
+lives under the guardianship of her parents, and is obedient to them,
+whom you meet in society all the nights, and at whose door your
+carriage is to be seen every day, is capable of that with which you
+charge her so gaily. These things say themselves, monsieur, in the
+_coulisses_ of the theatre, of women from whom you learn our language;
+not of young persons pure and chaste, Monsieur de Farintosh! Learn to
+respect your compatriots; to honour youth and innocence everywhere,
+monsieur! and when you forget yourself, permit one who might be your
+father to point where you are wrong.”
+
+“And what did he answer?” asked the Countess.
+
+“I attended myself to a _soufflet_,” replied Florac; “but his reply was
+much more agreeable. The young insulary, with many blushes and a _gros
+juron_, as his polite way is, said he had not wished to say a word
+against that person. ‘Of whom the name,’ cried I, ‘ought never to be
+spoken in these places.’ Herewith our little dispute ended.”
+
+So, occasionally, Mr. Clive had the good luck to meet with his cousin
+at the Hôtel de Florac, where, I dare say, all the inhabitants wished
+he should have his desire regarding this young lady. The Colonel had
+talked early to Madame de Florac about this wish of his life,
+impossible then to gratify, because Ethel was engaged to Lord Kew.
+Clive, in the fulness of his heart, imparted his passion to Florac, and
+in answer to Paul’s offer to himself, had shown the Frenchman that kind
+letter in which his father bade him carry aid to “Léonore de Florac’s
+son,” in case he should need it. The case was all clear to the lively
+Paul. “Between my mother and your good Colonel there must have been an
+affair of the heart in the early days during the emigration.” Clive
+owned his father had told him as much, at least that he himself had
+been attached to Mademoiselle de Blois. “It is for that that her heart
+yearns towards thee, that I have felt myself _entrained_ toward thee
+since I saw thee”—Clive momentarily expected to be kissed again. “Tell
+thy father that I feel—am touched by his goodness with an eternal
+gratitude, and love every one that loves my mother.” As far as wishes
+went, these two were eager promoters of Clive’s little love-affair; and
+Madame la Princesse became equally not less willing. Clive’s good looks
+and good-nature had had their effects upon that good-natured woman, and
+he was as great a favourite with her as with her husband. And thus it
+happened that when Miss Ethel came to pay her visit, and sate with
+Madame de Florac and her grandchildren in the garden, Mr. Newcome would
+sometimes walk up the avenue there, and salute the ladies.
+
+If Ethel had not wanted to see him, would she have come? Yes; she used
+to say she was going to Madame de Préville’s, not Madame de Florac’s,
+and would insist, I have no doubt, that it was Madame de Préville whom
+she went to see (whose husband was a member of the Chamber of Deputies,
+a Conseiller d’etat; or other French bigwig), and that she had no idea
+of going to meet Clive, or that he was more than a casual acquaintance
+at the Hôtel de Florac. There was no part of her conduct in all her
+life, which this lady, when it was impugned, would defend more strongly
+than this intimacy at the Hôtel de Florac. It is not with this I
+quarrel especially. My fair young readers, who have seen a half-dozen
+of seasons, can you call to mind the time when you had such a
+friendship for Emma Tomkins, that you were always at the Tomkins’s, and
+notes were constantly passing between your house and hers? When her
+brother, Paget Tomkins, returned to India, did not your intimacy with
+Emma fall off? If your younger sister is not in the room, I know you
+will own as much to me. I think you are always deceiving yourselves and
+other people. I think the motive you put forward is very often not the
+real one; though you will confess, neither to yourself, nor to any
+human being, what the real motive is. I think that what you desire you
+pursue, and are as selfish in your way as your bearded fellow-creatures
+are. And as for the truth being in you, of all the women in a great
+acquaintance, I protest there are but—never mind. A perfectly honest
+woman, a woman who never flatters, who never manages, who never
+cajoles, who never conceals, who never uses her eyes, who never
+speculates on the effect which she produces, who never is conscious of
+unspoken admiration, what a monster, I say, would such a female be!
+Miss Hopkins, you have been a coquette since you were a year old; you
+worked on your papa’s friends in the nurse’s arms by the fascination of
+your lace frock and pretty new sash and shoes; when you could just
+toddle, you practised your arts upon other children in the square, poor
+little lambkins sporting among the daisies; and _nunc in ovilia, mox in
+reluctantes dracones_, proceeding from the lambs to reluctant dragoons,
+you tried your arts upon Captain Paget Tomkins, who behaved so ill, and
+went to India without—without making those proposals which of course
+you never expected. Your intimacy was with Emma. It has cooled. Your
+sets are different. The Tomkins’s are not _quite_ etc. etc. You believe
+Captain Tomkins married a Miss O’Grady, etc. etc. Ah, my pretty, my
+sprightly Miss Hopkins, be gentle in your judgment of your neighbours!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+Contains two or three Acts of a Little Comedy
+
+
+All this story is told by one, who, if he was not actually present at
+the circumstances here narrated, yet had information concerning them,
+and could supply such a narrative of facts and conversations as is,
+indeed, not less authentic than the details we have of other histories.
+How can I tell the feelings in a young lady’s mind; the thoughts in a
+young gentleman’s bosom?—As Professor Owen or Professor Agassiz takes a
+fragment of a bone, and builds an enormous forgotten monster out of it,
+wallowing in primeval quagmires, tearing down leaves and branches of
+plants that flourished thousands of years ago, and perhaps may be coal
+by this time—so the novelist puts this and that together: from the
+footprint finds the foot; from the foot, the brute who trod on it; from
+the brute, the plant he browsed on, the marsh in which he swam—and thus
+in his humble way a physiologist too, depicts the habits, size,
+appearance of the beings whereof he has to treat;—traces this slimy
+reptile through the mud, and describes his habits filthy and rapacious;
+prods down this butterfly with a pin, and depicts his beautiful coat
+and embroidered waistcoat; points out the singular structure of yonder
+more important animal, the megatherium of his history.
+
+Suppose then, in the quaint old garden of the Hôtel de Florac, two
+young people are walking up and down in an avenue of lime-trees, which
+are still permitted to grow in that ancient place. In the centre of
+that avenue is a fountain, surmounted by a Triton so grey and
+moss-eaten, that though he holds his conch to his swelling lips,
+curling his tail in the arid basin, his instrument has had a sinecure
+for at least fifty years; and did not think fit even to play when the
+Bourbons, in whose time he was erected, came back from their exile. At
+the end of the lime-tree avenue is a broken-nosed damp Faun, with a
+marble panpipe, who pipes to the spirit ditties which I believe never
+had any tune. The _perron_ of the hotel is at the other end of the
+avenue; a couple of Cæsars on either side of the door-window, from
+which the inhabitants of the hotel issue into the garden—Caracalla
+frowning over his mouldy shoulder at Nerva, on to whose clipped hair
+the roofs of the grey château have been dribbling for ever so many long
+years. There are more statues gracing this noble place. There is Cupid,
+who has been at the point of kissing Psyche this half-century at least,
+though the delicious event has never come off, through all those
+blazing summers and dreary winters: there is Venus and her Boy under
+the damp little dome of a cracked old temple. Through the alley of this
+old garden, in which their ancestors have disported in hoops and
+powder, Monsieur de Florac’s chair is wheeled by St. Jean, his
+attendant; Madame de Préville’s children trot about, and skip, and play
+at cache-cache. The R. P. de Florac (when at home) paces up and down
+and meditates his sermons; Madame de Florac sadly walks sometimes to
+look at her roses; and Clive and Ethel Newcome are marching up and
+down; the children, and their bonne of course being there, jumping to
+and fro; and Madame de Florac, having just been called away to Monsieur
+le Comte, whose physician has come to see him.
+
+Ethel says, “How charming and odd this solitude is: and how pleasant to
+hear the voices of the children playing in the neighbouring Convent
+garden,” of which they can see the new chapel rising over the trees.
+
+Clive remarks that “the neighbouring hotel has curiously changed its
+destination. One of the members of the Directory had it; and, no doubt,
+in the groves of its garden, Madame Tallien, and Madame Recamier, and
+Madame Beauharnais have danced under the lamps. Then a Marshal of the
+Empire inhabited it. Then it was restored to its legitimate owner,
+Monsieur le Marquis de Bricquabracque, whose descendants, having a
+lawsuit about the Bricquabracque succession, sold the hotel to the
+Convent.”
+
+After some talk about nuns, Ethel says, “There were convents in
+England. She often thinks she would like to retire to one;” and she
+sighs as if her heart were in that scheme.
+
+Clive, with a laugh, says, “Yes. If you could retire after the season,
+when you were very weary of the balls, a convent would be very nice. At
+Rome he had seen San Pietro in Montorio and Sant Onofrio, that
+delightful old place where Tasso died: people go and make a retreat
+there. In the ladies’ convents, the ladies do the same thing—and he
+doubts whether they are much more or less wicked after their retreat,
+than gentlemen and ladies in England or France.”
+
+_Ethel_. Why do you sneer at all faith? Why should not a retreat do
+people good? Do you suppose the world is so satisfactory, that those
+who are in it never wish for a while to leave it’d (_She heaves a sigh
+and looks down towards a beautiful new dress of many flounces, which
+Madame de Flouncival, the great milliner, has sent her home that very
+day._)
+
+_Clive_. I do not know what the world is, except from afar off. I am
+like the Peri who looks into Paradise and sees angels within it. I live
+in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square: which is not within the gates of
+Paradise. I take the gate to be somewhere in Davies Street, leading out
+of Oxford Street into Grosvenor Square. There’s another gate in Hay
+Hill: and another in Bruton Street, Bond——
+
+_Ethel_. Don’t be a goose.
+
+_Clive_. Why not? It is as good to be a goose, as to be a lady—no, a
+gentleman of fashion. Suppose I were a Viscount, an Earl, a Marquis, a
+Duke, would you say Goose? No, you would say Swan.
+
+_Ethel_. Unkind and unjust!—ungenerous to make taunts which common
+people make: and to repeat to me those silly sarcasms which your low
+_Radical literary_ friends are always putting in their books! Have I
+ever made any difference to you? Would I not sooner see you than the
+fine people? Would I talk with you, or with the young dandies most
+willingly? Are we not of the same blood, Clive; and of all the grandees
+I see about, can there be a grander gentleman than your dear old
+father? You need not squeeze my hand so.—Those little imps are
+look—that has nothing to do with the question. Viens, Léonore! Tu
+connois bien, monsieur, n’est-ce pas? qui te fait de si jolis dessins?
+
+_Léonore_. Ah, oui! Vous m’en ferez toujours, n’est-ce pas Monsieur
+Clive? des chevaux, et puis des petites filles avec leurs gouvernantes,
+et puis des maisons—et puis—et puis des maisons encore—où est bonne
+maman?
+
+[_Exit little_ LÉONORE _down an alley._
+
+
+_Ethel_. Do you remember when we were children, and you used to make
+drawings for us? I have some now that you did—in my geography book,
+which I used to read and read with Miss Quigley.
+
+_Clive_. I remember all about our youth, Ethel.
+
+_Ethel_. Tell me what you remember?
+
+_Clive_. I remember one of the days, when I first saw you, I had been
+reading the Arabian Nights at school—and you came in in a bright dress
+of shot silk, amber, and blue—and I thought you were like that
+fairy-princess who came out of the crystal box—because——
+
+_Ethel_. Because why?
+
+_Clive_. Because I always thought that fairy somehow must be the most
+beautiful creature in all the world—that is “why and because.” Do not
+make me Mayfair curtsies. You know whether you are good-looking or not:
+and how long I have thought you so. I remember when I thought I would
+like to be Ethel’s knight, and that if there was anything she would
+have me do, I would try and achieve it in order to please her. I
+remember when I was so ignorant I did not know there was any difference
+in rank between us.
+
+_Ethel_. Ah, Clive!
+
+_Clive_. Now it is altered. Now I know the difference between a poor
+painter and a young lady of the world. Why haven’t I a title and a
+great fortune? Why did I ever see you, Ethel; or, knowing the distance
+which it seems fate has placed between us, why have I seen you again?
+
+_Ethel_ (_innocently_). Have I ever made any difference between us?
+Whenever I may see you, am I not too glad? Don’t I see you sometimes
+when I should not—no—I do not say when I should not; but when others,
+whom I am bound to obey, forbid me? What harm is there in my
+remembering old days? Why should I be ashamed of our relationship?—no,
+not ashamed—shy should I forget it? Don’t do that, sir; we have shaken
+hands twice already. Léonore! Xavier!
+
+_Clive_. At one moment you like me: and at the next you seem to repent
+it. One day you seem happy when I come; and another day you are ashamed
+of me. Last Tuesday, when you came with those fine ladies to the
+Louvre, you seemed to blush when you saw me copying at my picture; and
+that stupid young lord looked quite alarmed because you spoke to me. My
+lot in life is not very brilliant; but I would not change it against
+that young man’s—no, not with all his chances.
+
+_Ethel_. What do you mean with all his chances?
+
+_Clive_. You know very well. I mean I would not be as selfish or as
+dull, or as ill educated—I won’t say worse of him—not to be as
+handsome, or as wealthy, or as noble as he is. I swear I would not now
+change my place against his, or give up being Clive Newcome to be my
+Lord Marquis of Farintosh, with all his acres and titles of nobility.
+
+_Ethel_. Why are you for ever harping about Lord Farintosh and his
+titles? I thought it was only women who were jealous—you gentlemen say
+so.—(_Hurriedly_.) I am going to-night with grandmamma to the Minister
+of the Interior, and then to the Russian ball; and to-morrow to the
+Tuileries. We dine at the Embassy first; and on Sunday, I suppose, we
+shall go to the Rue d’Aguesseau. I can hardly come here before Mon—.
+Madam de Florac! Little Léonore is very like you—resembles you very
+much. My cousin says he longs to make a drawing of her.
+
+_Madame de Florac_. My husband always likes that I should be present at
+his dinner. Pardon me, young people, that I have been away from you for
+a moment.
+
+[_Exeunt_ CLIVE, ETHEL, _and_ Madame DE F. _into the house_.
+
+
+CONVERSATION II.—_Scene_ I.
+
+
+_Miss Newcome arrives in Lady Kew’s carriage, which enters the court of
+the Hôtel de Florac._
+
+
+_Saint Jean_. Mademoiselle—Madame la Comtesse is gone out but madame
+has charged me to say, that she will be at home to the dinner of M. le
+Comte, as to the ordinary.
+
+_Miss Newcome_. Madame de Préville is at home?
+
+_Saint Jean_. Pardon me, madame is gone out with M. le Baron, and M.
+Xavier, and Mademoiselle de Préville. They are gone, miss, I believe,
+to visit the parents of Monsieur le Baron; of whom it is probably
+to-day the fête: for Mademoiselle Léonore carried a bouquet—no doubt
+for her grandpapa. Will it please mademoiselle to enter? I think
+Monsieur the Count sounds me. (_Bell rings_.)
+
+_Miss Newcome_. Madame la Prince—Madame la Vicomtesse is at home,
+Monsieur St. Jean?
+
+_Saint Jean_. I go to call the people of Madame la Vicomtesse.
+
+[_Exit Old_ SAINT JEAN _to the carriage: a Lackey comes presently in a
+gorgeous livery, with buttons like little cheese plates_.
+
+
+_The Lackey_. The Princess is at home, miss, and will be most appy to
+see you, miss. (_Miss trips up the great stair: a gentleman out of
+livery has come forth to the landing, and introduces her to the
+apartments of_ Madame la Princesse.)
+
+_The Lackey to the Servants on the box_. Good morning, Thomas. How dy’
+do, old Backystopper?
+
+_Backystopper_. How de do, Jim? I say, you couldn’t give a feller a
+drink of beer, could yer, Muncontour? It was precious wet last night, I
+can tell you. ’Ad to stop for three hours at the Napolitum Embassy,
+when we was a dancing. Me and some chaps went into Bob Parsom’s and had
+a drain. Old Cat came out and couldn’t find her carriage, not by no
+means, could she, Tommy? Blest if I didn’t nearly drive her into a
+wegetable-cart. I was so uncommon scruey! Who’s this a-hentering at
+your pot-coshare? Billy, my fine feller!
+
+_Clive Newcome_ (_by the most singular coincidence_). Madame la
+Princesse?
+
+_Lackey_. We, Munseer. (_He rings a bell: the gentleman in black
+appears as before on the landing-place up the stair_.)
+
+[_Exit_ CLIVE.
+
+
+_Backystopper_. I say, Bill: is that young chap often a-coming about
+here? They’d run pretty in a curricle, wouldn’t they? Miss N. and
+Master N. Quiet, old woman! Jest look to that mare’s ead, will you,
+Billy? He’s a fine young feller, that is. He gave me a covering the
+other night. Whenever I sor him in the Park, he was always riding an
+ansum hanimal. What is he? They said in our ’all he was a hartis. I can
+’ardly think that. Why, there used to be a hartis come to our club, and
+painted two or three of my ’osses, and my old woman too.
+
+_Lackey_. There’s hartises and hartises, Backystopper. Why, there’s
+some on ’em comes here with more stars on their coats than Dukes has
+got. Have you never ’eard of Mossyer Verny, or Mossyer Gudang?
+
+_Backystopper_. They say this young gent is sweet on Miss N.; which, I
+guess, I wish he may git it.
+
+_Tommy_. He! he! he!
+
+_Backystopper_. Brayvo, Tommy. Tom ain’t much of a man for
+conversation, but he’s a precious one to drink. _Do_ you think the
+young gent is sweet on her, Tommy? I sor him often prowling about our
+’ouse in Queen Street, when we was in London.
+
+_Tommy_. I guess he wasn’t let in in Queen Street. I guess hour little
+Buttons was very near turned away for saying we was at home to him—I
+guess a footman’s place is to keep his mouth hopen—no, his heyes
+hopen—and his mouth shut. (_He lapses into silence_.)
+
+_Lackey_. I think Thomis is in love, Thomis is. Who was that young
+woman I saw you a-dancing of at the Showmier, Thomis? How the young
+Marquis was a-cuttin’ of it about there! The pleace was obliged to come
+up and stop him dancing. His man told old Buzfuz upstairs, that the
+Marquis’s goings on is hawful. Up till four or five every morning;
+blind hookey, shampaign, the dooce’s own delight. That party have had I
+don’t know how much in diamonds—and they quarrel and swear at each
+other, and fling plates: it’s tremendous.
+
+_Tommy_. Why doesn’t the Marquis man mind his own affairs? He’s a
+supersellious beast: and will no more speak to a man, except he’s
+out-a-livery, than he would to a chimbly-swip. He! Cuss him, I’d fight
+’im for ’alf-a-crown.
+
+_Lackey_. And we’d back you, Tommy. Buzfuz upstairs ain’t
+supersellious; nor is the Prince’s walet nether. That old Sangjang’s a
+rum old guvnor. He was in England with the Count, fifty years ago—in
+the hemigration—in Queen Hann’s time, you know. He used to support the
+old Count. He says he remembers a young Musseer Newcome then, that used
+to take lessons from the Shevallier, the Countess’ father—there’s my
+bell.
+
+[_Exit Lackey_.
+
+
+_Backystopper_. Not a bad chap that. Sports his money very free—sings
+an uncommon good song.
+
+_Thomas_. Pretty voice, but no cultiwation.
+
+_Lackey_ (_who re-enters_). Be here at two o’clock for Miss N. Take
+anything? Come round the corner.—There’s a capital shop round the
+corner.
+
+[_Exeunt Servants_.
+
+
+SCENE II.
+
+
+_Ethel_. I can’t think where Madame de Moncontour has gone. How very
+odd it was that you should come here—that we should both come here
+to-day! How surprised I was to see you at the Minister’s! Grandmamma
+was so angry! “That boy pursues us wherever we go,” she said. I am sure
+I don’t know why we shouldn’t meet, Clive. It seems to be wrong even my
+seeing you by chance here. Do you know, sir, what a scolding I had
+about—about going to Brighton with you? My grandmother did not hear of
+it till we were in Scotland, when that foolish maid of mine talked of
+it to her maid; and, there was oh, such a tempest! If there were a
+Bastile here, she would like to lock you into it. She says that you are
+always upon our way—I don’t know how, I am sure. She says, but for you
+I should have been—you know what I should have been: but I am thankful
+that I wasn’t, and Kew has got a much nicer wife in Henrietta Pulleyn,
+than I could ever have been to him. She will be happier than Clara,
+Clive. Kew is one of the kindest creatures in the world—not very wise;
+not very strong: but he is just such a kind, easy, generous little man,
+as will make a girl like Henrietta quite happy.
+
+_Clive_. But not you, Ethel?
+
+_Ethel_. No, nor I him. My temper is difficult, Clive, and I fear few
+men would bear with me. I feel, somehow, always very lonely. How old am
+I? Twenty—I feel sometimes as if I was a hundred; and in the midst of
+all these admirations and fêtes and flatteries, so tired, oh, so tired!
+And yet if I don’t have them, I miss them. How I wish I was religious
+like Madame de Florac: there is no day that she does not go to church.
+She is for ever busy with charities, clergymen, conversions; I think
+the Princess will be brought over ere long—that dear old Madame de
+Florac! and yet she is no happier than the rest of us. Hortense is an
+empty little thing, who thinks of her prosy fat Camille with
+spectacles, and of her two children, and of nothing else in the world
+besides. Who is happy? Clive!
+
+_Clive_. You say Barnes’s wife is not.
+
+_Ethel_. We are like brother and sister, so I may talk to you. Barnes
+is very cruel to her. At Newcome, last winter, poor Clara used to come
+into my room with tears in her eyes morning after morning. He calls her
+a fool; and seems to take a pride in humiliating her before company. My
+poor father has luckily taken a great liking to her: and before him,
+for he has grown very very hot-tempered since his illness, Barnes
+leaves poor Clara alone. We were in hopes that the baby might make
+matters better, but as it is a little girl, Barnes chooses to be very
+much disappointed. He wants papa to give up his seat in Parliament, but
+he clings to that more than anything. Oh, dear me! who is happy in the
+world? What a pity Lord Highgate’s father had not died sooner! He and
+Barnes have been reconciled. I wonder my brother’s spirit did not
+revolt against it. The old lord used to keep a great sum of money at
+the bank, I believe: and the present one does so still: he has paid all
+his debts off: and Barnes is actually friends with him. He is always
+abusing the Dorkings, who want to borrow money from the bank, he says.
+This eagerness for money is horrible. If I had been Barnes I would
+never have been reconciled with Mr. Belsize, never, never! And yet they
+say he was quite right: and grandmamma is even pleased that Lord
+Highgate should be asked to dine in Park Lane. Poor papa is there: come
+to attend his parliamentary duties as he thinks. He went to a division
+the other night; and was actually lifted out of his carriage and
+wheeled into the lobby in a chair. The ministers thanked him for
+coming. I believe he thinks he will have his peerage yet. Oh, what a
+life of vanity ours is!
+
+_Enter Madame de Moncontour_. What are you young folks a-talkin’
+about—balls and operas? When first I was took to the opera I did not
+like it—and fell asleep. But now, oh, it’s ’eavenly to hear Grisi sing!
+
+_The Clock_. Ting, ting!
+
+_Ethel_. Two o’clock already! I must run back to grandmamma. Good-bye,
+Madame de Moncontour; I am so sorry I have not been able to see dear
+Madame de Florac. I will try and come to her on Thursday—please tell
+her. Shall we meet you at the American minister’s to-night, or at
+Madame de Brie’s to-morrow? Friday is your own night—I hope grandmamma
+will bring me. How charming your last music was! Good-bye, mon cousin!
+You shall not come downstairs with me, I insist upon it, sir: and had
+much best remain here, and finish your drawing of Madame de Moncontour.
+
+_Princess_. I’ve put on the velvet, you see, Clive—though it’s very ’ot
+in May. Good-bye, my dear.
+
+[_Exit_ ETHEL.
+
+
+As far as we can judge from the above conversation, which we need not
+prolong—as the talk between Madame de Moncontour and Monsieur Clive,
+after a few complimentary remarks about Ethel, had nothing to do with
+the history of the Newcomes—as far as we can judge, the above little
+colloquy took place on Monday: and about Wednesday, Madame la Comtesse
+de Florac received a little note from Clive, in which he said, that one
+day when she came to the Louvre, where he was copying, she had admired
+a picture of a Virgin and Child, by Sasso Ferrato, since when he had
+been occupied in making a water-colour drawing after the picture, and
+hoped she would be pleased to accept the copy from her affectionate and
+grateful servant, Clive Newcome. The drawing would be done the next
+day, when he would call with it in his hand. Of course Madame de Florac
+received this announcement very kindly; and sent back by Clive’s
+servant a note of thanks to that young gentleman.
+
+Now on Thursday morning, about one o’clock, by one of those singular
+coincidences which, etc. etc., who should come to the Hotel de Florac
+but Miss Ethel Newcome? Madame la Comtesse was at home, waiting to
+receive Clive and his picture: but Miss Ethel’s appearance frightened
+the good lady, so much so that she felt quite guilty at seeing the
+girl, whose parents might think—I don’t know what they might not
+think—that Madame de Florac was trying to make a match between the
+young people. Hence arose the words uttered by the Countess, after a
+while, in—
+
+CONVERSATION III.
+
+
+_Madame de Florac_ (_at work_). And so you like to quit the world and
+to come to our _triste_ old hotel. After to-day you will find it still
+more melancholy, my poor child.
+
+_Ethel_. And why?
+
+_Madame de F_. Some one who has been here to _égayer_ our little
+meetings will come no more.
+
+_Ethel_. Is the Abbé de Florac going to quit Paris, madam?
+
+_Madame de F_. It is not of him that I speak, thou knowest it very
+well, my daughter. Thou hast seen my poor Clive twice here. He will
+come once again, and then no more. My conscience reproaches me that I
+have admitted him at all. But he is like a son to me, and was so
+confided to me by his father. Five years ago, when we met, after an
+absence—of how many years!—Colonel Newcome told me what hopes he had
+cherished for his boy. You know well, my daughter, with whom those
+hopes were connected. Then he wrote me that family arrangements
+rendered his plans impossible—that the hand of Miss Newcome was
+promised elsewhere. When I heard from my son Paul how these
+negotiations were broken, my heart rejoiced, Ethel, for my friend’s
+sake. I am an old woman now, who have seen the world, and all sorts of
+men. Men more brilliant no doubt I have known, but such a heart as his,
+such a faith as his, such a generosity and simplicity as Thomas
+Newcome’s—never!
+
+_Ethel_ (_smiling_). Indeed, dear lady, I think with you.
+
+_Madame de F_. I understand thy smile, my daughter. I can say to thee,
+that when we were children almost, I knew thy good uncle. My poor
+father took the pride of his family into exile with him. Our poverty
+only made his pride the greater. Even before the emigration a contract
+had been passed between our family and the Count de Florac. I could not
+be wanting to the word given by my father. For how many long years have
+I kept it? But when I see a young girl who may be made the victim—the
+subject of a marriage of convenience, as I was—my heart pities her. And
+if I love her, as I love you, I tell her my thoughts. Better poverty,
+Ethel: better a cell in a convent: than a union without love. Is it
+written eternally that men are to make slaves of us? Here in France,
+above all, our fathers sell us every day. And what a society ours is!
+Thou wilt know this when thou art married. There are some laws so cruel
+that nature revolts against theme, and breaks them—or we die in keeping
+them. You smile. I have been nearly fifty years dying—_n’est-ce
+pas?_—and am here an old woman, complaining to a young girl. It is
+because our recollections of youth are always young: and because I have
+suffered so, that I would spare those I love a like grief. Do you know
+that the children of those who do not love in marriage seem to bear an
+hereditary coldness, and do not love their parents as other children
+do? They witness our differences and our indifferences, hear our
+recriminations, take one side or the other in our disputes, and are
+partisans for father or mother. We force ourselves to be hypocrites,
+and hide our wrongs from them; we speak of a bad father with false
+praises; we wear feint smiles over our tears, and deceive our
+children—deceive them, do we? Even from the exercise of that pious
+deceit there is no woman but suffers in the estimation of her sons.
+They may shield her as champions against their father’s selfishness or
+cruelty. In this case, what a war! What a home, where the son sees a
+tyrant in the father, and in the mother but a trembling victim! I speak
+not for myself—whatever may have been the course of our long wedded
+life, I have not to complain of these ignoble storms. But when the
+family chief neglects his wife, or prefers another to her, the children
+too, courtiers as we are, will desert her. You look incredulous about
+domestic love. Tenez, my child, if I may so surmise, I think you cannot
+have seen it.
+
+_Ethel_ (_blushing, and thinking, perhaps, how she esteems her father,
+how her mother, and how much they esteem each other_). My father and
+mother have been most kind to all their children, madame; and no one
+can say that their marriage has been otherwise than happy. My mother is
+the kindest and most affectionate mother, and—(_Here a vision of Sir
+Brian alone in his room, and nobody really caring for him so much as
+his valet, who loves him to the extent of fifty pounds a year and
+perquisites; or, perhaps, Miss Cann, who reads to him, and plays a good
+deal of evenings, much to Sir Brian’s liking—here this vision, we say,
+comes, and stops Miss Ethel’s sentence_.)
+
+_Madame de F_. Your father, in his infirmity—and yet he is five years
+younger than Colonel Newcome—is happy to have such a wife and such
+children. They comfort his age; they cheer his sickness; they confide
+their griefs and pleasures to him—is it not so? His closing days are
+soothed by their affection.
+
+_Ethel_. Oh, no, no! And yet it is not his fault or ours that he is a
+stranger to us. He used to be all day at the bank, or at night in the
+House of Commons, or he and mamma went to parties, and we young ones
+remained with the governess. Mamma is very kind. I have never, almost,
+known her angry; never with us; about us, sometimes, with the servants.
+As children, we used to see papa and mamma at breakfast; and then when
+she was dressing to go out. Since he has been ill, she has given up all
+parties. I wanted to do so too. I feel ashamed in the world, sometimes,
+when I think of my poor father at home, alone. I wanted to stay, but my
+mother and my grandmother forbade me. Grandmamma has a fortune, which
+she says I am to have: since then they have insisted on my being with
+her. She is very clever you know: she is kind too in her way; but she
+cannot live out of society. And I, who pretend to revolt, I like it
+too; and I, who rail and scorn flatterers—oh, I like admiration! I am
+pleased when the women hate me, and the young men leave them for me.
+Though I despise many of these, yet I can’t help drawing them towards
+me. One or two of them I have seen unhappy about me, and I like it; and
+if they are indifferent I am angry, and never tire till they come back.
+I love beautiful dresses; I love jewels; I love a great name and a fine
+house—oh, I despise myself, when I think of these things! When I lie in
+bed and say I have been heartless and a coquette, I cry with
+humiliation; and then rebel and say, Why not?—and to-night—yes,
+to-night—after leaving you, I shall be wicked, I know I shall.
+
+_Madame de F_. (_sadly_). One will pray for thee, my child.
+
+_Ethel_ (_sadly_). I thought I might be good once. I used to say my own
+prayers then. Now I speak them but by rote, and feel ashamed—yes,
+ashamed to speak them. Is it not horrid to say them, and next morning
+to be no better than you were last night? Often I revolt at these as at
+other things, and am dumb. The Vicar comes to see us at Newcome, and
+eats so much dinner, and pays us such court, and “Sir Brians” papa, and
+“Your Ladyship’s” mamma. With grandmamma I go to hear a fashionable
+preacher—Clive’s uncle, whose sister lets lodgings at Brighton; such a
+queer, bustling, pompous, honest old lady. Do you know that Clive’s
+aunt lets lodgings at Brighton?
+
+_Madame de F_. My father was an usher in a school. Monsieur de Florac
+gave lessons in the emigration. Do you know in what?
+
+_Ethel_. Oh, the old nobility! that is different, you know. That Mr.
+Honeyman is so affected that I have no patience with him!
+
+_Madame de F_. (_with a sigh_). I wish you could attend the services of
+a better church. And when was it you thought you might be good, Ethel?
+
+_Ethel_. When I was a girl. Before I came out. When I used to take long
+rides with my dear Uncle Newcome; and he used to talk to me in his
+sweet simple way; and he said I reminded him of some one he once knew.
+
+_Madame de F_. Who—who was that, Ethel?
+
+_Ethel_ (_looking up at Gerard’s picture of the Countess de Florac_).
+What odd dresses you wore in the time of the Empire, Madame de Florac!
+How could you ever have such high waists, and such wonderful _fraises!_
+(MADAME DE FLORAC _kisses_ ETHEL. _Tableau_.)
+
+_Enter_ SAINT JEAN, _preceding a gentleman with a drawing-board under
+his arm_.
+
+_Saint Jean_. Monsieur Claive! [_Exit_ SAINT JEAN.
+
+_Clive_. How do you do, Madame la Comtesse? Mademoiselle, j’ai
+l’honneur de vous souhaiter le bon jour.
+
+_Madame de F_. Do you come from the Louvre? Have you finished that
+beautiful copy, mon ami?
+
+_Clive_. I have brought it for you. It is not very good. There are
+always so many _petites demoiselles_ copying that Sasso Ferrato; and
+they chatter about it so, and hop from one easel to another; and the
+young artists are always coming to give them advice—so that there is no
+getting a good look at the picture. But I have brought you the sketch;
+and am so pleased that you asked for it.
+
+_Madame de F_. (_surveying the sketch_). It is charming—charming! What
+shall we give to our painter for his chef-d’œuvre?
+
+_Clive_ (_kisses her hand_). There is my pay! And you will be glad to
+hear that two of my portraits have been received at the Exhibition. My
+uncle, the clergyman, and Mr. Butts, of the Life Guards.
+
+_Ethel_. Mr. Butts—quel nom! Je ne connois aucun M. Butts!
+
+_Clive_. He has a famous head to draw. They refused Crackthorpe and—and
+one or two other heads I sent in.
+
+_Ethel_ (_tossing up hers_). Miss Mackenzie’s, I suppose!
+
+_Clive_. Yes, Miss Mackenzie’s. It is a sweet little face; too delicate
+for my hand, though.
+
+_Ethel_. So is a wax-doll’s a pretty face. Pink cheeks; china-blue
+eyes; and hair the colour of old Madame Hempenfeld’s—not her last
+hair—her last but one. (_She goes to a window that looks into the
+court_.)
+
+_Clive_ (_to the Countess_). Miss Mackenzie speaks more respectfully of
+other people’s eyes and hair. She thinks there is nobody in the world
+to compare to Miss Newcome.
+
+_Madame de F_. (_aside_). And you, mon ami? This is the last time,
+entendez-vous? You must never come here again. If M. le Comte knew it
+he never would pardon me. Encore? (_He kisses her ladyship’s hand
+again_.)
+
+_Clive_. A good action gains to be repeated. Miss Newcome, does the
+view of the courtyard please you? The old trees and the garden are
+better. That dear old Faun without a nose! I must have a sketch of him:
+the creepers round the base are beautiful.
+
+_Miss N_. I was looking to see if the carriage had come for me. It is
+time that I return home.
+
+_Clive_. That is my brougham. May I carry you anywhere? I hire him by
+the hour: and I will carry you to the end of the world.
+
+_Miss N_. Where are you going, Madame de Florac?—to show that sketch to
+M. le Comte? Dear me! I don’t fancy that M. de Florac can care for such
+things! I am sure I have seen many as pretty on the quays for
+twenty-five sous. I wonder the carriage is not come for me.
+
+_Clive_. You can take mine without my company, as that seems not to
+please you.
+
+_Miss N_. Your company is sometimes very pleasant—when you please.
+Sometimes, as last night, for instance, when you particularly lively.
+
+_Clive_. Last night, after moving heaven and earth to get an invitation
+to Madame de Brie—I say, heaven and earth, that is a French phrase—I
+arrive there; I find Miss Newcome engaged for almost every dance,
+waltzing with M. de Klingenspohr, galloping with Count de Capri,
+galloping and waltzing with the most noble the Marquis of Farintosh.
+She will scarce speak to me during the evening; and when I wait till
+midnight, her grandmamma whisks her home, and I am left alone for my
+pains. Lady Kew is in one of her high moods, and the only words she
+condescends to say to me are, “Oh, I thought you had returned to
+London,” with which she turns her venerable back upon me.
+
+_Miss N_. A fortnight ago you said you were going to London. You said
+the copies you were about here would not take you another week, and
+that was three weeks since.
+
+_Clive_. It were best I had gone.
+
+_Miss N_. If you think so, I cannot but think so.
+
+_Clive_. Why do I stay and hover about you, and follow you know—I
+follow you? Can I live on a smile vouchsafed twice a week, and no
+brighter than you give to all the world? What I do I get, but to hear
+your beauty praised, and to see you, night after night, happy and
+smiling and triumphant, the partner of other men? Does it add zest to
+your triumph, to think that I behold it? I believe you would like a
+crowd of us to pursue you.
+
+_Miss N_. To pursue me; and if they find me alone, by chance to
+compliment me with such speeches as you make? That would be pleasure
+indeed! Answer me here in return, Clive. Have I ever disguised from any
+of my friends the regard I have for you? Why should I? Have not I taken
+your part when you were maligned? In former days, when—when Lord Kew
+asked me, as he had a right to do then—I said it was as a brother I
+held you; and always would. If I have been wrong, it has been for two
+or three times in seeing you at all—or seeing you thus; in letting you
+speak to me as you do—injure me as you do. Do you think I have not hard
+enough words said to me about you, but that you must attack me too in
+turn? Last night only, because you were at the ball,—it was very, very
+wrong of me to tell you I was going there,—as we went home, Lady
+Kew—Go, sir. I never thought you would have seen in me this
+humiliation.
+
+_Clive_. Is it possible that I should have made Ethel Newcome shed
+tears? Oh, dry them, dry them. Forgive me, Ethel, forgive me! I have no
+right to jealousy, or to reproach you—I know that. If others admire
+you, surely I ought to know that they—they do but as I do: I should be
+proud, not angry, that they admire my Ethel—my sister, if you can be no
+more.
+
+_Ethel_. I will be that always, whatever harsh things you think or say
+of me. There, sir, I am not going to be so foolish as to cry again.
+Have you been studying very hard? Are your pictures good at the
+Exhibition? I like you with your mustachios best, and order you not to
+cut them off again. The young men here wear them. I hardly knew Charles
+Beardmore when he arrived from Berlin the other day, like a sapper and
+miner. His little sisters cried out, and were quite frightened by his
+apparition. Why are you not in diplomacy? That day, at Brighton, when
+Lord Farintosh asked whether you were in the army, I thought to myself,
+why is he not?
+
+_Clive_. A man in the army may pretend to anything, _n’est-ce pas?_ He
+wears a lovely uniform. He may be a General, a K.C.B., a Viscount, an
+Earl. He may be valiant in arms, and wanting a leg, like the lover in
+the song. It is peace-time, you say? so much the worse career for a
+soldier. My father would not have me, he said, for ever dangling in
+barracks, or smoking in country billiard-rooms. I have no taste for
+law: and as for diplomacy, I have no relations in the Cabinet, and no
+uncles in the House of Peers. Could my uncle, who is in Parliament,
+help me much, do you think? or would he, if he could?—or Barnes, his
+noble son and heir, after him?
+
+_Ethel_ (_musing_). Barnes would not, perhaps, but papa might even
+still, and you have friends who are fond of you.
+
+_Clive_. No—no one can help me: and my art, Ethel, is not only my
+choice and my love, but my honour too. I shall never distinguish myself
+in it: I may take smart likenesses, but that is all. I am not fit to
+grind my friend Ridley’s colours for him. Nor would my father, who
+loves his own profession so, make a good general probably. He always
+says so. I thought better of myself when I began as a boy; and was a
+conceited youngster, expecting to carry it all before me. But as I
+walked the Vatican, and looked at Raphael, and at the great Michael—I
+knew I was but a poor little creature; and in contemplating his genius,
+shrunk up till I felt myself as small as a man looks under the dome of
+St. Peter’s. Why should I wish to have a great genius?—Yes, there is
+one reason why I should like to have it.
+
+_Ethel_. And that is?
+
+_Clive_. To give it you, if it pleased you, Ethel. But I might wish for
+the roc’s egg: there is no way of robbing the bird. I must take a
+humble place, and you want a brilliant one. A brilliant one! Oh, Ethel,
+what a standard we folks measure fame by! To have your name in the
+_Morning Post_, and to go to three balls every night. To have your
+dress described at the Drawing-Room; and your arrival, from a round of
+visits in the country, at your town-house; and the entertainment of the
+Marchioness of Farin——
+
+_Ethel_. Sir, if you please, no calling names.
+
+_Clive_. I wonder at it. For you are in the world, and you love the
+world, whatever you may say. And I wonder that one of your strength of
+mind should so care for it. I think my simple old father is much finer
+than all your grandees: his single-mindedness more lofty than all their
+bowing, and haughtiness, and scheming. What are you thinking of, as
+you stand in that pretty attitude—like Mnemosyne—with your finger on
+your chin?
+
+_Ethel_. Mnemosyne! who was she? I think I like you best when you are
+quiet and gentle, and not when you are flaming out and sarcastic, sir.
+And so you think you will never be a famous painter? They are quite in
+society here. I was so pleased, because two of them dined at the
+Tuileries when grandmamma was there; and she mistook one, who was
+covered all over with crosses, for an ambassador, I believe, till the
+Queen call him Monsieur Delaroche. She says there is no knowing people
+in this country. And do you think you will never be able to paint as
+well as M. Delaroche?
+
+_Clive_. No—never.
+
+_Ethel_. And—and—you will never give up painting?
+
+_Clive_. No—never. That would be like leaving your friend who was poor;
+or deserting your mistress because you were disappointed about her
+money. They do those things in the great world, Ethel.
+
+_Ethel_ (_with a sigh_). Yes.
+
+_Clive_. If it is so false, and base, and hollow, this great world—if
+its aims are so mean, its successes so paltry, the sacrifices it asks
+of you so degrading, the pleasures it gives you so wearisome, shameful
+even, why does Ethel Newcome cling to it? Will you be fairer, dear,
+with any other name than your own? Will you be happier, after a month,
+at bearing a great title, with a man whom you can’t esteem, tied for
+ever to you, to be the father of Ethel’s children, and the lord and
+master of her life and actions? The proudest woman in the world
+consents to bend herself to this ignominy, and own that a coronet is a
+bribe sufficient for her honour! What is the end of a Christian life,
+Ethel; a girl’s pure nurture?—it can’t be this! Last week, as we walked
+in the garden here, and heard the nuns singing in their chapel, you
+said how hard it was that poor women should be imprisoned so, and were
+thankful that in England we had abolished that slavery. Then you cast
+your eyes to the ground, and mused as you paced the walk; and thought,
+I know, that perhaps their lot was better than some others.
+
+_Ethel_. Yes, I did. I was thinking that almost all women are made
+slaves one way or other, and that these poor nuns perhaps were better
+off than we are.
+
+_Clive_. I never will quarrel with nun or matron for following her
+vocation. But for our women, who are free, why should they rebel
+against Nature, shut their hearts up, sell their lives for rank and
+money, and forgo the most precious right of their liberty? Look, Ethel,
+dear. I love you so, that if I thought another had your heart, an
+honest man, a loyal gentleman, like—like him of last year even, I think
+I could go back with a God bless you, and take to my pictures again,
+and work on in my own humble way. You seem like a queen to me, somehow;
+and I am but a poor, humble fellow, who might be happy, I think, if you
+were. In those balls, where I have seen you surrounded by those
+brilliant young men, noble and wealthy, admirers like me, I have often
+thought, “How could I aspire to such a creature, and ask her to forgo a
+palace to share the crust of a poor painter?”
+
+_Ethel_. You spoke quite scornfully of palaces just now, Clive. I won’t
+say a word about the—the regard which you express for me. I think you
+have it. Indeed, I do. But it were best not said, Clive; best for me,
+perhaps, not to own that I know it. In your speeches, my poor boy—and
+you will please not to make any more, or I never can see you or speak
+to you again, never—you forgot one part of a girl’s duty: obedience to
+her parents. They would never agree to my marrying any one below—any
+one whose union would not be advantageous in a worldly point of view. I
+never would give such pain to the poor father, or to the kind soul who
+never said a harsh word to me since I was born. My grandmamma is kind,
+too, in her way. I came to her of my own free will. When she said she
+would leave me her fortune, do you think it was for myself alone that I
+was glad? My father’s passion was to make an estate, and all my
+brothers and sisters will be but slenderly portioned. Lady Kew said she
+would help them if I came to her—and—it is the welfare of those little
+people that depends upon me, Clive. Now, do you see, _brother_, why you
+must speak to me so no more? There is the carriage. God bless you, dear
+Clive.
+
+(Clive sees the carriage drive away after Miss Newcome has entered it
+without once looking up to the window where he stands. When it is gone
+he goes to the opposite windows of the salon, which are open, towards
+the garden. The chapel music begins to play from the Convent, next
+door. As he hears it he sinks down, his head in his hands.)
+
+_Enter Madame de Florac_ (_She goes to him with anxious looks_.) What
+hast thou, my child? Hast thou spoken?
+
+_Clive_ (_very steadily_). Yes.
+
+_Madame de F_. And she loves thee? I know she loves thee.
+
+_Clive_. You hear the organ of the convent?
+
+_Madame de F_. Qu’as tu?
+
+_Clive_. I might as well hope to marry one of the sisters of yonder
+convent, dear lady. (_He sinks down again, and she kisses him_.)
+
+_Clive_. I never had a mother; but you seem like one.
+
+_Madame de F_. Mon fils! Oh, mon fils!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+In which Benedick is a Married Man
+
+
+We have all heard of the dying French Duchess, who viewed her coming
+dissolution and subsequent fate so easily, because she said she was
+sure that Heaven must deal politely with a person of her quality;—I
+suppose Lady Kew had some such notions regarding people of rank: her
+long-suffering towards them was extreme; in fact, there were vices
+which the old lady thought pardonable, and even natural, in a young
+nobleman of high station, which she never would have excused in persons
+of vulgar condition.
+
+Her ladyship’s little knot of associates and scandal-bearers—elderly
+roues and ladies of the world, whose business it was to know all sorts
+of noble intrigues and exalted tittle-tattle; what was happening among
+the devotees of the exiled court at Frobsdorf; what among the citizen
+princes of the Tuileries; who was the reigning favourite of the Queen
+Mother at Aranjuez; who was smitten with whom at Vienna or Naples; and
+the last particulars of the _chroniques scandaleuses_ of Paris and
+London;—Lady Kew, I say, must have been perfectly aware of my Lord
+Farintosh’s amusements, associates, and manner of life, and yet she
+never, for one moment, exhibited any anger or dislike towards that
+nobleman. Her amiable heart was so full of kindness and forgiveness
+towards the young prodigal that, even without any repentance on his
+part, she was ready to take him to her old arms, and give him her
+venerable benediction. Pathetic sweetness of nature! Charming
+tenderness of disposition! With all his faults and wickednesses, his
+follies and his selfishness, there was no moment when Lady Kew would
+not have received the young lord, and endowed him with the hand of her
+darling Ethel.
+
+But the hopes which this fond forgiving creature had nurtured for one
+season, and carried on so resolutely to the next, were destined to be
+disappointed yet a second time, by a most provoking event, which
+occurred in the Newcome family. Ethel was called away suddenly from
+Paris by her father’s third and last paralytic seizure. When she
+reached her home, Sir Brian could not recognise her. A few hours after
+her arrival, all the vanities of the world were over for him: and Sir
+Barnes Newcome, Baronet, reigned in his stead. The day after Sir Brian
+was laid in his vault at Newcome—a letter appeared in the local papers
+addressed to the Independent Electors of that Borough, in which his
+orphan son, feelingly alluding to the virtue, the services, and the
+political principles of the deceased, offered himself as a candidate
+for the seat in Parliament now vacant. Sir Barnes announced that he
+should speedily pay his respects in person to the friends and
+supporters of his lamented father. That he was a staunch friend of our
+admirable constitution need not be said. That he was a firm, but
+conscientious upholder of our Protestant religion, all who knew Barnes
+Newcome must be aware. That he would do his utmost to advance the
+interests of this great agricultural, this great manufacturing county
+and borough, we may be sure he avowed; as that he would be (if returned
+to represent Newcome in Parliament) the advocate of every rational
+reform, the unhesitating opponent of every reckless innovation. In
+fine, Barnes Newcome’s manifesto to the Electors of Newcome was as
+authentic a document and gave him credit for as many public virtues, as
+that slab over poor Sir Brian’s bones in the chancel of Newcome church,
+which commemorated the good qualities of the defunct, and the grief of
+his heir.
+
+In spite of the virtues, personal and inherited, of Barnes, his seat
+for Newcome was not got without a contest. The dissenting interest and
+the respectable Liberals of the borough wished to set up Samuel Higg,
+Esq.; against Sir Barnes Newcome: and now it was that Barnes’s
+civilities of the previous year, aided by Madame de Moncontour’s
+influence over her brother, bore their fruit. Mr. Higg declined to
+stand against Sir Barnes Newcome, although Higg’s political principles
+were by no means those of the honourable Baronet; and the candidate
+from London, whom the Newcome extreme Radicals set up against Barnes,
+was nowhere on the poll when the day of election came. So Barnes had
+the desire of his heart; and, within two months after his father’s
+demise, he sate in Parliament as Member for Newcome.
+
+The bulk of the late Baronet’s property descended, of course, to his
+eldest son: who grumbled, nevertheless, at the provision made for his
+brothers and sisters, and that the town-house should have been left to
+Lady Anne, who was too poor to inhabit it. But Park Lane is the best
+situation in London, and Lady Anne’s means were greatly improved by the
+annual produce of the house in Park Lane, which, as we all know, was
+occupied by a foreign minister for several subsequent seasons. Strange
+mutations of fortune: old places; new faces; what Londoner does not see
+and speculate upon them every day? Cœlia’s boudoir, who is dead with
+the daisies over her at Kensal Green, is now the chamber where Delia is
+consulting Dr. Locock, or Julia’s children are romping: Florio’s
+dining-tables have now Pollio’s wine upon them: Calista, being a widow,
+and (to the surprise of everybody who knew Trimalchio, and enjoyed his
+famous dinners) left but very poorly off, lets the house, and the rich,
+chaste, and appropriate planned furniture, by Dowbiggin, and the
+proceeds go to keep her little boys at Eton. The next year, as Mr.
+Clive Newcome rode by the once familiar mansion (whence the hatchment
+had been removed, announcing that there was _in Cœlo Quies_ for the
+late Sir Brian Newcome, Bart.), alien faces looked from over the
+flowers in the balconies. He got a card for an entertainment from the
+occupant of the mansion, H.E. the Bulgarian minister; and there was the
+same crowd in the reception-room and on the stairs, the same grave men
+from Gunter’s distributing the refreshments in the dining-room, the
+same old Smee, R. A. (always in the room where the edibles were),
+cringing and flattering to the new occupants; and the same effigy of
+poor Sir Brian, in his deputy-lieutenant’s uniform, looking blankly
+down from over the sideboard, at the feast which his successors were
+giving. A dreamy old ghost of a picture. Have you ever looked at those
+round George IV.’s banqueting-hall at Windsor? Their frames still hold
+them, but they smile ghostly smiles, and swagger in robes and velvets
+which are quite faint and faded: their crimson coats have a twilight
+tinge: the lustre of their stars has twinkled out: they look as if they
+were about to flicker off the wall and retire to join their originals
+in limbo.
+
+Nearly three years had elapsed since the good Colonel’s departure for
+India, and during this time certain changes had occurred in the lives
+of the principal actors and the writer of this history. As regards the
+latter, it must be stated that the dear old firm of Lamb Court had been
+dissolved, the junior member having contracted another partnership. The
+chronicler of these memoirs was a bachelor no longer. My wife and I had
+spent the winter at Rome (favourite resort of young married couples);
+and had heard from the artists there Clive’s name affectionately
+repeated; and many accounts of his sayings and doings, his merry
+supper-parties, and the talents of young Ridley, his friend. When we
+came to London in the spring, almost our first visit was to Clive’s
+apartments in Charlotte Street, whither my wife delightedly went to
+give her hand to the young painter.
+
+But Clive no longer inhabited that quiet region. On driving to the
+house we found a bright brass plate, with the name of Mr. J. J. Ridley
+on the door, and it was J. J.’s hand which I shook (his other being
+engaged with a great palette, and a sheaf of painting-brushes) when we
+entered the well-known quarters. Clive’s picture hung over the
+mantelpiece, where his father’s head used to hang in our time—a careful
+and beautifully executed portrait of the lad in a velvet coat and a
+Roman hat, with that golden beard which was sacrificed to the
+exigencies of London fashion. I showed Laura the likeness until she
+could become acquainted with the original. On her expressing her
+delight at the picture, the painter was pleased to say, in his modest
+blushing way, that he would be glad to execute my wife’s portrait too,
+nor, as I think, could any artist find a subject more pleasing.
+
+After admiring others of Mr. Ridley’s works, our talk naturally
+reverted to his predecessor. Clive had migrated to much more splendid
+quarters. Had we not heard? he had become a rich man, a man of fashion.
+“I fear he is very lazy about the arts,” said J. J., with regret on his
+countenance; “though I begged and prayed him to be faithful to his
+profession. He would have done very well in it, in portrait-painting
+especially. Look here, and here, and here!” said Ridley, producing fine
+vigorous sketches of Clive’s. “He had the art of seizing the likeness,
+and of making all his people look like gentlemen, too. He was improving
+every day, when this abominable bank came in the way, and stopped him.”
+
+What bank? I did not know the new Indian bank of which the Colonel was
+a director. Then, of course, I was aware that the mercantile affair in
+question was the Bundelcund Bank, about which the Colonel had written
+to me from India more than a year since, announcing that fortunes were
+to be made by it, and that he had reserved shares for me in the
+company. Laura admired all Clive’s sketches, which his affectionate
+brother-artist showed to her with the exception of one representing the
+reader’s humble servant; which, Mrs. Pendennis considered, by no means
+did justice to the original.
+
+Bidding adieu to the kind J. J., and leaving him to pursue his art, in
+that silent serious way in which he daily laboured at it, we drove to
+Fitzroy Square hard by, where I was not displeased to show the good old
+hospitable James Binnie the young lady who bore my name. But here, too,
+we were disappointed. Placards wafered in the windows announced that
+the old house was to let. The woman who kept it brought a card in Mrs.
+Mackenzie’s frank handwriting, announcing Mr. James Binnie’s address
+was “Poste-restante, Pau, in the Pyrenees,” and that his London agents
+were Messrs. So-and-so. The woman said she believed the gentleman had
+been unwell. The house, too, looked very pale, dismal, and disordered.
+We drove away from the door, grieving to think that ill-health, or any
+other misfortunes, had befallen good old James.
+
+Mrs. Pendennis drove back to our lodgings, Brixham’s, in Jermyn Street,
+while I sped to the City, having business in that quarter. It has been
+said that I kept a small account with Hobson Brothers, to whose bank I
+went, and entered the parlour with that trepidation which most poor men
+feel on presenting themselves before City magnates and capitalists. Mr.
+Hobson Newcome shook hands most jovially and good-naturedly,
+congratulated me on my marriage, and so forth, and presently Sir Barnes
+Newcome made his appearance, still wearing his mourning for his
+deceased father.
+
+Nothing could be more kind, pleasant, and cordial than Sir Barnes’s
+manner. He seemed to know well about my affairs; complimented me on
+every kind of good fortune; had heard that I had canvassed the borough
+in which I lived; hoped sincerely to see me in Parliament and on the
+right side; was most anxious to become acquainted with Mrs. Pendennis,
+of whom Lady Rockminster said all sorts of kind things; and asked for
+our address, in order that Lady Clara Newcome might have the pleasure
+of calling on my wife. This ceremony was performed soon afterwards; and
+an invitation to dinner from Sir Barnes and Lady Clara Newcome speedily
+followed it.
+
+Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., M.P., I need not say, no longer inhabited
+the small house which he had occupied immediately after his marriage:
+but dwelt in a much more spacious mansion in Belgravia, where he
+entertained his friends. Now that he had come into his kingdom, I must
+say that Barnes was by no means so insufferable as in the days of his
+bachelorhood. He had sown his wild oats, and spoke with regret and
+reserve of that season of his moral culture. He was grave, sarcastic,
+statesmanlike; did not try to conceal his baldness (as he used before
+his father’s death, by bringing lean wisps of hair over his forehead
+from the back of his head); talked a great deal about the House; was
+assiduous in his attendance there and in the City; and conciliating
+with all the world. It seemed as if we were all his constituents, and
+though his efforts to make himself agreeable were rather apparent, the
+effect succeeded pretty well. We met Mr. and Mrs. Hobson Newcome, and
+Clive, and Miss Ethel looking beautiful in her black robes. It was a
+family party, Sir Barnes said, giving us to understand, with a decorous
+solemnity in face and voice, that no _large_ parties as yet could be
+received in that house of mourning.
+
+To this party was added, rather to my surprise, my Lord Highgate, who
+under the sobriquet of Jack Belsize has been presented to the reader of
+this history. Lord Highgate gave Lady Clara his arm to dinner, but went
+and took a place next Miss Newcome, on the other side of her; that
+immediately by Lady Clara being reserved for a guest who had not as yet
+made his appearance.
+
+Lord Highgate’s attentions to his neighbour, his laughing and talking,
+were incessant; so much so that Clive, from his end of the table,
+scowled in wrath at Jack Belsize’s assiduities: it was evident that the
+youth, though hopeless, was still jealous and in love with his charming
+cousin.
+
+Barnes Newcome was most kind to all his guests: from Aunt Hobson to
+your humble servant, there was not one but the of master the house had
+an agreeable word for him. Even for his cousin Samuel Newcome, a gawky
+youth with an eruptive countenance, Barnes had appropriate words of
+conversation, and talked about King’s College, of which the lad was an
+ornament, with the utmost affability. He complimented that institution
+and young Samuel, and by that shot knocked not only over Sam but his
+mamma too. He talked to Uncle Hobson about his crops; to Clive about
+his pictures; to me about the great effect which a certain article in
+the _Pall Mall Gazette_ had produced in the House, where the Chancellor
+of the Exchequer was perfectly livid with fury, and Lord John bursting
+out laughing at the attack: in fact, nothing could be more amiable than
+our host on this day. Lady Clara was very pretty—grown a little stouter
+since her marriage; the change only became her. She was a little
+silent, but then she had Uncle Hobson on her left-hand side, between
+whom and her ladyship there could not be much in common, and the place
+at the right hand was still vacant. The person with whom she talked
+most freely was Clive, who had made a beautiful drawing of her and her
+little girl, for which the mother and the father too, as it appeared,
+were very grateful.
+
+What had caused this change in Barnes’s behaviour? Our particular
+merits or his own private reform? In the two years over which this
+narrative has had to run in the course of as many chapters, the writer
+had inherited a property so small that it could not occasion a banker’s
+civility; and I put down Sir Barnes Newcome’s politeness to a sheer
+desire to be well with me. But with Lord Highgate and Clive the case
+was different, as you must now hear.
+
+Lord Highgate, having succeeded to his father’s title and fortune, had
+paid every shilling of his debts, and had sowed his wild oats to the
+very last corn. His lordship’s account at Hobson Brothers was very
+large. Painful events of three years’ date, let us hope, were
+forgotten—gentlemen cannot go on being in love and despairing, and
+quarrelling for ever. When he came into his funds, Highgate behaved
+with uncommon kindness to Rooster, who was always straitened for money:
+and when the late Lord Dorking died and Rooster succeeded to him, there
+was a meeting at Chanticlere between Highgate and Barnes Newcome and
+his wife, which went off very comfortably. At Chanticlere the Dowager
+Lady Kew and Miss Newcome were also staying, when Lord Highgate
+announced his prodigious admiration for the young lady; and, it was
+said, corrected Farintosh, as a low-minded, foul-tongued young cub, for
+daring to speak disrespectfully of her. Nevertheless, vous concevez,
+when a man of the Marquis’s rank was supposed to look with the eyes of
+admiration upon a young lady, Lord Highgate would not think of spoiling
+sport, and he left Chanticlere declaring that he was always destined to
+be unlucky in love. When old Lady Kew was obliged to go to Vichy for
+her lumbago, Highgate said to Barnes, “Do ask your charming sister to
+come to you in London; she will bore herself to death with the old
+woman at Vichy, or with her mother at Rugby” (whither Lady Anne had
+gone to get her boys educated), and accordingly Miss Newcome came on a
+visit to her brother and sister, at whose house we have just had the
+honour of seeing her.
+
+When Rooster took his seat in the House of Lords, he was introduced by
+Highgate and Kew, as Highgate had been introduced by Kew previously.
+Thus these three gentlemen all rode in gold coaches; had all got
+coronets on their heads; as you will, my respected young friend, if you
+are the eldest son of a peer who dies before you. And now they were
+rich, they were all going to be very good boys, let us hope. Kew, we
+know, married one of the Dorking family, that second Lady Henrietta
+Pulleyn, whom we described as frisking about at Baden, and not in the
+least afraid of him. How little the reader knew, to whom we introduced
+the girl in that chatty offhand way, that one day the young creature
+would be a countess! But we knew it all the while—and, when she was
+walking about with the governess, or romping with her sisters; and when
+she had dinner at one o’clock; and when she wore a pinafore very
+likely—we secretly respected her as the future Countess of Kew, and
+mother of the Viscount Walham.
+
+Lord Kew was very happy with his bride, and very good to her. He took
+Lady Kew to Paris, for a marriage trip; but they lived almost
+altogether at Kewbury afterwards, where his lordship sowed tame oats
+now after his wild ones, and became one of the most active farmers of
+his county. He and the Newcomes were not very intimate friends; for
+Lord Kew was heard to say that he disliked Barnes more after his
+marriage than before. And the two sisters, Lady Clara and Lady Kew, had
+a quarrel on one occasion, when the latter visited London just before
+the dinner at which we have just assisted—nay, at which we are just
+assisting, took place,—a quarrel about Highgate’s attentions to Ethel,
+very likely. Kew was dragged into it, and hot words passed between him
+and Jack Belsize; and Jack did not go down to Kewbury afterwards,
+though Kew’s little boy was christened after him. All these interesting
+details about people of the very highest rank, we are supposed to
+whisper in the reader’s ear as we are sitting at a Belgravian
+dinner-table. My dear Barmecide friend, isn’t it pleasant to be in such
+fine company?
+
+And now we must tell how it is that Clive Newcome, Esq., whose eyes are
+flashing fire across the flowers of the table at Lord Highgate, who is
+making himself so agreeable to Miss Ethel—now we must tell how it is
+that Clive and his cousin Barnes have grown to be friends again.
+
+The Bundelcund Bank, which had been established for four years, had now
+grown to be one of the most flourishing commercial institutions in
+Bengal. Founded, as the prospectus announced, at a time when all
+private credit was shaken by the failure of the great Agency Houses, of
+which the downfall had carried dismay and ruin throughout the
+Presidency, the B. B. had been established on the _only_ sound
+principle of commercial prosperity—that is association. The native
+capitalists, headed by the great firm of Rummun Loll and Co., of
+Calcutta, had largely embarked in the B. B., and the officers of the
+two services and the European mercantile body of Calcutta had been
+invited to take shares in an institution which, to merchants, native
+and English, civilian and military men, was alike advantageous and
+indispensable. How many young men of the latter services had been
+crippled for life by the ruinous cost of agencies, of which the profits
+to the agents themselves were so enormous! The shareholders of the B.
+B. were their own agents; and the greatest capitalist in India as well
+as the youngest ensign in the service might invest at the largest and
+safest premium, and borrow at the smallest interest, by becoming
+according to his means, a shareholder in the B. B. Their correspondents
+were established in each presidency and in every chief city of India,
+as well as at Sydney, Singapore, Canton, and, of course. London. With
+China they did, an immense opium-trade, of which the profits were so
+great, that it was only in private sittings of the B. B. managing
+committee that the details and accounts of these operations could be
+brought forward. Otherwise the books of the bank were open to every
+shareholder; and the ensign or the young civil servant was at liberty
+at any time to inspect his own private account as well as the common
+ledger. With New South Wales they carried on a vast trade in wool,
+supplying that great colony with goods, which their London agents
+enabled them to purchase in such a way as to give them the command of
+the market. As if to add to their prosperity, coppermines were
+discovered on lands in the occupation of the B. Banking Company, which
+gave the most astonishing returns. And throughout the vast territories
+of British India, through the great native firm of Rummun Loll and Co.,
+the Bundelcund Banking Company had possession of the native markets.
+The order from Birmingham for idols alone (made with their copper and
+paid in their wool) was enough to make the Low Church party in England
+cry out; and a debate upon this subject actually took place in the
+House of Commons, of which the effect was to send up the shares of the
+Bundelcund Banking Company very considerably upon the London Exchange.
+
+The fifth half-yearly dividend was announced at twelve and a quarter
+per cent of the paid-up capital: the accounts from the copper-mine sent
+the dividend up to a still greater height, and carried the shares to an
+extraordinary premium. In the third year of the concern, the house of
+Hobson Brothers, of London, became the agents of the Bundelcund Banking
+Company of India and amongst our friends, James Binnie, who had
+prudently held out for some time and Clive Newcome, Esq., became
+shareholders, Clive’s good father having paid the first instalments of
+the lad’s shares up in Calcutta, and invested every rupee he could
+himself command in this enterprise. When Hobson Brothers joined it, no
+wonder James Binnie was convinced; Clive’s friend, the Frenchman, and
+through that connexion the house of Higg, of Newcome and Manchester,
+entered into the affair; and amongst the minor contributors in England
+we may mention Miss Cann, who took a little fifty-pound-note share and
+dear old Miss Honeyman; and J. J., and his father, Ridley, who brought
+a small bag of saving—all knowing that their Colonel, who was eager
+that his friends should participate in his good fortune, would never
+lead them wrong. To Clive’s surprise Mrs. Mackenzie, between whom and
+himself there was a considerable coolness, came to his chambers, and
+with a solemn injunction that the matter between them should be quite
+private, requested him to purchase 1500 pounds worth of Bundelcund
+shares for her and her darling girls, which he did, astonished to find
+the thrifty widow in possession of so much money. Had Mr. Pendennis’s
+mind not been bent at this moment on quite other subjects, he might
+have increased his own fortune by the Bundelcund Bank speculation; but
+in these two years I was engaged in matrimonial affairs (having Clive
+Newcome, Esq., as my groomsman on a certain interesting occasion). When
+we returned from our tour abroad the India Bank shares were so very
+high that I did not care to purchase, though I found an affectionate
+letter from our good Colonel (enjoining me to make my fortune) awaiting
+me at the agent’s, and my wife received a pair of beautiful Cashmere
+shawls from the same kind friend.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+Contains at least six more Courses and two Desserts
+
+
+The banker’s dinner-party over, we returned to our apartments, having
+dropped Major Pendennis at his lodgings, and there, as the custom is
+amongst most friendly married couples, talked over the company and the
+dinner. I thought my wife would naturally have liked Sir Barnes
+Newcome, who was very attentive to her, took her to dinner as the
+bride, and talked ceaselessly to her during the whole entertainment.
+
+Laura said No—she did not know why—could there be any better reason?
+There was a tone about Sir Barnes Newcome she did not like—especially
+in his manner to women.
+
+I remarked that he spoke sharply and in a sneering manner to his wife,
+and treated one or two remarks which she made as if she was an idiot.
+
+Mrs. Pendennis flung up her head as much as to say, “and so she is.”
+
+_Mr. Pendennis_. What, the wife too, my dear Laura! I should have
+thought such a pretty, simple, innocent young woman, with just enough
+good looks to make her pass muster, who is very well bred and not
+brilliant at all,—I should have thought such a one might have secured a
+sister’s approbation.
+
+_Mrs. Pendennis_. You fancy we are all jealous of one another. No
+protests of ours can take that notion out of your heads. My dear Pen, I
+do not intend to try. We are not jealous of mediocrity: we are not
+patient of it. I dare say we are angry because we see men admire it so.
+You gentlemen, who pretend to be our betters, give yourselves such airs
+of protection, and profess such a lofty superiority over us, prove it
+by quitting the cleverest woman in the room for the first pair of
+bright eyes and dimpled cheeks that enter. It was those charms which
+attracted you in Lady Clara, sir.
+
+_Pendennis_. I think she is very pretty, and very innocent, and
+artless.
+
+_Mrs. P_. Not very pretty, and perhaps not so very artless.
+
+_Pendennis_. How can you tell, you wicked woman? Are you such a
+profound deceiver yourself, that you can instantly detect artifice in
+others? O Laura!
+
+_Mrs. P_. We can detect all sorts of things. The inferior animals have
+instincts, you know. (I must say my wife is always very satirical upon
+this point of the relative rank of the sexes.) One thing I am sure of
+is, that she is not happy; and oh, Pen! that she does not care much for
+her little girl.
+
+_Pendennis_. How do you know that, my dear?
+
+_Mrs. P_. We went upstairs to see the child after dinner. It was at my
+wish. The mother did not offer to go. The child was awake and crying.
+Lady Clara did not offer to take it. Ethel—Miss Newcome took it, rather
+to my surprise, for she seems very haughty; and the nurse, who I
+suppose was at supper, came running up at the noise, and then the poor
+little thing was quiet.
+
+_Pendennis_. I remember we heard the music as the dining-room door was
+open; and Newcome said, “That is what you will have to expect,
+Pendennis.”
+
+_Mrs. P_. Hush, sir! If my baby cries, I think you must expect me to
+run out of the room. I liked Miss Newcome after seeing her with the
+poor little thing. She looked so handsome as she walked with it! I
+longed to have it myself.
+
+_Pendennis. Tout vient à fin, à qui sait_——
+
+_Mrs. P_. Don’t be silly. What a dreadful dreadful place this great
+world of yours is, Arthur; where husbands do not seem to care for their
+wives; where mothers do not love their children; where children love
+their nurses best; where men talk what they call gallantry!
+
+_Pendennis_. What?
+
+_Mrs. P_. Yes, such as that dreary, languid, pale, bald, cadaverous,
+leering man whispered to me. Oh, how I dislike him! I am sure he is
+unkind to his wife. I am sure he has a bad temper; and if there is any
+excuse for——
+
+_Pendennis_. For what?
+
+_Mrs. P_. For nothing. But you heard yourself that he had a bad temper,
+and spoke sneeringly to his wife. What could make her marry him?
+
+_Pendennis_. Money, and the desire of papa and mamma. For the same
+reason Clive’s flame, poor Miss Newcome, was brought out to-day; that
+vacant seat at her side was for Lord Farintosh, who did not come. And
+the Marquis not being present, the Baron took his innings. Did you not
+see how tender he was to her, and how fierce poor Clive looked?
+
+_Mrs. P_. Lord Highgate was very attentive to Miss Newcome, was he?
+
+_Pendennis_. And some years ago, Lord Highgate was breaking his heart
+about whom do you think? about Lady Clara Pulleyn, our hostess of last
+night. He was Jack Belsize then, a younger son, plunged over head and
+ears in debt; and of course there could be no marriage. Clive was
+present at Baden when a terrible scene took place, and carried off poor
+Jack to Switzerland and Italy, where he remained till his father died,
+and he came into the title in which he rejoices. And now he is off with
+the old love, Laura, and on with the new. Why do you look at me so? Are
+you thinking that other people have been in love two or three times
+too?
+
+_Mrs. P_. I am thinking that I should not like to live in London,
+Arthur.
+
+And this was all that Mrs. Laura could be brought to say. When this
+young woman chooses to be silent, there is no power that can extract a
+word from her. It is true that she is generally in the right; but that
+is only the more aggravating. Indeed, what can be more provoking, after
+a dispute with your wife, than to find it is you, and not she, who has
+been in the wrong?
+
+Sir Barnes Newcome politely caused us to understand that the
+entertainment of which we had just partaken was given in honour of the
+bride. Clive must needs not be outdone in hospitality; and invited us
+and others to a fine feast at the Star and Garter at Richmond, where
+Mrs. Pendennis was placed at his right hand. I smile as I think how
+much dining has been already commemorated in these veracious pages; but
+the story is an everyday record; and does not dining form a certain
+part of the pleasure and business of every day? It is at that pleasant
+hour that our set has the privilege of meeting the other. The morning
+man and woman alike devote to business; or pass mainly in the company
+of their own kind. John has his office; Jane her household, her
+nursery, her milliner, her daughters and their masters. In the country
+he has his hunting, his fishing, his farming, his letters; she her
+schools, her poor, her garden, or what not. Parted through the shining
+hours, and improving them, let us trust, we come together towards
+sunset only, we make merry and amuse ourselves. We chat with our pretty
+neighbour, or survey the young ones sporting; we make love and are
+jealous; we dance, or obsequiously turn over the leaves of Cecilia’s
+music-book; we play whist, or go to sleep in the arm-chair, according
+to our ages and conditions. Snooze gently in thy arm-chair, thou easy
+bald-head! play your whist, or read your novel, or talk scandal over
+your work, ye worthy dowagers and fogies! Meanwhile the young ones
+frisk about, or dance, or sing, or laugh; or whisper behind curtains in
+moonlit windows; or shirk away into the garden, and come back smelling
+of cigars; nature having made them so to do.
+
+Nature at this time irresistibly impelled Clive Newcome towards
+love-making. It was pairing-season with him. Mr. Clive was now some
+three-and-twenty years old: enough has been said about his good looks,
+which were in truth sufficient to make him a match for the young lady
+on whom he had set his heart, and from whom, during this entertainment
+which he gave to my wife, he could never keep his eyes away for three
+minutes. Laura’s did not need to be so keen as they were in order to
+see what poor Clive’s condition was. She did not in the least grudge
+the young fellow’s inattention to herself; or feel hurt that he did not
+seem to listen when she spoke; she conversed with J. J., her neighbour,
+who was very modest and agreeable; while her husband, not so well
+pleased, had Mrs. Hobson Newcome for his partner during the chief part
+of the entertainment. Mrs. Hobson and Lady Clara were the matrons who
+gave the sanction of their presence to this bachelor-party. Neither of
+their husbands could come to Clive’s little fête; had they not the City
+and the House of Commons to attend? My uncle, Major Pendennis, was
+another of the guests; who for his part found the party was what you
+young fellows call very slow. Dreading Mrs. Hobson and her powers of
+conversation, the old gentleman nimbly skipped out of her
+neighbourhood, and fell by the side of Lord Highgate, to whom the Major
+was inclined to make himself very pleasant. But Lord Highgate’s broad
+back was turned upon his neighbour, who was forced to tell stories to
+Captain Crackthorpe, which had amused dukes and marquises in former
+days, and were surely quite good enough for any baron in this realm.
+“Lord Highgate sweet upon _la belle_ Newcome, is he?” said the testy
+Major afterwards. “He seemed to me to talk to Lady Clara the whole
+time. When I awoke in the garden after dinner, as Mrs. Hobson was
+telling one of her confounded long stories, I found her audience was
+diminished to one. Crackthorpe, Lord Highgate, and Lady Clara, we had
+all been sitting there when the bankeress cut in (in the mid of a very
+good story I was telling them, which entertained them very much), and
+never ceased talking till I fell off into a doze. When I roused myself,
+begad, she was still going on. Crackthorpe was off, smoking a cigar on
+the terrace: my Lord and Lady Clara were nowhere; and you four, with
+the little painter, were chatting cosily in another arbour. Behaved
+himself very well, the little painter. Doosid good dinner Ellis gave
+us. But as for Highgate being _aux soins_ with _la belle Banquière_,
+trust me, my boy, he is—upon my word, my dear, it seemed to me his
+thoughts went quite another way. To be sure, Lady Clara is a _belle
+Banquière_ too now. He, he, he! How could he say he had no carriage to
+go home in? He came down in Crackthorpe’s cab, who passed us just now,
+driving back young What-dye-call the painter.”
+
+Thus did the Major discourse, as we returned towards the City. I could
+see in the open carriage which followed us (Lady Clara Newcome’s) Lord
+Highgate’s white hat, by Clive’s on the back seat.
+
+Laura looked at her husband. The same thought may have crossed their
+minds, though neither uttered it; but although Sir Barnes and Lady
+Clara Newcome offered us other civilities during our stay in London, no
+inducements could induce Laura to accept the proffered friendship of
+that lady. When Lady Clara called, my wife was not at home; when she
+invited us, Laura pleaded engagements. At first she bestowed on Miss
+Newcome, too, a share of this haughty dislike, and rejected the
+advances which that young lady, who professed to like my wife very
+much, made towards an intimacy. When I appealed to her (for Newcome’s
+house was after all a very pleasant one, and you met the best people
+there), my wife looked at me with an expression of something like
+scorn, and said: “Why don’t I like Miss Newcome? Of course because I am
+jealous of her—all women, you know, Arthur, are jealous of such
+beauties.” I could get for a long while no better explanation than
+these sneers, for my wife’s antipathy towards this branch of the
+Newcome family; but an event presently came which silenced my
+remonstrances, and showed to me, that Laura had judged Barnes and his
+wife only too well.
+
+Poor Mrs. Hobson Newcome had reason to be sulky at the neglect which
+all the Richmond party showed her, for nobody, not even Major
+Pendennis, as we have seen, would listen to her intellectual
+conversation; nobody, not even Lord Highgate, would drive back to town
+in her carriage, though the vehicle was large and empty, and Lady
+Clara’s barouche, in which his lordship chose to take a place, had
+already three occupants within it:—but in spite of these rebuffs and
+disappointments the virtuous lady of Bryanstone Square was bent upon
+being good-natured and hospitable; and I have to record, in the present
+chapter, yet one more feast of which Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis partook at
+the expense of the most respectable Newcome family.
+
+Although Mrs. Laura here also appeared, and had the place of honour in
+her character of bride, I am bound to own my opinion that Mrs. Hobson
+only made us the pretext of her party, and that in reality it was given
+to persons of a much more exalted rank. We were the first to arrive,
+our good old Major, the most punctual of men, bearing us company. Our
+hostess was arrayed in unusual state and splendour; her fat neck was
+ornamented with jewels, rich bracelets decorated her arms, and this
+Bryanstone Square Cornelia had likewise her family jewels distributed
+round her, priceless male and female Newcome gems, from the King’s
+College youth, with whom we have made a brief acquaintance, and his
+elder sister, now entering into the world, down to the last little
+ornament of the nursery, in a prodigious new sash, with ringlets hot
+and crisp from the tongs of a Marylebone hairdresser, We had seen the
+cherub faces of some of these darlings pressed against the drawing-room
+windows as our carriage drove up to the door; when, after a few
+minutes’ conversation, another vehicle arrived, away they dashed to the
+windows again, the innocent little dears crying out, “Here’s the
+Marquis;” and in sadder tones, “No, it isn’t the Marquis,” by which
+artless expressions they showed how eager they were to behold an
+expected guest of a rank only inferior to Dukes in this great empire.
+
+Putting two and two together, as the saying is, it was not difficult
+for me to guess who the expected Marquis was—and, indeed, the King’s
+College youth set that question at once to rest, by wagging his head at
+me, and winking his eye, and saying, “We expect Farintosh.”
+
+“Why, my dearest children,” Matronly Virtue exclaimed, “this anxiety to
+behold the young Marquis of Farintosh, whom we expect at our modest
+table, Mrs. Pendennis, to-day? Twice you have been at the window in
+your eagerness to look for him. Louisa, you silly child, do you imagine
+that his lordship will appear in his robes and coronet? Rodolf, you
+absurd boy, do you think that a Marquis is other than a man? I have
+never admired aught but intellect, Mrs. Pendennis; _that_, let us be
+thankful, is the only true title to distinction in our country
+nowadays.”
+
+“Begad, sir,” whispers the old Major to me, “intellect may be a doosid
+fine thing, but in my opinion, a Marquisate and eighteen or twenty
+thousand a year—I should say the Farintosh property, with the Glenlivat
+estate and the Roy property in England, must be worth nineteen thousand
+a year at the very lowest figure and I remember when this young man’s
+father was only Tom Roy, of the 42nd, with no hope of succeeding to the
+title, and doosidly out at elbows too—I say what does the bankeress
+mean by chattering about intellect? Hang me, a Marquis is a Marquis;
+and Mrs. Newcome knows it as well as I do.” My good Major was growing
+old, and was not unnaturally a little testy at the manner in which his
+hostess received him. Truth to tell, she hardly took any notice of him
+and cut down a couple of the old gentleman’s stories before he had been
+five minutes in the room.
+
+To our party presently comes the host in a flurried countenance, with a
+white waistcoat, holding in his hand an open letter, towards which his
+wife looks with some alarm. “How dy’ doo, Lady Clara, how dy’ doo,
+Ethel?” he says, saluting those ladies, whom the second carriage had
+brought to us. “Sir Barnes is not coming, that’s one place vacant;
+that, Lady Clara, you won’t mind, you see him at home: but here’s a
+disappointment for you, Miss Newcome, Lord Farintosh can’t come.”
+
+At this, two of the children cry out “Oh! oh!” with such a melancholy
+accent that Miss Newcome and Lady Clara burst out laughing.
+
+“Got a dreadful toothache,” said Mr. Hobson; “here’s his letter.”
+
+“Hang it, what a bore!” cries artless young King’s College.
+
+“Why a bore, Samuel? A bore, as you call it, for Lord Farintosh, I
+grant; but do you suppose that the high in station are exempt from the
+ills of mortality? I know nothing more painful than a toothache,”
+exclaims a virtuous matron, using the words of philosophy, but showing
+the countenance of anger.
+
+“Hang it, why didn’t he have it out?” says Samuel.
+
+Miss Ethel laughed. “Lord Farintosh would not have that tooth out for
+the world, Samuel,” she cried, gaily. “He keeps it in on purpose, and
+it always aches when he does not want to go out to dinner.”
+
+“I know _one_ humble family who will never ask him again,” Mrs. Hobson
+exclaims, rustling in all her silks, and tapping her fan and her foot.
+The eclipse, however, passes off her countenance and light is restored;
+when at this moment, a cab having driven up during the period of
+darkness, the door is flung open, and Lord Highgate is announced by a
+loud-voiced butler.
+
+My wife, being still the bride on this occasion, had the honour of
+being led to the dinner-table by our banker and host. Lord Highgate was
+reserved for Mrs. Hobson, who, in an engaging manner, requested poor
+Clive to conduct his cousin Maria to dinner, handing over Miss Ethel to
+another guest. Our Major gave his arm to Lady Clara, and I perceived
+that my wife looked very grave as he passed the place where she sat,
+and seated Lady Clara in the next chair to that which Lord Highgate
+chanced to occupy. Feeling himself _en vein_, and the company being
+otherwise rather mum and silent, my uncle told a number of delightful
+anecdotes about the beau-monde of his time, about the Peninsular war,
+the Regent, Brummell, Lord Steyne, Pea Green Payne, and so forth. He
+said the evening was very pleasant, though some others of the party, as
+it appeared to me, scarcely seemed to think so. Clive had not a word
+for his cousin Maria, but looked across the table at Ethel all
+dinner-time. What could Ethel have to say to her partner, old Colonel
+Sir Donald M’Craw, who gobbled and drank, as his wont is, and if he had
+a remark to make, imparted it to Mrs. Hobson, at whose right hand he
+was sitting, and to whom, during the whole course, or courses, of the
+dinner, my Lord Highgate scarcely uttered one single word?
+
+His lordship was whispering all the while into the ringlets of Lady
+Clara; they were talking a jargon which their hostess scarcely
+understood, of people only known to her by her study of the Peerage.
+When we joined the ladies after dinner, Lord Highgate again made way
+towards Lady Clara, and at an order from her, as I thought, left her
+ladyship, and strove hard to engage in a conversation with Mrs.
+Newcome. I hope he succeeded in smoothing the frowns in that round
+little face. Mrs. Laura, I own, was as grave as a judge all the
+evening; very grave even and reserved with my uncle, when the hour for
+parting came, and we took him home.
+
+“He, he!” said the old man, coughing, and nodding his old head and
+laughing in his senile manner, when I saw him on the next day; “that
+was a pleasant evening we had yesterday; doosid pleasant, and I think
+my two neighbours seemed to be uncommonly pleased with each other; not
+an amusing fellow, that young painter of yours, though he is
+good-looking enough, but there’s no conversation in him. Do you think
+of giving a little dinner, Arthur, in return for these hospitalities?
+Greenwich, hey, or something of that sort? I’ll go you halves, sir, and
+we’ll ask the young banker and bankeress—not yesterday’s Amphitryon nor
+his wife; no, no, hang it! but Barnes Newcome is a devilish clever,
+rising man, and moves in about as good society as any in London. We’ll
+ask him and Lady Clara and Highgate, and one or two more, and have a
+pleasant party.”
+
+But to this proposal, when the old man communicated it to her, in a
+very quiet, simple, artful way, Laura, with a flushing face said No
+quite abruptly, and quitted the room, rustling in her silks, and
+showing at once dignity and indignation.
+
+Not many more feasts was Arthur Pendennis, senior, to have in this
+world. Not many more great men was he to flatter, nor schemes to wink
+at, nor earthly pleasures to enjoy. His long days were well-nigh ended:
+on his last couch, which Laura tended so affectionately, with his last
+breath almost, he faltered out to me. “I had other views for you, my
+boy, and once hoped to see you in a higher position in life; but I
+begin to think now, Arthur, that I was wrong; and as for that girl,
+sir, I am sure she is an angel.”
+
+May I not inscribe the words with a grateful heart? Blessed he—blessed
+though maybe undeserving—who has the love of a good woman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+Clive in New Quarters
+
+
+My wife was much better pleased with Clive than with some of his
+relatives to whom I had presented her. His face carried a
+recommendation with it that few honest people could resist. He was
+always a welcome friend in our lodgings, and even our uncle the Major
+signified his approval of the lad as a young fellow of very good
+manners and feelings, who, if he chose to throw himself away and be a
+painter, _ma foi_, was rich enough no doubt to follow his own caprices.
+Clive executed a capital head of Major Pendennis, which now hangs in
+our drawing-room at Fairoaks, and reminds me of that friend of my
+youth. Clive occupied ancient lofty chambers in Hanover Square now. He
+had furnished them in an antique manner, with hangings, cabinets,
+carved work, Venice glasses, fine prints, and water-colour sketches of
+good pictures by his own and other hands. He had horses to ride, and a
+liberal purse full of paternal money. Many fine equipages drew up
+opposite to his chambers: few artists had such luck as young Mr. Clive.
+And above his own chambers were other three which the young gentleman
+had hired, and where, says he, “I hope ere very long my dear old father
+will be lodging with me. In another year he says he thinks he will be
+able to come home; when the affairs of the Bank are quite settled. You
+shake your head! why? The shares are worth four times what we gave for
+them. We are men of fortune, Pen, I give you my word. You should see
+how much they make of me at Baynes and Jolly’s, and how civil they are
+to me at Hobson Brothers’! I go into the City now and then, and see our
+manager, Mr. Blackmore. He tells me such stories about indigo, and
+wool, and copper, and sicca rupees, and Company’s rupees. I don’t know
+anything about the business, but my father likes me to go and see Mr.
+Blackmore. Dear cousin Barnes is for ever asking me to dinner; I might
+call Lady Clara Clara if I liked, as Sam Newcome does in Bryanstone
+Square. You can’t think how kind they are to me there. My aunt
+reproaches me tenderly for not going there oftener—it’s not very good
+fun dining in Bryanstone Square, is it? And she praises my cousin Maria
+to me—you should hear my aunt praise her! I have to take Maria down to
+dinner; to sit by the piano and listen to her songs in all languages.
+Do you know Maria can sing Hungarian and Polish, besides your common
+German, Spanish, and Italian? Those I have at our _other_ agents’,
+Baynes and Jolly’s—Baynes’s that is in the Regent’s Park, where the
+girls are prettier and just as civil to me as at Aunt Hobson’s.” And
+here Clive would amuse us by the accounts which he gave us of the
+snares which the Misses Baynes, those young sirens of Regent’s Park,
+set for him; of the songs which they sang to enchant him, the albums in
+which they besought him to draw—the thousand winning ways which they
+employed to bring him into their cave in York Terrace. But neither
+Circe’s smiles nor Calypso’s blandishments had any effect on him; his
+ears were stopped to their music, and his eyes rendered dull to their
+charms by those of the flighty young enchantress with whom my wife had
+of late made acquaintance.
+
+Capitalist though he was, our young fellow was still very affable. He
+forgot no old friends in his prosperity; and the lofty antique chambers
+would not unfrequently be lighted up at nights to receive F. B. and
+some of the old cronies of the Haunt, and some of the Gandishites, who,
+if Clive had been of a nature that was to be spoiled by flattery, had
+certainly done mischief to the young man. Gandish himself, when Clive
+paid a visit to that illustrious artist’s Academy, received his former
+pupil as if the young fellow had been a sovereign prince almost,
+accompanied him to his horse; and would have held his stirrup as he
+mounted; whilst the beautiful daughters of the house waved adieus to
+him from the parlour-window. To the young men assembled in his studio,
+Gandish was never tired of talking about Clive. The Professor would
+take occasion to inform them that he had been to visit his
+distinguished young friend, Mr. Newcome, son of Colonel Newcome; that
+last evening he had been present at an elegant entertainment at Mr.
+Newcome’s new apartments. Clive’s drawings were hung up in Gandish’s
+gallery, and pointed out to visitors by the worthy Professor. On one or
+two occasions, I was allowed to become a bachelor again, and
+participate in these jovial meetings. How guilty my coat was on my
+return home; how haughty the looks of the mistress of my house, as she
+bade Martha carry away the obnoxious garment! How grand F. B. used to
+be as president of Clive’s smoking-party, where he laid down the law,
+talked the most talk, sang the jolliest song, and consumed the most
+drink of all the jolly talkers and drinkers! Clive’s popularity rose
+prodigiously; not only youngsters, but old practitioners of the fine
+arts, lauded his talents. What a shame that his pictures were all
+refused this year at the Academy! Alfred Smee, Esq., R.A., was
+indignant at their rejection, but J. J. confessed with a sigh, and
+Clive owned good-naturedly, that he had been neglecting his business,
+and that his pictures were not so good as those of two years before. I
+am afraid Mr. Clive went to too many balls and parties, to clubs and
+jovial entertainments, besides losing yet more time in that other
+pursuit we wot of. Meanwhile J. J. went steadily on with his work, no
+day passed without a line: and Fame was not very far off, though this
+he heeded but little; and Art, his sole mistress, rewarded him for his
+steady and fond pursuit of her.
+
+“Look at him,” Clive would say with a sigh. “Isn’t he the mortal of all
+others the most to be envied! He is so fond of his art that in all the
+world there is no attraction like it for him. He runs to his easel at
+sunrise, and sits before it caressing his picture all day till
+nightfall. He takes leave of it sadly when dark comes, spends the night
+in a Life Academy, and begins next morning _da capo_. Of all the pieces
+of good fortune which can befall a man, is not this the greatest: to
+have your desire, and then never tire of it? I have been in such a rage
+with my own shortcomings that I have dashed my foot through the
+canvases, and vowed I would smash my palette and easel. Sometimes I
+succeed a little better in my work, and then it will happen for half an
+hour that I am pleased, but pleased at what? pleased at drawing Mr.
+Muggins’s head rather like Mr. Muggins. Why, a thousand fellows can do
+better, and when one day I reach my very best, yet thousands will be
+able to do better still. Ours is a trade for which nowadays there is no
+excuse unless one can be great in it: and I feel I have not the stuff
+for that. No. 666. ‘Portrait of Joseph Muggins, Esq., Newcome, Great
+George Street.’ No. 979. ‘Portrait of Mrs. Muggins, on her grey pony,
+Newcome.’ No. 579. ‘Portrait of Joseph Muggins Esq.’s dog Toby,
+Newcome’—this is—what I’m fit for. These are the victories I have set
+myself on achieving. Oh, Mrs. Pendennis, isn’t it humiliating? Why
+isn’t there a war? Why can’t I go and distinguish myself somewhere and
+be a general? Why haven’t I a genius? I say, Pen, sir, why haven’t I a
+genius? There is a painter who lives hard by, and who sends sometimes,
+to beg me to come and look at his work. He is in the Muggins line too.
+He gets his canvases with a good light upon them: excludes the
+contemplation of all other objects, stands beside his pictures in an
+attitude himself, and thinks that he and they are masterpieces.
+Masterpieces! Oh me, what drivelling wretches we are! Fame!—except that
+of just the one or two—what’s the use of it? I say, Pen, would you feel
+particularly proud now if you had written Hayley’s poems? And as for a
+second place in painting, who would care to be Caravaggio or Caracci? I
+wouldn’t give a straw to be Caracci or Caravaggio. I would just as soon
+be yonder artist who is painting up Foker’s Entire over the
+public-house at the corner. He will have his payment afterwards, five
+shillings a day, and a pot of beer. Your head a little more to the
+light, Mrs. Pendennis, if you please. I am tiring you, I dare say, but
+then, oh, I am doing it so badly!”
+
+I, for my part, thought Clive was making a very pretty drawing of my
+wife, and having affairs of my own to attend to, would often leave her
+at his chambers as a sitter, or find him at our lodgings visiting her.
+They became the very greatest friends. I knew the young fellow could
+have no better friend than Laura; and not being ignorant of the malady
+under which he was labouring, concluded naturally and justly that Clive
+grew so fond of my wife, not for her sake entirely, but for his own,
+because he could pour his heart out to her, and her sweet kindness and
+compassion would soothe him in his unhappy condition.
+
+Miss Ethel, I have said, also professed a great fondness for Mrs.
+Pendennis; and there was that charm in the young lady’s manner which
+speedily could overcome even female jealousy. Perhaps Laura determined
+magnanimously to conquer it; perhaps she hid it so as to vex me and
+prove the injustice of my suspicions: perhaps, honestly, she was
+conquered by the young beauty, and gave her a regard and admiration
+which the other knew she could inspire whenever she had the will. My
+wife was fairly captivated by her at length. The untameable young
+creature was docile and gentle in Laura’s presence; modest, natural,
+amiable, full of laughter and spirits, delightful to see and to hear;
+her presence cheered our quiet little household; her charm fascinated
+my wife as it had subjugated poor Clive. Even the reluctant Farintosh
+was compelled to own her power, and confidentially told his male
+friends, that, hang it, she was so handsome, and so clever, and so
+confoundedly pleasant and fascinating, and that—that he had been on the
+point of popping the fatal question ever so many times, by Jove. “And
+hang it, you know,” his lordship would say, “I don’t want to marry
+until I have had my fling, you know.” As for Clive, Ethel treated him
+like a boy, like a big brother. She was jocular, kind, pert, pleasant
+with him, ordered him on her errands, accepted his bouquets and
+compliments, admired his drawings, liked to hear him praised, and took
+his part in all companies; laughed at his sighs, and frankly owned to
+Laura her liking for him and her pleasure in seeing him. “Why,” said
+she, “should not I be happy as long as the sunshine lasts? To-morrow, I
+know, will be glum and dreary enough. When grandmamma comes back I
+shall scarcely be able to come and see you. When I am settled in
+life—eh! I shall be settled in life! Do not grudge me my holiday,
+Laura. Oh, if you knew how stupid it is to be in the world, and how
+much pleasanter to come and talk, and laugh, and sing, and be happy
+with you, than to sit in that dreary Eaton Place with poor Clara!”
+
+“Why do you stay in Eaton Place?” asks Laura.
+
+“Why? because I must go out with somebody. What an unsophisticated
+little country creature you are! Grandmamma is away, and I cannot go
+about to parties by myself.”
+
+“But why should you go to parties, and why not go back to your mother?”
+says Mrs. Pendennis, gently.
+
+“To the nursery, and my little sisters, and Miss Cann? I like being in
+London best, thank you. You look grave? You think a girl should like to
+be with her mother and sisters best? My dear mamma wishes me to be
+here, and I stay with Barnes and Clara by grandmamma’s orders. Don’t
+you know that I have been made over to Lady Kew, who has adopted me? Do
+you think a young lady of my pretensions can stop at home in a damp
+house in Warwickshire and cut bread-and-butter for little schoolboys?
+Don’t look so very grave and shake your head so, Mrs. Pendennis! If you
+had been bred as I have, you would be as I am. I know what you are
+thinking, madam.”
+
+“I am thinking,” said Laura, blushing and bowing her head—“I am
+thinking, if it pleases God to give me children, I should like to live
+at home at Fairoaks.” My wife’s thoughts, though she did not utter
+them, and a certain modesty and habitual awe kept her silent upon
+subjects so very sacred, went deeper yet. She had been bred to measure
+her actions by a standard which the world may nominally admit, but
+which it leaves for the most part unheeded. Worship, love, duty, as
+taught her by the devout study of the Sacred Law which interprets and
+defines it—if these formed the outward practice of her life, they were
+also its constant and secret endeavours and occupation. She spoke but
+very seldom of her religion, though it filled her heart and influenced
+all her behaviour. Whenever she came to that sacred subject, her
+demeanour appeared to her husband so awful that he scarcely dared to
+approach it in her company, and stood without as this pure creature
+entered into the Holy of Holies. What must the world appear to such a
+person? Its ambitious rewards, disappointments, pleasures, worth how
+much? Compared to the possession of that priceless treasure and
+happiness unspeakable, a perfect faith, what has Life to offer? I see
+before me now her sweet grave face, as she looks out from the balcony
+of the little Richmond villa we occupied during the first happy year
+after our marriage, following Ethel Newcome, who rides away, with a
+staid groom behind her, to her brother’s summer residence, not far
+distant. Clive had been with us in the morning, and had brought us
+stirring news. The good Colonel was by this time on his way home. “If
+Clive could tear himself away from London,” the good man wrote (and we
+thus saw he was acquainted with the state of the young man’s mind),
+“why should not Clive go and meet his father at Malta?” He was feverish
+and eager to go; and his two friends strongly counselled him to take
+the journey. In the midst of our talk Miss Ethel came among us. She
+arrived flushed and in high spirits; she rallied Clive upon his gloomy
+looks; she turned rather pale, as it seemed to us, when she heard the
+news. Then she coldly told him she thought the voyage must be a
+pleasant one, and would do him good: it was pleasanter than that
+journey she was going to take herself with her dreary grandmother, to
+those German springs which the old Countess frequented year after year.
+Mr. Pendennis having business, retired to his study, whither presently
+Mrs. Laura followed, having to look for her scissors, or a book she
+wanted, or upon some pretext or other. She sate down in the conjugal
+study; not one word did either of us say for a while about the young
+people left alone in the drawing-room yonder. Laura talked about our
+own home at Fairoaks, which our tenants were about to vacate. She vowed
+and declared that we must live at Fairoaks; that Clavering, with all
+its tittle-tattle and stupid inhabitants, was better than this wicked
+London. Besides, there were some new and very pleasant families settled
+in the neighbourhood. Clavering Park was taken by some delightful
+people—“and you know, Pen, you were always very fond of fly-fishing,
+and may fish the Brawl, as you used in old days, when—” The lips of the
+pretty satirist who alluded to these unpleasant bygones were silenced
+as they deserved to be by Mr. Pendennis. “Do you think, sir, I did not
+know,” says the sweetest voice in the world, “when you went out on your
+fishing excursions with Miss Amory?” Again the flow of words is checked
+by the styptic previously applied.
+
+“I wonder,” says Mr. Pendennis, archly, bending over his wife’s fair
+hand—“I wonder whether this kind of thing is taking place in the
+drawing-room?”
+
+“Nonsense, Arthur. It is time to go back to them. Why, I declare, I
+have been three-quarters of an hour away!”
+
+“I don’t think they will much miss you, my dear,” says the gentleman.
+
+“She is certainly very fond of him. She is always coming here. I am
+sure it is not to hear you read Shakspeare, Arthur; or your new novel,
+though it is very pretty. I wish Lady Kew and her sixty thousand pounds
+were at the bottom of the sea.”
+
+“But she says she is going to portion her younger brothers with a part
+of it; she told Clive so,” remarks Mr. Pendennis.
+
+“For shame! Why does not Barnes Newcome portion his younger brothers? I
+have no patience with that——Why! Goodness! There is Clive going away,
+actually! Clive! Mr. Newcome!” But though my wife ran to the
+study-window and beckoned our friend, he only shook his head, jumped on
+his horse, and rode away gloomily.
+
+“Ethel had been crying when I went into the room,” Laura afterwards
+told me. “I knew she had; but she looked up from some flowers over
+which she was bending, began to laugh and rattle, would talk about
+nothing but Lady Hautboi’s great breakfast the day before, and the most
+insufferable Mayfair jargon; and then declared it was time to go home
+and dress for Mrs. Booth’s _déjeûner_, which was to take place that
+afternoon.”
+
+And so Miss Newcome rode away—back amongst the roses and the
+rouges—back amongst the fiddling, flirting, flattery, falseness—and
+Laura’s sweet serene face looked after her departing. Mrs. Booth’s was
+a very grand _déjeûner_. We read in the newspapers a list of the
+greatest names there. A Royal Duke and Duchess; a German Highness, a
+Hindoo Nabob, etc.; and, amongst the Marquises, Farintosh; and, amongst
+the Lords, Highgate; and Lady Clara Newcome, and Miss Newcome, who
+looked killing, our acquaintance Captain Crackthorpe informs us, and
+who was in perfectly stunning spirits. “His Imperial Highness the Grand
+Duke of Farintosh is wild about her,” the Captain said, “and our poor
+young friend Clive may just go and hang himself. Dine with us at the
+Gar and Starter? Jolly party. Oh! I forgot! married man now!” So
+saying, the Captain entered the hostelry near which I met him, leaving
+this present chronicler to return to his own home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+An Old Friend
+
+
+I might open the present chapter as a contemporary writer of Romance is
+occasionally in the habit of commencing his tales of Chivalry, by a
+description of a November afternoon falling leaves, tawny forests,
+gathering storms, and other autumnal phenomena; and two horsemen
+winding up the romantic road which leads from—from Richmond Bridge to
+the Star and Garter. The one rider is youthful, and has a blonde
+moustache. The cheek of the other has been browned by foreign suns; it
+is easy to see by the manner in which he bestrides his powerful charger
+that he has followed the profession of arms. He looks as if he had
+faced his country’s enemies on many a field of Eastern battle. The
+cavaliers alight before the gate of a cottage on Richmond Hill, where a
+gentleman receives them with eager welcome. Their steeds are
+accommodated at a neighbouring hostelry,—I pause in the midst of the
+description, for the reader has made the acquaintance of our two
+horsemen long since. It is Clive returned from Malta, from Gibraltar,
+from Seville, from Cadiz, and with him our dear old friend the Colonel.
+His campaigns are over, his sword is hung up, he leaves Eastern suns
+and battles to warm younger blood. Welcome back to England, dear
+Colonel and kind friend! How quickly the years have passed since he has
+been gone! There is a streak or two more silver in his hair. The
+wrinkles about his honest eyes are somewhat deeper, but their look is
+as steadfast and kind as in the early, almost boyish days when first we
+knew them.
+
+We talk a while about the Colonel’s voyage home, the pleasures of the
+Spanish journey, the handsome new quarters in which Clive has installed
+his father and himself, my own altered condition in life, and what not.
+During the conversation a little querulous voice makes itself audible
+above-stairs, at which noise Mr. Clive begins to laugh, and the Colonel
+to smile. It is for the first time in his life Mr. Clive listens to the
+little voice; indeed, it is only since about six weeks that that small
+organ has been heard in the world at all. Laura Pendennis believes its
+tunes to be the sweetest, the most interesting, the most
+mirth-inspiring, the most pitiful and pathetic, that ever baby uttered;
+which opinions, of course, are backed by Mrs. Hokey, the confidential
+nurse. Laura’s husband is not so rapturous; but, let us trust, behaves
+in a way becoming a man and a father. We forgo the description of his
+feelings as not pertaining to the history at present under
+consideration. A little while before the dinner is served, the lady of
+the cottage comes down to greet her husband’s old friends.
+
+And here I am sorely tempted to a third description, which has nothing
+to do with the story, to be sure, but which, if properly hit off, might
+fill half a page very prettily. For is not a young mother one of the
+sweetest sights which life shows us? If she has been beautiful before,
+does not her present pure joy give a character of refinement and
+sacredness almost to her beauty, touch her sweet cheeks with fairer
+blushes, and impart I know not what serene brightness to her eyes? I
+give warning to the artist who designs the pictures for this veracious
+story, to make no attempt at this subject. I never would be satisfied
+with it were his drawing ever so good.
+
+When Sir Charles Grandison stepped up and made his very beautifullest
+bow to Miss Byron, I am sure his gracious dignity never exceeded that
+of Colonel Newcome’s first greeting to Mrs. Pendennis. Of course from
+the very moment they beheld one another they became friends. Are not
+most of our likings thus instantaneous? Before she came down to see
+him, Laura had put on one of the Colonel’s shawls—the crimson one, with
+the red palm-leaves and the border of many colours. As for the white
+one, the priceless, the gossamer, the fairy web, which might pass
+through a ring, _that_, every lady must be aware, was already
+appropriated to cover the cradle, or what I believe is called the
+bassinet, of Master Pendennis.
+
+So we all became the very best of friends; and during the winter months
+whilst we still resided at Richmond, the Colonel was my wife’s constant
+visitor. He often came without Clive. He did not care for the world
+which the young gentleman frequented, and was more pleased and at home
+by my wife’s fireside than at more noisy and splendid entertainments.
+And, Laura being a sentimental person interested in pathetic novels and
+all unhappy attachments, of course she and the Colonel talked a great
+deal about Mr. Clive’s little affair, over which they would have such
+deep confabulations that even when the master of the house appeared,
+Pater Familias, the man whom, in the presence of the Rev. Dr. Portman,
+Mrs. Laura had sworn to love and honour these two guilty ones would be
+silent, or change the subject of conversation, not caring to admit such
+an unsympathising person as myself into their conspiracy.
+
+From many a talk which they have had together since the Colonel and his
+son embraced at Malta, Clive’s father had been led to see how strongly
+the passion which our friend had once fought and mastered, had now
+taken possession of the young man. The unsatisfied longing left him
+indifferent to all other objects of previous desire or ambition. The
+misfortune darkened the sunshine of his spirit, and clouded the world
+before his eyes. He passed hours in his painting-room, though he tore
+up what he did there. He forsook his usual haunts, or appeared amongst
+his old comrades moody and silent. From cigar-smoking, which I own to
+be a reprehensible practice, he plunged into still deeper and darker
+dissipation; for I am sorry to say, he took to pipes and the strongest
+tobacco, for which there is _no_ excuse. Our young man was changed.
+During the last fifteen or twenty months, the malady had been
+increasing on him, of which we have not chosen to describe at length
+the stages; knowing very well that the reader (the male reader at
+least) does not care a fig about other people’s sentimental
+perplexities, and is not wrapped up heart and soul in Clive’s affairs
+like his father, whose rest was disturbed if the boy had a headache, or
+who would have stripped the coat off his back to keep his darling’s
+feet warm.
+
+The object of this hopeless passion had, meantime, returned to the
+custody of the dark old duenna, from which she had been liberated for a
+while. Lady Kew had got her health again, by means of the prescriptions
+of some doctors, or by the efficacy of some baths; and was again on
+foot and in the world, tramping about in her grim pursuit of pleasure.
+Lady Julia, we are led to believe, had retired upon half-pay, and into
+an inglorious exile at Brussels, with her sister, the outlaw’s wife, by
+whose bankrupt fireside she was perfectly happy. Miss Newcome was now
+her grandmother’s companion, and they had been on a tour of visits in
+Scotland, and were journeying from country-house to country-house about
+the time when our good Colonel returned to his native shores.
+
+The Colonel loved his nephew Barnes no better than before, perhaps,
+though we must say that since his return from India the young Baronet’s
+conduct had been particularly friendly. “No doubt marriage had improved
+him; Lady Clara seemed a good-natured young woman enough; besides,”
+says the Colonel, wagging his good old head knowingly, “Tom Newcome, of
+the Bundelcund Bank, is a personage to be conciliated; whereas Tom
+Newcome, of the Bengal Cavalry, was not worth Master Barnes’s
+attention. He has been very good and kind on the whole; so have his
+friends been uncommonly civil. There was Clive’s acquaintance, Mr.
+Belsize that was, Lord Highgate who is now, entertained our whole
+family sumptuously last week—wants us and Barnes and his wife to go to
+his country-house at Christmas—is as hospitable, my dear Mrs.
+Pendennis, as man can be. He met you at Barnes’s, and as soon as we are
+alone,” says the Colonel, turning round to Laura’s husband, “I will
+tell you in what terms Lady Clara speaks of your wife. Yes. She is a
+good-natured, kind little woman, that Lady Clara.” Here Laura’s face
+assumed that gravity and severeness, which it always wore when Lady
+Clara’s name was mentioned, and the conversation took another turn.
+
+Returning home from London one afternoon, I met the Colonel, who hailed
+me on the omnibus, and rode on his way towards the City, I knew, of
+course, that he had been colloquying with my wife; and taxed that young
+woman with these continued flirtations. “Two or three times a week,
+Mrs. Laura, you dare to receive a Colonel of Dragoons. You sit for
+hours closeted with the young fellow of sixty; you change the
+conversation when your own injured husband enters the room, and pretend
+to talk about the weather, or the baby. You little arch hypocrite, you
+know you do. Don’t try to humbug me, miss; what will Richmond, what
+will society, what will Mrs. Grundy in general say to such atrocious
+behaviour?”
+
+“Oh! Pen,” says my wife, closing my mouth in a way which I do not
+choose further to particularise; “that man is the best, the dearest,
+the kindest creature. I never knew such a good man; you ought to put
+him into a book. Do you know, sir, that I felt the very greatest desire
+to give him a kiss when he went away; and that one which you had just
+now, was intended for him.
+
+“Take back thy gift, false girl!” says Mr. Pendennis; and then, finally,
+we come to the particular circumstance which had occasioned so much
+enthusiasm on Mrs. Laura’s part.
+
+Colonel Newcome had summoned heart of grace, and in Clive’s behalf had
+regularly proposed him to Barnes, as a suitor to Ethel, taking an
+artful advantage of his nephew Barnes Newcome, and inviting that Barnes
+to a private meeting, where they were to talk about the affairs of the
+Bundelcund Banking Company.
+
+Now this Bundelcund Banking Company, in the Colonel’s eyes, was in
+reality his son Clive. But for Clive there might have been a hundred
+banking companies established, yielding a hundred per cent, in as many
+districts of India, and Thomas Newcome, who had plenty of money for his
+own wants, would never have thought of speculation. His desire was to
+see his boy endowed with all the possible gifts of fortune. Had he
+built a palace for Clive, and been informed that a roc’s egg was
+required to complete the decoration of the edifice, Tom Newcome would
+have travelled to the world’s end in search of the wanting article. To
+see Prince Clive ride in a gold coach with a princess beside him, was
+the kind old Colonel’s ambition; that done, he would be content to
+retire to a garret in the prince’s castle, and smoke his cheroot there
+in peace. So the world is made. The strong and eager covet honour and
+enjoyment for themselves; the gentle and disappointed (once, they may
+have been strong and eager, too) desire these gifts for their children.
+I think Clive’s father never liked or understood the lad’s choice of a
+profession. He acquiesced in it as he would in any of his son’s wishes.
+But, not being a poet himself, he could not see the nobility of that
+calling; and felt secretly that his son was demeaning himself by
+pursuing the art of painting. “Had he been a soldier, now,” thought
+Thomas Newcome, “(though I prevented that) had he been richer than he
+is, he might have married Ethel, instead of being unhappy as he now is,
+God help him! I remember my own time of grief well enough: and what
+years it took before my wound was scarred over.”
+
+So with these things occupying his brain Thomas Newcome artfully
+invited Barnes, his nephew, to dinner under pretence of talking of the
+affairs of the great B. B. C. With the first glass of wine at dessert,
+and according to the Colonel’s good old-fashioned custom of proposing
+toasts, they drank the health of the B. B. C. Barnes drank the toast
+with all his generous heart. The B. B. C. sent to Hobson Brothers and
+Newcome a great deal of business, was in a most prosperous condition,
+kept a great balance at the bank, a balance that would not be
+overdrawn, as Sir Barnes Newcome very well knew. Barnes was for having
+more of these bills, provided there were remittances to meet the same.
+Barnes was ready to do any amount of business with the Indian bank, or
+with any bank, or with any individual, Christian or heathen, white or
+black, who could do good to the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcome. He
+spoke upon this subject with great archness and candour: of course as a
+City man he would be glad to do a profitable business anywhere, and the
+B. B. C.’s business was profitable. But the interested motive which he
+admitted frankly as a man of the world, did not prevent other
+sentiments more agreeable. “My dear Colonel,” says Barnes, “I am happy,
+most happy, to think that our house and our name should have been
+useful, as I know they have been, in the establishment of a concern in
+which one of our family is interested; one whom we all so sincerely
+respect and regard.” And he touched his glass with his lips and blushed
+a little, as he bowed towards his uncle. He found himself making a
+little speech, indeed; and to do so before one single person seems
+rather odd. Had there been a large company present Barnes would not
+have blushed at all, but have tossed off his glass, struck his
+waistcoat possibly, and looked straight in the face of his uncle as the
+chairman; well, he _did_ very likely believe that he respected and
+regarded the Colonel.
+
+The Colonel said—“Thank you, Barnes, with all my heart. It is always
+good for men to be friends, much more for blood relations, as we are.”
+
+“A relationship which honours me, I’m sure!” says Barnes, with a tone
+of infinite affability. You see, he believed that Heaven had made him
+the Colonel’s superior.
+
+“And I am very glad,” the elder went on, “that you and my boy are good
+friends.”
+
+“Friends! of course. It would be unnatural if such near relatives were
+otherwise than good friends.”
+
+“You have been hospitable to him, and Lady Clara very kind, and he
+wrote to me telling me of your kindness. Ahem! this is tolerable
+claret. I wonder where Clive gets it?”
+
+“You were speaking about that indigo, Colonel!” here Barnes interposes.
+“Our house has done very little in that way, to be sure but I suppose
+that our credit is _about_ as good as Baines and Jolly’s, and if——” but
+the Colonel is in a brown study.
+
+“Clive will have a good bit of money when I die,” resumes Clive’s
+father.
+
+“Why, you are a hale man—upon my word, quite a young man, and may marry
+again, Colonel,” replies the nephew fascinatingly.
+
+“I shall never do that,” replies the other. “Ere many years are gone, I
+shall be seventy years old, Barnes.”
+
+“Nothing in this country, my dear sir! positively nothing. Why, there
+was Titus, my neighbour in the country—when will you come down to
+Newcome?—who married a devilish pretty girl, of very good family, too,
+Miss Burgeon, one of the Devonshire Burgeons. He looks, I am sure,
+twenty years older than you do. Why should not you do likewise?”
+
+“Because I like to remain single, and want to leave Clive a rich man.
+Look here, Barnes, you know the value of our bank shares, now?”
+
+“Indeed I do; rather speculative; but of course I know what some sold
+for last week,” says Barnes.
+
+“Suppose I realise now. I think I am worth six lakhs. I had nearly two
+from my poor father. I saved some before and since I invested in this
+affair; and could sell out to-morrow with sixty thousand pounds.”
+
+“A very pretty sum of money, Colonel,” says Barnes.
+
+“I have a pension of a thousand a year.”
+
+“My dear Colonel, you are a capitalist! we know it very well,” remarks
+Sir Barnes.
+
+“And two hundred a year is as much as I want for myself,” continues the
+capitalist, looking into the fire, and jingling his money in his
+pockets. “A hundred a year for a horse; a hundred a year for
+pocket-money, for I calculate, you know, that Clive will give me a
+bedroom and my dinner.”
+
+“He! he! If your son won’t, your nephew will, my dear Colonel!” says
+the affable Barnes, smiling sweetly.
+
+“I can give the boy a handsome allowance, you see,” resumes Thomas
+Newcome.
+
+“You can make him a handsome allowance now, and leave him a good
+fortune when you die!” says the nephew, in a noble and courageous
+manner,—and as if he said Twelve times twelve are a hundred and
+forty-four and you have Sir Barnes Newcome’s authority—Sir Barnes
+Newcome’s, mind you—to say so.
+
+“Not when I die, Barnes,” the uncle goes on. “I will give him every
+shilling I am worth to-morrow morning, if he marries as I wish him.”
+
+“Tant mieux pour lui!” cries the nephew; and thought to himself, “Lady
+Clara must ask Clive to dinner instantly. Confound the fellow. I hate
+him—always have; but what luck he has!”
+
+“A man with that property may pretend to a good wife, as the French
+say; hey Barnes?” asks the Colonel, rather eagerly looking up in his
+nephew’s face.
+
+That countenance was lighted up with a generous enthusiasm. “To any
+woman, in any rank—to a nobleman’s daughter, my dear sir!” exclaims Sir
+Barnes.
+
+“I want your sister; I want dear Ethel for him, Barnes,” cries Thomas
+Newcome, with a trembling voice, and a twinkle in his eyes. “That was
+the hope I always had till my talk with your poor father stopped it.
+Your sister was engaged to my Lord Kew then; and my wishes of course
+were impossible. The poor boy is very much cut up, and his whole heart
+is bent upon possessing her. She is not, she can’t be, indifferent to
+him. I am sure she would not be, if her family in the least encouraged
+him. Can either of these young folks have a better chance of happiness
+again offered to them in life? There’s youth, there’s mutual liking,
+there’s wealth for them almost—only saddled with the encumbrance of an
+old dragoon, who won’t be much in their way. Give us your good word,
+Barnes, and let them come together; and upon my word the rest of my
+days will be made happy if I can eat my meal at their table.”
+
+Whilst the poor Colonel was making his appeal, Barnes had time to
+collect his answer; which, since in our character of historians we take
+leave to explain gentlemen’s motives as well as record their speeches
+and actions, we may thus interpret. “Confound the young beggar!” thinks
+Barnes, then. “He will have three or four thousand a year, will he?
+Hang him, but it’s a good sum of money. What a fool his father is to
+give it away! Is he joking? No, he was always half crazy—the Colonel.
+Highgate seemed uncommonly sweet on her, and was always hanging about
+our house. Farintosh has not been brought to book yet; and perhaps
+neither of them will propose for her. My grandmother, I should think,
+won’t hear of her making a low marriage, as this certainly is: but it’s
+a pity to throw away four thousand a year, ain’t it?” All these natural
+calculations passed briskly through Barnes Newcome’s mind, as his
+uncle, from the opposite side of the fireplace, implored him in the
+above little speech.
+
+“My dear Colonel,” said Barnes, “my dear, kind Colonel! I needn’t tell
+you that your proposal flatters us, as much as your extraordinary
+generosity surprises me. I never heard anything like it—never. Could I
+consult my own wishes I would at once—I would, permit me to say, from
+sheer admiration of your noble character, say yes, with all my heart,
+to your proposal. But, alas, I haven’t that power.”
+
+“Is—is she engaged?” asks the Colonel, looking as blank and sad as
+Clive himself when Ethel had conversed with him.
+
+“No—I cannot say engaged—though a person of the very highest rank has
+paid her the most marked attention. But my sister has, in a way, gone
+from our family, and from my influence as the head of it—an influence
+which I, I am sure, had most gladly exercised in your favour. My
+grandmother, Lady Kew, has adopted her; purposes, I believe, to leave
+Ethel the greater part of her fortune, upon certain conditions; and, of
+course, expects the—the obedience, and so forth, which is customary in
+such cases. By the way, Colonel, is our young soupirant aware that papa
+is pleading his cause for him?”
+
+The Colonel said no; and Barnes lauded the caution which his uncle had
+displayed. It was quite as well for the young man’s interests (which
+Sir Barnes had most tenderly at heart) that Clive Newcome should not
+himself move in the affair, or present himself to Lady Kew. Barnes
+would take the matter in hand at the proper season; the Colonel might
+be sure it would be most eagerly, most ardently pressed. Clive came
+home at this juncture, whom Barnes saluted affectionately. He and the
+Colonel had talked over their money business; their conversation had
+been most satisfactory, thank you. “Has it not, Colonel?” The three
+parted the very best of friends.
+
+As Barnes Newcome professed that extreme interest for his cousin and
+uncle, it is odd he did not tell them that Lady Kew and Miss Ethel
+Newcome were at that moment within a mile of them, at her ladyship’s
+house in Queen Street, Mayfair. In the hearing of Clive’s servant,
+Barnes did not order his brougham to drive to Queen Street, but waited
+until he was in Bond Street before he gave the order.
+
+And, of course, when he entered Lady Kew’s house, he straightway asked
+for his sister, and communicated to her the generous offer which the
+good Colonel had made.
+
+You see, Lady Kew was in town, and not in town. Her ladyship was but
+passing through, on her way from a tour of visits in the North, to
+another tour of visits somewhere else. The newspapers were not even off
+the blinds. The proprietor of the house cowered over a bed-candle and a
+furtive teapot in the back drawing-room. Lady Kew’s _gens_ were not here.
+The tall canary ones with white polls, only showed their plumage and
+sang in spring. The solitary wretch who takes charge of London houses,
+and the two servants specially affected to Lady Kew’s person, were the
+only people in attendance. In fact, her ladyship was not in town. And
+that is why, no doubt, Barnes Newcome said nothing about her being
+there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+Family Secrets
+
+
+The figure cowering over the furtive teapot glowered grimly at Barnes
+as he entered; and an old voice said—“Ho, it’s you!”
+
+“I have brought you the notes, ma’am,” says Barnes, taking a packet of
+those documents from his pocket-book. “I could not come sooner, I have
+been engaged upon bank business until now.”
+
+“I dare say! You smell of smoke like a courier.”
+
+“A foreign capitalist: he would smoke. They will, ma’am. _I_ didn’t
+smoke, upon my word.”
+
+“I don’t see why you shouldn’t, if you like it. You will never get
+anything out of me whether you do or don’t. How is Clara? Is she gone
+to the country with the children? Newcome is the best place for her.”
+
+“Doctor Bambury thinks she can move in a fortnight. The boy has had a
+little——”
+
+“A little fiddlestick! I tell you it is she who likes to stay, and
+makes that fool, Bambury, advise her not going away. I tell you to send
+her to Newcome. The air is good for her.”
+
+“By that confounded smoky town, my dear Lady Kew?”
+
+“And invite your mother and little brothers and sisters to stay
+Christmas there. The way in which you neglect them is shameful, it is,
+Barnes.”
+
+“Upon my word, ma’am, I propose to manage my own affairs without your
+ladyship’s assistance,” cries Barnes, starting up, “and did not come at
+this time of night to hear this kind of——”
+
+“Of good advice. I sent for you to give it you. When I wrote to you to
+bring me the money I wanted it was but a pretext; Barkins might have
+fetched it from the City in the morning. I want you to send Clara and
+the children to Newcome. They ought to go, sir. That is why I sent for
+you; to tell you that. Have you been quarrelling as much as usual?”
+
+“Pretty much as usual,” says Barnes, drumming on his hat.
+
+“Don’t beat that devil’s tattoo; you agacez my poor old nerves. When
+Clara was given to you she was as well broke a girl as any in London.”
+
+Sir Barnes responded by a groan.
+
+“She was as gentle and amenable to reason, as good-natured a girl as
+could be; a little vacant and silly, but you men like dolls for your
+wives; and now in three years you have utterly spoiled her. She is
+restive, she is artful, she flies into rages, she fights you and beats
+you. He! he! and that comes of your beating her!”
+
+“I didn’t come to hear this, ma’am,” says Barnes, livid with rage
+
+“You struck her, you know you did, Sir Barnes Newcome. She rushed over
+to me last year on the night you did it, you know she did.”
+
+“Great God, ma’am! You know the provocation,” screams Barnes.
+
+“Provocation or not, I don’t say. But from that moment she has beat
+you. You fool, to write her a letter and ask her pardon. If I had been
+a man I would rather have strangled my wife, than have humiliated
+myself so before her. She will never forgive that blow.”
+
+“I was mad when I did it; and she drove me mad,” says Barnes. “She has
+the temper of a fiend, and the ingenuity of the devil. In two years an
+entire change has come over her. If I had used a knife to her I should
+not have been surprised. But it is not with you to reproach me about
+Clara. Your ladyship found her for me.”
+
+“And you spoilt her after she was found, sir. She told me part of her
+story that night she came to me. I know it is true, Barnes. You have
+treated her dreadfully, sir.”
+
+“I know that she makes my life miserable, and there is no help for it,”
+says Barnes, grinding a curse between his teeth. “Well, well, no more
+about this. How is Ethel? Gone to sleep after her journey? What do you
+think, ma’am, I have brought for her? A proposal.”
+
+“Bon Dieu! You don’t mean to say Charles Belsize was in earnest!” cries
+the dowager. “I always thought it was a——”
+
+“It is not from Lord Highgate, ma’am,” Sir Barnes said, gloomily. “It
+is some time since I have known that he was not in earnest; and he
+knows that I am now.”
+
+“Gracious goodness! come to blows with him, too? You have not? That
+would be the very thing to make the world talk,” says the dowager, with
+some anxiety.
+
+“No,” answers Barnes. “He knows well enough that there can be no open
+rupture. We had some words the other day at a dinner he gave at his own
+house; Colonel Newcome and that young beggar, Clive, and that fool, Mr.
+Hobson, were there. Lord Highgate was confoundedly insolent. He told me
+that I did not dare to quarrel with him because of the account he kept
+at our house. I should like to have massacred him! She has told him
+that I struck her,—the insolent brute—he says he will tell it at my
+clubs; and threatens personal violence to me, there, if I do it again.
+Lady Kew, I’m not safe from that man and that woman,” cries poor
+Barnes, in an agony of terror.
+
+“Fighting is Jack Belsize’s business, Barnes Newcome; banking is yours,
+luckily,” said the dowager. “As old Lord Highgate was to die and his
+eldest son, too, it is a pity certainly they had not died a year or two
+earlier, and left poor Clara and Charles to come together. You should
+have married some woman in the serious way; my daughter Walham could
+have found you one. Frank, I am told, and his wife go on very sweetly
+together; her mother-in-law governs the whole family. They have turned
+the theatre back into a chapel again: they have six little ploughboys
+dressed in surplices to sing the service; and Frank and the Vicar of
+Kewbury play at cricket with them on holidays. Stay, why should not
+Clara go to Kewbury?”
+
+“She and her sister have quarrelled about this very affair with Lord
+Highgate. Some time ago it appears they had words about it and when I
+told Kew that bygones had best be bygones, that Highgate was very sweet
+upon Ethel now, and that I did not choose to lose such a good account
+as his, Kew was very insolent to me; his conduct was blackguardly,
+ma’am, quite blackguardly, and you may be sure but for our relationship
+I would have called him to——”
+
+Here the talk between Barnes and his ancestress was interrupted by the
+appearance of Miss Ethel Newcome, taper in hand, who descended from the
+upper regions enveloped in a shawl.
+
+“How do you do, Barnes? How is Clara? I long to see my little nephew.
+Is he like his pretty papa?” cries the young lady, giving her fair
+cheek to her brother.
+
+“Scotland has agreed with our Newcome rose,” says Barnes, gallantly.
+“My dear Ethel, I never saw you in greater beauty.”
+
+“By the light of one bedroom candle! what should I be if the whole room
+were lighted? You would see my face then was covered all over with
+wrinkles, and quite pale and woebegone, with the dreariness of the
+Scotch journey. Oh, what a time we have spent! haven’t we, grandmamma?
+I never wish to go to a great castle again; above all, I never wish to
+go to a little shooting-box. Scotland may be very well for men; but for
+women—allow me to go to Paris when next there is talk of a Scotch
+expedition. I had rather be in a boarding-school in the Champs Elysées
+than in the finest castle in the Highlands. If it had not been for a
+blessed quarrel with Fanny Follington, I think I should have died at
+Glen Shorthorn. Have you seen my dear, dear uncle, the Colonel? When
+did he arrive?”
+
+“Is he come? Why is he come?” asks Lady Kew.
+
+“Is he come? Look here, grandmamma! did you ever see such a darling
+shawl! I found it in a packet in my room.”
+
+“Well, it is beautiful,” cries the Dowager, bending her ancient nose
+over the web. “Your Colonel is a galant homme. That must be said of
+him; and in this does not quite take after the rest of the family. Hum!
+hum! is he going away again soon?”
+
+“He has made a fortune, a very considerable fortune for a man in that
+rank in life,” says Sir Barnes. “He cannot have less than sixty
+thousand pounds.”
+
+“Is that much?” asks Ethel.
+
+“Not in England, at our rate of interest; but his money is in India,
+where he gets a great percentage. His income must be five or six
+thousand pounds, ma’am,” says Barnes, turning to Lady Kew.
+
+“A few of the Indians were in society in my time, my dear,” says Lady
+Kew, musingly. “My father has often talked to me about Barbell of
+Stanstead, and his house in St. James’s Square; the man who ordered
+more curricles when there were not carriages enough for his guests. I
+was taken to Mr. Hastings’s trial. It was very stupid and long. The
+young man, the painter, I suppose will leave his paint-pots now, and
+set up as a gentleman. I suppose they were very poor, or his father
+would not have put him to such a profession. Barnes, why did you not
+make him a clerk in the bank, and save him from the humiliation?”
+
+“Humiliation! why, he is proud of it. My uncle is as proud as a
+Plantagenet; though he is as humble as—as what! Give me a simile
+Barnes. Do you know what my quarrel with Fanny Follington was about?
+She said we were not descended from the barber-surgeon, and laughed at
+the Battle of Bosworth. She says our great-grandfather was a weaver.
+Was he a weaver?”
+
+“How should I know? and what on earth does it matter, my child? Except
+the Gaunts, the Howards, and one or two more, there is scarcely any
+good blood in England. You are lucky in sharing some of mine. My poor
+Lord Kew’s grandfather was an apothecary at Hampton Court, and founded
+the family by giving a dose of rhubarb to Queen Caroline. As a rule,
+nobody is of a good family. Didn’t that young man, that son of the
+Colonel’s, go about last year? How did he get in society? Where did we
+meet him? Oh! at Baden, yes; when Barnes was courting, and my
+grandson—yes, my grandson, acted so wickedly.” Here she began to cough,
+and to tremble so, that her old stick shook under her hand. “Ring the
+bell for Ross. Ross, I will go to bed. Go you too, Ethel. You have been
+travelling enough to-day.”
+
+“Her memory seems to fail her a little,” Ethel whispered to her
+brother; “or she will only remember what she wishes. Don’t you see that
+she has grown very much older?”
+
+“I will be with her in the morning. I have business with her,” said
+Barnes.
+
+“Good night. Give my love to Clara, and kiss the little ones for me.
+Have you done what you promised me, Barnes?”
+
+“What?”
+
+“To be—to be kind to Clara. Don’t say cruel things to her. She has a
+high spirit, and she feels them, though she says nothing.”
+
+“_Doesn’t_ she?” said Barnes, grimly.
+
+“Ah, Barnes, be gentle with her. Seldom as I saw you together, when I
+lived with you in the spring, I could see that you were harsh, though
+she affected to laugh when she spoke of your conduct to her. Be kind. I
+am sure it is the best, Barnes; better than all the wit in the world.
+Look at grandmamma, how witty she was and is; what a reputation she
+had, how people were afraid of her; and see her now—quite alone.”
+
+“I’ll see her in the morning quite alone, my dear,” says Barnes, waving
+a little gloved hand. “Bye-bye!” and his brougham drove away. While
+Ethel Newcome had been under her brother’s roof, where I and friend
+Clive, and scores of others, had been smartly entertained, there had
+been quarrels and recriminations, misery and heart-burning, cruel words
+and shameful struggles, the wretched combatants in which appeared
+before the world with smiling faces, resuming their battle when the
+feast was concluded and the company gone.
+
+On the next morning, when Barnes came to visit his grandmother, Miss
+Newcome was gone away to see her sister-in-law, Lady Kew said, with
+whom she was going to pass the morning; so Barnes and Lady Kew had an
+uninterrupted _tête-à-tête_, in which the former acquainted the old
+lady with the proposal which Colonel Newcome had made to him on the
+previous night.
+
+Lady Kew wondered what the impudence of the world’s would come to. An
+artist propose for Ethel! One of her footmen might propose next, and
+she supposed Barnes would bring the message. “The father came and
+proposed for this young painter, and you didn’t order him out of the
+room!”
+
+Barnes laughed. “The Colonel is one of my constituents. I can’t afford
+to order the Bundelcund Banking Company out of its own room.”
+
+“You did not tell Ethel this pretty news, I suppose?”
+
+“Of course I didn’t tell Ethel. Nor did I tell the Colonel that Ethel
+was in London. He fancies her in Scotland with your ladyship at this
+moment.”
+
+“I wish the Colonel were at Calcutta, and his son with him. I wish he
+was in the Ganges, I wish he was under Juggernaut’s car,” cried the old
+lady. “How much money has the wretch really got? If he is of importance
+to the bank, of course you must keep well with him. Five thousand a
+year, and he says he will settle it all on his son? He must be crazy.
+There is nothing some of these people will not do, no sacrifice they
+will not make, to ally themselves with good families. Certainly you
+must remain on good terms with him and his bank. And we must say
+nothing of the business to Ethel, and trot out of town as quickly as we
+can. Let me see? We go to Drummington on Saturday. This is Tuesday.
+Barkins, you will keep the front drawing-room shutters shut, and
+remember we are not in town, unless Lady Glenlivat or Lord Farintosh
+should call.”
+
+“Do you think Farintosh will—will call, ma’am?” asked Sir Barnes
+demurely.
+
+“He will be going through to Newmarket. He has been where we have been
+at two or three places in Scotland,” replies the lady, with equal
+gravity. “His poor mother wishes him to give up his bachelor’s life—as
+well she may—for you young men are terribly dissipated. Rossmont is
+quite a regal place. His Norfolk house is not inferior. A young man of
+that station ought to marry, and live at his places, and be an example
+to his people, instead of frittering away his time at Paris and Vienna
+amongst the most odious company.”
+
+“Is he going to Drummington?” asks the grandson.
+
+“I believe he has been invited. We shall go to Paris for November: he
+probably will be there,” answered the Dowager casually; “and tired of
+the dissipated life he has been leading, let us hope he will mend his
+ways, and find a virtuous, well-bred young woman to keep him right.”
+With this her ladyship’s apothecary is announced, and her banker and
+grandson takes his leave.
+
+Sir Barnes walked into the City with his umbrella, read his letters,
+conferred with his partners and confidential clerks; was for a while
+not the exasperated husband, or the affectionate brother, or the
+amiable grandson, but the shrewd, brisk banker, engaged entirely with
+his business. Presently he had occasion to go on ’Change, or elsewhere,
+to confer with brother-capitalists, and in Cornhill behold he meets his
+uncle, Colonel Newcome, riding towards the India House, a groom behind
+him.
+
+The Colonel springs off his horse, and Barnes greets him in the
+blandest manner. “Have you any news for me, Barnes?” cries the officer.
+
+“The accounts from Calcutta are remarkably good. That cotton is of
+admirable quality really. Mr. Briggs, of our house, who knows cotton as
+well as any man in England, says——”
+
+“It’s not the cotton, my dear Sir Barnes,” cries the other.
+
+“The bills are perfectly good; there is no sort of difficulty about
+them. Our house will take half a million of ’em, if——”
+
+“You are talking of bills, and I am thinking of poor Clive,” the
+Colonel interposes. “I wish you could give me good news for him,
+Barnes.”
+
+“I wish I could. I heartily trust that I may some day. My good wishes
+you know are enlisted in your son’s behalf,” cries Barnes, gallantly.
+“Droll place to talk sentiment in—Cornhill, isn’t it? But Ethel, as I
+told you, is in the hands of higher powers, and we must conciliate Lady
+Kew if we can. She has always spoken very highly of Clive; very.”
+
+“Had I not best go to her?” asks the Colonel.
+
+“Into the North, my good sir? She is—ah—she is travelling about. I
+think you had best depend upon me, Good morning. In the City we have no
+hearts, you know, Colonel. Be sure you shall hear from me as soon as
+Lady Kew and Ethel come to town.”
+
+And the banker hurried away, shaking his finger-tips to his uncle, and
+leaving the good Colonel utterly surprised at his statements. For the
+fact is, the Colonel knew that Lady Kew was in London, having been
+apprised of the circumstance in the simplest manner in the world,
+namely, by a note from Miss Ethel, which billet he had in his pocket,
+whilst he was talking with the head of the house of Hobson Brothers:—
+
+“My dear Uncle” (the note said), “how glad I shall be to see you! How
+shall I thank you for the beautiful shawl, and the kind, kind
+remembrance of me? I found your present yesterday evening, on our
+arrival from the North. We are only here _en passant_, and see _nobody_
+in Queen Street but Barnes, who has just been about business, and he
+does not count, you know. I shall go and see Clara to-morrow, and make
+her take me to see your pretty friend, Mrs. Pendennis. How glad I
+should be if you _happened_ to pay Mrs. P. a visit _about two!_
+Good-night. I thank you a thousand times, and am always your
+affectionate E.”
+
+“QUEEN STREET. Tuesday night. _Twelve o’clock_.”
+
+This note came to Colonel Newcome’s breakfast-table, and he smothered
+the exclamation of wonder which was rising to his lips, not choosing to
+provoke the questions of Clive, who sate opposite to him. Clive’s
+father was in a woeful perplexity all that forenoon. “Tuesday night,
+twelve o’clock,” thought he. “Why, Barnes must have gone to his
+grandmother from my dinner-table; and he told me she was out of town,
+and said so again just now when we met in the City.” (The Colonel was
+riding towards Richmond at this time.) “What cause had the young man to
+tell me these lies? Lady Kew may not wish to be at home for me, but
+need Barnes Newcome say what is untrue to mislead me? The fellow
+actually went away simpering, and kissing his hand to me, with a
+falsehood on his lips! What a pretty villain! A fellow would deserve,
+and has got, a horse-whipping for less. And to think of a Newcome doing
+this to his own flesh and blood; a young Judas!” Very sad and
+bewildered, the Colonel rode towards Richmond, where he was to happen
+to call on Mrs. Pendennis.
+
+It was not much of a fib that Barnes had told. Lady Kew announcing that
+she was out of town, her grandson, no doubt, thought himself justified
+in saying so, as any other of her servants would have done. But if he
+had recollected how Ethel came down with the Colonel’s shawl on her
+shoulders, how it was possible she might have written to thank her
+uncle, surely Barnes Newcome would not have pulled that unlucky
+long-bow. The banker had other things to think of than Ethel and her
+shawl.
+
+When Thomas Newcome dismounted at the door of Honeymoon Cottage,
+Richmond, the temporary residence of A. Pendennis, Esq., one of the
+handsomest young women in England ran into the passage with
+outstretched arms, called him her dear old uncle, and gave him two
+kisses, that I dare say brought blushes on his lean sunburnt cheeks.
+Ethel clung always to his affection. She wanted that man, rather than
+any other in the whole world, to think well of her. When she was with
+him, she was the amiable and simple, the loving impetuous creature of
+old times. She chose to think of no other. Worldliness, heartlessness,
+eager scheming, cold flirtations, marquis-hunting and the like,
+disappeared for a while—and were not, as she sate at that honest man’s
+side. O me! that we should have to record such charges against Ethel
+Newcome!
+
+“He was come home for good now? He would never leave that boy he
+spoiled so, who was a good boy, too: she wished she could see him
+oftener. At Paris, at Madame de Florac’s—I found out all about Madame
+de Florac, sir,” says Miss Ethel, with a laugh—“we used often to meet
+there; and here, sometimes, in London. But in London it was different.
+You know what peculiar notions some people have; and as I live with
+grandmamma, who is most kind to me and my brothers, of course I must
+obey her, see her,” etc. etc. That the young lady went on talking,
+defending herself, whom nobody attacked, protesting her dislike to
+gaiety and dissipation—you would have fancied her an artless young
+country lass, only longing to trip back to her village, milk her cows
+at sunrise, and sit spinning of winter evenings by the fire.
+
+“Why do you come and spoil my _tête-à-tête_ with my uncle, Mr.
+Pendennis?” cries the young lady to the master of the house, who
+happens to enter “Of all the men in the world the one I like best to
+talk to! Does he not look younger than when he went to India? When
+Clive marries that pretty little Miss Mackenzie, you will marry again,
+uncle, and I will be jealous of your wife.”
+
+“Did Barnes tell you that we had met last night, my dear?” asks the
+Colonel.
+
+“Not one word. Your shawl and your dear kind note told me you were
+come. Why did not Barnes tell us? Why do you look so grave?”
+
+“He has not told her that I was here, and would have me believe her
+absent,” thought Newcome, as his countenance fell. “Shall I give her my
+own message, and plead my poor boy’s cause with her?” I know not
+whether he was about to lay his suit before her; he said himself
+subsequently that his mind was not made up; but at this juncture, a
+procession of nurses and babies made their appearance, followed by the
+two mothers, who had been comparing their mutual prodigies (each lady
+having her own private opinion)—Lady Clara and my wife—the latter for
+once gracious to Lady Clara Newcome, in consideration of the infantine
+company with which she came to visit Mrs. Pendennis.
+
+Luncheon was served presently. The carriage of the Newcomes drove away,
+my wife smilingly pardoning Ethel for the assignation which the young
+person had made at our house. And when those ladies were gone, our good
+Colonel held a council of war with us his two friends, and told us what
+had happened between him and Barnes on that morning and the previous
+night. His offer to sacrifice every shilling of his fortune to young
+Clive seemed to him to be perfectly simple (though the recital of the
+circumstance brought tears into my wife’s eyes)—he mentioned it by the
+way, and as a matter that was scarcely to call for comment, much less
+praise.
+
+Barnes’s extraordinary statements respecting Lady Kew’s absence puzzled
+the elder Newcome; and he spoke of his nephew’s conduct with much
+indignation. In vain I urged that her ladyship desiring to be
+considered absent from London, her grandson was bound to keep her
+secret. “Keep her secret, yes! Tell me lies, no!” cries out the
+Colonel. Sir Barnes’s conduct was in fact indefensible, though not
+altogether unusual—the worst deduction to be drawn from it, in my
+opinion, was, that Clive’s chance with the young lady was but a poor
+one, and that Sir Barnes Newcome, inclined to keep his uncle in
+good-humour, would therefore give him no disagreeable refusal.
+
+Now this gentleman could no more pardon a lie than he could utter one.
+He would believe all and everything a man told him until deceived once,
+after which he never forgave. And wrath being once roused in his simple
+mind and distrust firmly fixed there, his anger and prejudices gathered
+daily. He could see no single good quality in his opponent; and hated
+him with a daily increasing bitterness.
+
+As ill luck would have it, that very same evening, at his return to
+town, Thomas Newcome entered Bays’s club, of which, at our request, he
+had become a member during his last visit to England, and there was Sir
+Barnes, as usual, on his way homewards from the City. Barnes was
+writing at a table, and sealing and closing a letter, as he saw the
+Colonel enter; he thought he had been a little inattentive and curt
+with his uncle in the morning; had remarked, perhaps, the expression of
+disapproval on the Colonel’s countenance. He simpered up to his uncle
+as the latter entered the clubroom, and apologised for his haste when
+they met in the City in the morning—all City men were so busy! “And I
+have been writing about that little affair, just as you came in,” he
+said; “quite a moving letter to Lady Kew, I assure you, and I do hope
+and trust we shall have a favourable answer in a day or two.”
+
+“You said her ladyship was in the North, I think?” said the Colonel,
+drily.
+
+“Oh, yes—in the North, at—at Lord Wallsend’s—great coal-proprietor, you
+know.”
+
+“And your sister is with her?”
+
+“Ethel is always with her.”
+
+“I hope you will send her my very best remembrances,” said the Colonel.
+
+“I’ll open the letter, and add ’em in a postscript,” said Barnes.
+
+“Confounded liar?” cried the Colonel, mentioning the circumstance to me
+afterwards, “why does not somebody pitch him out of the bow-window?”
+
+If we were in the secret of Sir Barnes Newcome’s correspondence, and
+could but peep into that particular letter to his grandmother, I dare
+say we should read that he had seen the Colonel, who was very anxious
+about his darling youth’s suit, but, pursuant to Lady Kew’s desire,
+Barnes had stoutly maintained that her ladyship was still in the North,
+enjoying the genial hospitality of Lord Wallsend. That of course he
+should say nothing to Ethel, except with Lady Kew’s full permission:
+that he wished her a pleasant trip to ——, and was, etc. etc.
+
+Then if we could follow him, we might see him reach his Belgravian
+mansion, and fling an angry word to his wife as she sits alone in the
+darkling drawing-room, poring over the embers. He will ask her,
+probably with an oath, why the —— she is not dressed? and if she always
+intends to keep her company waiting? An hour hence, each with a smirk,
+and the lady in smart raiment, with flowers in her hair, will be
+greeting their guests as they arrive. Then will come dinner and such
+conversation as it brings. Then at night Sir Barnes will issue forth,
+cigar in mouth; to return to his own chamber at his own hour; to
+breakfast by himself; to go Citywards, money-getting. He will see his
+children once a fortnight, and exchange a dozen sharp words with his
+wife twice in that time.
+
+More and more sad does the Lady Clara become from day to day; liking
+more to sit lonely over the fire; careless about the sarcasms of her
+husband; the prattle of her children. She cries sometimes over the
+cradle of the young heir. She is aweary, aweary. You understand, the
+man to whom her parents sold her does not make her happy, though she
+has been bought with diamonds, two carriages, several large footmen, a
+fine country-house with delightful gardens, and conservatories, and
+with all this she is miserable—is it possible?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+In which Kinsmen fall out
+
+
+Not the least difficult part of Thomas Newcome’s present business was
+to keep from his son all knowledge of the negotiation in which he was
+engaged on Clive’s behalf. If my gentle reader has had sentimental
+disappointments, he or she is aware that the friends who have given him
+most sympathy under these calamities have been persons who have had
+dismal histories of their own at some time of their lives, and I
+conclude Colonel Newcome in his early days must have suffered very
+cruelly in that affair of which we have a slight cognisance, or he
+would not have felt so very much anxiety about Clive’s condition.
+
+A few chapters back and we described the first attack, and Clive’s
+manful cure: then we had to indicate the young gentleman’s relapse, and
+the noisy exclamations of the youth under this second outbreak of
+fever. Calling him back after she had dismissed him, and finding
+pretext after pretext to see him,—why did the girl encourage him, as
+she certainly did? I allow, with Mrs. Grundy and most moralists, that
+Miss Newcome’s conduct in this matter was highly reprehensible; that if
+she did not intend to marry Clive she should have broken with
+him—altogether; that a virtuous young woman of high principle, etc.
+etc., having once determined to reject a suitor, should separate from
+him utterly then and there—never give him again the least chance of a
+hope, or reillume the extinguished fire in the wretch’s bosom.
+
+But coquetry, but kindness, but family affection, and a strong, very
+strong partiality for the rejected lover—are these not to be taken in
+account, and to plead as excuses for her behaviour to her cousin? The
+least unworthy part of her conduct, some critics will say, was that
+desire to see Clive and be well with him: as she felt the greatest
+regard for him, the showing it was not blameable; and every flutter
+which she made to escape out of the meshes which the world had cast
+about her was but the natural effort at liberty. It was her prudence
+which was wrong; and her submission wherein she was most culpable. In
+the early church story, do we not read how young martyrs constantly had
+to disobey worldly papas and mammas, who would have had them silent,
+and not utter their dangerous opinions? how their parents locked them
+up, kept them on bread-and-water, whipped and tortured them in order to
+enforce obedience?—nevertheless they would declare the truth: they
+would defy the gods by law established, and deliver themselves up to
+the lions or the tormentors. Are not there Heathen Idols enshrined
+among us still? Does not the world worship them, and persecute those
+who refuse to kneel? Do not many timid souls sacrifice to them; and
+other bolder spirits rebel and, with rage at their hearts, bend down
+their stubborn knees at their altars? See! I began by siding with Mrs.
+Grundy and the world, and at the next turn of the see-saw have lighted
+down on Ethel’s side, and am disposed to think that the very best part
+of her conduct has been those escapades which—which right-minded
+persons most justly condemn. At least, that a young beauty should
+torture a man with alternate liking and indifference; allure, dismiss,
+and call him back out of banishment; practise arts to please upon him,
+and ignore them when rebuked for her coquetry—these are surely
+occurrences so common in young women’s history as to call for no
+special censure; and if on these charges Miss Newcome is guilty, is
+she, of all her sex, alone in her criminality?
+
+So Ethel and her duenna went away upon their tour of visits to mansions
+so splendid, and among hosts and guests so polite, that the present
+modest historian does not dare to follow them. Suffice it to say that
+Duke This and Earl That were, according to their hospitable custom,
+entertaining a brilliant circle of friends at their respective castles,
+all whose names the _Morning Post_ gave; and among them those of the
+Dowager Countess of Kew and Miss Newcome.
+
+During her absence, Thomas Newcome grimly awaited the result of his
+application to Barnes. That Baronet showed his uncle a letter, or
+rather a postscript, from Lady Kew, which probably had been dictated by
+Barnes himself, in which the Dowager said she was greatly touched by
+Colonel Newcome’s noble offer; that though she owned she had very
+different views for her granddaughter, Miss Newcome’s choice of course
+lay with herself. Meanwhile, Lady K. and Ethel were engaged in a round
+of visits to the country, and there would be plenty of time to resume
+this subject when they came to London for the season. And, lest dear
+Ethel’s feelings should be needlessly agitated by a discussion of the
+subject, and the Colonel should take a fancy to write to her privately,
+Lady Kew gave orders that all letters from London should be despatched
+under cover to her ladyship, and carefully examined the contents of the
+packet before Ethel received her share of the correspondence.
+
+To write to her personally on the subject of the marriage, Thomas
+Newcome had determined was not a proper course for him to pursue. “They
+consider themselves,” says he, “above us, forsooth, in their rank of
+life (oh, mercy! what pigmies we are! and don’t angels weep at the
+brief authority in which we dress ourselves up!) and of course the
+approaches on our side must be made in regular form, and the parents of
+the young people must act for them. Clive is too honourable a man to
+wish to conduct the affair in any other way. He might try the influence
+of his _beaux yeux_, and run off to Gretna with a girl who had nothing;
+but the young lady being wealthy, and his relation, sir, we must be on
+the point of honour; and all the Kews in Christendom shan’t have more
+pride than we in this matter.”
+
+All this time we are keeping Mr. Clive purposely in the background. His
+face is so woebegone that we do not care to bring it forward in the
+family picture. His case is so common that surely its lugubrious
+symptoms need not be described at length. He works away fiercely at his
+pictures, and in spite of himself improves in his art. He sent a
+“Combat of Cavalry,” and a picture of “Sir Brian the Templar carrying
+off Rebecca,” to the British Institution this year; both of which
+pieces were praised in other journals besides the _Pall Mall Gazette_.
+He did not care for the newspaper praises. He was rather surprised when
+a dealer purchased his “Sir Brian the Templar.” He came and went from
+our house a melancholy swain. He was thankful for Laura’s kindness and
+pity. J. J.’s studio was his principal resort; and I dare say, as he
+set up his own easel there, and worked by his friend’s side, he
+bemoaned his lot to his sympathising friend.
+
+Sir Barnes Newcome’s family was absent from London during the winter.
+His mother, and his brothers and sisters, his wife and his two
+children, were gone to Newcome for Christmas. Some six weeks after
+seeing him, Ethel wrote her uncle a kind, merry letter. They had been
+performing private theatricals at the country-house where she and Lady
+Kew were staying. “Captain Crackthorpe made an admirable Jeremy Diddler
+in ‘Raising the Wind.’ Lord Farintosh broke down lamentably as Fusbos
+in ‘Bombastes Furioso.’” Miss Ethel had distinguished herself in both
+of these facetious little comedies. “I should like Clive to paint me as
+Miss Plainways,” she wrote. “I wore a powdered front, painted my face
+all over wrinkles, imitated old Lady Griffin as well as I could, and
+looked sixty at least.”
+
+Thomas Newcome wrote an answer to his fair niece’s pleasant letter;
+“Clive,” he said, “would be happy to bargain to paint her, and nobody
+else but her, all the days of his life; and,” the Colonel was sure,
+“would admire her at sixty as much as he did now, when she was forty
+years younger.” But, determined on maintaining his appointed line of
+conduct respecting Miss Newcome, he carried his letter to Sir Barnes,
+and desired him to forward it to his sister. Sir Barnes took the note,
+and promised to despatch it. The communications between him and his
+uncle had been very brief and cold, since the telling of these little
+fibs concerning old Lady Kew’s visits to London, which the Baronet
+dismissed from his mind as soon as they were spoken, and which the good
+Colonel never could forgive. Barnes asked his uncle to dinner once or
+twice, but the Colonel was engaged. How was Barnes to know the reason
+of the elder’s refusal? A London man, a banker, and a Member of
+Parliament, has a thousand things to think of; and no time to wonder
+that friends refuse his invitations to dinner. Barnes continued to grin
+and smile most affectionately when he met the Colonel; to press his
+hand, to congratulate him on the last accounts from India, unconscious
+of the scorn and distrust with which his senior mentally regarded him.
+“Old boy is doubtful about the young cub’s love-affair,” the Baronet
+may have thought. “We’ll ease his old mind on that point some time
+hence.” No doubt Barnes thought he was conducting the business very
+smartly and diplomatically.
+
+I heard myself news at this period from the gallant Crackthorpe, which,
+being interested in my young friend’s happiness, filled me with some
+dismay. “Our friend the painter and glazier has been hankering about
+our barracks at Knightsbridge” (the noble Life Guards Green had now
+pitched their tents in that suburb), “and pumping me about _la belle
+cousine_. I don’t like to break it to him—I don’t really, now. But it’s
+all up with his chance, I think. Those private theatricals at
+Fallowfield have done Farintosh’s business. He used to rave about the
+Newcomes to me, as we were riding home from hunting. He gave Bob
+Henchman the lie, who told a story which Bob got from his man, who had
+it from Miss Newcome’s lady’s-maid, about—about some journey to
+Brighton, which the cousins took.” Here Mr. Crackthorpe grinned most
+facetiously. “Farintosh swore he’d knock Henchman down; and vows he
+will be the death of—will murder our friend Clive when he comes to
+town. As for Henchman, he was in a desperate way. He lives on the
+Marquis, you know, and Farintosh’s anger or his marriage will be the
+loss of free quarters, and ever so many good dinners a year to him.” I
+did not deem it necessary to impart Crackthorpe’s story to Clive, or
+explain to him the reason why Lord Farintosh scowled most fiercely upon
+the young painter, and passed him without any other sign of recognition
+one day as Clive and I were walking together in Pall Mall. If my lord
+wanted a quarrel, young Clive was not a man to balk him; and would have
+been a very fierce customer to deal with, in his actual state of mind.
+
+A pauper child in London at seven years old knows how to go to market,
+to fetch the beer, to pawn father’s coat, to choose the largest fried
+fish or the nicest ham-bone, to nurse Mary Jane of three,—to conduct a
+hundred operations of trade or housekeeping, which a little Belgravian
+does not perhaps acquire in all the days of her life. Poverty and
+necessity force this precociousness on the poor little brat. There are
+children who are accomplished shoplifters and liars almost as soon as
+they can toddle and speak. I dare say little Princes know the laws of
+etiquette as regards themselves, and the respect due to their rank, at
+a very early period of their royal existence. Every one of us,
+according to his degree, can point to the Princekins of private life
+who are flattered and worshipped, and whose little shoes grown men kiss
+as soon almost as they walk upon ground.
+
+It is a wonder what human nature will support: and that, considering
+the amount of flattery some people are crammed with from their cradles,
+they do not grow worse and more selfish than they are. Our poor little
+pauper just mentioned is dosed with Daffy’s Elixir, and somehow
+survives the drug. Princekin or lordkin from his earliest days has
+nurses, dependants, governesses, little friends, schoolfellows,
+schoolmasters, fellow-collegians, college tutors, stewards and valets,
+led captains of his suite, and women innumerable flattering him and
+doing him honour. The tradesman’s manner, which to you and me is
+decently respectful, becomes straightway frantically servile before
+Princekin. Honest folks at railway stations whisper to their families,
+“That’s the Marquis of Farintosh,” and look hard at him as he passes.
+Landlords cry, “This way, my lord; this room for your lordship.” They
+say at public schools Princekin is taught the beauties of equality, and
+thrashed into some kind of subordination. Psha! Toad-eaters in
+pinafores surround Princekin. Do not respectable people send their
+children so as to be at the same school with him; don’t they follow him
+to college, and eat his toads through life?
+
+And as for women—oh, my dear friends and brethren in this vale of
+tears—did you ever see anything so curious, monstrous, and amazing as
+the way in which women court Princekin when he is marriageable, and
+pursue him with their daughters? Who was the British nobleman in old
+old days who brought his three daughters to the King of Mercia, that
+His Majesty might choose one after inspection? Mercia was but a petty
+province, and its king in fact a Princekin. Ever since those extremely
+ancient and venerable times the custom exists not only in Mercia, but
+in all the rest of the provinces inhabited by the Angles, and before
+Princekins the daughters of our nobles are trotted out.
+
+There was no day of his life which our young acquaintance, the Marquis
+of Farintosh, could remember on which he had not been flattered; and no
+society which did not pay him court. At a private school he could
+recollect the master’s wife stroking his pretty curls and treating him
+furtively to goodies; at college he had the tutor simpering and bowing
+as he swaggered over the grass-plat; old men at clubs would make way
+for him and fawn on him—not your mere pique-assiettes and penniless
+parasites, but most respectable toad-eaters, fathers of honest
+families, gentlemen themselves of good station, who respected this
+young gentleman as one of the institutions of their country, and the
+admired wisdom of the nation that set him to legislate over us. When
+Lord Farintosh walked the streets at night, he felt himself like Haroun
+Alraschid—(that is, he would have felt so had he ever heard of the
+Arabian potentate)—a monarch in disguise affably observing and
+promenading the city. And let us be sure there was a Mesrour in his
+train to knock at the doors for him and run the errands of this young
+caliph. Of course he met with scores of men in life who neither
+flattered him nor would suffer his airs; but he did not like the
+company of such, or for the sake of truth undergo the ordeal of being
+laughed at; he preferred toadies, generally speaking. “I like,” says
+he, “you know, those fellows who are always saying pleasant things, you
+know, and who would run from here to Hammersmith if I asked ’em—much
+better than those fellows who are always making fun of me, you know.” A
+man of his station who likes flatterers need not shut himself up; he
+can get plenty of society.
+
+As for women, it was his lordship’s opinion that every daughter of Eve
+was bent on marrying him. A Scotch marquis, an English earl, of the
+best blood in the empire, with a handsome person, and a fortune of
+fifteen thousand a year, how could the poor creatures do otherwise than
+long for him? He blandly received their caresses; took their coaxing
+and cajolery as matters of course; and surveyed the beauties of his
+time as the Caliph the moonfaces of his harem. My lord intended to
+marry certainly. He did not care for money, nor for rank; he expected
+consummate beauty and talent, and some day would fling his handkerchief
+to the possessor of these, and place her by his side upon the Farintosh
+throne.
+
+At this time there were but two or three young ladies in society
+endowed with the necessary qualifications, or who found favour in his
+eyes. His lordship hesitated in his selection from these beauties. He
+was not in a hurry, he was not angry at the notion that Lady Kew (and
+Miss Newcome with her) hunted him. What else should they do but pursue
+an object so charming? Everybody hunted him. The other young ladies,
+whom we need not mention, languished after him still more longingly. He
+had little notes from these; presents of purses worked by them, and
+cigar-cases embroidered with his coronet. They sang to him in cosy
+boudoirs—mamma went out of the room, and sister Ann forgot something in
+the drawing-room. They ogled him as they sang. Trembling they gave him
+a little foot to mount them, that they might ride on horseback with
+him. They tripped along by his side from the Hall to the pretty country
+church on Sundays. They warbled hymns: sweetly looking at him the while
+mamma whispered confidentially to him, “What an angel Cecilia is!” And
+so forth, and so forth—with which chaff our noble bird was by no means
+to be caught. When he had made up his great mind, that the time was
+come and the woman, he was ready to give a Marchioness of Farintosh to
+the English nation.
+
+Miss Newcome has been compared ere this to the statue of “Huntress
+Diana” at the Louvre, whose haughty figure and beauty the young lady
+indeed somewhat resembled. I was not present when Diana and Diana’s
+grandmother hunted the noble Scottish stag of whom we have just been
+writing; nor care to know how many times Lord Farintosh escaped, and
+how at last he was brought to bay and taken by his resolute pursuers.
+Paris, it appears, was the scene of his fall and capture. The news was
+no doubt well known amongst Lord Farintosh’s brother-dandies, among
+exasperated matrons and virgins in Mayfair, and in polite society
+generally, before it came to simple Tom Newcome and his son. Not a word
+on the subject had Sir Barnes mentioned to the Colonel: perhaps not
+choosing to speak till the intelligence was authenticated; perhaps not
+wishing to be the bearer of tidings so painful.
+
+Though the Colonel may have read in his _Pall Mall Gazette_ a paragraph
+which announced an approaching MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE, “between a noble
+young marquis and an accomplished and beautiful young lady, daughter
+and sister of a Northern baronet,” he did not know who were the
+fashionable persons about to be made happy, nor, until he received a
+letter from an old friend who lived at Paris, was the fact conveyed to
+him. Here is the letter preserved by him along with all that he ever
+received from the same hand:—
+
+“Rue St. Dominique, St. Germain, Paris, 10 Fev.
+
+“So behold you of return, my friend! you quit for ever the sword and
+those arid plains where you have passed so many years of your life,
+separated from those to whom, at the commencement, you held very
+nearly. Did it not seem once as if two hands never could unlock, so
+closely were they enlaced together? Ah, mine are old and feeble now;
+forty years have passed since the time when you used to say they were
+young and fair. How well I remember me of every one of those days,
+though there is a death between me and them, and it is as across a
+grave I review them! Yet another parting, and tears and regrets are
+finished. Tenez, I do not believe them when they say there is no
+meeting for us afterwards, there above. To what good to have seen you,
+friend, if we are to part here, and in Heaven too? I have not
+altogether forgotten your language, is it not so? I remember it because
+it was yours, and that of my happy days. I radote like an old woman as
+I am. M. de Florac has known my history from the commencement. May I
+not say that after so many of years I have been faithful to him and to
+all my promises? When the end comes with its great absolution, I shall
+not be sorry. One supports the combats of life, but they are long, and
+one comes from them very wounded; ah, when shall they be over?
+
+“You return and I salute you with wishes for parting. How much egotism!
+I have another project which I please myself to arrange. You know how I
+am arrived to love Clive as own my child. I very quick surprised his
+secret, the poor boy, when he was here it is twenty months. He looked
+so like you as I repeal me of you in the old time! He told me he had no
+hope of his beautiful cousin. I have heard of the fine marriage that
+one makes her. Paul, my son, has been at the English Ambassade last
+night and has made his congratulations to M. de Farintosh. Paul says
+him handsome, young, not too spiritual, rich, and haughty, like all,
+all noble Montagnards.
+
+“But it is not of M. de Farintosh I write, whose marriage, without
+doubt, has been announced to you. I have a little project; very
+foolish, perhaps. You know Mr. the Duke of Ivry has left me guardian of
+his little daughter Antoinette, whose _affreuse_ mother no one sees
+more. Antoinette is pretty and good, and soft, and with an affectionate
+heart. I love her already as my infant. I wish to bring her up, and
+that Clive should marry her. They say you are returned very rich. What
+follies are these I write! In the long evenings of winter, the children
+escaped it is a long time from the maternal nest, a silent old man my
+only company,—I live but of the past; and play with its souvenirs as
+the detained caress little birds, little flowers, in their prisons. I
+was born for the happiness; my God! I have learned it in knowing you.
+In losing you I have lost it. It is not against the will of Heaven I
+oppose myself. It is man, who makes himself so much of this evil and
+misery, this slavery, these tears, these crimes, perhaps.
+
+“This marriage of the young Scotch Marquis and the fair Ethel (I love
+her in spite of all, and shall see her soon and congratulate her, for,
+do you see, I might have stopped this fine marriage, and did my best
+and more than my duty for our poor Clive) shall make itself in London
+next spring, I hear. You shall assist scarcely at the ceremony; he,
+poor boy, shall not care to be there. Bring him to Paris to make the
+court to my little Antoinette: bring him to Paris to his good friend,
+Comtesse de Florac.”
+
+“I read marvels of his works in an English journal, which one sends
+me.”
+
+Clive was not by when this letter reached his father. Clive was in his
+painting-room, and lest he should meet his son, and in order to devise
+the best means of breaking the news to the lad, Thomas Newcome
+retreated out of doors; and from the Oriental he crossed Oxford Street,
+and from Oxford Street he stalked over the roomy pavements of
+Gloucester Place, and there he bethought him how he had neglected Mrs.
+Hobson Newcome of late, and the interesting family of Bryanstone
+Square. So he went to leave his card at Maria’s door: her daughters, as
+we have said, are quite grown girls. If they have been lectured, and
+learning, and back-boarded, and practising, and using the globes, and
+laying in a store of ’ologies, ever since, what a deal they must know!
+Colonel Newcome was admitted to see his nieces, and Consummate Virtue,
+their parent. Maria was charmed to see her brother-in-law; she greeted
+him with reproachful tenderness: “Why, why,” her fine eyes seemed to
+say, “have you so long neglected us? Do you think because I am wise,
+and gifted, and good, and you are, it must be confessed, a poor
+creature with no education, I am not also affable? Come, let the
+prodigal be welcomed by his virtuous relatives: come and lunch with us,
+Colonel!” He sate down accordingly to the family tiffin.
+
+When the meal was over, the mother, who had matter _of importance to
+impart to him_, besought him to go to the drawing-room, and there
+poured out such a eulogy upon her children’s qualities as fond mothers
+know how to utter. They knew this and they knew that. They were
+instructed by the most eminent professors; “that wretched Frenchwoman,
+whom you may remember here, Mademoiselle Lenoir,” Maria remarked
+parenthetically, “turned out, oh, frightfully! She taught the girls the
+worst accent, it appears. Her father was not a colonel; he was—oh!
+never mind! It is a mercy I got rid of that _fiendish woman_, and
+before my precious ones knew _what_ she was!” And then followed details
+of the perfections of the two girls, with occasional side-shots at Lady
+Anne’s family, just as in the old time. “Why don’t you bring your boy,
+whom I have always loved as a son, and who avoids me? Why does not
+Clive know his cousins? They are very different from others of his
+kinswomen, who think best of the _heartless world_.”
+
+“I fear, Maria, there is too much truth in what you say,” sighs the
+Colonel, drumming on a book on the drawing-room table, and looking down
+sees it is a great, large, square, gilt Peerage, open at FARINTOSH,
+MARQUIS OF.—Fergus Angus Malcolm Mungo Roy, Marquis of Farintosh, Earl
+of Glenlivat, in the peerage of Scotland; also Earl of Rossmont, in
+that of the United Kingdom. Son of Angus Fergus Malcolm, Earl of
+Glenlivat, and grandson and heir of Malcolm Mungo Angus, first Marquis
+of Farintosh, and twenty-fifth Earl, etc. etc.
+
+“You have heard the news regarding Ethel?” remarks Hobson.
+
+“I have just heard,” says the poor Colonel.
+
+“I have a letter from Anne this morning,” Maria continues. “They are of
+course delighted with the match. Lord Farintosh is wealthy, handsome;
+has been a little wild, I hear; is not such a husband as I would choose
+for my darlings, but poor Brian’s family have been educated to love the
+world; and Ethel no doubt is flattered by the prospects before her. I
+_have_ heard that some one else was a little _épris_ in that quarter.
+How does Clive bear the news, my dear Colonel?”
+
+“He has long expected it,” says the Colonel, rising: “and I left him
+very cheerful at breakfast this morning.”
+
+“Send him to see us, the naughty boy!” cries Maria. “_We_ don’t change;
+we remember old times, to us he will ever be welcome!” And with this
+confirmation of Madame de Florac’s news, Thomas Newcome walked sadly
+homewards.
+
+And now Thomas Newcome had to break the news to his son; who received
+the shot in such a way as caused his friends and confidants to admire
+his high spirit. He said he had long been expecting some such
+announcement: it was many months since Ethel had prepared him for it.
+Under her peculiar circumstances he did not see how she could act
+otherwise than she had done. And he narrated to the Colonel the
+substance of the conversation which the two young people had had
+together several months before, in Madame de Florac’s garden.
+
+Clive’s father did not tell his son of his own bootless negotiation
+with Barnes Newcome. There was no need to recall that now; but the
+Colonel’s wrath against his nephew exploded in conversation with me,
+who was the confidant of father and son in this business. Ever since
+that luckless day when Barnes thought proper to—to give a wrong address
+for Lady Kew, Thomas Newcome’s anger had been growing. He smothered it
+yet for a while, sent a letter to Lady Anne Newcome, briefly
+congratulating her on the choice which he had heard Miss Newcome had
+made; and in acknowledgment of Madame de Florac’s more sentimental
+epistle he wrote a reply which has not been preserved, but in which he
+bade her rebuke Miss Newcome for not having answered him when he wrote
+to her, and not having acquainted her old uncle with her projected
+union.
+
+To this message, Ethel wrote back a brief, hurried reply; it said:—
+
+“I saw Madame de Florac last night at her daughter’s reception, and she
+gave me my dear uncle’s messages. _Yes, the news is true_ which you
+have heard from Madame de Florac, and in Bryanstone Square. I did not
+like to write it to you, because I know one whom I regard as a brother
+(and a great, great deal better), and to whom I know it will give pain.
+He knows that I have done _my duty_, and _why_ I have acted as I have
+done. God bless him and his dear father!
+
+“What is this about a letter which I never answered? Grandmamma knows
+nothing about a letter. Mamma has enclosed to me that which you wrote
+to her, but there has been _no letter_ from T. N. to his sincere and
+affectionate E. N.
+
+“Rue de Rivoli. Friday.”
+
+This was too much, and the cup of Thomas Newcome’s wrath overflowed.
+Barnes had lied about Ethel’s visit to London: Barnes had lied in
+saying that he delivered the message with which his uncle charged him:
+Barnes had lied about the letter which he had received, and never sent.
+With these accusations firmly proven in his mind against his nephew,
+the Colonel went down to confront that sinner.
+
+Wherever he should find Barnes, Thomas Newcome was determined to tell
+him his mind. Should they meet on the steps of a church, on the flags
+of ’Change, or in the newspaper-room at Bays’s, at evening-paper time,
+when men most do congregate, Thomas the Colonel was determined upon
+exposing and chastising his father’s grandson. With Ethel’s letter in
+his pocket, he took his way into the City, penetrated into the
+unsuspecting back-parlour of Hobson’s bank, and was disappointed at
+first at only finding his half-brother Hobson there engaged over his
+newspaper. The Colonel signified his wish to see Sir Barnes Newcome.
+“Sir Barnes was not come in yet. You’ve heard about the marriage,” says
+Hobson. “Great news for the Barnes’s, ain’t it? The head of the house
+is as proud as a peacock about it. Said he was going out to Samuels,
+the diamond merchants; going to make his sister some uncommon fine
+present. Jolly to be uncle to a marquis, ain’t it, Colonel? I’ll have
+nothing under a duke for my girls. I say, I know whose nose is out of
+joint. But young fellows get over these things, and Clive won’t die
+this time, I dare say.”
+
+While Hobson Newcome made these satiric and facetious remarks, his
+half-brother paced up and down the glass parlour, scowling over the
+panes into the bank where the busy young clerks sate before their
+ledgers. At last he gave an “Ah!” as of satisfaction. Indeed, he had
+seen Sir Barnes Newcome enter into the bank.
+
+The Baronet stopped and spoke with a clerk, and presently entered,
+followed by that young gentleman into his private parlour. Barnes tried
+to grin when he saw his uncle, and held out his hand to greet the
+Colonel; but the Colonel put both his behind his back—that which
+carried his faithful bamboo cane shook nervously. Barnes was aware that
+the Colonel had the news. “I was going to—to write to you this morning,
+with—with some intelligence that I am—very—very sorry to give.”
+
+“This young gentleman is one of your clerks?” asked Thomas Newcome,
+blandly.
+
+“Yes; Mr. Boltby, who has your private account. This is Colonel
+Newcome, Mr. Boltby,” says Sir Barnes, in some wonder.
+
+“Mr. Boltby, brother Hobson, you heard what Sir Barnes Newcome said
+just now respecting certain intelligence which he grieved to give me?”
+
+At this the three other gentlemen respectively wore looks of amazement.
+
+“Allow me to say in your presence, that I don’t believe one single word
+Sir Barnes Newcome says, when he tells me that he is very sorry for
+some intelligence he has to communicate. He lies, Mr. Boltby; he is
+very glad. I made up my mind that in whatsoever company I met him, and
+on the very first day I found him—hold your tongue, sir; you shall
+speak afterwards and tell more lies when I have done—I made up my mind,
+I say, that on the very first occasion I would tell Sir Barnes Newcome
+that he was a liar and a cheat. He takes charge of letters and keeps
+them back. Did you break the seal, sir? There was nothing to steal in
+my letter to Miss Newcome. He tells me people are out of town, when he
+goes to see in the next street, after leaving my table, and whom I see
+myself half an hour before he lies to me about their absence.”
+
+“D—n you, go out, and don’t stand staring there, you booby!” screams
+out Sir Barnes to the clerk. “Stop, Boltby. Colonel Newcome, unless you
+leave this room I shall—I shall——”
+
+“You shall call a policeman. Send for the gentleman, and I will tell
+the Lord Mayor what I think of Sir Barnes Newcome, Baronet. Mr. Boltby,
+shall we have the constable in?”
+
+“Sir, you are an old man, and my father’s brother, or you know very
+well I would——”
+
+“You would what, Sir? Upon my word, Barnes Newcome” (here the Colonel’s
+two hands and the bamboo cane came from the rear and formed in front),
+“but that you are my father’s grandson, after a menace like that, I
+would take you out and cane you in the presence of your clerks. I
+repeat, sir, that I consider you guilty of treachery, falsehood, and
+knavery. And if I ever see you at Bays’s Club, I will make the same
+statement to your acquaintance at the west end of the town. A man of
+your baseness ought to be known, sir; and it shall be my business to
+make men of honour aware of your character. Mr. Boltby, will you have
+the kindness to make out my account? Sir Barnes Newcome, for fear of
+consequences that I should deplore, I recommend you to keep a wide
+berth of me, sir.” And the Colonel twirled his mustachios, and waved
+his cane in an ominous manner, and Barnes started back spontaneously
+out of its dangerous circle.
+
+What Mr. Boltby’s sentiments may have been regarding this extraordinary
+scene in which his principal cut so sorry a figure;—whether he narrated
+the conversation to other gentlemen connected with the establishment of
+Hobson Brothers, or prudently kept it to himself, I cannot say, having
+no means of pursuing Mr. B.’s subsequent career. He speedily quitted
+his desk at Hobson Brothers; and let us presume that Barnes _thought_
+Mr. B. had told all the other clerks of the avuncular quarrel. That
+conviction will make us imagine Barnes still more comfortable. Hobson
+Newcome no doubt was rejoiced at Barnes’s discomfiture; he had been
+insolent and domineering beyond measure of late to his vulgar
+good-natured uncle, whereas after the above interview with the Colonel
+he became very humble and quiet in his demeanour, and for a long, long
+time never said a rude word. Nay, I fear Hobson must have carried an
+account of the transaction to Mrs. Hobson and the circle in Bryanstone
+Square; for Sam Newcome, now entered at Cambridge, called the Baronet
+“Barnes” quite familiarly; asked after Clara and Ethel; and requested a
+small loan of Barnes.
+
+Of course the story did not get wind at Bays’s; of course Tom Eaves did
+not know all about it, and say that Sir Barnes had been beaten
+black-and-blue. Having been treated very ill by the committee in a
+complaint which he made about the Club cookery, Sir Barnes Newcome
+never came to Bays’s, and at the end of the year took off his name from
+the lists of the Club.
+
+Sir Barnes, though a little taken aback in the morning, and not ready
+with an impromptu reply to the Colonel and his cane, could not allow
+the occurrence to pass without a protest; and indited a letter which
+Thomas Newcome kept along with some others previously quoted by the
+compiler of the present memoirs.
+
+It is as follows:—
+
+Belgrave St., Feb. 15, 18—.
+
+“Colonel Newcome, C.B., _private_.
+
+“SIR—The incredible insolence and violence of your behaviour to-day
+(inspired by whatever causes or mistakes of your own), cannot be passed
+without some comment, on my part. I laid before a friend of your own
+profession, a statement of the words which you applied to me in the
+presence of my partner and one of my clerks this morning; and my
+adviser is of opinion, that considering the relationship unhappily
+subsisting between us, I can take no notice of insults for which you
+knew when you uttered them, I could not call you to account.”
+
+“There is some truth in that,” said the Colonel. “He couldn’t fight,
+you know; but then he was such a liar I could not help speaking my
+mind.”
+
+“I gathered from the brutal language which you thought fit to employ
+towards a disarmed man, the ground of one of your monstrous accusations
+against me, that I deceived you in stating that my relative, Lady Kew,
+was in the country, when in fact she was at her house in London.
+
+“To this absurd charge I at once plead guilty. The venerable lady in
+question was passing through London, where she desired to be free from
+intrusion. At her ladyship’s wish I stated that she was out of town;
+and would, under the same circumstances, unhesitatingly make the same
+statement. Your slight acquaintance with the person in question did not
+warrant that you should force yourself on her privacy, as you would
+doubtless know were you more familiar with the customs of the society
+in which she moves.
+
+“I declare upon my honour as a gentleman, that I gave her the message
+which I promised to deliver from you, and also that I transmitted a
+letter with which you entrusted me; and repel with scorn and
+indignation the charges which you were pleased to bring against me, as
+I treat with contempt the language and the threats which you thought
+fit to employ.
+
+“Our books show the amount of _x_£. _xs. xd_. to your credit, which you
+will be good enough to withdraw at your earliest convenience; as of
+course all intercourse must cease henceforth between you and—Yours,
+etc.
+
+“B. Newcome Newcome.”
+
+“I think, sir, he doesn’t make out a bad case,” Mr. Pendennis remarked
+to the Colonel, who showed him this majestic letter.
+
+“It would be a good case if I believed a single word of it, Arthur,”
+replied my friend, placidly twirling the old grey moustache. “If you
+were to say so-and-so, and say that I had brought false charges against
+you, I should cry _mea culpa_ and apologise with all my heart. But as I
+have a perfect conviction that every word this fellow says is a lie,
+what is the use of arguing any more about the matter? I would not
+believe him if he brought twenty as witnesses, and if he lied till he
+was black in the other liars’ face. Give me the walnuts. I wonder who
+Sir Barnes’s military friend was.”
+
+Barnes’s military friend was our gallant acquaintance General Sir
+George Tufto, K.C.B., who a short while afterwards talked over the
+quarrel with the Colonel, and manfully told him that (in Sir George’s
+opinion) he was wrong. “The little beggar behaved very well, I thought,
+in the first business. You bullied him so, and in the front of his
+regiment, too, that it was almost past bearing; and when he deplored,
+with tears in his eyes, almost, the little humbug! that his
+relationship prevented him calling you out, ecod, I believed him! It
+was in the second affair that poor little Barnes showed he was a
+cocktail.”
+
+“What second affair?” asked Thomas Newcome.
+
+“Don’t you know? He! he! this is famous!” cries Sir George. “Why, sir,
+two days after your business, he comes to me with another letter and a
+face as long as my mare’s, by Jove. And that letter, Newcome, was from
+your young ’un. Stop, here it is!” and from his padded bosom General
+Sir George Tufto drew a pocket-book, and from the pocket-book a copy of
+a letter, inscribed, “Clive Newcome, Esq., to Sir B. N. Newcome.”
+“There’s no mistake about your fellow, Colonel. No,——him!” and the man
+of war fired a volley of oaths as a salute to Clive.
+
+And the Colonel, on horseback, riding by the other cavalry officer’s
+side read as follows:—
+
+“George Street, Hanover Square, February 16.
+
+“SIR—Colonel Newcome this morning showed me a letter bearing your
+signature, in which you state—1. That Colonel Newcome has uttered
+calumnious and insolent charges against you. 2. That Colonel Newcome so
+spoke, knowing that you could take no notice of his charges of
+falsehood and treachery, on account of the relationship subsisting
+between you.
+
+“Your statements would evidently imply that Colonel Newcome has been
+guilty of ungentlemanlike conduct, and of cowardice towards you.
+
+“As there can be no reason why we should not meet in any manner that
+you desire, I here beg leave to state, on my own part, that I fully
+coincide with Colonel Newcome in his opinion that you have been guilty
+of falsehood and treachery, and that the charge of cowardice which you
+dare to make against a gentleman of his tried honour and courage, is
+another wilful and cowardly falsehood on your part.
+
+“And I hope you will refer the bearer of this note, my friend, Mr.
+George Warrington, of the Upper Temple, to the military gentleman whom
+you consulted in respect to the just charges of Colonel Newcome.
+Waiting a prompt reply,
+
+“Believe me, sir—Your obedient servant,
+Clive Newcome.
+
+
+“Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., M. P., etc.”
+
+“What a blunderhead I am!” cries the Colonel, with delight on his
+countenance, spite of his professed repentance. “It never once entered
+my head that the youngster would take any part in the affair. I showed
+him his cousin’s letter casually, just to amuse him, I think, for he
+has been deuced low lately, about—about a young man’s scrape that he
+has got into. And he must have gone off and despatched his challenge
+straightway. I recollect he appeared uncommonly brisk at breakfast the
+next morning. And so you say, General, the Baronet did not like the
+_poulet?_”
+
+“By no means; never saw a fellow show such a confounded white feather.
+At first I congratulated him, thinking your boy’s offer must please
+him, as it would have pleased any fellow in our time to have a shot.
+Dammy! but I was mistaken in my man. He entered into some confounded
+long-winded story about a marriage you wanted to make with that
+infernal pretty sister of his, who is going to marry young Farintosh,
+and how you were in a rage because the scheme fell to the ground, and
+how a family duel might occasion unpleasantries to Miss Newcome; though
+I showed him how this could be most easily avoided, and that the lady’s
+name need never appear in the transaction. ‘Confound it, Sir Barnes,’
+says I, ‘I recollect this boy, when he was a youngster throwing a glass
+of wine in your face! We’ll put it upon that, and say it’s an old feud
+between you.’ He turned quite pale, and he said your fellow had
+apologised for the glass of wine.”
+
+“Yes,” said the Colonel, sadly, “my boy apologised for the glass of
+wine. It is curious how we have disliked that Barnes ever since we set
+eyes on him.”
+
+“Well, Newcome,” Sir George resumed, as his mettled charger suddenly
+jumped and curvetted, displaying the padded warrior’s cavalry-seat to
+perfection. “Quiet, old lady!—easy, my dear! Well, when I found the
+little beggar turning tail in this way I said to him, ‘Dash me, sir, if
+you don’t want me, why the dash do you send for me, dash me? Yesterday
+you talked as if you would bite the Colonel’s head off, and to-day,
+when his son offers you every accommodation, by dash, sir, you’re
+afraid to meet him. It’s my belief you had better send for a policeman.
+A 22 is your man, Sir Barnes Newcome.’ And with that I turned on my
+heel and left him. And the fellow went off to Newcome that very night.”
+
+“A poor devil can’t command courage, General,” said the Colonel, quite
+peaceably, “any more than he can make himself six feet high.”
+
+“Then why the dash did the beggar send for me?” called out General Sir
+George Tufto, in a loud and resolute voice; and presently the two
+officers parted company.
+
+When the Colonel reached home, Mr. Warrington and Mr. Pendennis
+happened to be on a visit to Clive, and all three were in the young
+fellow’s painting-room. We knew our lad was unhappy, and did our little
+best to amuse and console him. The Colonel came in. It was in the dark
+February days: we lighted the gas in the studio. Clive had made a
+sketch from some favourite verses of mine and George’s: those charming
+lines of Scott’s:—
+
+“He turned his charger as he spake,
+    Beside the river shore;
+He gave his bridle-rein a shake,
+    With adieu for evermore,
+            My dear!
+    Adieu for evermore!”
+
+
+Thomas Newcome held up a finger at Warrington, and he came up to the
+picture and looked at it; and George and I trolled out:
+
+“Adieu for evermore,
+            My dear!
+Adieu for evermore!”
+
+
+From the picture the brave old Colonel turned to the painter, regarding
+his son with a look of beautiful inexpressible affection. And he laid
+his hand on his son’s shoulder, and smiled, and stroked Clive’s yellow
+moustache.
+
+“And—and did Barnes send no answer to that letter you wrote him?” he
+said, slowly.
+
+Clive broke out into a laugh that was almost a sob. He took both his
+father’s hands. “My dear, dear old father!” says he, “what a—what
+an—old—trump you are!” My eyes were so dim I could hardly see the two
+men as they embraced.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+Has a Tragical Ending
+
+
+Clive presently answered the question which his father put to him in
+the last chapter, by producing from the ledge of his easel a crumpled
+paper, full of Cavendish now, but on which was written Sir Barnes
+Newcome’s reply to his cousin’s polite invitation. Sir Barnes Newcome
+wrote, “that he thought a reference to a friend was quite unnecessary,
+in the most disagreeable and painful dispute in which Mr. Clive desired
+to interfere as a principal; that the reasons which prevented Sir
+Barnes from taking notice of Colonel Newcome’s shameful and
+ungentlemanlike conduct applied equally, as Mr. Clive Newcome very well
+knew, to himself; that if further insult was offered, or outrage
+attempted, Sir Barnes should resort to the police for protection; that
+he was about to quit London, and certainly should not delay his
+departure on account of Mr. Clive Newcome’s monstrous proceedings; and
+that he desired to take leave of an odious subject, as of an individual
+whom he had striven to treat with kindness, but from whom, from youth
+upwards, Sir Barnes Newcome had received nothing but insolence, enmity,
+and ill-will.”
+
+“He is an ill man to offend,” remarked Mr. Pendennis. “I don’t think he
+has ever forgiven that claret, Clive.”
+
+“Pooh! the feud dates from long before that,” said Clive; “Barnes
+wanted to lick me when I was a boy, and I declined: in fact, I think he
+had rather the worst of it; but then I operated freely on his shins,
+and that wasn’t fair in war, you know.”
+
+“Heaven forgive me,” cries the Colonel; “I have always felt the fellow
+was my enemy: and my mind is relieved now war is declared. It has been
+a kind of hypocrisy with me to shake his hand and eat his dinner. When
+I trusted him it was against my better instinct; and I have been
+struggling against it these ten years, thinking it was a wicked
+prejudice, and ought to be overcome.”
+
+“Why should we overcome such instincts?” asks Mr. Warrington. “Why
+shouldn’t we hate what is hateful in people and scorn what is mean?
+From what friend Pen has described to me, and from some other accounts
+which have come to my ears, your respectable nephew is about as
+loathsome a little villain as crawls on the earth. Good seems to be out
+of his sphere, and away from his contemplation. He ill-treats every one
+he comes near; or, if, gentle to them, it is that they may serve some
+base purpose. Since my attention has been drawn to the creature, I have
+been contemplating his ways with wonder and curiosity. How much
+superior Nature’s rogues are, Pen, to the villains you novelists put
+into your books! This man goes about his life business with a natural
+propensity to darkness and evil—as a bug crawls, and stings, and
+stinks. I don’t suppose the fellow feels any more remorse than a cat
+that runs away with a mutton-chop. I recognise the Evil Spirit, sir,
+and do honour to Ahrimanes, in taking off my hat to this young man. He
+seduced a poor girl in his father’s country town—is it not natural?
+Deserted her and her children—don’t you recognise the beast? married
+for rank—could you expect otherwise from him? invites my Lord Highgate
+to his house in consideration of his balance at the bank;—sir, unless
+somebody’s heel shall crunch him on the way, there is no height to
+which this aspiring vermin mayn’t crawl. I look to see Sir Barnes
+Newcome prosper more and more. I make no doubt he will die an immense
+capitalist, and an exalted Peer of this realm. He will have a marble
+monument, and a pathetic funeral sermon. There is a divine in your
+family, Clive, that shall preach it. I will weep respectful tears over
+the grave of Baron Newcome, Viscount Newcome, Earl Newcome; and the
+children whom he has deserted, and who, in the course of time, will be
+sent by a grateful nation to New South Wales, will proudly say to their
+brother convicts,—‘Yes, the Earl was our honoured father.’”
+
+“I fear he is no better than he should be, Mr. Warrington,” says the
+Colonel, shaking his head. “I never heard the story about the deserted
+children.”
+
+“How should you, O you guileless man!” cries Warrington.
+
+“I am not in the ways of scandal-hearing myself much: but this tale I
+had from Sir Barnes Newcome’s own country. Mr. Batters of the _Newcome
+Independent_ is my esteemed client. I write leading articles for his
+newspaper, and when he was in town last spring he favoured me with the
+anecdote; and proposed to amuse the Member for Newcome by publishing it
+in his journal. This kind of writing is not much in my line: and, out
+of respect to you and your young one, I believe—I strove with Mr.
+Batters, and—entreated him and prevailed with him, not to publish the
+story. That is how I came to know it.”
+
+I sate with the Colonel in the evening, when he commented on
+Warrington’s story and Sir Barnes’s adventures in his simple way. He
+said his brother Hobson had been with him the morning after the
+dispute, reiterating Barnes’s defence of his conduct: and professing on
+his own part nothing but goodwill towards his brother. “Between
+ourselves the young Baronet carries matters with rather a high hand
+sometimes, and I am not sorry that you gave him a little dressing. But
+you were too hard upon him, Colonel—really you were.” “Had I known that
+child-deserting story I would have given it harder still, sir,” says
+Thomas Newcome, twirling his mustachios: “but my brother had nothing to
+do with the quarrel, and very rightly did not wish to engage in it. He
+has an eye to business, has Master Hobson too,” my friend continued:
+“for he brought me a cheque for my private account, which of course, he
+said, could not remain after my quarrel with Barnes. But the Indian
+bank account, which is pretty large, he supposed need not be taken
+away? and indeed why should it? So that, which is little business of
+mine, remains where it was; and brother Hobson and I remain perfectly
+good friends.
+
+“I think Clive is much better since he has been quite put out of his
+suspense. He speaks with a great deal more kindness and good-nature
+about the marriage than I am disposed to feel regarding it: and depend
+on it has too high a spirit to show that he is beaten. But I know he is
+a good deal cut up, though he says nothing; and he agreed willingly
+enough to take a little journey, Arthur, and be out of the way when
+this business takes place. We shall go to Paris: I don’t know where
+else besides. These misfortunes do good in one way, hard as they are to
+bear: they unite people who love each other. It seems to me my boy has
+been nearer to me, and likes his old father better than he has done of
+late.” And very soon after this talk our friends departed.
+
+The Bulgarian minister having been recalled, and Lady Anne Newcome’s
+house in park Lane being vacant, her ladyship and her family came to
+occupy the mansion for this eventful season, and sate once more in the
+dismal dining-room under the picture of the defunct Sir Brian. A little
+of the splendour and hospitality of old days was revived in the house:
+entertainments were given by Lady Anne: and amongst other festivities a
+fine ball took place, when pretty Miss Alice, Miss Ethel’s younger
+sister, made her first appearance in the world, to which she was
+afterwards to be presented by the Marchioness of Farintosh. All the
+little sisters were charmed, no doubt, that the beautiful Ethel was to
+become a beautiful Marchioness, who, as they came up to womanhood one
+after another, would introduce them severally to amiable young earls,
+dukes, and marquises, when they would be married off and wear coronets
+and diamonds of their own right. At Lady Anne’s ball I saw my
+acquaintance, young Mumford, who was going to Oxford next October, and
+about to leave Rugby, where he was at the head of the school, looking
+very dismal as Miss Alice whirled round the room dancing in Viscount
+Bustington’s arms;—Miss Alice, with whose mamma he used to take tea at
+Rugby, and for whose pretty sake Mumford did Alfred Newcome’s verses
+for him and let him off his thrashings. Poor Mumford! he dismally went
+about under the protection of young Alfred, a fourth-form boy—not one
+soul did he know in that rattling London ballroom; his young face—as
+white as the large white tie, donned two hours since at the Tavistock
+with such nervousness and beating of heart!
+
+With these lads, and decorated with a tie equally splendid, moved about
+young Sam Newcome, who was shirking from his sister and his mamma. Mrs.
+Hobson had actually assumed clean gloves for this festive occasion. Sam
+stared at all the “Nobs:” and insisted upon being introduced to
+“Farintosh,” and congratulated his lordship with much graceful ease:
+and then pushed about the rooms perseveringly hanging on to Alfred’s
+jacket. “I say, I wish you wouldn’t call me Al’,” I heard Mr. Alfred
+say to his cousin. Seeing my face, Mr. Samuel ran up to claim
+acquaintance. He was good enough to say he thought Farintosh seemed
+devilish haughty. Even my wife could not help saying, that Mr. Sam was
+an odious little creature.
+
+So it was for young Alfred, and his brothers and sisters, who would
+want help and protection in the world, that Ethel was about to give up
+her independence, her inclination perhaps, and to bestow her life on
+yonder young nobleman. Looking at her as a girl devoting herself to her
+family, her sacrifice gave her a melancholy interest in our eyes. My
+wife and I watched her, grave and beautiful, moving through the rooms,
+receiving and returning a hundred greetings, bending to compliments,
+talking with this friend and that, with my lord’s lordly relations,
+with himself, to whom she listened deferentially; faintly smiling as he
+spoke now and again; doing the honours of her mother’s house. Lady
+after lady of his lordship’s clan and kinsfolk complimented the girl
+and her pleased mother. Old Lady Kew was radiant (if one can call
+radiance the glances of those darkling old eyes). She sate in a little
+room apart, and thither people went to pay their court to her.
+Unwillingly I came in on this levee with my wife on my arm: Lady Kew
+scowled at me over her crutch, but without a sign of recognition. “What
+an awful countenance that old woman has!” Laura whispered as we
+retreated out of that gloomy presence.
+
+And Doubt (as its wont is) whispered too a question in my ear, “Is it
+for her brothers and sisters only that Miss Ethel is sacrificing
+herself? Is it not for the coronet, and the triumph, and the fine
+houses?” “When two motives may actuate a friend, we surely may try and
+believe in the good one,” says Laura. “But, but I am glad Clive does
+not marry her—poor fellow—he would not have been happy with her. She
+belongs to this great world: she has spent all her life in it: Clive
+would have entered into it very likely in her train; and you know, sir,
+it is not good that we should be our husbands’ superiors,” adds Mrs.
+Laura, with a curtsey.
+
+She presently pronounced that the air was very hot in the rooms, and in
+fact wanted to go home to see her child. As we passed out, we saw Sir
+Barnes Newcome, eagerly smiling, smirking, bowing, and in the fondest
+conversation with his sister and Lord Farintosh. By Sir Barnes
+presently brushed Lieutenant-General Sir George Tufto, K.C.B., who,
+when he saw on whose foot he had trodden, grunted out, “H’m, beg your
+pardon!” and turning his back on Barnes, forthwith began complimenting
+Ethel and the Marquis. “Served with your lordship’s father in Spain;
+glad to make your lordship’s acquaintance,” says Sir George. Ethel bows
+to us as we pass out of the rooms, and we hear no more of Sir George’s
+conversation.
+
+In the cloak-room sits Lady Clara Newcome, with a gentleman bending
+over her, just in such an attitude as the bride is in Hogarth’s
+“Marriage à la Mode” as the counsellor talks to her. Lady Clara starts
+up as a crowd of blushes come into her wan face, and tries to smile,
+and rises to greet my wife, and says something about its being so
+dreadfully hot in the upper rooms, and so very tedious waiting for the
+carriages. The gentleman advances towards me with a military stride,
+and says, “How do you do, Mr. Pendennis? How’s our young friend, the
+painter?” I answer Lord Highgate civilly enough, whereas my wife will
+scarce speak a word in reply to Lady Clara Newcome.
+
+Lady Clara asked us to her ball, which my wife declined altogether to
+attend. Sir Barnes published a series of quite splendid entertainments
+on the happy occasion of his sister’s betrothal. We read the names of
+all the clan Farintosh in the _Morning Post_, as attending these
+banquets. Mr. and Mrs. Hobson Newcome, in Bryanstone Square, gave also
+signs of rejoicing at their niece’s marriage. They had a grand banquet
+followed by a tea, to which latter amusement the present biographer was
+invited. Lady Anne, and Lady Kew and her granddaughter, and the Baronet
+and his wife, and my Lord Highgate and Sir George Tufto attended the
+dinner; but it was rather a damp entertainment. “Farintosh,” whispers
+Sam Newcome, “sent word just before dinner that he had a sore throat,
+and Barnes was as sulky as possible. Sir George wouldn’t speak to him,
+and the Dowager wouldn’t speak to Lord Highgate. Scarcely anything was
+drank,” concluded Mr. Sam, with a slight hiccup. “I say, Pendennis, how
+sold Clive will be!” And the amiable youth went off to commune with
+others of his parents’ guests.
+
+Thus the Newcomes entertained the Farintoshes, and the Farintoshes
+entertained the Newcomes. And the Dowager Countess of Kew went from
+assembly to assembly every evening, and to jewellers and upholsterers
+and dressmakers every morning; and Lord Farintosh’s town-house was
+splendidly re-decorated in the newest fashion; and he seemed to grow
+more and more attentive as the happy day approached, and he gave away
+all his cigars to his brother Rob; and his sisters were delighted with
+Ethel, and constantly in her company, and his mother was pleased with
+her, and thought a girl of her spirit and resolution would make a good
+wife for her son: and select crowds flocked to see the service of plate
+at Handyman’s, and the diamonds which were being set for the lady; and
+Smee, R.A., painted her portrait, as a _souvenir_ for mamma when Miss
+Newcome should be Miss Newcome no more; and Lady Kew made a will
+leaving all she could leave to her beloved granddaughter, Ethel,
+daughter of the late Sir Brian Newcome, Baronet; and Lord Kew wrote an
+affectionate letter to his cousin, congratulating her, and wishing her
+happiness with all his heart; and I was glancing over _The Times_
+newspaper at breakfast one morning; when I laid it down with an
+exclamation which caused my wife to start with surprise.
+
+“What is it?” cries Laura, and I read as follows:—
+
+“‘Death of the Countess Dowager of Kew.—We regret to have to announce
+the awfully sudden death of this venerable lady. Her ladyship, who had
+been at several parties of the nobility the night before last,
+seemingly in perfect health, was seized with a fit as she was waiting
+for her carriage, and about to quit Lady Pallgrave’s assembly.
+Immediate medical assistance was procured, and her ladyship was carried
+to her own house, in Queen Street, Mayfair. But she never rallied, or,
+we believe, spoke, after the first fatal seizure, and sank at eleven
+o’clock last evening, The deceased, Louisa Joanna Gaunt, widow of
+Frédéric, first Earl of Kew, was daughter of Charles, Earl of Gaunt,
+and sister of the late and aunt of the present Marquis of Steyne. The
+present Earl of Kew is her ladyship’s grandson, his lordship’s father,
+Lord Walham, having died before his own father, the first earl. Many
+noble families are placed in mourning by this sad event. Society has to
+deplore the death of a lady who has been its ornament for more than
+half a century, and who was known, we may say, throughout Europe for
+her remarkable sense, extraordinary memory, and brilliant wit.’”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+Barnes’s Skeleton Closet
+
+
+The demise of Lady Kew of course put a stop for a while to the
+matrimonial projects so interesting to the house of Newcome. Hymen blew
+his torch out, put it into the cupboard for use on a future day, and
+exchanged his garish saffron-coloured robe for decent temporary
+mourning. Charles Honeyman improved the occasion at Lady Whittlesea’s
+Chapel hard by; and “Death at the Festival” was one of his most
+thrilling sermons; reprinted at the request of some of the
+congregation. There were those of his flock, especially a pair whose
+quarter of the fold was the organ-loft, who were always charmed with
+the piping of that melodious pastor.
+
+Shall we too, while the coffin yet rests on the earth’s outer surface,
+enter the chapel whither these void remains of our dear sister departed
+are borne by the smug undertaker’s gentlemen, and pronounce an elegy
+over that bedizened box of corruption? When the young are stricken
+down, and their roses nipped in an hour by the destroying blight, even
+the stranger can sympathise, who counts the scant years on the
+gravestone, or reads the notice in the newspaper corner. The contrast
+forces itself on you. A fair young creature, bright and blooming
+yesterday, distributing smiles, levying homage, inspiring desire,
+conscious of her power to charm, and gay with the natural enjoyment of
+her conquests—who in his walk through the world has not looked on many
+such a one; and, at the notion of her sudden call away from beauty,
+triumph, pleasure; her helpless outcries during her short pain; her
+vain pleas for a little respite; her sentence, and its execution; has
+not felt a shock of pity? When the days of a long life come to its
+close, and a white head sinks to rise no more, we bow our own with
+respect as the mourning train passes, and salute the heraldry and
+devices of yonder pomp, as symbols of age, wisdom, deserved respect and
+merited honour; long experience of suffering and action. The wealth he
+may have achieved is the harvest which he sowed; the titles on his
+hearse, fruits of the field he bravely and laboriously wrought in. But
+to live to fourscore years, and be found dancing among the idle
+virgins! to have had near a century of allotted time, and then be
+called away from the giddy notes of a Mayfair fiddle! To have to yield
+your roses too, and then drop out of the bony clutch of your old
+fingers a wreath that came from a Parisian bandbox! One fancies around
+some graves unseen troops of mourners waiting; many and many a poor
+pensioner trooping to the place; many weeping charities; many kind
+actions; many dear friends beloved and deplored, rising up at the toll
+of that bell to follow the honoured hearse; dead parents waiting above,
+and calling, “Come, daughter!” lost children, heaven’s fondlings,
+hovering round like cherubim, and whispering, “Welcome, mother!” Here
+is one who reposes after a long feast where no love has been; after
+girlhood without kindly maternal nurture; marriage without affection;
+matronhood without its precious griefs and joys; after fourscore years
+of lonely vanity. Let us take off our hats to that procession too as it
+passes, admiring the different lots awarded to the children of men, and
+the various usages to which Heaven puts its creatures.
+
+Leave we yonder velvet-palled box, spangled with fantastic heraldry,
+and containing within the aged slough and envelope of a soul gone to
+render its account. Look rather at the living audience standing round
+the shell;—the deep grief on Barnes Newcome’s fine countenance; the
+sadness depicted in the face of the most noble the Marquis of
+Farintosh; the sympathy of her ladyship’s medical man (who came in the
+third mourning carriage); better than these, the awe, and reverence,
+and emotion, exhibited in the kind face of one of the witnesses of this
+scene, as he listens to those words which the priest rehearses over our
+dead. What magnificent words! what a burning faith, what a glorious
+triumph; what a heroic life, death, hope, they record! They are read
+over all of us alike; as the sun shines on just and unjust. We have all
+of us heard them; and I have fancied, for my part, that they fell and
+smote like the sods on the coffin.
+
+The ceremony over, the undertaker’s gentlemen clamber on the roof of
+the vacant hearse, into which palls, tressels, trays of feathers, are
+inserted, and the horses break out into a trot, and the empty
+carriages, expressing the deep grief of the deceased lady’s friends,
+depart homeward. It is remarked that Lord Kew hardly has any
+communication with his cousin, Sir Barnes Newcome. His lordship jumps
+into a cab, and goes to the railroad. Issuing from the cemetery, the
+Marquis of Farintosh hastily orders that thing to be taken off his hat,
+and returns to town in his brougham, smoking a cigar. Sir Barnes
+Newcome rides in the brougham beside Lord Farintosh as far as Oxford
+Street, where he gets a cab, and goes to the City. For business is
+business, and must be attended to, though grief be ever so severe.
+
+A very short time previous to her demise, Mr. Rood (that was Mr.
+Rood—that other little gentleman in black, who shared the third
+mourning coach along with her ladyship’s medical man) had executed a
+will by which almost all the Countess’s property was devised to her
+granddaughter, Ethel Newcome. Lady Kew’s decease of course delayed the
+marriage projects for a while. The young heiress returned to her
+mother’s house in Park Lane. I dare say the deep mourning habiliments
+in which the domestics of that establishment appeared, were purchased
+out of the funds left in his hands, which Ethel’s banker and brother
+had at her disposal.
+
+Sir Barnes Newcome, who was one of the trustees of his sister’s
+property, grumbled no doubt because his grandmother had bequeathed to
+him but a paltry recompense of five hundred pounds for his pains and
+trouble of trusteeship; but his manner to Ethel was extremely bland and
+respectful: an heiress now, and to be a marchioness in a few months,
+Sir Barnes treated her with a very different regard to that which he
+was accustomed to show to other members of his family. For while this
+worthy Baronet would contradict his mother at every word she uttered,
+and take no pains to disguise his opinion that Lady Anne’s intellect
+was of the very poorest order, he would listen deferentially to Ethel’s
+smallest observations, exert himself to amuse her under her grief,
+which he chose to take for granted was very severe, visit her
+constantly, and show the most charming solicitude for her general
+comfort and welfare.
+
+During this time my wife received constant notes from Ethel Newcome,
+and the intimacy between the two ladies much increased. Laura was so
+unlike the women of Ethel’s circle, the young lady was pleased to say,
+that to be with her was Ethel’s greatest comfort. Miss Newcome was now
+her own mistress, had her carriage, and would drive day after day to
+our cottage at Richmond. The frigid society of Lord Farintosh’s
+sisters, the conversation of his mother, did not amuse Ethel, and she
+escaped from both with her usual impatience of control. She was at home
+every day dutifully to receive my lord’s visits; but though she did not
+open her mind to Laura as freely regarding the young gentleman as she
+did when the character and disposition of her future mother and
+sisters-in-law was the subject of their talk, I could see, from the
+grave look of commiseration which my wife’s face bore after her young
+friend’s visits, that Mrs. Pendennis augured rather ill of the future
+happiness of this betrothed pair. Once, at Miss Newcome’s special
+request, I took my wife to see her in Park Lane, where the Marquis of
+Farintosh found us. His lordship and I had already a half-acquaintance,
+which was not, however, improved after my regular presentation to him
+by Miss Newcome: he scowled at me with a countenance indicative of
+anything but welcome, and did not seem in the least more pleased when
+Ethel entreated her friend Laura not to take her bonnet, not to think
+of going away so soon. She came to see us the very next day, stayed
+much longer with us than usual, and returned to town quite late in the
+evening, in spite of the entreaties of the inhospitable Laura, who
+would have had her leave us long before. “I am sure,” says
+clear-sighted Mrs. Laura, “she is come out of bravado, and after we
+went away yesterday that there were words between her and Lord
+Farintosh on our account.”
+
+“Confound the young man,” breaks out Mr. Pendennis in a fume; “what
+does he mean by his insolent airs?”
+
+“He may think we are partisans de l’autre,” says Mrs. Pendennis, with a
+smile first, and a sigh afterwards, as she said “poor Clive!”
+
+“Do you ever talk about Clive?” asks the husband.
+
+“Never. Once, twice, perhaps, in the most natural manner in the world
+we mentioned where he is; but nothing further passes. The subject is a
+sealed one between us. She often looks at his drawings in my album
+(Clive had drawn our baby there and its mother in a great variety of
+attitudes), and gazes at his sketch of his dear old father: but of him
+she never says a word.”
+
+“So it is best,” says Mr. Pendennis.
+
+“Yes—best,” echoes Laura, with a sigh.
+
+“You think, Laura,” continues the husband, “you think she——”
+
+“She what?” What did Mr. Pendennis mean? Laura his wife certainly
+understood him, though upon my conscience the sentence went no
+further—for she answered at once:
+
+“Yes—I think she certainly did, poor boy! But that, of course, is over
+now: and Ethel, though she cannot help being a worldly woman, has such
+firmness and resolution of character, that if she has once determined
+to conquer any inclination of that sort I am sure she will master it,
+and make Lord Farintosh a very good wife.”
+
+“Since the Colonel’s quarrel with Sir Barnes,” cries Mr. Pendennis,
+adverting by a natural transition from Ethel to her amiable brother,
+“our banking friend does not invite us any more: Lady Clara sends you
+no cards. I have a great mind to withdraw my account.”
+
+Laura, who understands nothing about accounts, did not perceive the
+fine irony of this remark: but her face straightway put on the severe
+expression which it chose to assume whenever Sir Barnes’s family was
+mentioned, and she said, “My dear, I am very glad indeed that Lady
+Clara sends us no more of her invitations. You know very well why I
+disliked them.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“I hear baby crying,” says Laura. Oh, Laura, Laura! how could you tell
+your husband such a fib?—and she quits the room without deigning to
+give any answer to that “Why?”
+
+Let us pay a brief visit to Newcome in the north of England, and there
+we may get some answer to the question of which Mr. Pendennis had just
+in vain asked a reply from his wife. My design does not include a
+description of that great and flourishing town of Newcome, and of the
+manufactures which caused its prosperity; but only admits of the
+introduction of those Newcomites who are concerned in the affairs of
+the family which has given its respectable name to these volumes.
+
+Thus in previous pages we have said nothing about the Mayor and
+Corporation of Newcome the magnificent bankers and manufacturers who
+had their places of business in the town, and their splendid villas
+outside its smoky precincts; people who would give their thousand
+guineas for a picture or a statue, and write you off a cheque for ten
+times the amount any day; people who, if there was a talk of a statue
+to the Queen or the Duke, would come down to the Town All and subscribe
+their one, two, three undred apiece (especially if in the neighbouring
+city of SLOWCOME they were putting up a statue to the Duke or the
+Queen)—not of such men have I spoken, the magnates of the place; but of
+the humble Sarah Mason in Jubilee Row—of the Reverend Dr. Bulders the
+Vicar, Mr. Vidler the apothecary, Mr. Puff the baker—of Tom Potts, the
+jolly reporter of the _Newcome Independent_, and —— Batters, Esq., the
+proprietor of that journal—persons with whom our friends have had
+already, or will be found presently to have, some connexion. And it is
+from these that we shall arrive at some particulars regarding the
+Newcome family, which will show us that they have a skeleton or two in
+_their_ closets, as well as their neighbours.
+
+Now, how will you have the story? Worthy mammas of families—if you do
+not like to have your daughters told that bad husbands will make bad
+wives; that marriages begun in indifference make homes unhappy; that
+men whom girls are brought to swear to love and honour are sometimes
+false, selfish, and cruel; and that women forget the oaths which they
+have been made to swear—if you will not hear of this, ladies, close the
+book, and send for some other. Banish the newspaper out of your houses,
+and shut your eyes to the truth, the awful truth, of life and sin. Is
+the world made of Jennies and Jessamies; and passion the play of
+schoolboys and schoolgirls, scribbling valentines and interchanging
+lollipops? Is life all over when Jenny and Jessamy are married; and are
+there no subsequent trials, griefs, wars, bitter heart-pangs, dreadful
+temptations, defeats, remorses, sufferings to bear, and dangers to
+overcome? As you and I, friend, kneel with our children round about us,
+prostrate before the Father of us all, and asking mercy for miserable
+sinners, are the young ones to suppose the words are mere form, and
+don’t apply to us?—to some outcasts in the free seats probably, or
+those naughty boys playing in the churchyard? Are they not to know that
+we err too, and pray with all our hearts to be rescued from temptation?
+If such a knowledge is wrong for them, send them to church apart. Go
+you and worship in private; or if not too proud, kneel humbly in the
+midst of them, owning your wrong, and praying Heaven to be merciful to
+you a sinner.
+
+When Barnes Newcome became the reigning Prince of the Newcome family,
+and after the first agonies of grief for his father’s death had
+subsided, he made strong attempts to conciliate the principal persons
+in the neighbourhood, and to render himself popular in the borough. He
+gave handsome entertainments to the townsfolk and to the county gentry;
+he tried even to bring those two warring classes together. He
+endeavoured to be civil to the _Newcome Independent_, the Opposition
+paper, as well as to the _Newcome Sentinel_ that true old
+Uncompromising Blue. He asked the Dissenting clergyman to dinner, and
+the Low Church clergyman, as well as the orthodox Doctor Bulders and
+his curates. He gave a lecture at the Newcome Athenæum, which everybody
+said was very amusing, and which _Sentinel_ and _Independent_ both
+agreed in praising. Of course he subscribed to that statue which the
+Newcomites were raising; to the philanthropic missions which Reverend
+Low Church gentlemen were engaged in; to the races (for the young Newcomite
+manufacturers are as sporting as any gents in the North), to the
+hospital, the People’s Library, the restoration of the rood-screen and
+the great painted window in Newcome Old Church (Rev. J. Bulders), and
+he had to pay in fine a most awful price for his privilege of sitting
+in Parliament as representative of his native place—as he called it in
+his speeches “the cradle of his forefathers, the home of his race,”
+etc., though Barnes was in fact born at Clapham.
+
+Lady Clara could not in the least help this young statesman in his
+designs upon Newcome and the Newcomites. After she came into Barnes’s
+hands, a dreadful weight fell upon her. She would smile and simper, and
+talk kindly and gaily enough at first, during Sir Brian’s life; and
+among women, when Barnes was not present. But as soon as he joined the
+company, it was remarked that his wife became silent, and looked
+eagerly towards him whenever he ventured to speak. She blundered, her
+eyes filled with tears; the little wit she had left her in her
+husband’s presence: he grew angry, and tried to hide his anger with a
+sneer, or broke out with gibe and an oath, when he lost patience, and
+Clara, whimpering, would leave the room. Everybody at Newcome knew that
+Barnes bullied his wife.
+
+People had worse charges against Barnes than wife-bullying. Do you
+suppose that little interruption which occurred at Barnes’s marriage
+was not known in Newcome? His victim had been a Newcome girl, the man
+to whom she was betrothed was in a Newcome factory. When Barnes was a
+young man, and in his occasional visits to Newcome, lived along with
+those dashing young blades Sam Jollyman (Jollyman Brothers and
+Bowcher), Bob Homer, Cross Country Bill, Al Rackner (for whom his
+father had to pay eighteen thousand pounds after the Leger, the year
+Toggery won it) and that wild lot, all sorts of stories were told of
+them, and of Barnes especially. Most of them were settled, and steady
+business men by this time. Al, it was known had become very serious,
+besides making his fortune in cotton. Bob Homer managed the Bank; and
+as for S. Jollyman, Mrs. S. J. took uncommon good care that he didn’t
+break out of bounds any more; why, he was not even allowed to play a
+game at billiards; or to dine out without her——I could go on giving you
+interesting particulars of a hundred members of the Newcome
+aristocracy, were not our attention especially directed to one
+respectable family.
+
+All Barnes’s endeavours at popularity were vain, partly from his own
+fault, and partly from the nature of mankind, and of the Newcome folks
+especially, whom no single person could possibly conciliate. Thus,
+suppose he gave the advertisements to the _Independent;_ the old Blue
+paper the _Sentinel_ was very angry: suppose he asked Mr. Hunch, the
+Dissenting minister, to bless the tablecloth after dinner, as he had
+begged Dr. Bulders to utter a benediction on the first course, Hunch
+and Bulders were both angry. He subscribed to the races—what
+heathenism! to the missionaries—what sanctimonious humbug! And the
+worst was that Barnes being young at that time, and not able to keep
+his tongue in order, could not help saying not to but of such and such
+a man, that he was an infernal ass, or a confounded old idiot, and so
+forth—peevish phrases, which undid in a moment the work of a dozen
+dinners, countless compliments, and months of grinning good-humour.
+
+Now he is wiser. He is very proud of being Newcome of Newcome, and
+quite believes that the place is his hereditary principality. But
+still, he says, his father was a fool for ever representing the
+borough. “Dammy, sir,” cries Sir Barnes, “never sit for a place that
+lies at your park-gates, and above all never try to conciliate ’em.
+Curse ’em! Hate ’em well, sir! Take a line, and flog the fellows on the
+other side. Since I have sate in Parliament for another place, I have
+saved myself I don’t know how much a year. I never go to High Church or
+Low; don’t give a shillin’ to the confounded races, or the infernal
+souptickets, or to the miserable missionaries; and at last live in
+quiet.”
+
+So, in spite of all his subscriptions, and his coaxing of the various
+orders of Newcomites, Sir Barnes Newcome was not popular among them;
+and while he had enemies on all sides, had sturdy friends not even on
+his own. Scarce a man but felt Barnes was laughing at him; Bulders in
+his pulpit, Holder who seconded him in his election, the Newcome
+society; and the ladies, even more than the men, were uneasy under his
+ominous familiarity, and recovered their good-humour when he left them.
+People felt as if it was a truce only, and not an alliance with him,
+and always speculated on the possibility of war: when he turned his
+back on them in the market, men felt relieved, and, as they passed his
+gate, looked with no friendly glances over his park-wall.
+
+What happened within was perfectly familiar to many persons. Our friend
+was insolent to all his servants; and of course very well served, but
+very much disliked, in consequence. The butler was familiar with
+Taplow—the housekeeper had a friend at Newcome; Mrs. Taplow, in fact, of
+the King’s Arms—one of the grooms at Newcome Park kept company with
+Mrs. Bulder’s maid: the incomings and outgoings, the quarrels and
+tears, the company from London, and all the doings of the folks at
+Newcome Park were thus known to the neighbourhood round about. The
+apothecary brought an awful story back from Newcome. He had been called
+to Lady Clara in strong hysterical fits. He found her ladyship with a
+bruise on her face. When Sir Barnes approached her (he would not allow
+the medical man to see her except in his presence) she screamed and
+bade him not come near her. These things did Mr. Vidler weakly impart
+to Mrs. Vidler: these, under solemn vows of secrecy, Mrs. Vidler told
+to one or two friends. Sir Barnes and Lady Clara were seen shopping
+together very graciously in Newcome a short time afterwards; persons
+who dined at the Park said the Baronet and his wife seemed on very good
+terms; but—but that story of the bruised cheek remained in the minds of
+certain people, and lay by at compound interest as such stories will.
+
+Now, say people quarrel and make it up; or don’t make it up, but wear a
+smirking face to society, and call each other “my dear” and “my love,”
+and smooth over their countenances before John, who enters with the
+coals as they are barking and biting, or who announces the dinner as
+they are tearing each other’s eyes out? Suppose a woman is ever so
+miserable, and yet smiles, and doesn’t show her grief? “Quite right,”
+say her prudent friends, and her husband’s relations above all. “My
+dear, you have too much propriety to exhibit your grief before the
+world, or above all, before the darling children.” So to lie is your
+duty, to lie to your friends, to yourself if you can, to your children.
+
+Does this discipline of hypocrisy improve any mortal woman? Say she
+learns to smile after a blow, do you suppose in this matter alone she
+will be a hypocrite? Poor Lady Clara! I fancy a better lot for you than
+that to which fate handed you over. I fancy there need have been no
+deceit in your fond simple little heart, could it but have been given
+into other keeping. But you were consigned to a master, whose scorn and
+cruelty terrified you; under whose sardonic glances your scared eyes
+were afraid to look up, and before whose gloomy coldness you dared not
+be happy. Suppose a little plant, very frail and delicate from the
+first, but that might have bloomed sweetly and borne fair flowers, had
+it received warm shelter and kindly nurture; suppose a young creature
+taken out of her home, and given over to a hard master whose caresses
+are as insulting as his neglect; consigned to cruel usage; to weary
+loneliness; to bitter, bitter recollections of the past; suppose her
+schooled into hypocrisy by tyranny—and then, quick, let us hire an
+advocate to roar out to a British jury the wrongs of her injured
+husband, to paint the agonies of his bleeding heart (if Mr. Advocate
+gets plaintiff’s brief in time, and before defendant’s attorney has
+retained him), and to show Society injured through him. Let us console
+that martyr, I say, with thumping damages; and as for the woman—the
+guilty wretch!—let us lead her out and stone her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+Rosa quo locorum sera moratur
+
+
+Clive Newcome bore his defeat with such a courage and resolution as
+those who knew the young fellow’s character were sure he would display.
+It was whilst he had a little lingering hope still that the poor lad
+was in the worst condition; as a gambler is restless and unhappy whilst
+his last few guineas remain with him, and he is venturing them against
+the overpowering chances of the bank. His last piece, however, gone,
+our friend rises up from that unlucky table beaten at the contest but
+not broken in spirit. He goes back into the world again and withdraws
+from that dangerous excitement; sometimes when he is alone or wakeful,
+tossing in his bed at nights, he may recall the fatal game, and think
+how he might have won it—think what a fool he was ever to have played
+it at all—but these cogitations Clive kept for himself. He was
+magnanimous enough not even to blame Ethel much, and to take her side
+against his father, who it must be confessed now exhibited a violent
+hostility against that young lady and her belongings. Slow to anger and
+utterly beyond deceit himself, when Thomas Newcome was once roused, or
+at length believed that he was cheated woe to the offender! From that
+day forth, Thomas believed no good of him. Every thought or action of
+his enemy’s life seemed treason to the worthy Colonel. If Barnes gave a
+dinner-party, his uncle was ready to fancy that the banker wanted to
+poison somebody; if he made a little speech in the House of Commons
+(Barnes did make little speeches in the House of Commons), the Colonel
+was sure some infernal conspiracy lay under the villain’s words. The
+whole of that branch of the Newcomes fared little better at their
+kinsman’s hands—they were all deceitful, sordid, heartless,
+worldly;—Ethel herself no better now than the people who had bred her
+up. People hate, as they love, unreasonably. Whether is it the more
+mortifying to us, to feel that we are disliked or liked undeservedly?
+
+Clive was not easy until he had the sea between him and his misfortune:
+and now Thomas Newcome had the chance of making that tour with his son,
+which in early days had been such a favourite project with the good
+man. They travelled Rhineland and Switzerland together—they crossed
+into Italy—went from Milan to Venice (where Clive saluted the greatest
+painting in the world—the glorious ‘Assumption’ of Titian)—they went to
+Trieste and over the beautiful Styrian Alps to Vienna—they beheld
+Danube, and the plain where the Turk and Sobieski fought. They
+travelled at a prodigious fast pace. They did not speak much to one
+another. They were a pattern pair of English travellers: I dare say
+many persons whom they met smiled to observe them; and shrugged their
+shoulders at the aspect of _ces Anglais_. They did not know the care in
+the young traveller’s mind; and the deep tenderness and solicitude of
+the elder. Clive wrote to say it was a very pleasant tour, but I think
+I should not have liked to join it. Let us dismiss it in this single
+sentence. Other gentlemen have taken the same journey, and with sorrow
+perhaps as their silent fellow-traveller. How you remember the places
+afterwards, and the thoughts which pursued you! If in after days, when
+your grief is dead and buried, you revisit the scenes in which it was
+your companion, how its ghost rises and shows itself again! Suppose
+this part of Mr. Clive’s life were to be described at length in several
+chapters, and not in a single brief sentence, what dreary pages they
+would be! In two or three months our friends saw a number of men,
+cities, mountains, rivers, and what not. It was yet early autumn when
+they were back in France again, and September found them at Brussels,
+where James Binnie, Esq., and his family were established in
+comfortable quarters, and where we may be sure Clive and his father
+were very welcome.
+
+Dragged abroad at first sorely against his will, James Binnie had found
+the Continental life pretty much to his liking. He had passed a winter
+at Pau, a summer at Vichy, where the waters had done him good. His
+ladies had made several charming foreign acquaintances. Mrs. Mackenzie
+had quite a list of counts and marchionesses among her friends. The
+excellent Captain Goby, wandered about the country with them. Was it to
+Rosey, was it to her mother, the Captain was most attached? Rosey
+received him as a godpapa; Mrs. Mackenzie as a wicked, odious,
+good-for-nothing, dangerous, delightful creature. Is it humiliating, is
+it consolatory, to remark, with what small wit some of our friends are
+amused? The jovial sallies of Goby appeared exquisite to Rosey’s
+mother, and to the girl probably; though that young Bahawder of a Clive
+Newcome chose to wear a grave face (confound his insolent airs!) at the
+very best of the Goby jokes.
+
+In Goby’s train was his fervent admirer and inseparable young friend,
+Clarence Hoby. Captain Hoby and Captain Goby travelled the world
+together, visited Hombourg and Baden, Cheltenham and Leamington, Paris
+and Brussels, in company, belonged to the same club in London—the
+centre of all pleasure, fashion, and joy, for the young officer and the
+older campaigner. The jokes at the Flag, the dinners at the Flag, the
+committee of the Flag, were the theme of their constant conversation.
+Goby fifty years old, unattached, and with dyed moustaches, was the
+affable comrade of the youngest member of his club: when absent, a
+friend wrote him the last riddle from the smoking-room; when present,
+his knowledge of horses, of cookery, wines, and cigars, and military
+history, rendered him a most acceptable companion. He knew the history
+and achievements of every regiment in the army; of every general and
+commanding officer. He was known to have been ‘out’ more than once
+himself, and had made up a hundred quarrels. He was certainly not a man
+of an ascetic life or a profound intellectual culture: but though poor
+he was known to be most honourable; though more than middle-aged he was
+cheerful, busy, and kindly; and though the youngsters called him Old
+Goby, he bore his years very gaily and handsomely, and I dare say
+numbers of ladies besides Mrs. Mackenzie thought him delightful. Goby’s
+talk and rattle perhaps somewhat bored James Binnie, but Thomas Newcome
+found the Captain excellent company; and Goby did justice to the good
+qualities of the Colonel.
+
+Clive’s father liked Brussels very well. He and his son occupied very
+handsome quarters, near the spacious apartments in the Park which James
+Binnie’s family inhabited. Waterloo was not far off, to which the
+Indian officer paid several visits with Captain Goby for a guide; and
+many of Marlborough’s battlefields were near, in which Goby certainly
+took but a minor interest; but on the other hand Clive beheld these
+with the greatest pleasure, and painted more than one dashing piece, in
+which Churchill and Eugene, Cutts and Cadogan, were the heroes; whose
+flowing periwigs, huge boots, and thundering Flemish chargers were, he
+thought, more novel and picturesque than the Duke’s surtout, and the
+French Grenadiers’ hairy caps, which so many English and French artists
+have portrayed.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis were invited by our kind Colonel to pass a
+month—six months if they chose—at Brussels, and were most splendidly
+entertained by our friends in that city. A suite of handsome rooms was
+set apart for us. My study communicated with Clive’s atelier. Many an
+hour did we pass, and many a ride and walk did we take together. I
+observed that Clive never mentioned Miss Newcome’s name, and Laura and
+I agreed that it was as well not to recall it. Only once, when we read
+the death of Lady Glenlivat, Lord Farintosh’s mother, in the newspaper,
+I remember to have said, “I suppose that marriage will be put off
+again.”
+
+“Qu’est ce que cela me fait?” says Mr. Clive gloomily, over his
+picture—a cheerful piece representing Count Egmont going to execution;
+in which I have the honour to figure as a halberdier, Captain Hoby as
+the Count, and Captain Goby as the Duke of Alva, looking out of window.
+
+Mrs. Mackenzie was in a state of great happiness and glory during this
+winter. She had a carriage, and worked that vehicle most indefatigably.
+She knew a great deal of good company at Brussels. She had an evening
+for receiving. She herself went to countless evening-parties, and had
+the joy of being invited to a couple of court balls, at which I am
+bound to say her daughter and herself both looked very handsome. The
+Colonel brushed up his old uniform and attended these entertainments.
+M. Newcome fils, as I should judge, was not the worst-looking man in
+the room; and, as these young people waltzed together (in which
+accomplishment Clive was very much more skilful than Captain Goby) I
+dare say many people thought he and Rosey made a pretty couple.
+
+Most persons, my wife included, difficult as that lady is to please,
+were pleased with the pretty little Rosey. She sang charmingly now, and
+looked so while singing. If her mother would but have omitted that
+chorus, which she cackled perseveringly behind her daughter’s pretty
+back: about Rosey’s angelic temper; about the compliments Signor
+Polonini paid her; about Sir Horace Dash, our minister, _insisting_
+upon her singing “Batti Batti” over again, and the Archduke clapping
+his hands and saying, “Oh, yes!” about Count Vanderslaapen’s attentions
+to her, etc. etc.; but for these constant remarks of Mrs. Mack’s, I am
+sure no one would have been better pleased with Miss Rosey’s singing
+and behaviour than myself. As for Captain Hoby, it was easy to see how
+_he was_ affected towards Miss Rosalind’s music and person.
+
+And indeed few things could be pleasanter than to watch the behaviour
+of this pretty little maid with her Uncle James and his old chum the
+Colonel. The latter was soon as fond of her as James Binnie himself,
+whose face used to lighten with pleasure whenever it turned towards
+hers. She seemed to divine his wants, as she would trip across the room
+to fulfil them. She skipped into the carriage and covered his feet with
+a shawl. James was lazy and chilly now, when he took his drive. She
+sate opposite to him and smiled on him; and, if he dozed, quick,
+another handkerchief was round his neck. I do not know whether she
+understood his jokes, but she saluted them always with a sweet kind
+smile. How she kissed him, and how delighted she was if he bought her a
+bouquet for her ball that night! One day, upon occasion of one of these
+balls, James and Thomas, those two old boys, absolutely came into Mrs.
+Mackenzie’s drawing-room with a bouquet apiece for Miss Rosey; and
+there was a fine laughing.
+
+“Oh, you little Susanna!” says James, after taking his usual payment;
+“now go and pay t’other elder.” Rosey did not quite understand at
+first, being, you see, more ready to laugh at jokes than to comprehend
+them: but when she did, I promise you she looked uncommonly pretty as
+she advanced to Colonel Newcome and put that pretty fresh cheek of hers
+up to his grizzled moustache.
+
+“I protest I don’t know which of you blushes the most,” chuckles James
+Binnie—and the truth is, the old man and the young girl had both hung
+out those signals of amiable distress.
+
+On this day, and as Miss Rosey was to be overpowered by flowers, who
+should come presently to dinner but Captain Hoby, with another bouquet?
+on which Uncle James said Rosey should go to the ball like an American
+Indian with her scalps at her belt.
+
+“Scalps!” cries Mrs. Mackenzie.
+
+“Scalps! Oh law, uncle!” exclaims Miss Rosey. “What can you mean by
+anything so horrid?”
+
+Goby recalls to Mrs. Mack, Hook-ee-ma-goosh the Indian chief, whom she
+must have seen when the Hundred and Fiftieth were at Quebec, and who
+had his lodge full of them; and who used to lie about the barracks so
+drunk, and who used to beat his poor little European wife: and
+presently Mr. Clive Newcome joins this company, when the chirping,
+tittering, joking, laughing, cease somehow.
+
+Has Clive brought a bouquet too? No. He has never thought about a
+bouquet. He is dressed in black, with long hair, a long moustache, and
+melancholy imperial. He looks very handsome, but as glum as an
+undertaker. And James Binnie says, “Egad, Tom, they used to call you
+the knight of the woeful countenance, and Clive has just inherited the
+paternal mug.” Then James calls out in a cheery voice, “Dinner,
+dinner!” and trots off with Mrs. Pendennis under his arm; Rosey nestles
+up against the Colonel; Goby and Mrs. Mack walk away arm-in-arm very
+contentedly; and I don’t know with which of her three nosegays pretty
+Rosey appears at the ball.
+
+Our stay with our friends at Brussels could not be prolonged beyond a
+month, for at the end of that period we were under an engagement to
+other friends in England, who were good enough to desire the presence
+of Mrs. Pendennis and her suite of baby, nurse, and husband. So we
+presently took leave of Rosey and the Campaigner, of the two stout
+elders, and our melancholy young Clive, who bore us company to Antwerp,
+and who won Laura’s heart by the neat way in which he took her child on
+board ship. Poor fellow! how sad he looked as he bowed to us and took
+off his hat! His eyes did not seem to be looking at us, though they and
+his thoughts were turned another way. He moved off immediately, with
+his head down, puffing his eternal cigar, and lost in his own
+meditations; our going or our staying was of very little importance to
+the lugubrious youth.
+
+“I think it was a great pity they came to Brussels,” says Laura, as we
+sate on the deck, while her unconscious infant was cheerful, and while
+the water of the lazy Scheldt as yet was smooth.
+
+“Who? The Colonel and Clive? They are very handsomely lodged. They have
+a good maître-d’hôtel. Their dinners, I am sure, are excellent; and
+your child, madam, is as healthy as it possibly can be.”
+
+“Blessed darling! Yes!” (Blessed darling crows, moos, jumps in his
+nurse’s arms, and holds out a little mottled hand for a biscuit of
+Savoy, which mamma supplies.) “I can’t help thinking, Arthur, that
+Rosey would have been much happier as Mrs. Hoby than she will be as
+Mrs. Newcome.”
+
+“Who thinks of her being Mrs. Newcome?”
+
+“Her mother, her uncle, and Clive’s father. Since the Colonel has been
+so rich, I think Mrs. Mackenzie sees a great deal of merit in Clive.
+Rosey will do anything her mother bids her. If Clive can be brought to
+the same obedience, Uncle James and the Colonel will be delighted.
+Uncle James has set his heart on this marriage. (He and his sister
+agree upon this point.) He told me, last night, that he would sing
+‘Nunc dimittis,’ could he but see the two children happy; and that he
+should lie easier in purgatory if that could be brought about.”
+
+“And what did you say, Laura?”
+
+“I laughed, and told Uncle James I was of the Hoby faction. He is very
+good-natured, frank, honest, and gentlemanlike, Mr. Hoby. But Uncle
+James said he thought Mr. Hoby was so—well, so stupid—that his Rosey
+would be thrown away upon the poor Captain. So I did not tell Uncle
+James that, before Clive’s arrival, Rosey had found Captain Hoby far
+from stupid. He used to sing duets with her; he used to ride with her
+before Clive came. Last winter, when they were at Pau, I feel certain
+Miss Rosey thought Captain Hoby very pleasant indeed. She thinks she
+was attached to Clive formerly, and now she admires him, and is
+dreadfully afraid of him. He is taller and handsomer, and richer and
+cleverer than Captain Hoby, certainly.”
+
+“I should think so, indeed,” breaks out Mr. Pendennis. “Why, my dear,
+Clive is as fine a fellow as one can see on a summer’s day. It does one
+good to look at him. What a frank pair of bright blue eyes he has, or
+used to have, till this mishap overclouded them! What a pleasant laugh
+he has! What a well-built, agile figure it is—what pluck, and spirit,
+and honour, there is about my young chap! I don’t say he is a genius of
+the highest order, but he is the staunchest, the bravest, the
+cheeriest, the most truth-telling, the kindest heart. Compare him and
+Hoby! Why, Clive is an eagle, and yonder little creature a mousing
+owl!”
+
+“I like to hear you speak so,” cries Mrs. Laura, very tenderly. “People
+say that you are always sneering, Arthur; but I know my husband better.
+We know papa better, don’t we, baby?” (Here my wife kisses the infant
+Pendennis with great effusion, who has come up dancing on his nurse’s
+arms.) “But,” says she, coming back and snuggling by her husband’s side
+again—“But suppose your favourite Clive is an eagle, Arthur, don’t you
+think he had better have an eagle for a mate? If he were to marry
+little Rosey, I dare say he would be very good to her; but I think
+neither he nor she would be very happy. My dear, she does not care for
+his pursuits; she does not understand him when he talks. The two
+captains, and Rosey and I, and the campaigner, as you call her, laugh
+and talk, and prattle, and have the merriest little jokes with one
+another, and we all are as quiet as mice when you and Clive come in.”
+
+“What, am I an eagle, too? I have no aquiline pretensions at all, Mrs.
+Pendennis.”
+
+“No. Well, we are not afraid of you. We are not afraid of papa, are we,
+darling?” this young woman now calls out to the other member of her
+family; who, if you will calculate, has just had time to be walked
+twice up and down the deck of the steamer, whilst Laura has been making
+her speech about eagles. And soon the mother, child, and attendant
+descend into the lower cabins: and then dinner is announced: and
+Captain Jackson treats us to champagne from his end of the table: and
+yet a short while, and we are at sea, and conversation becomes
+impossible: and morning sees us under the grey London sky, and amid the
+million of masts in the Thames.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+Rosebury and Newcome
+
+
+The friends to whom we were engaged in England were Florac and his
+wife, Madame la Princesse de Moncontour, who were determined to spend
+the Christmas holidays at the Princess’s country seat. It was for the
+first time since their reconciliation, that the Prince and Princess
+dispensed their hospitalities at the latter’s château. It is situated,
+as the reader has already been informed, at some five miles from the
+town of Newcome; away from the chimneys and smoky atmosphere of that
+place, in a sweet country of rural woodlands; over which quiet
+villages, grey church spires, and ancient gabled farmhouses are
+scattered: still wearing the peaceful aspect which belonged to them
+when Newcome was as yet but an antiquated country town, before mills
+were erected on its river-banks, and dyes and cinders blackened its
+stream. Twenty years since Newcome Park was the only great house in
+that district; now scores of fine villas have sprung up in the suburb
+lying between the town and park. Newcome New Town, as everybody knows,
+has grown round the park-gates, and the New Town Hotel (where the
+railway station is) is a splendid structure in the Tudor style, more
+ancient in appearance than the park itself; surrounded by little
+antique villas with spiked gables, stacks of crooked chimneys, and
+plate-glass windows looking upon trim lawns; with glistening hedges of
+evergreens, spotless gravel walks, and Elizabethan gig-houses. Under
+the great railway viaduct of the New Town, goes the old tranquil
+winding London highroad, once busy with a score of gay coaches, and
+ground by innumerable wheels: but at a few miles from the New Town
+Station the road has become so mouldy that the grass actually grows on
+it; and Rosebury, Madame de Moncontour’s house, stands at one end of a
+village-green, which is even more quiet now than it was a hundred years
+ago.
+
+When first Madame de Florac bought the place, it scarcely ranked
+amongst the country-houses; and she, the sister of manufacturers at
+Newcome and Manchester, did not of course visit the county families. A
+homely little body, married to a Frenchman from whom she was separated,
+may or may not have done a great deal of good in her village, have had
+pretty gardens, and won prizes at the Newcome flower and fruit shows;
+but, of course, she was nobody in such an aristocratic county as we
+know ———shire is. She had her friends and relatives from Newcome. Many
+of them were Quakers—many were retail shopkeepers. She even frequented
+the little branch Ebenezer, on Rosebury Green; and it was only by her
+charities and kindness at Christmas-time, that the Rev. Dr. Potter, the
+rector at Rosebury, knew her. The old clergy, you see, live with the
+county families. Good little Madame de Florac was pitied and patronised
+by the Doctor, treated with no little superciliousness by Mrs. Potter,
+and the young ladies, who only kept the first society. Even when her
+rich brother died, and she got her share of all that money Mrs. Potter
+said poor Madame de Florac did well in not trying to move out of her
+natural sphere (Mrs. P. was the daughter of a bankrupt hatter in
+London, and had herself been governess in a noble family, out of which
+she married Mr. P., who was private tutor). Madame de Florac did well,
+she said, not to endeavour to leave her natural sphere, and that The
+County never would receive her. Tom Potter, the rector’s son, with whom
+I had the good fortune to be a fellow-student at Saint Boniface
+College, Oxbridge—a rattling, forward, and it must be owned, vulgar
+youth—asked me whether Florac was not a billiard-marker by profession?
+and was even so kind as to caution his sisters not to speak of
+billiards before the lady of Rosebury. Tom was surprised to learn that
+Monsieur Paul de Florac was a gentleman of lineage incomparably better
+than that of any, except two or three families in England (including
+your own, my dear and respected reader, of course, if you hold to your
+pedigree). But the truth is, heraldically speaking, that union with the
+Higgs of Manchester was the first misalliance which the Florac family
+had made for long long years. Not that I would wish for a moment to
+insinuate that any nobleman is equal to an English nobleman; nay, that
+an English snob, with a coat-of-arms bought yesterday, or stolen out of
+Edmonton, or a pedigree purchased from a peerage-maker, has not a right
+to look down upon any of your paltry foreign nobility.
+
+One day the carriage-and-four came in state from Newcome Park, with the
+well-known chaste liveries of the Newcomes, and drove up Rosebury
+Green, towards the parsonage gate, when Mrs. and the Miss Potters
+happened to be standing, cheapening fish from a donkey-man, with whom
+they were in the habit of dealing. The ladies were in their pokiest old
+head-gear and most dingy gowns, when they perceived the carriage
+approaching; and considering, of course, that the visit of the Park
+people was intended for them, dashed into the rectory to change their
+clothes, leaving Rowkins, the costermonger, in the very midst of the
+negotiation about the three mackerel. Mamma got that new bonnet out of
+the bandbox; Lizzy and Liddy skipped up to their bedroom, and brought
+out those dresses which they wore at the _déjeûner_ at the Newcome
+Athenæum, when Lord Leveret came down to lecture; into which they no
+sooner had hooked their lovely shoulders, than they reflected with
+terror that mamma had been altering one of papa’s flannel waistcoats
+and had left it in the drawing-room, when they were called out by the
+song of Rowkins, and the appearance of his donkey’s ears over the green
+gate of the rectory. To think of the Park people coming, and the
+drawing-room in that dreadful state!
+
+But when they came downstairs the Park people were not in the room—the
+woollen garment was still on the table (how they plunged it into the
+chiffonier!)—and the only visitor was Rowkins, the costermonger,
+grinning at the open French windows, with the three mackerel, and
+crying, “Make it sixpence, miss—don’t say fippens, maam, to a pore
+fellow that has a wife and family.” So that the young ladies had to
+cry—“Impudence!” “Get away, you vulgar insolent creature!—Go round,
+sir, to the back door!” “How dare you?” and the like; fearing lest Lady
+Anne Newcome, and Young Ethel, and Barnes should enter in the midst of
+this ignoble controversy.
+
+They never came at all—those Park people. How very odd! They passed the
+rectory gate; they drove on to Madame de Florac’s lodge. They went in.
+They stayed for half an hour; the horses driving round and round the
+gravel road before the house; and Mrs. Potter and the girls speedily
+going to the upper chambers, and looking out of the room where the
+maids slept, saw Lady Anne, Ethel, and Barnes walking with Madame de
+Florac, going into the conservatories, issuing thence with MacWhirter,
+the gardener, bearing huge bunches of grapes and large fasces of
+flowers; they saw Barnes talking in the most respectful manner to
+Madame de Florac: and when they went downstairs and had their work
+before them—Liddy her gilt music-book, Lizzy her embroidered
+altar-cloth, mamma her scarlet cloak for one of the old women—they had
+the agony of seeing the barouche over the railings whisk by, with the
+Park people inside, and Barnes driving the four horses.
+
+It was on that day when Barnes had determined to take up Madame de
+Florac; when he was bent upon reconciling her to her husband. In spite
+of all Mrs. Potter’s predictions, the county families did come and
+visit the manufacturer’s daughter; and when Madame de Florac became
+Madame la Princesse de Moncontour, when it was announced that she was
+coming to stay at Rosebury for Christmas, I leave you to imagine
+whether the circumstance was or was not mentioned in the _Newcome
+Sentinel_ and the _Newcome Independent;_ and whether Rev. G. Potter,
+D.D., and Mrs. Potter did or did not call on the Prince and Princess. I
+leave you to imagine whether the lady did or did not inspect all the
+alterations which Vineer’s people from Newcome were making at Rosebury
+House—the chaste yellow satin and gold of the drawing-room—the carved
+oak for the dining-room—the chintz for the bedrooms—the Princess’s
+apartment—the Prince’s apartment—the guests’ apartments—the
+smoking-room, gracious goodness!—the stables (these were under Tom
+Potter’s superintendence), “and I’m finished,” says he one day, “if
+here doesn’t come a billiard-table!”
+
+The house was most comfortably and snugly appointed from top to bottom;
+and thus it will be seen that Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis were likely to be
+in very good quarters for Christmas of 184-.
+
+Tom Potter was so kind as to call on me two days after our arrival; and
+to greet me in the Princess’s pew at church on the previous day. Before
+desiring to be introduced to my wife, he requested me to present him to
+my friend the Prince. He called him your Highness. His Highness, who
+had behaved with exemplary gravity, save once when he shrieked an “ah!”
+as Miss Liddy led off the children in the organ-loft in a hymn, and the
+whole pack went woefully out of tune, complimented Monsieur Tom on the
+sermon of monsieur his father. Tom walked with us to Rosebury
+lodge-gate. “Will you not come in, and make a party of billiard with
+me?” says His Highness. “Ah Pardon! I forgot, you do not play the
+billiard the Sunday!” “_Any other day_, Prince, I shall be delighted,”
+says Tom; and squeezed His Highness’s hand tenderly at parting. “Your
+comrade of college was he?” asks Florac. “My dear, what men are these
+comrades of college! What men are you English! My word of honour, there
+are some of them here—if I were to say to them wax my boots, they would
+take them and wax them! Didst thou see how the Révérend eyed us during
+the sermon? He regarded us over his book, my word of honour!”
+
+Madame de Florac said simply, she wished the Prince would go and hear
+Mr. Jacob at the Ebenezer. Mr. Potter was not a good preacher,
+certainly.
+
+“Savez-vous qu’elle est furieusement belle, la fille du Révérend?”
+whispered His Highness to me. “I have made eyes at her during the
+sermon. They will be of pretty neighbours these meess!” and Paul looked
+unutterably roguish and victorious as he spoke. To my wife, I am bound
+to say, Monsieur de Moncontour showed a courtesy, a respect and
+kindness, that could not be exceeded. He admired her. He paid her
+compliments innumerable, and gave me I am sure sincere congratulations
+at possessing such a treasure. I do not think he doubted about his
+power of conquering her, or any other of the daughters of women. But I
+was the friend of his misfortunes—his guest; and he spared me.
+
+I have seen nothing more amusing, odd, and pleasant than Florac at this
+time of his prosperity. We arrived, as this veracious chronicle has
+already asserted, on a Saturday evening. We were conducted to our most
+comfortable apartments; with crackling fires blazing on the hearths,
+and every warmth of welcome. Florac expanded and beamed with
+good-nature. He shook me many times by the hand; he patted me; he
+called me his good—his brave. He cried to his maître-d’hôtel,
+“Frédéric, remember monsieur is master here! Run before his orders.
+Prostrate thyself to him. He was good to me in the days of my
+misfortune. Hearest thou, Frédéric? See that everything be done for
+Monsieur Pendennis—for madame sa charmante lady—for her angelic infant,
+and the bonne. None of thy garrison tricks with that young person,
+Frédéric! vieux scélérat! Garde-toi de là, Frédéric; si non, je
+t’envoie à Botani Bay; je te traduis devant le Lord-Maire!”
+
+“En Angleterre je me fais Anglais, vois-tu, mon ami,” continued the
+Prince. “Demain c’est Sunday, et tu vas voir! I hear the bell, dress
+thyself for the dinner—my friend!”; Here there was another squeeze of
+both hands from the good-natured fellow. “It do good to my art to ’ave
+you in my ’ouse! Heuh!” He hugged his guest; he had tears in his eyes
+as he performed this droll, this kind embrace. Not less kind in her
+way, though less expensive and _embracive_, was Madame de Moncontour to
+my wife, as I found on comparing notes with that young woman, when the
+day’s hospitalities were ended. The little Princess trotted from
+bedchamber to nursery to see that everything was made comfortable for
+her guests. She sate and saw the child washed and put to bed. She had
+never beheld such a little angel. She brought it a fine toy to play
+with. She and her grim old maid frightened the little creature at
+first, but it was very speedily reconciled to their countenances. She
+was in the nursery almost as early as the child’s mother. “Ah!” sighed
+the poor little woman, “how happy you must be to have one!” In fine, my
+wife was quite overcome by her goodness and welcome.
+
+Sunday morning arrived in the course of time, and then Florac appeared
+as a most wonderful Briton indeed! He wore top-boots and buckskins; and
+after breakfast, when we went to church, a white great-coat with a
+little cape, in which garment he felt that his similarity to an English
+gentleman was perfect. In conversation with his grooms and servants he
+swore freely,—not that he was accustomed to employ oaths in his own
+private talk, but he thought the employment of these expletives
+necessary as an English country gentleman. He never dined without a
+roast-beef, and insisted that the piece of meat should be bleeding, “as
+you love it, you others.” He got up boxing-matches: and kept birds for
+combats of cock. He assumed the sporting language with admirable
+enthusiasm—drove over to cover with a steppère—rode across countri like
+a good one—was splendid in the hunting-field in his velvet cap and
+Napoleon boots, and made the Hunt welcome at Rosebury where his
+good-natured little wife was as kind to the gentlemen in scarlet as she
+used to be of old to the stout Dissenting gentlemen in black, who sang
+hymns and spake sermons on her lawn. These folks, scared at the change
+which had taken place in the little Princess’s habits of life, lamented
+her falling away: but in the county she and her husband got a great
+popularity, and in Newcome town itself they were not less liked, for
+her benefactions were unceasing, and Paul’s affability the theme of all
+praise. The _Newcome Independent_ and the _Newcome Sentinel_ both paid
+him compliments; the former journal contrasting his behaviour with that
+of Sir Barnes, their member. Florac’s pleasure was to drive his
+Princess with four horses into Newcome. He called his carriage his
+“trappe,” his “drague.” The street-boys cheered and hurrayed the Prince
+as he passed through the town. One haberdasher had a yellow stock
+called the “Moncontour” displayed in his windows; another had a pink
+one marked “The Princely,” and as such recommended it to the young
+Newcome gents.
+
+The drague conveyed us once to the neighbouring house of Newcome,
+whither my wife accompanied Madame de Moncontour at that lady’s own
+request, to whom Laura very properly did not think fit to confide her
+antipathy for Lady Clara Newcome. Coming away from a great house, how
+often she and I, egotistical philosophers, thanked our fates that our
+own home was a small one! How long will great houses last in this
+world? Do not their owners now prefer a lodging at Brighton, or a
+little entresol on the Boulevard, to the solitary ancestral palace in a
+park barred round with snow? We were as glad to get out of Newcome as
+out of a prison. My wife and our hostess skipped into the carriage, and
+began to talk freely as the lodge-gates closed after us. Would we be
+lords of such a place under the penalty of living in it? We agreed that
+the little angle of earth called Fairoaks was dearer to us than the
+clumsy Newcome-pile of Tudor masonry. The house had been fitted up in
+the time of George IV. and the quasi-Gothic revival. We were made to
+pass through Gothic dining-rooms, where there was now no
+hospitality,—Gothic drawing-rooms shrouded in brown hollands, to one
+little room at the end of the dusky suite, where Lady Clara sate alone,
+or in the company of the nurses and children. The blank gloom of the
+place had fallen upon the poor lady. Even when my wife talked about
+children (good-natured Madame de Moncontour vaunting ours as a prodigy)
+Lady Clara did not brighten up! Her pair of young ones was exhibited
+and withdrawn. A something weighed upon the woman. We talked about
+Ethel’s marriage. She said it was fixed for the new year, she believed.
+She did not know whether Glenlivat had been very handsomely fitted up.
+She had not seen Lord Farintosh’s house in London. Sir Barnes came down
+once—twice—of a Saturday sometimes, for three or four days to hunt, to
+amuse himself, as all men do she supposed. She did not know when he was
+coming again. She rang languidly when we rose to take leave, and sank
+back on her sofa, where lay a heap of French novels. “She has chosen
+some pretty books,” says Paul, as we drove through the sombre avenues
+through the grey park, mists lying about the melancholy ornamental
+waters, dingy herds of huddled sheep speckling the grass here and
+there; no smoke rising up from the great stacks of chimneys of the
+building we were leaving behind us, save one little feeble thread of
+white which we knew came from the fire by which the lonely mistress of
+Newcome was seated. “Ouf!” cries Florac, playing his whip, as the
+lodge-gates closed on us, and his team of horses rattled merrily along
+the road, “what a blessing it is to be out of that vault of a place!
+There is something fatal in this house—in this woman. One smells
+misfortune there.”
+
+The hotel which our friend Florac patronised on occasion of his visits
+to Newcome was the King’s Arms, and it happened, one day, as we entered
+that place of entertainment in company, that a visitor of the house was
+issuing through the hall, to whom Florac seemed as if he would
+administer one of his customary embraces, and to whom the Prince called
+out “Jack,” with great warmth and kindness as he ran towards the
+stranger.
+
+Jack did not appear to be particularly well pleased on beholding us; he
+rather retreated from before the Frenchman’s advances.
+
+“My dear Jack, my good, my brave Ighgate! I am delighted to see you!”
+Florac continues, regardless of the stranger’s reception, or of the
+landlord’s looks towards us, who was bowing the Prince into his very
+best room.
+
+“How do you do, Monsieur de Florac?” growls the new comer, surlily; and
+was for moving on after this brief salutation; but having a second
+thought seemingly, turned back and followed Florac into the apartment
+where our host conducted us. _A la bonne heure!_ Florac renewed his
+cordial greetings to Lord Highgate. “I knew not, mon bon, what fly had
+stung you,” says he to my lord. The landlord, rubbing his hands,
+smirking and bowing, was anxious to know whether the Prince would take
+anything after his drive. As the Prince’s attendant and friend, the
+lustre of his reception partially illuminated me. When the chief was
+not by, I was treated with great attention (mingled with a certain
+degree of familiarity) by my landlord.
+
+Lord Highgate waited until Mr. Taplow was out of the room; and then
+said to Florac, “Don’t call me by my name here, please, Florac, I am
+here incog.”
+
+“Plait-il?” asks Florac. “Where is incog.?” He laughed when the word
+was interpreted to him. Lord Highgate had turned to me. “There was no
+rudeness, you understand, intended, Mr. Pendennis, but I am down here
+on some business, and don’t care to wear the handle to my name. Fellows
+work it so, don’t you understand? never leave you at rest in a country
+town—that sort of thing. Heard of our friend Clive lately?”
+
+“Whether you ’ave ’andle or no ’andle, Jack, you are always the
+bien-venu to me. What is thy affair? Old monster! I wager——”
+
+“No, no, no such nonsense,” says Jack, rather eagerly. “I give you my
+honour, I—I want to—to raise a sum of money—that is, to invest some in
+a speculation down here—deuced good the speculations down here; and, by
+the way, if the landlord asks you, I’m Mr. Harris—I’m a civil
+engineer—I’m waiting for the arrival of the Canada at Liverpool from
+America, and very uneasy about my brother who is on board.”
+
+“What does he recount to us there? Keep these stories for the landlord,
+Jack; to us ’tis not the pain to lie. My good Mr. Harris, why have we
+not seen you at Rosebury? The Princess will scold me if you do not
+come; and you must bring your dear brother when he arrive too. Do you
+hear?” The last part of this sentence was uttered for Mr. Taplow’s
+benefit, who had re-entered the George bearing a tray of wine and
+biscuit.
+
+The Master of Rosebury and Mr. Harris went out presently to look at a
+horse which was waiting the former’s inspection in the stableyard of
+the hotel. The landlord took advantage of his business, to hear a bell
+which never was rung, and to ask me questions about the guest who had
+been staying at his house for a week past. Did I know that party? Mr.
+Pendennis said, “Yes, he knew that party.”
+
+“Most respectable party, I have no doubt,” continues Boniface. “Do you
+suppose the Prince of Moncontour knows any but respectable parties?”
+asks Mr. Pendennis—a query of which the force was so great as to
+discomfit and silence our landlord, who retreated to ask questions
+concerning Mr. Harris of Florac’s grooms.
+
+What was Highgate’s business here? Was it mine to know? I might have
+suspicions, but should I entertain them or communicate them, and had I
+not best keep them to myself? I exchanged not a word on the subject of
+Highgate with Florac, as we drove home: though from the way in which we
+looked at one another each saw that the other was acquainted with that
+unhappy gentleman’s secret. We fell to talking about Madame la Duchesse
+d’Ivry as we trotted on; and then of English manners by way of
+contrast, of intrigues, elopements, Gretna Grin, etc., etc. “You are a
+droll nation!” says Florac. “To make love well, you must absolutely
+have a chaise-de-poste, and a scandal afterwards. If our affairs of
+this kind made themselves on the grand route, what armies of
+postillions we should need!”
+
+I held my peace. In that vision of Jack Belsize I saw misery, guilt,
+children dishonoured, homes deserted,—ruin for all the actors and
+victims of the wretched conspiracy. Laura marked my disturbance when we
+reached home. She even divined the cause of it, and charged me with it
+at night, when we sate alone by our dressing-room fire, and had taken
+leave of our kind entertainers. Then, under her cross-examination, I
+own that I told what I had seen—Lord Highgate, under a feigned name
+staying at Newcome. It might be nothing. “Nothing! Gracious heavens!
+Could not this crime and misery be stopped?” “It might be too late,”
+Laura’s husband said sadly, bending down his head into the fire.
+
+She was silent too for a while. I could see she was engaged where pious
+women ever will betake themselves in moments of doubt, of grief, of
+pain, of separation, of joy even, or whatsoever other trial. They have
+but to will, and as it were an invisible temple rises round them; their
+hearts can kneel down there; and they have an audience of the great,
+the merciful untiring Counsellor and Consoler. She would not have been
+frightened at Death near at hand. I have known her to tend the poor
+round about us, or to bear pain—not her own merely, but even her
+children’s and mine, with a surprising outward constancy and calm. But
+the idea of this crime being enacted close at hand, and no help for
+it—quite overcame her. I believe she lay awake all that night; and rose
+quite haggard and pale after the bitter thoughts which had deprived her
+of rest.
+
+She embraced her own child with extraordinary tenderness that morning,
+and even wept over it, calling it by a thousand fond names of maternal
+endearment “Would I leave you, my darling—could I ever, ever, ever quit
+you, my blessing, and treasure!” The unconscious little thing, hugged
+to his mother’s bosom, and scared at her tones and tragic face, clung
+frightened and weeping round Laura’s neck. Would you ask what the
+husband’s feelings were as he looked at that sweet love, that sublime
+tenderness, that pure Saint blessing the life of him unworthy? Of all
+the gifts of Heaven to us below, that felicity is the sum and the
+chief. I tremble as I hold it lest I should lose it, and be left alone
+in the blank world without it: again, I feel humiliated to think that I
+possess it; as hastening home to a warm fireside and a plentiful table,
+I feel ashamed sometimes before the poor outcast beggar shivering in
+the street.
+
+Breakfast was scarcely over when Laura asked for a pony carriage, and
+said she was bent on a private visit. She took her baby and nurse with
+her. She refused our company, and would not even say whither she was
+bound until she had passed the lodge-gate. I may have suspected what
+the object was of her journey. Florac and I did not talk of it. We rode
+out to meet the hounds of a cheery winter morning: on another day I
+might have been amused with my host—the splendour of his raiment, the
+neatness of his velvet cap, the gloss of his hunting-boots; the cheers,
+shouts, salutations, to dog and man; the oaths and outcries of this
+Nimrod, who shouted louder than the whole field and the whole pack
+too—but on this morning—I was thinking of the tragedy yonder enacting,
+and came away early from the hunting-field, and found my wife already
+returned to Rosebury.
+
+Laura had been, as I suspected, to Lady Clara. She did not know why,
+indeed. She scarce knew what she should say when she arrived—how she
+could say what she had in her mind. “I hoped, Arthur, that I should
+have something—something told me to say,” whispered Laura, with her
+head on my shoulder; and as I lay awake last night thinking of her,
+prayed—that is, hoped, I might find a word of consolation for that poor
+lady. Do you know, I think she has hardly ever heard a kind word? She
+said so; she was very much affected after we had talked together a
+little.
+
+“At first she was very indifferent; cold and haughty in her manner;
+asked what had caused the pleasure of this visit, for I would go in,
+though at the lodge they told me her ladyship was unwell, and they
+thought received no company. I said I wanted to show our boy to
+her—that the children ought to be acquainted—I don’t know what I said.
+She seemed more and more surprised—then all of a sudden—I don’t know
+how—I said, ‘Lady Clara, I have had a dream about you and your
+children, and I was so frightened that I came over to you to speak
+about it.’ And I _had_ the dream, Pen; it came to me absolutely as I
+was speaking to her.
+
+“She looked a little scared, and I went on telling her the dream. ‘My
+dear’ I said, ‘I dreamed that I saw you happy with those children.’
+
+“‘Happy!’ says she—the three were playing in the conservatory into
+which her sitting-room opens.
+
+“‘And that a bad spirit came and tore them from you, and drove you out
+into the darkness; and I saw you wandering about quite lonely and
+wretched, and looking back into the garden where the children were
+playing. And you asked and implored to see them; and the Keeper at the
+gate said ‘No, never.’ And then—then I thought they passed by you, and
+they did not know you.’
+
+“‘Ah!’ said Lady Clara.
+
+“‘And then I thought, as we do in dreams, you know, that it was my
+child who was separated from me, and who would not know me: and oh,
+what a pang that was! Fancy that! Let us pray God it was only a dream.
+And worse than that, when you, when I implored to come to the child,
+and the man said, ‘No, never,’ I thought there came a spirit—an angel
+that fetched the child to heaven, and you said, ‘Let me come too; oh,
+let me come too, I am so miserable.’ And the angel said, ‘No, never,
+never.’
+
+“By this time Lady Clara was looking very pale. ‘What do you mean?’ she
+asked of me,” Laura continued.
+
+“‘Oh, dear lady, for the sake of the little ones, and Him who calls
+them to Him, go you with them. Never, never part from them! Cling to
+His knees, and take shelter there.’ I took her hands, and I said more
+to her in this way, Arthur, that I need not, that I ought not to speak
+again. But she was touched at length when I kissed her; and she said I
+was very kind to her, and no one had ever been so, and that she was
+quite alone in the world and had no friend to fly to; and would I go
+and stay with her? and I said ‘yes;’ and we must go, my dear. I think
+you should see that person at Newcome—see him, and warn him,” cried
+Laura, warming as she spoke, “and pray God to enlighten and strengthen
+him, and to keep him from this temptation, and implore him to leave
+this poor, weak, frightened, trembling creature; if he has the heart of
+a gentleman and the courage of a man, he will, I know he will.”
+
+“I think he would, my dearest,” I said, “if he but heard the
+petitioner.” Laura’s cheeks were blushing, her eyes brightened, her
+voice rang with a sweet pathos of love that vibrates through my whole
+being sometimes. It seems to me as if evil must give way, and bad
+thoughts retire before that purest creature.
+
+“Why has she not some of her family with her, poor thing!” my wife
+continued. “She perishes in that solitude. Her husband prevents her, I
+think—and—oh—I know enough of _him_ to know what his life is. I
+shudder, Arthur, to see you take the hand of that wicked, selfish man.
+You must break with him, do you hear, sir?”
+
+“Before or after going to stay at his house, my love?” asks Mr.
+Pendennis.
+
+“Poor thing! she lighted up at the idea of any one coming. She ran and
+showed me the rooms we were to have. It will be very stupid; and you
+don’t like that. But you can write your book, and still hunt and shoot
+with our friends here. And Lady Anne Newcome must be made to come back
+again. Sir Barnes quarrelled with his mother and drove her out of the
+house on her last visit—think of that! The servants here know it.
+Martha brought me the whole story from the housekeeper’s room. This Sir
+Barnes Newcome is a dreadful creature, Arthur. I am so glad I loathed
+him from the very first moment I saw him.”
+
+“And into this ogre’s den you propose to put me and my family, madam!”
+says the husband. “Indeed, where won’t I go if you order me? Oh, who
+will pack my portmanteau?”
+
+Florac and the Princess were both in desolation when, at dinner, we
+announced our resolution to go away—and to our neighbours at Newcome!
+that was more extraordinary. “Que diable goest thou to do in this
+galley?” asks our host as we sat alone over our wine.
+
+But Laura’s intended visit to Lady Clara was never to have a
+fulfilment, for on this same evening, as we sate at our dessert, comes
+a messenger from Newcome, with a note for my wife from the lady there:—
+
+“_Dearest, kindest_ Mrs. Pendennis,” Lady Clara wrote, with many
+italics, and evidently in much distress of mind. “Your visit _is not to
+be_. I spoke about it to Sir B., who _arrived this afternoon_, and who
+has already begun to treat me _in his usual way_. Oh, I am so unhappy!
+Pray, pray do not be angry at this rudeness—though indeed it is only a
+kindness to keep you from this wretched place! I feel as _if I cannot
+bear this much longer_. But, whatever happens, I shall always remember
+your goodness, your beautiful goodness and kindness; and shall worship
+you as _an angel_ deserves to be worshipped. Oh, why had I not such a
+friend _earlier!_ But alas! I have none—only _his odious family_ thrust
+upon me for companions to the _wretched, lonely_, C. N.
+
+“P.S.—He does not know of my writing. Do not be surprised if you get
+another note from me in the morning, written in a _ceremonious style_
+and regretting that we _cannot have the pleasure_ of receiving Mr. and
+Mrs. Pendennis for the present at Newcome.
+
+“P.S.—The hypocrite!”
+
+This letter was handed to my wife at dinner-time, and she gave it to me
+as she passed out of the room with the other ladies.
+
+I told Florac that the Newcomes could not receive us, and that we would
+remain, if he willed it, his guests for a little longer. The kind
+fellow was only too glad to keep us. “My wife would die without
+_Bébi_,” he said. “She becomes quite dangerous about Bébi.” It was
+gratifying that the good old lady was not to be parted as yet from the
+innocent object of her love.
+
+My host knew as well as I the terms upon which Sir Barnes and his wife
+were living. Their quarrels were the talk of the whole county; one side
+brought forward his treatment of her, and his conduct elsewhere, and
+said that he was so bad that honest people should not know him. The
+other party laid the blame upon her, and declared that Lady Clara was a
+languid, silly, weak, frivolous creature; always crying out of season;
+who had notoriously taken Sir Barnes for his money and who as certainly
+had had an attachment elsewhere. Yes, the accusations were true on both
+sides. A bad, selfish husband had married a woman for her rank: a weak,
+thoughtless girl had been sold to a man for his money; and the union,
+which might have ended in a complete indifference, had taken an ill
+turn and resulted in misery, cruelty, fierce mutual recriminations,
+bitter tears shed in private, husband’s curses and maledictions, and
+open scenes of wrath and violence for servants to witness and the world
+to sneer at. We arrange such matches every day; we sell or buy beauty,
+or rank, or wealth; we inaugurate the bargain in churches with
+sacramental services, in which the parties engaged call upon Heaven to
+witness their vows—we know them to be lies, and we seal them with God’s
+name. “I, Barnes, promise to take you, Clara, to love and honour till
+death do us part” “I Clara, promise to take you, Barnes,” etc, etc. Who
+has not heard the ancient words; and how many of us have uttered them,
+knowing them to be untrue: and is there a bishop on the bench that has
+not amen’d the humbug in his lawn sleeves and called a blessing over
+the kneeling perjurers?
+
+“Does Mr. Harris know of Newcome’s return?” Florac asked, when I
+acquainted him with this intelligence. “Ce scelerat de Highgate—Va!”
+
+“Does Newcome know that Lord Highgate is here?” I thought within
+myself, admiring my wife’s faithfulness and simplicity, and trying to
+believe with that pure and guileless creature that it was not yet too
+late to save the unhappy Lady Clara.
+
+“Mr. Harris had best be warned,” I said to Florac; “will you write him
+a word, and let us send a messenger to Newcome?”
+
+At first Florac said, “Parbleu! No;” the affair was none of his, he
+attended himself always to this result of Lady Clara’s marriage. He had
+even complimented Jack upon it years before at Baden, when scenes
+enough tragic, enough comical, _ma foi_, had taken place _à propos_ of
+this affair. Why should he meddle with it now?
+
+“Children dishonoured,” said I, “honest families made miserable; for
+Heaven’s sake, Florac, let us stay this catastrophe if we can.” I spoke
+with much warmth, eagerly desirous to avert this calamity if possible,
+and very strongly moved by the tale which I had heard only just before
+dinner from that noble and innocent creature, whose pure heart had
+already prompted her to plead the cause of right and truth, and to try
+and rescue an unhappy desperate sister trembling on the verge of ruin.
+
+“If you will not write to him,” said I, in some heat, “if your grooms
+don’t like to go out of a night” (this was one of the objections which
+Florac had raised), “I will walk.” We were talking over the affair
+rather late in the evening, the ladies having retreated to their
+sleeping apartments, and some guests having taken leave, whom our
+hospitable host and hostess had entertained that night, and before whom
+I naturally did not care to speak upon a subject so dangerous.
+
+“Parbleu, what virtue, my friend! what a Joseph!” cries Florac, puffing
+his cigar. “One sees well that your wife had made you the sermon. My
+poor Pendennis! You are henpecked, my pauvre bon! You become the
+husband model. It is true my mother writes that thy wife is an angel!”
+
+“I do not object to obey such a woman when she bids me do right,” I
+said; and would indeed at that woman’s request have gone out upon the
+errand, but that we here found another messenger. On days when
+dinner-parties were held at Rosebury, certain auxiliary waiters used to
+attend from Newcome whom the landlord of the King’s Arms was accustomed
+to supply; indeed, it was to secure these, and make other necessary
+arrangements respecting fish, game, etc., that the Prince de Moncontour
+had ridden over to Newcome on the day when we met Lord Highgate,
+_alias_ Mr. Harris, before the bar of the hotel. Whilst we were engaged
+in the above conversation a servant enters, and says, “My lord, Jenkins
+and the other man is going back to Newcome in their cart, and is there
+anything wanted?”
+
+“It is the Heaven which sends him,” says Florac, turning round to me
+with a laugh; “make Jenkins to wait five minutes, Robert; I have to
+write to a gentleman at the King’s Arms.” And so saying, Florac wrote a
+line which he showed me, and having sealed the note, directed it to Mr.
+Harris at the King’s Arms. The cart, the note, and the assistant
+waiters departed on their way to Newcome. Florac bade me go to rest
+with a clear conscience. In truth, the warning was better given in that
+way than any other, and a word from Florac was more likely to be
+effectual than an expostulation from me. I had never thought of making
+it, perhaps; except at the expressed desire of a lady whose counsel in
+all the difficult circumstances of life I own I am disposed to take.
+
+Mr. Jenkins’s horse no doubt trotted at a very brisk pace, as
+gentlemen’s horses will of a frosty night, after their masters have
+been regaled with plentiful supplies of wine and ale. I remember in my
+bachelor days that my horses always trotted quicker after I had had a
+good dinner; the champagne used to communicate itself to them somehow,
+and the claret get into their heels. Before midnight the letter for Mr.
+Harris was in Mr. Harris’s hands in the King’s Arms.
+
+It has been said that in the Boscawen Room at the Arms, some of the
+jolly fellows of Newcome had a club, of which Parrot the auctioneer,
+Tom Potts the talented reporter, now editor of the _Independent_,
+Vidler the apothecary, and other gentlemen, were members.
+
+When we first had occasion to mention that society, it was at an early
+stage of this history, long before Clive Newcome’s fine moustache had
+grown. If Vidler the apothecary was old and infirm then, he is near ten
+years older now; he has had various assistants, of course, and one of
+them of late years had his become his partner, though the firm
+continues to be known by Vidler’s ancient and respectable name. A
+jovial fellow was this partner—a capital convivial member of the Jolly
+Britons, where he used to sit very late, so as to be in readiness for
+any night-work that might come in.
+
+So the Britons were all sitting, smoking, drinking, and making merry,
+in the Boscawen Room, when Jenkins enters with a note, which he
+straightway delivers to Mr. Vidler’s partner. “From Rosebury? The
+Princess ill again, I suppose,” says the surgeon, not sorry to let the
+company know that he attends her. “I wish the old girl would be ill in
+the daytime. Confound it,” says he, “what’s this——” and he reads out,
+“‘Sir Newcome est de retour. Bon voyage, mon ami.—F.’ What does this
+mean?”
+
+“I thought you knew French, Jack Harris,” says Tom Potts; “you’re
+always bothering us with your French songs.”
+
+“Of course I know French,” says the other; “but what’s the meaning of
+this?”
+
+“Screwcome came back by the five o’clock train. I was in it, and his
+royal highness would scarcely speak to me. Took Brown’s fly from the
+station. Brown won’t enrich his family much by the operation,” says Mr.
+Potts.
+
+“But what do _I_ care?” cries Jack Harris; “we don’t attend him, and we
+don’t lose much by that. Howell attends him, ever since Vidler and he
+had that row.”
+
+“Hulloh! I say, it’s a mistake,” cries Mr. Taplow, smoking in his
+chair. “This letter is for the party in the Benbow. The gent which the
+Prince spoke to him, and called him Jack the other day when he was
+here. Here’s a nice business, and the seal broke, and all. Is the
+Benbow party gone to bed? John, you must carry him in this here note.”
+John, quite innocent of the note and its contents, for he that moment
+had entered the clubroom with Mr. Potts’s supper, took the note to the
+Benbow, from which he presently returned to his master with a very
+scared countenance. He said the gent in the Benbow was a most
+harbitrary gent. He had almost choked John after reading the letter,
+and John wouldn’t stand it; and when John said he supposed that Mr.
+Harris in the Boscawen—that Mr. Jack Harris, had opened the letter, the
+other gent cursed and swore awful.
+
+“Potts,” said Taplow, who was only too communicative on some occasions
+after he had imbibed too much of his own brandy-and-water, “it’s my
+belief that that party’s name is no more Harris than mine is. I have
+sent his linen to the wash, and there was two white
+pocket-handkerchiefs with H. and a coronet.”
+
+On the next day we drove over to Newcome, hoping perhaps to find that
+Lord Highgate had taken the warning sent to him and quitted the place.
+But we were disappointed. He was walking in front of the hotel, where a
+thousand persons might see him as well as ourselves.
+
+We entered into his private apartment with him, and there expostulated
+upon his appearance in the public street, where Barnes Newcome or any
+passer-by might recognise him. He then told us of the mishap which had
+befallen Florac’s letter on the previous night.
+
+“I can’t go away now, whatever might have happened previously: by this
+time that villain knows that I am here. If I go, he will say I was
+afraid of him, and ran away. Oh, how I wish he would come and find me!”
+He broke out with a savage laugh.
+
+“It is best to run away,” one of us interposed sadly.
+
+“Pendennis,” he said with a tone of great softness, “your wife is a
+good woman. God bless her! God bless her for all she has said and
+done—would have done, if that villain had let her! Do you know the poor
+thing hasn’t a single friend in the world, not one, one—except me, and
+that girl they are selling to Farintosh, and who does not count for
+much. He has driven away all her friends from her: one and all turn
+upon her. Her relations, of course; when did _they_ ever fail to hit a
+poor fellow or a poor girl when she was down? The poor angel! The
+mother who sold her comes and preaches at her; Kew’s wife turns up her
+little cursed nose and scorns her; Rooster, forsooth, must ride high
+the horse, now he is married and lives at Chanticlere, and give her
+warning to avoid my company or his! Do you know the only friend she
+ever had was that old woman with the stick—old Kew; the old witch whom
+they buried four months ago after nobbling her money for the beauty of
+the family? She used to protect her—that old woman; heaven bless her
+for it, wherever she is now, the old hag—a good word won’t do her any
+harm. Ha! ha!” His laughter was cruel to hear.
+
+“Why did I come down?” he continued in reply to our sad queries. “Why
+did I come down, do you ask? Because she was wretched, and sent for me.
+Because if I was at the end of the world, and she was to say, ‘Jack,
+come!’ I’d come.”
+
+“And if she bade you go?” asked his friends.
+
+“I would go; and I have gone. If she told me to jump into the sea, do
+you think I would not do it? But I go; and when she is alone with him,
+do you know what he does? He strikes her. Strikes _that_ poor little
+thing! He has owned to it. She fled from him and sheltered with the old
+woman who’s dead. He may be doing it now. Why did I ever shake hands
+with him? that’s humiliation sufficient, isn’t it? But she wished it;
+and I’d black his boots, curse him, if she told me. And because he
+wanted to keep my money in his confounded bank; and because he knew he
+might rely upon my honour and hers, poor dear child, he chooses to
+shake hands with me—me, whom he hates worse than a thousand devils—and
+quite right too. Why isn’t there a place where we can go and meet, like
+man to man, and have it over! If I had a ball through my brains I
+shouldn’t mind, I tell you. I’ve a mind to do it for myself, Pendennis.
+You don’t understand me, Viscount.”
+
+“Il est vrai,” said Florac, with a shrug, “I comprehend neither the
+suicide nor the chaise-de-poste. What will you? I am not yet enough
+English, my friend. We make marriages of convenance in our country, que
+diable, and what follows follows; but no scandal afterwards! Do not
+adopt our institutions à demi, my friend. Vous ne me comprenez pas non
+plus, men pauvre Jack!”
+
+“There is one way still, I think,” said the third of the speakers in
+this scene. “Let Lord Highgate come to Rosebury in his own name,
+leaving that of Mr. Harris behind him. If Sir Barnes Newcome wants you,
+he can seek you there. If you will go, as go you should, and God speed
+you, you can go, and in your own name, too.”
+
+“Parbleu, c’est ça,” cries Florac, “he speaks like a book—the
+romancier!” I confess, for my part, I thought that a good woman might
+plead with him, and touch that manly not disloyal heart now trembling
+on the awful balance between evil and good.
+
+“Allons! let us make to come the drague!” cries Florac. “Jack, thou
+returnest with us, my friend! Madame Pendennis, an angel, my friend, a
+_quakre_ the most charming, shall roucoule to thee the sweetest
+sermons. My wife shall tend thee like a mother—a grandmother. Go make
+thy packet!”
+
+Lord Highgate was very much pleased and relieved seemingly. He shook
+our hands, he said he should never forget our kindness, never! In
+truth, the didactic part of our conversation was carried on at much
+greater length than as here noted down: and he would come that evening,
+but not with us, thank you; he had a particular engagement, some
+letters he must write. Those done, he would not fail us, and would be
+at Rosebury by dinner-time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+“One more Unfortunate”
+
+
+The Fates did not ordain that the plan should succeed which Lord
+Highgate’s friends had devised for Lady Clara’s rescue or respite. He
+was bent upon one more interview with the unfortunate lady; and in that
+meeting the future destiny of their luckless lives was decided. On the
+morning of his return home, Barnes Newcome had information that Lord
+Highgate, under a feigned name, had been staying in the neighbourhood
+of his house, and had repeatedly been seen in the company of Lady
+Clara. She may have gone out to meet him but for one hour more. She had
+taken no leave of her children on the day when she left her home, and,
+far from making preparations for her own departure, had been engaged in
+getting the house ready for the reception of members of the family,
+whose arrival her husband announced as speedily to follow his own.
+Ethel and Lady Anne and some of the children were coming. Lord
+Farintosh’s mother and sisters were to follow. It was to be a reunion
+previous to the marriage which was closer to unite the two families.
+Lady Clara said Yes to her husband’s orders; rose mechanically to obey
+his wishes and arrange for the reception of the guests; and spoke
+tremblingly to the housekeeper as her husband gibed at her. The little
+ones had been consigned to bed early and before Sir Barnes’s arrival.
+He did not think fit to see them in their sleep; nor did their mother.
+She did not know, as the poor little creatures left her room in charge
+of their nurses, that she looked on them for the last time. Perhaps,
+had she gone to their bedsides that evening, had the wretched
+panic-stricken soul been allowed leisure to pause, and to think, and to
+pray, the fate of the morrow might have been otherwise, and the
+trembling balance of the scale have inclined to right’s side. But the
+pause was not allowed her. Her husband came and saluted her with his
+accustomed greetings of scorn, and sarcasm, and brutal insult. On a
+future day he never dared to call a servant of his household to testify
+to his treatment of her; though many were ready to attend to prove his
+cruelty and her terror. On that very last night, Lady Clara’s maid, a
+country girl from her father’s house at Chanticlere, told Sir Barnes in
+the midst of a conjugal dispute that her lady might bear his conduct
+but she could not, and that she would no longer live under the roof of
+such a brute. The girl’s interference was not likely to benefit her
+mistress much: the wretched Lady Clara passed the last night under the
+roof of her husband and children, unattended save by this poor domestic
+who was about to leave her, in tears and hysterical outcries, and then
+in moaning stupor. Lady Clara put to sleep with laudanum, her maid
+carried down the story of her wrongs to the servants’ quarters; and
+half a dozen of them took in their resignation to Sir Barnes as he sat
+over his breakfast the next morning—in his ancestral hall—surrounded by
+the portraits of his august forefathers—in his happy home.
+
+Their mutiny of course did not add to their master’s good-humour; and
+his letters brought him news which increased Barnes’s fury. A messenger
+arrived with a letter from his man of business at Newcome, upon the
+receipt of which he started up with such an execration as frightened
+the servant waiting on him, and letter in hand he ran to Lady Clara’s
+sitting-room. Her ladyship was up. Sir Barnes breakfasted rather late
+on the first morning after an arrival at Newcome. He had to look over
+the bailiff’s books, and to look about him round the park and grounds;
+to curse the gardeners; to damn the stable and kennel grooms; to yell
+at the woodman for clearing not enough or too much; to rail at the poor
+old workpeople brooming away the fallen leaves, etc. So Lady Clara was
+up and dressed when her husband went to her room, which lay at the end
+of the house as we have said, the last of a suite of ancestral halls.
+
+The mutinous servant heard high voices and curses within; then Lady
+Clara’s screams; then Sir Barnes Newcome burst out of the room, locking
+the door and taking the key with him, and saluting with more curses
+James, the mutineer, over whom his master ran.
+
+“Curse your wife, and don’t curse me, Sir Barnes Newcome!” said James,
+the mutineer; and knocked down a hand which the infuriated Baronet
+raised against him, with an arm that was twice as strong as Barnes’s
+own. This man and maid followed their mistress in the sad journey upon
+which she was bent. They treated her with unalterable respect. They
+never could be got to see that her conduct was wrong. When Barnes’s
+counsel subsequently tried to impugn their testimony, they dared him;
+and hurt the plaintiff’s case very much. For the balance had weighed
+over; and it was Barnes himself who caused what now ensued; and what we
+learned in a very few hours afterwards from Newcome, where it was the
+talk of the whole neighbourhood.
+
+Florac and I, as yet ignorant of all that was occurring, met Barnes
+near his own lodge-gate riding in the direction of Newcome, as we were
+ourselves returning to Rosebury. The Prince de Moncontour, who was
+driving, affably saluted the Baronet, who gave us a scowling
+recognition, and rode on, his groom behind him. “The figure of the
+garçon,” says Florac, as our acquaintance passed, “is not agreeable. Of
+pale, he has become livid. I hope these two men will not meet, or evil
+will come!” Evil to Barnes there might be, Florac’s companion thought,
+who knew the previous little affairs between Barnes and his uncle and
+cousin; and that Lord Highgate was quite able to take care of himself.
+
+In half an hour after Florac spoke, that meeting between Barnes and
+Highgate actually had taken place—in the open square of Newcome, within
+four doors of the King’s Arms inn, close to which lives Sir Barnes
+Newcome’s man of business; and before which, Mr. Harris, as he was
+called, was walking, and waiting till a carriage which he had ordered
+came round from the inn yard. As Sir Barnes Newcome rode into the place
+many people touched their hats to him, however little they loved him.
+He was bowing and smirking to one of these, when he suddenly saw
+Belsize.
+
+He started back, causing his horse to back with him on to the pavement,
+and it may have been rage and fury, or accident and nervousness merely,
+but at this instant Barnes Newcome, looking towards Lord Highgate,
+shook his whip.
+
+“You cowardly villain!” said the other, springing forward. “I was going
+to your house.”
+
+“How dare you, sir,” cries Sir Barnes, still holding up that unlucky
+cane, “how dare you to—to——”
+
+“Dare, you scoundrel!” said Belsize. “Is that the cane you strike your
+wife with, you ruffian!” Belsize seized and tore him out of the saddle,
+flinging him screaming down on the pavement. The horse, rearing and
+making way for himself, galloped down the clattering street; a hundred
+people were round Sir Barnes in a moment.
+
+The carriage which Belsize had ordered came round at this very
+juncture. Amidst the crowd, shrinking, bustling, expostulating,
+threatening, who pressed about him, he shouldered his way. Mr. Taplow,
+aghast, was one of the hundred spectators of the scene.
+
+“I am Lord Highgate,” said Barnes’s adversary. “If Sir Barnes Newcome
+wants me, tell him I will send him word where he may hear of me.” And
+getting into the carriage, he told the driver to go “to the usual
+place.”
+
+Imagine the hubbub in the town, the conclaves at the inns, the talks in
+the counting-houses, the commotion amongst the factory people, the
+paragraphs in the Newcome papers, the bustle of surgeons and lawyers,
+after this event. Crowds gathered at the King’s Arms, and waited round
+Mr. Speers the lawyer’s house, into which Sir Barnes was carried. In
+vain policemen told them to move on; fresh groups gathered after the
+seceders. On the next day, when Barnes Newcome, who was not much hurt,
+had a fly to go home, a factory man shook his fist in at the carriage
+window, and, with a curse, said, “Serve you right, you villain.” It was
+the man whose sweetheart this Don Juan had seduced and deserted years
+before; whose wrongs were well known amongst his mates, a leader in the
+chorus of hatred which growled round Barnes Newcome.
+
+Barnes’s mother and sister Ethel had reached Newcome shortly before the
+return of the master of the house. The people there were in
+disturbance. Lady Anne and Miss Newcome came out with pallid looks to
+greet him. He laughed and reassured them about his accident: indeed his
+hurt had been trifling; he had been bled by the surgeon, a little
+jarred by the fall from his horse; but there was no sort of danger.
+Still their pale and doubtful looks continued. What caused them? In the
+open day, with a servant attending her Lady Clara Newcome had left her
+husband’s house; and a letter was forwarded to him that same evening
+from my Lord Highgate, informing Sir Barnes Newcome that Lady Clara
+Pulleyn could bear his tyranny no longer, and had left his roof; that
+Lord Highgate proposed to leave England almost immediately, but would
+remain long enough to afford Sir Barnes Newcome the opportunity for an
+interview, in case he should be disposed to demand one: and a friend
+(of Lord Highgate’s late regiment) was named who would receive letters
+and act in any way necessary for his lordship.
+
+The debates of the House of Lords must tell what followed afterwards in
+the dreary history of Lady Clara Pulleyn. The proceedings in the
+Newcome Divorce Bill filled the usual number of columns in the
+papers,—especially the Sunday papers. The witnesses were examined by
+learned peers whose business—nay, pleasure—it seems to be to enter into
+such matters; and, for the ends of justice and morality, doubtless, the
+whole story of Barnes Newcome’s household was told to the British
+public. In the previous trial in the Court of Queen’s Bench, how
+grandly Serjeant Rowland stood up for the rights of British husbands!
+with what pathos he depicted the conjugal paradise, the innocent
+children prattling round their happy parents, the serpent, the
+destroyer, entering into that Belgravian Eden; the wretched and
+deserted husband alone by his desecrated hearth, and calling for
+redress on his country! Rowland wept freely during his noble harangue.
+At not a shilling under twenty thousand pounds would he estimate the
+cost of his client’s injuries. The jury was very much affected: the
+evening papers gave Rowland’s address _in extenso_, with some pretty
+sharp raps at the aristocracy in general. The _Day_, the principal
+morning journal of that period, came out with a leading article the
+next morning, in which every party concerned and every institution was
+knocked about. The disgrace of the peerage, the ruin of the monarchy
+(with a retrospective view of the well-known case of Gyges and
+Candaules), the monstrosity of the crime, and the absurdity of the
+tribunal and the punishment, were all set forth in the terrible leading
+article of the _Day_.
+
+But when, on the next day, Serjeant Rowland was requested to call
+witnesses to prove that connubial happiness which he had depicted so
+pathetically, he had none at hand.
+
+Oliver, Q.C., now had his innings. A man, a husband, and a father, Mr.
+Oliver could not attempt to defend the conduct of his unfortunate
+client; but if there could be any excuse for such conduct, that excuse
+he was free to confess the plaintiff had afforded, whose cruelty and
+neglect twenty witnesses in court were ready to prove—neglect so
+outrageous, cruelty so systematic, that he wondered the plaintiff had
+not been better advised than to bring this trial, with all its
+degrading particulars, to a public issue. On the very day when the
+ill-omened marriage took place, another victim of cruelty had
+interposed as vainly—as vainly as Serjeant Rowland himself interposed
+in Court to prevent this case being made known—and with piteous
+outcries, in the name of outraged neglected woman, of castaway children
+pleading in vain for bread, had besought the bride to pause, and the
+bridegroom to look upon the wretched beings who owed him life. Why had
+not Lady Clara Pulleyn’s friends listened to that appeal? And so on,
+and so on, between Rowland and Oliver the battle waged fiercely that
+day. Many witnesses were mauled and slain. Out of that combat scarce
+anybody came well, except the two principal champions, Rowland,
+Serjeant, and Oliver, Q.C. The whole country looked on and heard the
+wretched story, not only of Barnes’s fault and Highgate’s fault, but of
+the private peccadilloes of their suborned footmen and conspiring
+housemaids. Mr. Justice C. Sawyer charged the jury at great
+length—those men were respectable men and fathers of families
+themselves—of course they dealt full measure to Lord Highgate for his
+delinquencies; consoled the injured husband with immense damages, and
+left him free to pursue the further steps for releasing himself
+altogether from the tie which had been bound with affecting episcopal
+benediction at St. George’s, Hanover Square.
+
+So Lady Clara flies from the custody of her tyrant, but to what a
+rescue! The very man who loves her, and gives her asylum, pities and
+deplores her. She scarce dares to look out of the windows of her new
+home upon the world, lest it should know and reproach her. All the
+sisterhood of friendship is cut off from her. If she dares to go abroad
+she feels the sneer of the world as she goes through it; and knows that
+malice and scorn whisper behind her. People, as criminal but
+undiscovered, make room for her, as if her touch were pollution. She
+knows she has darkened the lot and made wretched the home of the man
+whom she loves best; that his friends who see her, treat her with but a
+doubtful respect; and the domestics who attend her, with a suspicious
+obedience. In the country lanes, or the streets of the county town,
+neighbours look aside as the carriage passes in which she sits splendid
+and lonely. Rough hunting companions of her husband’s come to her
+table: he is driven perforce to the company of flatterers and men of
+inferior sort; his equals, at least in his own home, will not live with
+him. She would be kind, perhaps, and charitable to the cottagers round
+about her, but she fears to visit them lest they too should scorn her.
+The clergyman who distributes her charities, blushes and looks awkward
+on passing her in the village, if he should be walking with his wife or
+one of his children. Shall they go to the Continent, and set up a grand
+house at Paris or at Florence? There they can get society, but of what
+a sort! Our acquaintances of Baden,—Madame Schlangenbad, and Madame de
+Cruchecassée, and Madame d’Ivry, and Messrs. Loder, and Punter, and
+Blackball, and Deuceace, will come, and dance, and flirt, and quarrel,
+and gamble, and feast round about her; but what in common with such
+wild people has this poor, timid, shrinking soul? Even these scorn her.
+The leers and laughter on those painted faces are quite unlike her own
+sad countenance. She has no reply to their wit. Their infernal gaiety
+scares her more than the solitude at home. No wonder that her husband
+does not like home, except for a short while in the hunting season. No
+wonder that he is away all day; how can he like a home which she has
+made so wretched? In the midst of her sorrow, and doubt, and misery, a
+child comes to her: how she clings to it! how her whole being, and
+hope, and passion centres itself on this feeble infant!——but she no
+more belongs to our story; with the new name she has taken, the poor
+lady passes out of the history of the Newcomes.
+
+If Barnes Newcome’s children meet yonder solitary lady, do they know
+her? If her once-husband thinks upon the unhappy young creature whom
+his cruelty drove from him, does his conscience affect his sleep at
+night? Why should Sir Barnes Newcome’s conscience be more squeamish
+than his country’s, which has put money in his pocket for having
+trampled on the poor weak young thing, and scorned her, and driven her
+to ruin? When the whole of the accounts of that wretched bankruptcy are
+brought up for final Audit, which of the unhappy partners shall be
+shown to be most guilty? Does the Right Reverend Prelate who did the
+benedictory business for Barnes and Clara his wife repent in secret? Do
+the parents who pressed the marriage, and the fine folks who signed the
+book, and ate the breakfast, and applauded the bridegroom’s speech,
+feel a little ashamed? O Hymen Hymenæe! The bishops, beadles, clergy,
+pew-openers, and other officers of the temple dedicated to Heaven under
+the invocation of St. George, will officiate in the same place at
+scores and scores more of such marriages: and St. George of England may
+behold virgin after virgin offered up to the devouring monster, Mammon
+(with many most respectable female dragons looking on)—may see virgin
+after virgin given away, just as in the Soldan of Babylon’s time, but
+with never a champion to come to the rescue!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+In which Achilles loses Briseis
+
+
+Although the years of the Marquis of Farintosh were few, he had spent
+most of them in the habit of command; and, from his childhood upwards,
+had been obeyed by all persons round about him. As an infant he had but
+to roar, and his mother and nurses were as much frightened as though he
+had been a Libyan lion. What he willed and ordered was law amongst his
+clan and family. During the period of his London and Parisian
+dissipations his poor mother did not venture to remonstrate with her
+young prodigal, but shut her eyes, not daring to open them on his wild
+courses. As for the friends of his person and house, many of whom were
+portly elderly gentlemen, their affection for the young Marquis was so
+extreme that there was no company into which their fidelity would not
+lead them to follow him; and you might see him dancing at Mabille with
+veteran aides-de-camp looking on, or disporting with opera-dancers at a
+Trois Freres banquet, which some old gentleman of his father’s age had
+taken the pains to order. If his lordship Count Almaviva wants a friend
+to carry the lanthorn or to hold the ladder; do you suppose there are
+not many most respectable men in society who will act Figaro? When
+Farintosh thought fit, in the fulness of time and the blooming pride of
+manhood, to select a spouse, and to elevate a marchioness to his
+throne, no one dared gainsay him. When he called upon his mother and
+sisters, and their ladyships’ hangers-on and attendants; upon his own
+particular kinsmen, led captains, and toadies; to bow the knee and do
+homage to the woman whom he delighted to honour, those duteous subjects
+trembled and obeyed; in fact, he thought that the position of a
+Marchioness of Farintosh was under heaven, and before men, so splendid,
+that, had he elevated a beggar-maid to that sublime rank, the inferior
+world was bound to worship her.
+
+So my lord’s lady-mother, and my lord’s sisters, and his captains, and
+his players of billiards, and the toadies of his august person, all
+performed obeisance to his bride-elect, and never questioned the will
+of the young chieftain. What were the private comments of the ladies of
+the family we had no means of knowing; but it may naturally be supposed
+that his lordship’s gentlemen-in-waiting, Captain Henchman, Jack
+Todhunter, and the rest, had many misgivings of their own respecting
+their patron’s change in life, and could not view without anxiety the
+advent of a mistress who might reign over him and them, who might
+possibly not like their company, and might exert her influence over her
+husband to oust these honest fellows from places in which they were
+very comfortable. The jovial rogues had the run of my lord’s kitchen,
+stables, cellars, and cigar-boxes. A new marchioness might hate
+hunting, smoking, jolly parties, and toad-eaters in general, or might
+bring into the house favourites of her own. I am sure any kind-hearted
+man of the world must feel for the position of these faithful,
+doubtful, disconsolate vassals, and have a sympathy for their rueful
+looks and demeanour as they eye the splendid preparations for the
+ensuing marriage, the grand furniture sent to my lord’s castles and
+houses, the magnificent plate provided for his tables—tables at which
+they may never have a knife and fork; castles and houses of which the
+poor rogues may never be allowed to pass the doors.
+
+When, then, “the elopement in High Life,” which has been described in
+the previous pages, burst upon the town in the morning papers, I can
+fancy the agitation which the news occasioned in the faithful bosoms of
+the generous Todhunter, and the attached Henchman. My lord was not in
+his own house as yet. He and his friends still lingered on in the
+little house in Mayfair, the dear little bachelor’s quarters, where
+they had enjoyed such good dinners, such good suppers, such rare
+doings, such a jolly time. I fancy Hench coming down to breakfast, and
+reading the _Morning Post_. I imagine Tod dropping in from his bedroom
+over the way, and Hench handing the paper over to Tod, and the
+conversation which ensued between those worthy men. Elopement in high
+life—excitement in N—come, and flight of Lady Cl— N—come, daughter of
+the late and sister of the present Earl of D-rking, with Lord H—gate;
+personal rencontre between Lord H—gate and Sir B—nes N—come.
+Extraordinary disclosures. I say, I can fancy Hench and Tod over this
+awful piece of news.
+
+“Pretty news, ain’t it, Toddy?” says Henchman, looking up from a
+Perigord-pie, which the faithful creature is discussing.
+
+“Always expected it,” remarks the other. “Anybody who saw them together
+last season must have known it. The Chief himself spoke of it to me.”
+
+“It’ll cut him up awfully when he reads it. Is it in the _Morning
+Post?_ He has the _Post_ in his bedroom. I know he has rung his bell: I
+heard it. Bowman, has his lordship read his paper yet?”
+
+Bowman, the valet, said, “I believe you, he _have_ read his paper. When
+he read it, he jumped out of bed and swore most awful. I cut as soon as
+I could,” continued Mr. Bowman, who was on familiar—nay contemptuous
+terms with the other two gentlemen.
+
+“Enough to make any man swear,” says Toddy to Henchman; and both were
+alarmed in their noble souls, reflecting that their chieftain was now
+actually getting up and dressing himself; that he would speedily, and
+in course of nature, come downstairs; and, then, most probably, would
+begin swearing at _them_.
+
+The most noble Mungo Malcolm Angus was in an awful state of mind when,
+at length, he appeared in the breakfast-room. “Why the dash do you make
+a taproom of this?” he cries. The trembling Henchman, who has begun to
+smoke—as he has done a hundred times before in this bachelor’s
+hall—flings his cigar into the fire.
+
+“There you go—nothing like it! Why don’t you fling some more in? You
+can get ’em at Hudson’s for five guineas a pound.” bursts out the
+youthful peer.
+
+“I understand why you are out of sorts, old boy,” says Henchman,
+stretching out his manly hand. A tear of compassion twinkled in his
+eyelid, and coursed down his mottled cheek. “Cut away at old Frank,
+Farintosh,—a fellow who has been attached to you since before you could
+speak. It’s not when a fellow’s down and cut up, and riled—naturally
+riled—as you are—I know you are, Marquis; it’s not then that I’m going
+to be angry with you. Pitch into old Frank Henchman—hit away, my young
+one.” And Frank put himself into an attitude as of one prepared to
+receive a pugilistic assault. He bared his breast, as it were, and
+showed his scars, and said, “Strike!” Frank Henchman was a florid
+toady. My uncle, Major Pendennis, has often laughed with me about the
+fellow’s pompous flatteries and ebullient fidelity.
+
+“You have read this confounded paragraph?” says the Marquis.
+
+“We _have_ read it: and were deucedly cut up, too,” says Henchman, “for
+your sake, my dear boy.”
+
+“I remembered what you said, last year, Marquis,” cries Todhunter (not
+unadroitly). “You, yourself, pointed out, in this very room, I
+recollect, at this very table—that night Coralie and the little Spanish
+dancer and her mother supped here, and there was a talk about
+Highgate—you, yourself, pointed out what was likely to happen. I
+doubted it; for I have dined at the Newcomes’, and seen Highgate and
+her together in society often. But though you are a younger bird, you
+have better eyes than I have—and you saw the thing at once—at once,
+don’t you remember I and Coralie said how glad she was, because Sir
+Barnes ill-treated her friend. What was the name of Coralie’s friend,
+Hench?”
+
+“How should _I_ know her confounded name?” Henchman briskly answers.
+“What do I care for Sir Barnes Newcome and his private affairs? He is
+no friend of mine. I never said he was a friend of mine. I never said I
+liked him. Out of respect for the Chief here, I held my tongue about
+him, and shall hold my tongue. Have some of this pate, Chief! No? Poor
+old boy! I know you haven’t got an appetite. I know this news cuts you
+up. I say nothing, and make no pretence of condolence; though I feel
+for you—and you know you can count on old Frank Henchman—don’t you,
+Malcolm?” And again he turns away to conceal his gallant sensibility
+and generous emotion.
+
+“What does it matter to me?” bursts out the Marquis, garnishing his
+conversation with the usual expletives which adorned his eloquence when
+he was strongly moved. “What do I care for Barnes Newcome, and his
+confounded affairs and family? I never want to see him again, but in
+the light of a banker, when I go to the City, where he keeps my
+account. I say, I have nothing to do with him, or all the Newcomes
+under the sun. Why, one of them is a painter, and will paint my dog,
+Ratcatcher, by Jove! or my horse, or my groom, if I give him the order.
+Do you think I care for any one of the pack? It’s not the fault of the
+Marchioness of Farintosh that her family is not equal to mine. Besides
+two others in England and Scotland, I should like to know what family
+is? I tell you what, Hench. I bet you five to two, that before an hour
+is over my mother will be here, and down on her knees to me, begging me
+to break off this engagement.”
+
+“And what will you do, Farintosh?” asks Henchman, slowly, “Will you
+break it off?”
+
+“No!” shouts the Marquis. “Why shall I break off with the finest girl
+in England—and the best-plucked one, and the cleverest and wittiest,
+and the most beautiful creature, by Jove, that ever stepped, for no
+fault of hers, and because her sister-in-law leaves her brother, who I
+know treated her infernally? We have talked this matter over at home
+before. I wouldn’t dine with the fellow; though he was always asking
+me; nor meet, except just out of civility, any of his confounded
+family. Lady Anne is different. She is a lady, she is. She is a good
+woman: and Kew is a most respectable man, though he is only a peer of
+George III.’s creation, and you should hear how _he_ speaks of Miss
+Newcome, though she refused him. I should like to know who is to
+prevent me marrying Lady Anne Newcome’s daughter?”
+
+“By Jove, you are a good-plucked fellow, Farintosh—give me your hand,
+old boy,” says Henchman.
+
+“Heh! am I? You would have said, give me your hand, old boy, whichever
+way I determined, Hench! I tell you, I ain’t intellectual, and that
+sort of thing. But I know my rank, and I know my place; and when a man
+of my station gives his word, he sticks to it, sir; and my lady, and my
+sisters, may go on their knees all round; and, by Jove, I won’t
+flinch.”
+
+The justice of Lord Farintosh’s views was speedily proved by the
+appearance of his lordship’s mother, Lady Glenlivat, whose arrival put
+a stop to a conversation which Captain Francis Henchman has often
+subsequently narrated. She besought to see her son in terms so urgent,
+that the young nobleman could not be denied to his parent; and, no
+doubt, a long and interesting interview took place, in which Lord
+Farintosh’s mother passionately implored him to break off a match upon
+which he was as resolutely bent.
+
+Was it a sense of honour, a longing desire to possess this young
+beauty, and call her his own, or a fierce and profound dislike to being
+balked in any object of his wishes, which actuated the young lord?
+Certainly he had borne, very philosophically, delay after delay which
+had taken place in the devised union; and being quite sure of his
+mistress, had not cared to press on the marriage, but lingered over the
+dregs of his bachelor cup complacently still. We all know in what an
+affecting farewell he took leave of the associates of his _vie de
+garçon:_ the speeches made (in both languages), the presents
+distributed, the tears and hysterics of some of the guests assembled;
+the cigar-boxes given over to this friend, the _écrin_ of diamonds to
+that, et cætera, et cætera, et cætera. Don’t we know? If we don’t it is
+not Henchman’s fault, who has told the story of Farintosh’s betrothals
+a thousand and one times at his clubs, at the houses where he is asked
+to dine, on account of his intimacy with the nobility, among the young
+men of fashion, or no fashion, whom this two-bottle Mentor, and burly
+admirer of youth, has since taken upon himself to form. The farewell at
+Greenwich was so affecting that all “traversed the cart,” and took
+another farewell at Richmond, where there was crying too, but it was
+Eucharis cried because fair Calypso wanted to tear her eyes out; and
+where not only Telemachus (as was natural to his age), but Mentor
+likewise, quaffed the wine-cup too freely. You are virtuous, O reader!
+but there are still cakes and ale, Ask Henchman if there be not. You
+will find him in the Park any afternoon; he will dine with you if no
+better man ask him in the interval. He will tell you story upon story
+regarding young Lord Farintosh, and his marriage, and what happened
+before his marriage, and afterwards; and he will sigh, weep almost at
+some moments, as he narrates their subsequent quarrel, and Farintosh’s
+unworthy conduct, and tells you how he formed that young man. My uncle
+and Captain Henchman disliked each other very much, I am sorry to
+say—sorry to add that it was very amusing to hear either one of them
+speak of the other.
+
+Lady Glenlivat, according to the Captain, then, had no success in the
+interview with her son; who, unmoved by the maternal tears, commands,
+and entreaties, swore he would marry Miss Newcome, and that no power on
+earth should prevent him. “As if trying to thwart that man—_could_ ever
+prevent his having his way!” ejaculated his quondam friend.
+
+But on the next day, after ten thousand men in clubs and coteries had
+talked the news over; after the evening had repeated and improved the
+delightful theme of our “morning contemporaries;” after Calypso and
+Eucharis driving together in the Park, and reconciled now, had kissed
+their hands to Lord Farintosh, and made him their compliments—after a
+night of natural doubt, disturbance, defiance, fury—as men whispered to
+each other at the club where his lordship dined, and at the theatre
+where he took his recreation—after an awful time at breakfast in which
+Messrs. Bowman, valet, and Todhunter and Henchman, captains of the
+Farintosh bodyguard, all got their share of kicks and growling—behold
+Lady Glenlivat came back to the charge again; and this time with such
+force that poor Lord Farintosh was shaken indeed.
+
+Her ladyship’s ally was no other than Miss Newcome herself; from whom
+Lord Farintosh’s mother received, by that day’s post, a letter, which
+she was commissioned to read to her son:—
+
+“Dear Madam” (wrote the young lady in her firmest handwriting)—“Mamma
+is at this moment in a state of such _grief and dismay_ at the _cruel_
+misfortune and _humiliation_ which has just befallen our family, that
+she is really not able to write to you as she _ought_, and this task,
+painful as it is, must be _mine_. Dear Lady Glenlivat, the kindness and
+confidence which I have ever received from you and _yours_, merit
+truth, and most grateful respect and regard from _me_. And I feel after
+the late fatal occurrence, what I have often and often owned to myself
+though I did not _dare_ to acknowledge it, that I ought to release Lord
+F., _at once and for ever_, from an engagement _which he could never
+think_ of maintaining with a family _so unfortunate as ours_. I thank
+him with all my heart for his goodness in bearing with my humours so
+long; if I have given him pain, as I _know_ I have sometimes, I beg his
+pardon, and would do so _on my knees_. I hope and pray he may be happy,
+as I feared he never could be with me. He has many good and noble
+qualities; and, in bidding him farewell, I trust I may retain his
+friendship, and that he will believe in the esteem and gratitude of
+your most sincere,
+
+Ethel Newcome.”
+
+
+A copy of this farewell letter was seen by a lady who happened to be a
+neighbour of Miss Newcome’s when the family misfortune occurred, and to
+whom, in her natural dismay and grief, the young lady fled for comfort
+and consolation. “Dearest Mrs. Pendennis,” wrote Miss Ethel to my wife,
+“I hear you are at Rosebury; do, do come to your affectionate E. N.”
+The next day, it was—“Dearest Laura—If you can, pray, pray come to
+Newcome this morning. I want very much to speak to you about the poor
+children, to consult you about something most important.” Madame de
+Moncontour’s pony-carriage was constantly trotting between Rosebury and
+Newcome in these days of calamity.
+
+And my wife, as in duty bound, gave me full reports of all that
+happened in that house of mourning. On the very day of the flight, Lady
+Anne, her daughter, and some others of her family arrived at Newcome.
+The deserted little girl, Barnes’s eldest child, ran, with tears and
+cries of joy, to her Aunt Ethel, whom she had always loved better than
+her mother; and clung to her and embraced her; and, in her artless
+little words, told her that mamma had gone away, and that Ethel should
+be her mamma now. Very strongly moved by the misfortune, as by the
+caresses and affection of the poor orphaned creature, Ethel took the
+little girl to her heart, and promised to be a mother to her, and that
+she would not leave her; in which pious resolve I scarcely need say
+Laura strengthened her, when, at her young friend’s urgent summons, my
+wife came to her.
+
+The household at Newcome was in a state of disorganisation after the
+catastrophe. Two of Lady Clara’s servants; it has been stated already,
+went away with her. The luckless master of the house was lying wounded
+in the neighbouring town. Lady Anne Newcome, his mother, was terribly
+agitated by the news, which was abruptly broken to her, of the flight
+of her daughter-in-law and her son’s danger. Now she thought of flying
+to Newcome to nurse him; and then feared lest she should be ill
+received by the invalid—indeed, ordered by Sir Barnes to go home, and
+not to bother him. So at home Lady Anne remained, where the thoughts of
+the sufferings she had already undergone in that house, of Sir Barnes’s
+cruel behaviour to her at her last visit, which he had abruptly
+requested her to shorten, of the happy days which she had passed as
+mistress of that house and wife of the defunct Sir Brian; the sight of
+that departed angel’s picture in the dining-room and wheel-chair in the
+gallery; the recollection of little Barnes as a cherub of a child in
+that very gallery, and pulled out of the fire by a nurse in the second
+year of his age, when he was all that a fond mother could wish—these
+incidents and reminiscences so agitated Lady Anne Newcome, that she,
+for her part, went off in a series of hysterical fits, and acted as one
+distraught: her second daughter screamed in sympathy with her and Miss
+Newcome had to take the command of the whole of this demented
+household, hysterical mamma and sister, mutineering servants, and
+shrieking abandoned nursery, and bring young people and old to peace
+and quiet.
+
+On the morrow after his little concussion Sir Barnes Newcome came home,
+not much hurt in body, but woefully afflicted in temper, and venting
+his wrath upon everybody round about him in that strong language which
+he employed when displeased; and under which his valet, his
+housekeeper, his butler, his farm-bailiff, his lawyer, his doctor, his
+dishevelled mother herself—who rose from her couch and her sal-volatile
+to fling herself round her dear boy’s knees—all had to suffer. Ethel
+Newcome, the Baronet’s sister, was the only person in his house to whom
+Sir Barnes did not utter oaths or proffer rude speeches. He was afraid
+of offending her or encountering that resolute spirit, and lapsed into
+a surly silence in her presence. Indistinct maledictions growled about
+Sir Barnes’s chair when he beheld my wife’s pony-carriage drive up; and
+he asked what brought _her_ here? But Ethel sternly told her brother
+that Mrs. Pendennis came at her particular request, and asked him
+whether he supposed anybody could come into that house for pleasure
+now, or for any other motive but kindness? Upon which, Sir Barnes
+fairly burst out into tears, intermingled with execrations against his
+enemies and his own fate, and assertions that he was the most miserable
+beggar alive. He would not see his children: but with more tears he
+would implore Ethel never to leave them, and, anon, would ask what he
+should do when she married, and he was left alone in that infernal
+house?
+
+T. Potts, Esq., of the _Newcome Independent_, used to say afterwards
+that the Baronet was in the direst terror of another meeting with Lord
+Highgate, and kept a policeman at the lodge-gate, and a second in the
+kitchen, to interpose in event of a collision. But Mr. Potts made this
+statement in after days, when the quarrel between his party and paper
+and Sir Barnes Newcome was flagrant. Five or six days after the meeting
+of the two rivals in Newcome market-place, Sir Barnes received a letter
+from the friend of Lord Highgate, informing him that his lordship,
+having waited for him according to promise, had now left England, and
+presumed that the differences between them were to be settled by their
+respective lawyers—infamous behaviour on a par with the rest of Lord
+Highgate’s villainy, the Baronet said. “When the scoundrel knew I could
+lift my pistol arm,” Barnes said, “Lord Highgate fled the
+country;”—thus hinting that death, and not damages, were what he
+intended to seek from his enemy.
+
+After that interview in which Ethel communicated to Laura her farewell
+letter to Lord Farintosh, my wife returned to Rosebury with an
+extraordinary brightness and gaiety in her face and her demeanour. She
+pressed Madame de Moncontour’s hands with such warmth, she blushed and
+looked so handsome, she sang and talked so gaily, that our host was
+struck by her behaviour, and paid her husband more compliments
+regarding her beauty, amiability, and other good qualities, than need
+be set down here. It may be that I like Paul de Florac so much, in
+spite of certain undeniable faults of character, because of his
+admiration for my wife. She was in such a hurry to talk to me, that
+night, that Paul’s game and Nicotian amusements were cut short by her
+visit to the billiard-room; and when we were alone by the cosy
+dressing-room fire, she told me what had happened during the day. Why
+should Ethel’s refusal of Lord Farintosh have so much elated my wife?
+
+“Ah!” cries Mrs. Pendennis, “she has a generous nature, and the world
+has not had time to spoil it. Do you know there are many points that
+she never has thought of—I would say problems that she has to work out
+for herself, only you, Pen, do not like us poor ignorant women to use
+such a learned word as problems? Life and experience force things upon
+her mind which others learn from their parents or those who educate
+them, but, for which she has never had any teachers. Nobody has ever
+told her, Arthur, that it was wrong to marry without love, or pronounce
+lightly those awful vows which we utter before God at the altar. I
+believe, if she knew that her life was futile, it is but of late she
+has thought it could be otherwise, and that she might mend it. I have
+read (besides that poem of Goethe of which you are so fond) in books of
+Indian travels of Bayaderes, dancing-girls brought up by troops round
+about the temples, whose calling is to dance, and wear jewels, and look
+beautiful; I believe they are quite respected in—in Pagoda-land. They
+perform before the priests in the pagodas; and the Brahmins and the
+Indian princes marry them. Can we cry out against these poor creatures,
+or against the custom of their country? It seems to me that young women
+in our world are bred up in a way not very different. What they do they
+scarcely know to be wrong. They are educated for the world, and taught
+to display: their mothers will give them to the richest suitor, as they
+themselves were given before. How can these think seriously, Arthur, of
+souls to be saved, weak hearts to be kept out of temptation, prayers to
+be uttered, and a better world to be held always in view, when the
+vanities of this one are all their thought and scheme? Ethel’s simple
+talk made me smile sometimes, do you know, and her _strenuous_ way of
+imparting her discoveries. I thought of the shepherd boy who made a
+watch, and found on taking it into the town how very many watches there
+were, and how much better than his. But the poor child has had to make
+hers for herself, such as it is; and, indeed, is employed now in
+working on it. She told me very artlessly her little history, Arthur;
+it affected me to hear her simple talk, and—and I blessed God for our
+mother, my dear, and that my early days had had a better guide.
+
+“You know that for a long time it was settled that she was to marry her
+cousin, Lord Kew. She was bred to that notion from her earliest youth;
+about which she spoke as we all can about our early days. They were
+spent, she said, in the nursery and schoolroom for the most part. She
+was allowed to come to her mother’s dressing-room, and sometimes to see
+more of her during the winter at Newcome. She describes her mother as
+always the kindest of the kind: but from very early times the daughter
+must have felt her own superiority, I think, though she does not speak
+of it. You should see her at home now in their dreadful calamity. She
+seems the only person of the house who keeps her head.
+
+“She told very nicely and modestly how it was Lord Kew who parted from
+her, not she who had dismissed him, as you know the Newcomes used to
+say. I have heard that—oh—that man Sir Barnes say so myself. She says
+humbly that her cousin Kew was a great deal too good for her; and so is
+every one almost, she adds, poor thing!”
+
+“Poor every one! Did you ask about him, Laura?” said Mr. Pendennis.
+
+“No; I did not venture. She looked at me out of her downright eyes, and
+went on with her little tale. ‘I was scarcely more than a child then,’
+she continued, ‘and though I liked Kew very much—who would not like
+such a generous honest creature? I felt somehow that I was _taller_
+than my cousin, and as if I ought not to marry him, or should make him
+unhappy if I did. When poor papa used to talk, we children remarked
+that mamma hardly listened to him; and so we did not respect him as we
+should, and Barnes was especially scoffing and odious with him. Why,
+when he was a boy, he used to sneer at papa openly before us younger
+ones. Now Harriet admires everything that Kew says, and that makes her
+a great deal happier at being with him.’ And then,” added Mrs.
+Pendennis, “Ethel said, ‘I hope you respect your husband, Laura: depend
+on it, you will be happier if you do.’ Was not that a fine discovery of
+Ethel’s, Mr. Pen?
+
+“‘Clara’s terror of Barnes frightened me when I stayed in the house,’
+Ethel went on. ‘I am sure _I_ would not tremble before any man in the
+world as she did. I saw early that she used to deceive him, and tell
+him lies, Laura. I do not mean lies of words alone, but lies of looks
+and actions. Oh! I do not wonder at her flying from him. He was
+dreadful to be with: cruel, and selfish, and cold. He was made worse by
+marrying a woman he did not love; as she was, by that unfortunate union
+with him. Suppose he had found a clever woman who could have controlled
+him, and amused him, and whom he and his friends could have admired,
+instead of poor Clara, who made his home wearisome, and trembled when
+he entered it? Suppose she could have married that unhappy man to whom
+she was attached early? I was frightened, Laura, to think how ill this
+worldly marriage had prospered.
+
+“‘My poor grandmother, whenever I spoke upon such a subject, would
+break out into a thousand gibes and sarcasms, and point to many of our
+friends who had made love-matches, and were quarrelling now as fiercely
+as though they had never loved each other. You remember that dreadful
+case in France Duc de ——, who murdered his duchess? That was a
+love-match, and I can remember the sort of screech with which Lady Kew
+used to speak about it; and of the journal which the poor duchess kept,
+and in which she noted down all her husband’s ill-behaviour.’”
+
+“Hush, Laura! Do you remember where we are? If the Princess were to put
+down all Florac’s culpabilities in an album, what a ledger it would
+be—as big as Dr. Portman’s Chrysostom!” But this was parenthetical: and
+after a smile, and a little respite, the young woman proceeded in her
+narration of her friend’s history.
+
+“‘I was willing enough to listen,’ Ethel said, ‘to grandmamma then: for
+we are glad of an excuse to do what we like; and I liked admiration,
+and rank, and great wealth, Laura; and Lord Farintosh offered me these.
+I liked to surpass my companions, and I saw _them_ so eager in pursuing
+him! You cannot think, Laura, what meannesses women in the world will
+commit—mothers and daughters too, in the pursuit of a person of his
+great rank. Those Miss Burrs, you should have seen them at the
+country-houses where we visited together, and how they followed him;
+how they would meet him in the parks and shrubberies; how they liked
+smoking though I knew it made them ill; how they were always finding
+pretexts for getting near him! Oh, it was odious!’”
+
+I would not willingly interrupt the narrative, but let the reporter be
+allowed here to state that at this point of Miss Newcome’s story (which
+my wife gave with a very pretty imitation of the girl’s manner), we
+both burst out laughing so loud that little Madame de Moncontour put
+her head into the drawing-room and asked what we was a-laughing at? We
+did not tell our hostess that poor Ethel and her grandmother had been
+accused of doing the very same thing for which she found fault with the
+Misses Burr. Miss Newcome thought _herself_ quite innocent, or how
+should she have cried out at the naughty behaviour of other people?
+
+“‘Wherever we went, however,’ resumed my wife’s young penitent, ‘it was
+easy to see, I think I may say so without vanity, who was the object of
+Lord Farintosh’s attention. He followed us everywhere; and we could not
+go upon any visit in England or Scotland but he was in the same house.
+Grandmamma’s whole heart was bent upon that marriage, and when he
+proposed for me I do not disown that I was very pleased and vain.
+
+“‘It is in these last months that I have heard about him more, and
+learned to know him better—him and myself too, Laura. Some one—some one
+you know, and whom I shall always love as a brother—reproached me in
+former days for a worldliness about which you talk too sometimes. But
+it is not worldly to give yourself up for your family, is it? One
+cannot help the rank in which one is born, and surely it is but natural
+and proper to marry in it. Not that Lord Farintosh thinks me or any one
+of his rank.’ (Here Miss Ethel laughed.) ‘He is the Sultan, and we,
+every unmarried girl in society, is his humblest slave. His Majesty’s
+opinions upon this subject did not suit me, I can assure you: I have no
+notion of such pride!
+
+“‘But I do not disguise from you, dear Laura, that after accepting him,
+as I came to know him better, and heard him, and heard of him, and
+talked with him daily, and understood Lord Farintosh’s character, I
+looked forward with more and more doubt to the day when I was to become
+his wife. I have not learned to respect him in these months that I have
+known him, and during which there has been mourning in our families. I
+will not talk to you about him; I have no right, have I?—to hear him
+speak out his heart, and tell it to any friend. He said he liked me
+because I did not flatter him. Poor Malcolm! they all do. What was my
+acceptance of him, Laura, but flattery? Yes, flattery, and servility to
+rank, and a desire to possess it. Would I have accepted plain Malcolm
+Roy? I sent away a better than him, Laura.
+
+“‘These things have been brooding in my mind for some months past. I
+must have been but an ill companion for him, and indeed he bore with my
+waywardness much more kindly than I ever thought possible; and when
+four days since we came to this sad house, where he was to have joined
+us, and I found only dismay and wretchedness, and these poor children
+deprived of a mother, whom I pity, God help her, for she has been made
+so miserable—and is now and must be to the end of her days; as I lay
+awake, thinking of my own future life, and that I was going to marry,
+as poor Clara had married, but for an establishment and a position in
+life; I, my own mistress, and not obedient by nature, or a slave to
+others as that poor creature was—I thought to myself, why shall I do
+this? Now Clara has left us, and is, as it were, dead to us who made
+her so unhappy, let me be the mother to her orphans. I love the little
+girl, and she has always loved me, and came crying to me that day when
+we arrived, and put her dear little arms round my neck, and said,
+‘_You_ won’t go away, will you, Aunt Ethel?’ in her sweet voice. And I
+will stay with her; and will try and learn myself that I may teach her;
+and learn to be good too—better than I have been. Will praying help me,
+Laura? I did. I am sure I was right, and that it is my duty to stay
+here.’”
+
+Laura was greatly moved as she told her friend’s confession; and when
+the next day at church the clergyman read the opening words of the
+service I thought a peculiar radiance and happiness beamed from her
+bright face.
+
+Some subsequent occurrences in the history of this branch of the
+Newcome family I am enabled to report from the testimony of the same
+informant who has just given us an account of her own feelings and
+life. Miss Ethel and my wife were now in daily communication, and
+“my-dearesting” each other with that female fervour, which, cold men of
+the world as we are—not only chary of warm expressions of friendship,
+but averse to entertaining warm feelings at all—we surely must admire
+in persons of the inferior sex, whose loves grow up and reach the skies
+in a night; who kiss, embrace, console, call each other by Christian
+names, in that sweet, kindly sisterhood of Misfortune and Compassion
+who are always entering into partnership here in life. I say the world
+is full of Miss Nightingales; and we, sick and wounded in our private
+Scutaris, have countless nurse-tenders. I did not see my wife
+ministering to the afflicted family at Newcome Park; but I can fancy
+her there amongst the women and children, her prudent counsel, her
+thousand gentle offices, her apt pity and cheerfulness, the love and
+truth glowing in her face, and inspiring her words, movements,
+demeanour.
+
+Mrs. Pendennis’s husband for his part did not attempt to console Sir
+Barnes Newcome Newcome, Baronet. I never professed to have a
+halfpennyworth of pity at that gentleman’s command. Florac, who owed
+Barnes his principality and his present comforts in life, did make some
+futile efforts at condolence, but was received by the Baronet with such
+fierceness, and evident ill-humour, that he did not care to repeat his
+visits, and allowed him to vent his curses and peevishness on his own
+immediate dependents. We used to ask Laura on her return to Rosebury
+from her charity visits to Newcome about the poor suffering master of
+the house. She faltered and stammered in describing him and what she
+heard of him; she smiled, I grieve to say, for this unfortunate lady
+cannot help having a sense of humour; and we could not help laughing
+outright sometimes at the idea of that discomfited wretch, that
+overbearing creature overborne in his turn—which laughter Mrs. Laura
+used to chide as very naughty and unfeeling. When we went into Newcome
+the landlord of the King’s Arms looked knowing and quizzical: Tom Potts
+grinned at me and rubbed his hands. “This business serves the paper
+better than Mr. Warrington’s articles,” says Mr. Potts. “We have sold
+no end of _Independents;_ and if you polled the whole borough, I bet
+that five to one would say Sir Screwcome Screwcome was served right. By
+the way, what’s up about the Marquis of Farintosh, Mr. Pendennis? He
+arrived at the Arms last night; went over to the Park this morning, and
+is gone back to town by the afternoon train.”
+
+What had happened between the Marquis of Farintosh and Miss Newcome I
+am enabled to know from the report of Miss Newcome’s confidante. On the
+receipt of that letter of _congé_ which has been mentioned in a former
+chapter, his lordship must have been very much excited, for he left
+town straightway by that evening’s mail, and on the next morning, after
+a few hours of rest at his inn, was at Newcome lodge-gate demanding to
+see the Baronet.
+
+On that morning it chanced that Sir Barnes had left home with Mr. Speer,
+his legal adviser; and hereupon the Marquis asked to see Miss Newcome;
+nor could the lodge-keeper venture to exclude so distinguished a person
+from the Park. His lordship drove up to the house, and his name was
+taken to Miss Ethel. She turned very pale when she heard it; and my
+wife divined at once who was her visitor. Lady Anne had not left her
+room as yet. Laura Pendennis remained in command of the little conclave
+of children, with whom the two ladies were sitting when Lord Farintosh
+arrived. Little Clara wanted to go with her aunt as she rose to leave
+the room—the child could scarcely be got to part from her now.
+
+At the end of an hour the carriage was seen driving away, and Ethel
+returned looking as pale as before, and red about the eyes. Miss
+Clara’s mutton-chop for dinner coming in at the same time, the child
+was not so presently eager for her aunt’s company. Aunt Ethel cut up
+the mutton-chop very neatly, and then, having seen the child
+comfortably seated at her meal, went with her friend into a
+neighbouring apartment (of course, with some pretext of showing Laura a
+picture, or a piece of china, or a new child’s frock, or with some
+other hypocritical pretence by which the ingenuous female attendants
+pretended to be utterly blinded), and there, I have no doubt, before
+beginning her story, dearest Laura embraced dearest Ethel, and vice
+versa.
+
+“He is gone!” at length gasps dearest Ethel.
+
+“Pour toujours? poor young man!” sighs dearest Laura. “Was he very
+unhappy, Ethel?”
+
+“He was more angry,” Ethel answers. “He had a right to be hurt, but not
+to speak as he did. He lost his temper quite at last, and broke out in
+the most frantic reproaches. He forgot all respect and even
+gentlemanlike behaviour. Do you know he used words—words such as Barnes
+uses sometimes when he is angry! and dared this language to me! I was
+sorry till then, very sorry, and very much moved; but I know more than
+ever, now, that I was right in refusing Lord Farintosh.”
+
+Dearest Laura now pressed for an account of all that had happened,
+which may be briefly told as follows. Feeling very deeply upon the
+subject which brought him to Miss Newcome, it was no wonder that Lord
+Farintosh spoke at first in a way which moved her. He said he thought
+her letter to his mother was very rightly written under the
+circumstances, and thanked her for her generosity in offering to
+release him from his engagement. But the affair—the painful
+circumstance of Highgate, and that—which had happened in the Newcome
+family, was no fault of Miss Newcome’s, and Lord Farintosh could not
+think of holding her accountable. His friends had long urged him to
+marry, and it was by his mother’s own wish that the engagement was
+formed, which he was determined to maintain. In his course through the
+world (of which he was getting very tired), he had never seen a woman,
+a lady who was so—you understand, Ethel—whom he admired so much, who
+was likely to make so good a wife for him as you are. “You allude,” he
+continued, “to differences we have had—and we have had them—but many of
+them, I own, have been from my fault. I have been bred up in a way
+different to most young men. I cannot help it if I have had temptations
+to which other men are not exposed; and have been placed by—by
+Providence—in a high rank of life; I am sure if you share it with me
+you will adorn it, and be in every way worthy of it, and make me much
+better than I have been. If you knew what a night of agony I passed
+after my mother read that letter to me—I know you’d pity me, Ethel,—I
+know you would. The idea of losing you makes me wild. My mother was
+dreadfully alarmed when she saw the state I was in; so was the doctor—I
+assure you he was. And I had no rest at all, and no peace of mind,
+until I determined to come down to you; and say that I adored you, and
+you only; and that I would hold to my engagement in spite of
+everything—and prove to you that—that no man in the world could love
+you more sincerely than I do.” Here the young gentleman was so overcome
+that he paused in his speech, and gave way to an emotion, for which,
+surely no man who has been in the same condition with Lord Farintosh
+will blame him.
+
+Miss Newcome was also much touched by this exhibition of natural
+feeling; and, I dare say, it was at this time that her eyes showed the
+first symptoms of that malady of which the traces were visible an hour
+after.
+
+“You are very generous and kind to me, Lord Farintosh,” she said. “Your
+constancy honours me very much, and proves how good and loyal you are;
+but—but do not think hardly of me for saying that the more I have
+thought of what has happened here,—of the wretched consequences of
+interested marriages; the long union growing each day so miserable,
+that at last it becomes intolerable and is burst asunder, as in poor
+Clara’s case;—the more I am resolved not to commit that first fatal
+step of entering into a marriage without—without the degree of
+affection which people who take that vow ought to feel for one
+another.”
+
+“Affection! Can you doubt it? Gracious heavens, I adore you! Isn’t my
+being here a proof that I do?” cries the young lady’s lover.
+
+“But I?” answered the girl. “I have asked my own heart that question
+before now. I have thought to myself,—If he comes after all,—if his
+affection for me survives this disgrace of our family, as it has, and
+every one of us should be thankful to you—ought I not to show at least
+gratitude for so much kindness and honour, and devote myself to one who
+makes such sacrifices for me? But, before all things I owe you the
+truth, Lord Farintosh. I never could make you happy; I know I could
+not: nor obey you as you are accustomed to be obeyed; nor give you such
+a devotion as you have a right to expect from your wife. I thought I
+might once. I can’t now! I know that I took you because you were rich,
+and had a great name; not because you were honest, and attached to me
+as you show yourself to be. I ask your pardon for the deceit I
+practised on you.—Look at Clara, poor child, and her misery! My pride,
+I know, would never have let me fall as far as she has done; but oh! I
+am humiliated to think that I could have been made to say I would take
+the first step in that awful career.”
+
+“What career, in God’s name?” cries the astonished suitor. “Humiliated,
+Ethel? Who’s going to humiliate you? I suppose there is no woman in
+England who need be humiliated by becoming my wife. I should like to
+see the one that I can’t pretend to—or to royal blood if I like: it’s
+not better than mine. Humiliated, indeed! That _is_ news. Ha! ha! You
+don’t suppose that your pedigree, which I know all about, and the
+Newcome family, with your barber-surgeon to Edward the Confessor, are
+equal to——”
+
+“To yours? No. It is not very long that I have learned to disbelieve in
+that story altogether. I fancy it was an odd whim of my poor father’s,
+and that our family were quite poor people.
+
+“I knew it,” said Lord Farintosh. “Do you suppose there was not plenty
+of women to tell it me?”
+
+“It was not because we were poor that I am ashamed,” Ethel went on.
+“That cannot be our fault, though some of us seem think it is, as they
+hide the truth so. One of my uncles used to tell me that my
+grandfather’s father was a labourer in Newcome: but I was a child then,
+and liked to believe the prettiest story best.”
+
+“As if it matters!” cries Lord Farintosh.
+
+“As if it matters in your wife? _n’est-ce pas?_ I never thought that it
+would. I should have told you, as it was my duty to tell you all. It
+was not my ancestors you cared for; and it is you yourself that your
+wife must swear before heaven to love.”
+
+“Of course it’s me,” answers the young man, not quite understanding the
+train of ideas in his companion’s mind. “And I’ve given up
+everything—everything—and have broken off with my old habits and—and
+things, you know—and intend to lead a regular life—and will never go to
+Tattersall’s again; nor bet a shilling; nor touch another cigar if you
+like—that is, if you don’t like; for I love you so, Ethel—I do, with
+all my heart I do!”
+
+“You are very generous and kind, Lord Farintosh,” Ethel said. “It is
+myself, not you, I doubt. Oh, I am humiliated to make such a
+confession!”
+
+“How humiliated?” Ethel withdrew the hand which the young nobleman
+endeavoured to seize.
+
+“If,” she continued, “if I found it was your birth, and your name, and
+your wealth that I coveted, and had nearly taken, ought I not to feel
+humiliated, and ask pardon of you and of God? Oh, what perjuries poor
+Clara was made to speak,—and see what has befallen her! We stood by and
+heard her without being shocked. We applauded even. And to what shame
+and misery we brought her! Why did her parents and mine consign her to
+such ruin! She might have lived pure and happy but for us. With her
+example before me—not her flight, poor child—I am not afraid of _that_
+happening to me—but her long solitude, the misery of her wasted
+years,—my brother’s own wretchedness and faults aggravated a
+hundredfold by his unhappy union with her—I must pause while it is yet
+time, and recall a promise which I know I should make you unhappy if I
+fulfilled. I ask your pardon that I deceived you, Lord Farintosh, and
+feel ashamed for myself that I could have consented to do so.”
+
+“Do you mean,” cried the young Marquis, “that after my conduct to
+you—after my loving you, so that even this—this disgrace in your family
+don’t prevent my going on—after my mother has been down on her knees to
+me to break off, and I wouldn’t—no, I wouldn’t—after all White’s
+sneering at me and laughing at me, and all my friends, friends of my
+family, who would go to—go anywhere for me, advising me, and saying,
+‘Farintosh, what a fool you are! break off this match,’—and I wouldn’t
+back out, because I loved you so, by Heaven, and because, as a man and
+a gentleman, when I give my word I keep it—do you mean that you throw
+me over? It’s a shame—it’s a shame!” And again there were tears of rage
+and anguish in Farintosh’s eyes.
+
+“What I did was a shame, my lord,” Ethel said, humbly; “and again I ask
+your pardon for it. What I do now is only to tell you the truth, and to
+grieve with all my soul for the falsehood—yes the falsehood—which I
+told you, and which has given your kind heart such cruel pain.”
+
+“Yes, it was a falsehood!” the poor lad cried out. “You follow a
+fellow, and you make a fool of him, and you make him frantic in love
+with you, and then you fling him over! I wonder you can look me in the
+face after such an infernal treason. You’ve done it to twenty fellows
+before, I know you have. Everybody said so, and warned me. You draw
+them on, and get them to be in love, and then you fling them away. Am I
+to go back to London and be made the laughing-stock of the whole
+town—I, who might marry any woman in Europe, and who am at the head of
+the nobility of England?”
+
+“Upon my word, if you will believe me after deceiving you once,” Ethel
+interposed, still very humbly, “I will never say that it was I who
+withdrew from you, and that it was not you who refused me. What has
+happened here fully authorises you. Let the rupture of the engagement
+come from you, my lord. Indeed, indeed, I would spare you all the pain
+I can. I have done you wrong enough already, Lord Farintosh.”
+
+And now the Marquis burst forth with tears and imprecations, wild cries
+of anger, love, and disappointment, so fierce and incoherent that the
+lady to whom they were addressed did not repeat them to her confidante.
+Only she generously charged Laura to remember, if ever she heard the
+matter talked of in the world, that it was Lord Farintosh’s family
+which broke off the marriage; but that his lordship had acted most
+kindly and generously throughout the whole affair.
+
+He went back to London in such a state of fury, and raved so wildly
+amongst his friends against the whole Newcome family, that many men
+knew what the case really was. But all women averred that that
+intriguing worldly Ethel Newcome, the apt pupil of her wicked old
+grandmother, had met with a deserved rebuff; that, after doing
+everything in her power to catch the great _parti_, Lord Farintosh, who
+had long been tired of her, flung her over, not liking the connexion;
+and that she was living out of the world now at Newcome, under the
+pretence of taking care of that unfortunate Lady Clara’s children, but
+really because she was pining away for Lord Farintosh, who, as we all
+know, married six months afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX.
+In which we write to the Colonel
+
+
+Deeming that her brother Barnes had cares enough of his own presently
+at hand, Ethel did not think fit to confide to him the particulars of
+her interview with Lord Farintosh; nor even was poor Lady Anne informed
+that she had lost a noble son-in-law. The news would come to both of
+them soon enough, Ethel thought; and indeed, before many hours were
+over, it reached Sir Barnes Newcome in a very abrupt and unpleasant
+way. He had dismal occasion now to see his lawyers every day; and on
+the day after Lord Farintosh’s abrupt visit and departure, Sir Barnes,
+going into Newcome upon his own unfortunate affairs, was told by his
+attorney, Mr. Speers, how the Marquis of Farintosh had slept for a few
+hours at the King’s Arms, and returned to town the same evening by the
+train. We may add, that his lordship had occupied the very room in
+which Lord Highgate had previously slept; and Mr. Taplow recommends the
+bed accordingly, and shows pride it with to this very day.
+
+Much disturbed by this intelligence, Sir Barnes was making his way to
+his cheerless home in the evening, when near his own gate he overtook
+another messenger. This was the railway porter, who daily brought
+telegraphic messages from his uncle and the London bank. The message of
+that day was,—“Consols, so-and-so. French Rentes, so much. _Highgate’s
+and Farintosh’s accounts withdrawn_.” The wretched keeper of the lodge
+owned, with trembling, in reply to the curses and queries of his
+employer, that a gentleman, calling himself the Marquis of Farintosh,
+had gone up to the house the day before, and come away an hour
+afterwards,—did not like to speak to Sir Barnes when he came home, Sir
+Barnes looked so bad like.
+
+Now, of course, there could be no concealment from her brother, and
+Ethel and Barnes had a conversation, in which the latter expressed
+himself with that freedom of language which characterised the head of
+the house of Newcome. Madame de Moncontour’s pony-chaise was in waiting
+at the hall door, when the owner of the house entered it; and my wife
+was just taking leave of Ethel and her little people when Sir Barnes
+Newcome entered the lady’s sitting-room.
+
+The livid scowl with which Barnes greeted my wife surprised that lady,
+though it did not induce her to prolong her visit to her friend. As
+Laura took leave, she heard Sir Barnes screaming to the nurses to “take
+those little beggars away,” and she rightly conjectured that some more
+unpleasantries had occurred to disturb this luckless gentleman’s
+temper.
+
+On the morrow, dearest Ethel’s usual courier, one of the boys from the
+lodge, trotted over on his donkey to dearest Laura at Rosebury, with
+one of those missives which were daily passing between the ladies. This
+letter said:—
+
+“Barnes m’a fait une scène terrible hier. I was obliged to tell him
+everything about Lord F., and _to use the plainest language_. At first,
+he forbade you the house. He thinks that you have been the cause of
+F.’s dismissal, and charged me, _most unjustly_, with a desire to bring
+back poor C. N. I replied _as became me_, and told him fairly I would
+leave the house if _odious insulting charges_ were made against me, if
+my friends were not received. He stormed, he cried, he employed_ his
+usual language_,—he was in a dreadful state. He relented and asked
+pardon. He goes to town to-night by the mail-train. _Of course_ you
+come as usual, dear, dear Laura. I am miserable without you; and you
+know I cannot leave poor mamma. Clarykin sends a _thousand kisses_ to
+little Arty; and I am _his mother’s_ always affectionate—E. N.
+
+“Will the gentlemen like to shoot our pheasants? Please ask the Prince
+to let Warren know when. I sent a brace to poor dear old Mrs. Mason,
+and had such a nice letter from her!”
+
+“And who is poor dear Mrs. Mason” asks Mr. Pendennis, as yet but
+imperfectly acquainted with the history of the Newcomes.
+
+And Laura told me—perhaps I had heard before, and forgotten—that Mrs.
+Mason was an old nurse and pensioner of the Colonel’s, and how he had
+been to see her for the sake of old times; and how she was a great
+favourite with Ethel; and Laura kissed her little son, and was
+exceedingly bright, cheerful, and hilarious that evening, in spite of
+the affliction under which her dear friends at Newcome were labouring.
+
+People in country-houses should be exceedingly careful about their
+blotting-paper. They should bring their own portfolios with them. If
+any kind readers will bear this simple little hint in mind, how much
+mischief may they save themselves,—nay, enjoy possibly, by looking at
+the pages of the next portfolio in the next friend’s bedroom in which
+they sleep. From such a book I once cut out, in Charles Slyboots’
+well-known and perfectly clear handwriting, the words, “Miss Emily
+Hartington, James Street, Backingham Gate, London,” and produced as
+legibly on the blotting-paper as on the envelope which the postman
+delivered. After showing the paper round to the company, I enclosed it
+in a note and sent it to Mr. Slyboots, who married Miss Hartington
+three months afterwards. In such a book at the club I read, as plainly
+as you may read this page, a holograph page of the Right Honourable the
+Earl of Bareacres, which informed the whole club of a painful and
+private circumstance, and said, “My dear Green,—I am truly sorry that I
+shall not be able to take up the bill for eight hundred and fifty-six
+pounds, which becomes due next Tu——” and upon such a book, going to
+write a note in Madame de Moncontour’s drawing-room at Rosebury, what
+should I find but proofs that my own wife was engaged in a clandestine
+correspondence with a gentleman residing abroad!
+
+“Colonel Newcome, C.B., Montagne de la Cour, Brussels,” I read, in this
+young woman’s handwriting; and asked, turning round upon Laura, who
+entered the room just as I discovered her guilt: “What have you been
+writing to Colonel Newcome about, miss?”
+
+“I wanted him to get me some lace,” she said.
+
+“To lace some nightcaps for me, didn’t you, my dear? He is such a fine
+judge of lace! If I had known you had been writing, I would have asked
+you to send him a message. I want something from Brussels. Is the
+letter—ahem—gone?” (In this artful way, you see, I just hinted that I
+should like to see letter.).
+
+“The letter is—ahem—gone,” says Laura. “What do you want from Brussels,
+Pen?”
+
+“I want some Brussels sprouts, my love—they are so fine in their native
+country.”
+
+“Shall I write to him to send the letter back?” palpitates poor little
+Laura; for she thought her husband was offended, by using the ironic
+method.
+
+“No, you dear little woman! You need not send for letter the back: and
+you need not tell me what was in it: and I will bet you a hundred yards
+of lace to a cotton nightcap—and you know whether _I_, madam, am a man
+_à bonnet-de-coton_—I will let you that I know what you have been
+writing about, under pretence of a message about lace, to our Colonel.”
+
+“He promised to send it me. He really did. Lady Rockminster gave me
+twenty pounds——” gasps Laura.
+
+“Under pretence of lace, you have been sending over a love-message. You
+want to see whether Clive is still of his old mind. You think the coast
+is now clear, and that dearest Ethel may like him. You think Mrs. Mason
+is growing very old and infirm, and the sight of her dear boy would——”
+
+“Pen! Pen! _did you open my letter?_” cries Laura; and a laugh which
+could afford to be good-humoured (followed by yet another expression of
+the lips) ended this colloquy. No; Mr. Pendennis did not see the
+letter—but he knew the writer;—flattered himself that he knew women in
+general.
+
+“Where did you get your experience of them, sir?” asks Mrs. Laura.
+Question answered in the same manner as the previous demand.
+
+“Well, my dear; and why should not the poor boy be made happy?” Laura
+continues, standing very close up to her husband. “It is evident to me
+that Ethel is fond of him. I would rather see her married to a good
+young man whom she loves, than the mistress of a thousand palaces and
+coronets. Suppose—suppose you had married Miss Amory, sir, what a
+wretched worldly creature you would have been by this time; whereas
+now——”
+
+“Now that I am the humble slave of a good woman there is some chance
+for me,” cries this model of husbands. “And all good women are
+match-makers, as we know very well; and you have had this match in your
+heart ever since you saw the two young people together. Now; madam,
+since I did not see your letter to the Colonel—though I have guessed
+part of it—tell me, what have you said in it? Have you by any chance
+told the Colonel that the Farintosh alliance was broken off?”
+
+Laura owned that she had hinted as much.
+
+“You have not ventured to say that Ethel is well inclined to Clive?”
+
+“Oh, no—oh _dear_, no!” But after much cross-examining and a little
+blushing on Laura’s part, she is brought to confess that she has asked
+the Colonel whether he will not come and see Mrs. Mason, who is pining
+to see him, and is growing very old. And I find out that she has been
+to see this Mrs. Mason; that she and Miss Newcome visited the old lady
+the day before yesterday; and Laura thought from the manner in which
+Ethel looked at Clive’s picture, hanging up in the parlour of his
+father’s old friend, that she really was very much, etc. etc. So, the
+letter being gone, Mrs. Pendennis is most eager about the answer to it,
+and day after day examines the bag, and is provoked that it brings no
+letter bearing the Brussels post-mark.
+
+Madame de Moncontour seems perfectly well to know what Mrs. Laura has
+been doing and is hoping. “What, no letters again to-day? Ain’t it
+provoking?” she cries. She is in the conspiracy too; and presently
+Florac is one of the initiated. “These women wish to _bacler_ a
+marriage between the belle miss and le petit Claive,” Florac announces
+to me. He pays the highest compliments to Miss Newcome’s person, as he
+speaks regarding the marriage. “I continue to adore your Anglaises,” he
+is pleased to say. “What of freshness, what of beauty, what roses! And
+then they are so adorably good! Go, Pendennis, thou art a happy
+_coquin!_” Mr. Pendennis does not say No. He has won the
+twenty-thousand-pound prize; and we know there are worse blanks in that
+lottery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI.
+In which we are introduced to a New Newcome
+
+
+No answer came to Mrs. Pendennis’s letter to Colonel Newcome at
+Brussels, for the Colonel was absent from that city, and at the time
+when Laura wrote was actually in London, whither affairs of his own had
+called him. A note from George Warrington acquainted me with this
+circumstance; he mentioned that he and the Colonel had dined together
+at Bays’s on the day previous, and that the Colonel seemed to be in the
+highest spirits. High spirits about what? This news put Laura in a sad
+perplexity. Should she write and tell him to get his letters from
+Brussels? She would in five minutes have found some other pretext for
+writing to Colonel Newcome, had not her husband sternly cautioned the
+young woman to leave the matter alone.
+
+The more readily perhaps because he had quarrelled with his nephew Sir
+Barnes, Thomas Newcome went to visit his brother Hobson and his
+sister-in-law; bent on showing that there was no division between him
+and this branch of his family. And you may suppose that the admirable
+woman just named had a fine occasion for her virtuous conversational
+powers in discoursing upon the painful event which had just happened to
+Sir Barnes. When we fail, how our friends cry out for us! Mrs. Hobson’s
+homilies must have been awful. How that outraged virtue must have
+groaned and lamented, gathered its children about its knees, wept over
+them and washed them; gone into sackcloth and ashes and tied up the
+knocker; confabulated with its spiritual adviser; uttered commonplaces
+to its husband; and bored the whole house! The punishment of
+worldliness and vanity, the evil of marrying out of one’s station, how
+these points must have been explained and enlarged on! Surely the
+Peerage was taken off the drawing-room table and removed to papa’s
+study, where it could not open, as it used naturally once, to Highgate,
+Baron, or Farintosh, Marquis of, being shut behind wires and closely
+jammed in on an upper shelf between Blackstone’s Commentaries and the
+Farmer’s Magazine! The breaking of the engagement with the Marquis of
+Farintosh was known in Bryanstone Square; and you may be sure
+interpreted by Mrs. Hobson in the light the most disadvantageous to
+Ethel Newcome. A young nobleman—with grief and pain Ethel’s aunt must
+own the fact—a young man of notoriously dissipated habits but of great
+wealth and rank, had been pursued by the unhappy Lady Kew—Mrs. Hobson
+would not say by her _niece_, that were _too_ dreadful—had been
+pursued, and followed, and hunted down in the most notorious manner,
+and finally made to propose! Let Ethel’s _conduct_ and _punishment_ be
+a warning to my dearest girls, and let them bless _Heaven_ they have
+parents who are not worldly! After all the trouble and pains, Mrs.
+Hobson did not say _disgrace_, the Marquis takes _the very first
+pretext_ to break off the match, and leaves the unfortunate girl for
+ever!
+
+And now we have to tell of the hardest blow which fell upon poor Ethel,
+and this was that her good uncle Thomas Newcome believed the charges
+against her. He was willing enough to listen now to anything which was
+said against that branch of the family. With such a traitor,
+double-dealer, dastard as Barnes at its head, what could the rest of
+the race be? When the Colonel offered to endow Ethel and Clive with
+every shilling he had in the world, had not Barnes, the arch-traitor,
+temporised and told him falsehoods, and hesitated about throwing him
+off until the Marquis had declared himself? Yes. The girl he and poor
+Clive loved so was ruined by her artful relatives, was unworthy of his
+affection and his boy’s, was to be banished, like her worthless
+brother, out of his regard for ever. And the man she had chosen in
+preference to his Clive!—a roue, a libertine, whose extravagances and
+dissipations were the talk of every club, who had no wit, nor talents,
+not even constancy (for had he not taken the first opportunity to throw
+her off?) to recommend him—only a great title and a fortune wherewith
+to bribe her! For shame, for shame! Her engagement to this man was a
+blot upon her—the rupture only a just punishment and humiliation. Poor
+unhappy girl! let her take care of her wretched brother’s abandoned
+children, give up the world, and amend her life.
+
+This was the sentence Thomas Newcome delivered: a righteous and
+tender-hearted man, as we know, but judging in this case wrongly, and
+bearing much too hardly, as we who know her better must think, upon
+one who had her faults certainly, but whose errors were not all of her
+own making. Who set her on the path she walked in? It was her parents’
+hands which led her, and her parents’ voices which commanded her to
+accept the temptation set before her. What did she know of the
+character of the man selected to be her husband? Those who should have
+known better brought him to her, and vouched for him. Noble, unhappy
+young creature! are you the first of your sisterhood who has been
+bidden to traffic your beauty, to crush and slay your honest natural
+affections, to sell your truth and your life for rank and title? But
+the Judge who sees not the outward acts merely, but their causes, and
+views not the wrong alone, but the temptations, struggles, ignorance of
+erring creatures, we know has a different code to ours—to ours, who
+fall upon the fallen, who fawn upon the prosperous so, who administer
+our praises and punishments so prematurely, who now strike so hard,
+and, anon, spare so shamelessly.
+
+Our stay with our hospitable friends at Rosebury was perforce coming to
+a close, for indeed weeks after weeks had passed since we had been
+under their pleasant roof; and in spite of dearest Ethel’s
+remonstrances it was clear that dearest Laura must take her farewell.
+In these last days, besides the visits which daily took place between
+one and other, the young messenger was put in ceaseless requisition,
+and his donkey must have been worn off his little legs with trotting to
+and fro between the two houses, Laura was quite anxious and hurt at not
+hearing from the Colonel; it was a shame that he did not have over his
+letters from Belgium and answer that one which she had honoured him by
+writing. By some information, received who knows how? our host was
+aware of the intrigue which Mrs. Pendennis was carrying on; and his
+little wife almost as much interested in it as my own. She whispered to
+me in her kind way that she would give a guinea, that she would, to see
+a certain couple made happy together; that they were born for one
+another, that they were; she was for having me go off to fetch Clive:
+but who was I to act as Hymen’s messenger, or to interpose in such
+delicate family affairs?
+
+All this while Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., remained absent in London,
+attending to his banking duties there, and pursuing the dismal
+inquiries which ended, in the ensuing Michaelmas term, in the famous
+suit of Newcome _v_. Lord Highgate. Ethel, pursuing the plan which she
+had laid down for herself from the first, took entire charge of his
+children and house: Lady Anne returned to her own family: never indeed
+having been of much use in her son’s dismal household. My wife talked
+to me of course about her pursuits and amusements at Newcome, in the
+ancestral hall which we have mentioned. The children played and ate
+their dinner (mine often partook of his infantine mutton, in company
+with little Clara and the poor young heir of Newcome) in the room which
+had been called my lady’s own, and in which her husband had locked her,
+forgetting that the conservatories were open, through which the hapless
+woman had fled. Next to this was the baronial library, a side of which
+was fitted with the gloomy books from Clapham, which old Mrs. Newcome
+had amassed; rows of tracts, and missionary magazines, and dingy quarto
+volumes of worldly travel and history which that lady had admitted into
+her collection.
+
+Almost on the last day of our stay at Rosebury, the two young ladies
+bethought them of paying a visit to the neighbouring town of Newcome,
+to that old Mrs. Mason who has been mentioned in a foregoing page in
+some yet earlier chapter of our history. She was very old now, very
+faithful to the recollections of her own early time, and oblivious of
+yesterday. Thanks to Colonel Newcome’s bounty, she had lived in comfort
+for many a long year past; and he was as much her boy now as in those
+early days of which we have given but an outline. There were Clive’s
+pictures of himself and his father over her little mantelpiece, near
+which she sat in comfort and warmth by the winter fire which his bounty
+supplied.
+
+Mrs. Mason remembered Miss Newcome, prompted thereto by the hints of
+her little maid, who was much younger, and had a more faithful memory
+than her mistress. Why, Sarah Mason would have forgotten the pheasants
+whose very tails decorated the chimney-glass, had not Keziah, the maid,
+reminded her that the young lady was the donor. Then she recollected
+her benefactor, and asked after her father, the Baronet; and wondered,
+for her part, why her boy, the Colonel, was not made baronet, and why
+his brother had the property? Her father was a very good man; though
+Mrs. Mason had heard he was not much liked in those parts. “Dead and
+gone, was he, poor man?” (This came in reply to a hint from Keziah, the
+attendant, bawled in the old lady’s ears, who was very deaf.) “Well,
+well, we must all go; and if we were all good, like the Colonel, what
+was the use of staying? I hope his wife will be good. I am sure such a
+good man deserves one,” added Mrs. Mason.
+
+The ladies thought the old woman doting, led thereto by the remark of
+Keziah, the maid, that Mrs. Mason have a lost her memory. And she asked
+who the other bonny lady was, and Ethel told her that Mrs. Pendennis
+was a friend of the Colonel’s and Clive’s.
+
+“Oh, Clive’s friend! Well, she was a pretty lady, and he was a dear
+pretty boy. He drew those pictures; and he took off me in my cap, with
+my old cat and all—my poor old cat that’s buried this ever so long
+ago.”
+
+“She has had a letter from the Colonel, miss,” cries out Keziah.
+“Haven’t you had a letter from the Colonel, mum? It came only
+yesterday.” And Keziah takes out the letter and shows it to the ladies.
+They read as follows:—
+
+“London, Feb. 12, 184-.
+
+“My Dear Old Mason—I have just heard from a friend of mine who has been
+staying in your neighbourhood, that you are well and happy, and that
+you have been making inquiries after _your young scapegrace_, Tom
+Newcome, who is well and happy too, and who proposes to be _happier
+still_ before any very long time is over.
+
+“The letter which was written to me about you was sent to me _in
+Belgium_, at Brussels, where I have been living—a town near the place
+where the famous _Battle of Waterloo_ was fought; and as I had run away
+from Waterloo it _followed me to England_.
+
+“I cannot come to Newcome just now to shake my dear old friend and
+nurse _by the hand_. I have business in London; and there are those of
+my name _living in Newcome_ who would not be very happy to see me and
+mine.
+
+“But I promise you a visit before very long, and Clive will come with
+me; and when we come I shall introduce a new friend to you, a very
+pretty little _daughter-in-law_, whom you must promise to love very
+much. She is a _Scotch lassie_, niece of my oldest friend, James
+Binnie, Esquire, of the Bengal Civil Service, who will give her a
+_pretty bit of siller_, and her present name is Miss Rosa Mackenzie.
+
+“We shall send you a _wedding cake_ soon, and a new gown for Keziah (to
+whom remember me), and when I am gone, my grandchildren after me will
+hear what a dear friend you were to your affectionate Thomas Newcome.”
+
+Keziah must have thought that there was something between Clive and my
+wife, for when Laura had read the letter she laid it down on the table,
+and sitting down by it, and hiding her face in her hands, burst into
+tears.
+
+Ethel looked steadily at the two pictures of Clive and his father. Then
+she put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Come, my dear,” she said,
+“it is growing late, and I must go back to my children.” And she
+saluted Mrs. Mason and her maid in a very stately manner, and left
+them, leading my wife away, who was still exceedingly overcome.
+
+We could not stay long at Rosebury after that. When Madame de
+Moncontour heard the news, the good lady cried too. Mrs. Pendennis’s
+emotion was renewed as we passed the gates of Newcome Park on our way
+to the railroad.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome
+
+
+The friendship between Ethel and Laura, which the last narrated
+sentimental occurrences had so much increased, subsists very little
+impaired up to the present day. A lady with many domestic interests and
+increasing family, etc. etc., cannot be supposed to cultivate female
+intimacies out of doors with that ardour and eagerness which young
+spinsters exhibit in their intercourse; but Laura, whose kind heart
+first led her to sympathise with her young friend in the latter’s days
+of distress and misfortune, has professed ever since a growing esteem
+for Ethel Newcome, and says, that the trials and perhaps grief which
+the young lady now had to undergo have brought out the noblest
+qualities of her disposition. She is a very different person from the
+giddy and worldly girl who compelled our admiration of late in the days
+of her triumphant youthful beauty, of her wayward generous humour, of
+her frivolities and her flirtations.
+
+Did Ethel shed tears in secret over the marriage which had caused
+Laura’s gentle eyes to overflow? We might divine the girl’s grief, but
+we respected it. The subject was never mentioned by the ladies between
+themselves, and even in her most intimate communications with her
+husband that gentleman is bound to say his wife maintained a tender
+reserve upon the point, nor cared to speculate upon a subject which her
+friend held sacred. I could not for my part but acquiesce in this
+reticence; and, if Ethel felt regret and remorse, admire the dignity of
+her silence, and the sweet composure of her now changed and saddened
+demeanour.
+
+The interchange of letters between the two friends was constant, and in
+these the younger lady described at length the duties, occupations, and
+pleasures of her new life. She had quite broken with the world, and
+devoted herself entirely to the nurture and education of her brother’s
+orphan children. She educated herself in order to teach them. Her
+letters contain droll yet touching confessions of her own ignorance and
+her determination to overcome it. There was no lack of masters of all
+kinds in Newcome. She set herself to work like a schoolgirl. The little
+piano in the room near the conservatory was thumped by Aunt Ethel until
+it became quite obedient to her, and yielded the sweetest music under
+her fingers. When she came to pay us a visit at Fairoaks some two years
+afterwards she played for our dancing children (our third is named
+Ethel, our second Helen, after one still more dear), and we were in
+admiration of her skill. There must have been the labour of many lonely
+nights when her little charges were at rest, and she and her sad
+thoughts sat up together, before she overcame the difficulties of the
+instrument so as to be able to soothe herself and to charm and delight
+her children.
+
+When the divorce was pronounced, which came in due form, though we know
+that Lady Highgate was not much happier than the luckless Lady Clara
+Newcome had been, Ethel’s dread was lest Sir Barnes should marry again,
+and by introducing a new mistress into his house should deprive her of
+the care of her children.
+
+Miss Newcome judged her brother rightly in that he would try to marry,
+but a noble young lady to whom he offered himself rejected him, to his
+surprise and indignation, for a beggarly clergyman with a small living,
+on which she elected to starve; and the wealthy daughter of a
+neighbouring manufacturer whom he next proposed to honour with his
+gracious hand, fled from him with horror to the arms of her father,
+wondering how such a man as that should ever dare to propose marriage
+to an honest girl. Sir Barnes Newcome was much surprised at this
+outbreak of anger; he thought himself a very ill-used and unfortunate
+man, a victim of most cruel persecutions, which we may be sure did not
+improve his temper or tend to the happiness of his circle at home.
+Peevishness, and selfish rage, quarrels with servants and governesses,
+and other domestic disquiet, Ethel had of course to bear from her
+brother, but not actual personal ill-usage. The fiery temper of former
+days was subdued in her, but the haughty resolution remained, which was
+more than a match for her brother’s cowardly tyranny: besides, she was
+the mistress of sixty thousand pounds, and by many wily hints and
+piteous appeals to his sister Sir Barnes sought to secure this
+desirable sum of money for his poor dear unfortunate children.
+
+He professed to think that she was ruining herself for her younger
+brothers, whose expenses the young lady was defraying, this one at
+college, that in the army, and whose maintenance he thought might be
+amply defrayed out of their own little fortunes and his mother’s
+jointure: and, by ingeniously proving that a vast number of his
+household expenses were personal to Miss Newcome and would never have
+been incurred but for her residence in his house, he subtracted for his
+own benefit no inconsiderable portion of her income. Thus the
+carriage-horses were hers, for what need had he, a miserable bachelor,
+of anything more than a riding-horse and a brougham? A certain number
+of the domestics were hers, and as he could get no scoundrel of his own
+to stay with him, he took Miss Newcome’s servants. He would have had
+her pay the coals which burned in his grate, and the taxes due to our
+sovereign lady the Queen; but in truth, at the end of the year, with
+her domestic bounties and her charities round about Newcome, which
+daily increased as she became acquainted with her indigent neighbours,
+Miss Ethel, the heiress, was as poor as many poorer persons.
+
+Her charities increased daily with her means of knowing the people
+round about her. She gave much time to them and thought; visited from
+house to house, without ostentation; was awestricken by that spectacle
+of the poverty which we have with us always, of which the sight rebukes
+our selfish griefs into silence, the thought compels us to charity,
+humility, and devotion. The priests of our various creeds, who
+elsewhere are doing battle together continually, lay down their arms in
+its presence and kneel before it; subjugated by that overpowering
+master. Death, never dying out; hunger always crying; and children born
+to it day after day,—our young London lady, flying from the splendours
+and follies in which her life had been past, found herself in the
+presence of these; threading darkling alleys which swarmed with
+wretched life; sitting by naked beds, whither by God’s blessing she was
+sometimes enabled to carry a little comfort and consolation; or whence
+she came heart-stricken by the overpowering misery, or touched by the
+patient resignation of the new friends to whom fate had directed her.
+And here she met the priest upon his shrift, the homely missionary
+bearing his words of consolation, the quiet curate pacing his round;
+and was known to all these, and enabled now and again to help their
+people in trouble. “Oh! what good there is in this woman!” my wife
+would say to me, as she laid one of Miss Ethel’s letters aside; “who
+would have thought this was the girl of your glaring London ballroom?
+If she has had grief to bear, how it has chastened and improved her!”
+
+And now I have to confess that all this time, whilst Ethel Newcome has
+been growing in grace with my wife, poor Clive has been lapsing sadly
+out of favour. She has no patience with Clive. She drubs her little
+foot when his name is mentioned and turns the subject. Whither are all
+the tears and pities fled now? Mrs. Laura has transferred all her
+regard to Ethel, and when that lady’s ex-suitor writes to his old
+friend, or other news is had of him, Laura flies out in her usual
+tirades against the world, the horrid wicked selfish world, which
+spoils everybody who comes near it. What has Clive done, in vain his
+apologist asks, that an old friend should be so angry with him?
+
+She is not angry with him—not she. She only does not care about him.
+She wishes him no manner of harm—not the least, only she has lost all
+interest in him. And the Colonel too, the poor good old Colonel, was
+actually in Mrs. Pendennis’ black books, and when he sent her the
+Brussels veil which we have heard of, she did not think it was a
+bargain at all—not particularly pretty, in fact, rather dear at the
+money. When we met Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome in London, whither they
+came a few months after their marriage, and where Rosey appeared as
+pretty, happy, good-humoured a little blushing bride as eyes need
+behold, Mrs. Pendennis’s reception of her was quite a curiosity of
+decorum. “I, not receive her well?” cried Laura. “How on earth would
+you have me receive her? I talked to her about everything, and she only
+answered yes or no. I showed her the children, and she did not seem to
+care. Her only conversation was about millinery and Brussels balls, and
+about her dress at the drawing-room. The drawing-room! What business
+has she with such follies?”
+
+The fact is, that the drawing-room was Tom Newcome’s affair, not his
+son’s, who was heartily ashamed of the figure he cut in that astounding
+costume, which English private gentlemen are made to sport when they
+bend the knee before their gracious Sovereign.
+
+Warrington roasted poor Clive upon the occasion, and complimented him
+with his usual gravity, until the young fellow blushed and his father
+somewhat testily signified to our friend that his irony was not
+agreeable. “I suppose,” says the Colonel, with great hauteur, “that
+there is nothing ridiculous in an English gentleman entertaining
+feelings of loyalty and testifying his respect to his Queen: and I
+presume that Her Majesty knows best, and has a right to order in what
+dress her subjects shall appear before her and I don’t think it’s kind
+of you, George, I say, I don’t think it’s kind of you to quiz my boy
+for doing his duty to his Queen and to his father too, sir,—for it was
+at my request that Clive went, and we went together, sir—to the levee
+and then to the drawing-room afterwards with Rosey, who was presented
+by the lady of my old friend, Sir George Tufto, a lady of rank herself,
+and the wife of as brave an officer as ever drew a sword.”
+
+Warrington stammered an apology for his levity, but no explanations
+were satisfactory, and it was clear George had wounded the feelings of
+our dear simple old friend.
+
+After Clive’s marriage, which was performed at Brussels, Uncle James
+and the lady, his sister, whom we have sometimes flippantly ventured to
+call the Campaigner, went off to perform that journey to Scotland which
+James had meditated for ten years past; and, now little Rosey was made
+happy for life, to renew acquaintance with little Josey. The Colonel
+and his son and daughter-in-law came to London, not to the bachelor
+quarters, where we have seen them, but to an hotel, which they occupied
+until their new house could be provided for them, a sumptuous mansion
+in the Tyburnian district, and one which became people of their
+station.
+
+We have been informed already what the Colonel’s income was, and have
+the gratification of knowing that it was very considerable. The simple
+gentleman who would dine off a crust, and wear a coat for ten years,
+desired that his children should have the best of everything: ordered
+about upholsterers, painters, carriage-makers, in his splendid Indian
+way; presented pretty Rosey with brilliant jewels for her introduction
+at Court, and was made happy by the sight of the blooming young
+creature decked in these magnificences, and admired by all his little
+circle. The old boys, the old generals, the old colonels, the old
+qui-his from the club, came and paid her their homage; the directors’
+ladies, and the generals’ ladies, called upon her, and feasted her at
+vast banquets served on sumptuous plate. Newcome purchased plate and
+gave banquets in return for these hospitalities. Mrs. Clive had a neat
+close carriage for evenings, and a splendid barouche to drive in the
+Park. It was pleasant to see this equipage at four o’clock of an
+afternoon, driving up to Bays’s, with Rosey most gorgeously attired
+reclining within; and to behold the stately grace of the old gentleman
+as he stepped out to welcome his daughter-in-law, and the bow he made
+before he entered her carriage. Then they would drive round the Park;
+round and round and round; and the old generals, and the old colonels,
+and old fogies, and their ladies and daughters, would nod and smile out
+of _their_ carriages as they crossed each other upon this charming
+career of pleasure.
+
+I confess that a dinner at the Colonel’s, now he appeared in all his
+magnificence, was awfully slow. No peaches could look fresher than
+Rosey’s cheeks,—no damask was fairer than her pretty little shoulders.
+No one, I am sure, could be happier than she, but she did not impart
+her happiness to her friends; and replied chiefly by smiles to the
+conversation of the gentlemen at her side. It is true that these were
+for the most part elderly dignitaries, distinguished military officers
+with blue-black whiskers, retired old Indian judges, and the like,
+occupied with their victuals, and generally careless to please. But
+that solemn happiness of the Colonel, who shall depict it:—that look of
+affection with which he greeted his daughter as she entered, flounced
+to the waist, twinkling with innumerable jewels, holding a dainty
+pocket-handkerchief, with smiling eyes, dimpled cheeks, and golden
+ringlets! He would take her hand, or follow her about from group to
+group, exchanging precious observations about the weather, the Park,
+the exhibition, nay, the opera, for the old man actually went to the
+opera with his little girl, and solemnly snoozed by her side in a white
+waistcoat.
+
+Very likely this was the happiest period of Thomas Newcome’s life. No
+woman (save one perhaps fifty years ago) had ever seemed so fond of him
+as that little girl. What pride he had in her, and what care he took of
+her! If she was a little ailing, what anxiety and hurrying for doctors!
+What droll letters came from James Binnie, and how they laughed over
+them: with what respectful attention he acquainted Mrs. Mack with
+everything that took place: with what enthusiasm that Campaigner
+replied! Josey’s husband called a special blessing upon his head in the
+church at Musselburgh; and little Jo herself sent a tinful of Scotch
+bun to her darling sister, with a request from her husband that he
+might have a few shares in the famous Indian Company.
+
+The Company was in a highly flourishing condition, as you may suppose,
+when one of its directors, who at the same time was one of the
+honestest men alive, thought it was his duty to live in the splendour
+in which we now behold him. Many wealthy City men did homage to him.
+His brother Hobson, though the Colonel had quarrelled with the chief of
+the firm, yet remained on amiable terms with Thomas Newcome, and shared
+and returned his banquets for a while. Charles Honeyman we may be sure
+was present at many of them, and smirked a blessing over the plenteous
+meal. The Colonel’s influence was such with Mr. Sherrick that he
+pleaded Charles’s cause with that gentleman, and actually brought to a
+successful termination that little love-affair in which we have seen
+Miss Sherrick and Charles engaged. Mr. Sherrick was not disposed to
+part with much money during his lifetime—indeed, he proved to Colonel
+Newcome that he was not so rich as the world supposed him. But, by the
+Colonel’s interest, the chaplaincy of Boggley Wollah was procured for
+the Rev. C. Honeyman, who now forms the delight of that flourishing
+station.
+
+All this while we have said little about Clive, who in truth was
+somehow in the background in this flourishing Newcome group. To please
+the best father in the world; the kindest old friend who endowed his
+niece with the best part of his savings; to settle that question about
+marriage and have an end of it;—Clive Newcome had taken a pretty and
+fond young girl, who respected and admired him beyond all men, and who
+heartily desired to make him happy. To do as much would not his father
+have stripped his coat from his back,—have put his head under
+Juggernaut’s chariot-wheel, have sacrificed any ease, comfort, or
+pleasure for the youngster’s benefit? One great passion he had had and
+closed the account of it: a worldly ambitious girl—how foolishly
+worshipped and passionately beloved no matter—had played with him for
+years; had flung him away when a dissolute suitor with a great fortune
+and title had offered himself. Was he to whine and despair because a
+jilt had fooled him? He had too much pride and courage for any such
+submission; he would accept the lot in life which was offered to him,
+no undesirable one surely; he would fulfil the wish of his father’s
+heart, and cheer his kind declining years. In this way the marriage was
+brought about. It was but a whisper to Rosey in the drawing-room, a
+start and a blush from the little girl as he took the little willing
+hand, a kiss for her from her delighted old father-in-law, a twinkle in
+good old James’s eyes, and double embrace from the Campaigner as she
+stood over them in a benedictory attitude;—expressing her surprise at
+an event for which she had been jockeying ever since she set eyes on
+young Newcome; and calling upon Heaven to bless her children. So, as a
+good thing when it is to be done had best be done quickly, these worthy
+folks went off almost straightway to a clergyman, and were married out
+of hand—to the astonishment of Captains Hoby and Goby when they came to
+hear of the event. Well, my gallant young painter and friend of my
+boyhood! if my wife chooses to be angry at your marriage, shall her
+husband not wish you happy?
+
+Suppose we had married our first loves, others of us, were we the
+happier now? Ask Mr. Pendennis, who sulked in his tents when his
+Costigan, his Briseis, was ravished from him. Ask poor George
+Warrington, who had his own way, Heaven help him! There was no need why
+Clive should turn monk because number one refused him; and, that
+charmer removed, why he should not take to his heart number two. I am
+bound to say, that when I expressed these opinions to Mrs. Laura, she
+was more angry and provoked than ever.
+
+It is in the nature of such a simple soul as Thomas Newcome, to see but
+one side of a question, and having once fixed Ethel’s worldliness in
+his mind, and her brother’s treason, to allow no argument of advocates
+of the other side to shake his displeasure. Hence the one or two
+appeals which Laura ventured to make on behalf of her friend, were
+checked by the good Colonel with a stern negation. If Ethel was not
+guiltless, she could not make him see at least that she was not guilty.
+He dashed away all excuses and palliations. Exasperated as he was, he
+persisted in regarding the poor girl’s conduct in its most unfavourable
+light. “She was rejected, and deservedly rejected, by the Marquis of
+Farintosh,” he broke out to me once, who was not indeed authorised to
+tell all I knew regarding the story; “the whole town knows it; all the
+clubs ring with it. I blush, sir, to think that my brother’s child
+should have brought such a stain upon our name.” In vain, I told him
+that my wife, who knew all the circumstances much better, judged Miss
+Newcome far more favourably, and indeed greatly esteemed and loved her.
+“Pshaw! sir,” breaks out the indignant Colonel, “your wife is an
+innocent creature, who does not know the world as we men of experience
+do,—as I do, sir;” and would have no more of the discussion. There is
+no doubt about it, there was a coolness between my old friend’s father
+and us.
+
+As for Barnes Newcome, we gave up that worthy, and the Colonel showed
+him no mercy. He recalled words used by Warrington, which I have
+recorded in a former page, and vowed that he only watched for an
+opportunity to crush the miserable reptile. He hated Barnes as a
+loathsome traitor, coward, and criminal; he made no secret of his
+opinion; and Clive, with the remembrance of former injuries, of
+dreadful heart-pangs; the inheritor of his father’s blood, his honesty
+of nature, and his impetuous enmity against wrong; shared to the full
+his sire’s antipathy against his cousin, and publicly expressed his
+scorn and contempt for him. About Ethel he would not speak. “Perhaps
+what you say, Pen, is true,” he said. “I hope it is. Pray God it is.”
+But his quivering lips and fierce countenance, when her name was
+mentioned or her defence attempted, showed that he too had come to
+think ill of her. “As for her brother, as for that scoundrel,” he would
+say, clenching his fist, “if ever I can punish him I will. I shouldn’t
+have the soul of a dog, if ever I forgot the wrongs that have been done
+me by that vagabond. Forgiveness? Pshaw! Are you dangling to sermons,
+Pen, at your wife’s leading-strings? Are you preaching that cant? There
+are some injuries that no honest man should forgive, and I shall be a
+rogue on the day I shake hands with that villain.”
+
+“Clive has adopted the Iroquois ethics,” says George Warrington,
+smoking his pipe sententiously, “rather than those which are at present
+received among us. I am not sure that something is not to be said, as
+against the Eastern, upon the Western, or Tomahawk, or Ojibbeway side
+of the question. I should not like,” he added, “to be in a vendetta or
+feud, and to have you, Clive, and the old Colonel engaged against me.”
+
+“I would rather,” I said, “for my part, have half a dozen such enemies
+as Clive and the Colonel, than one like Barnes. You never know where or
+when that villain may hit you.” And before a very short period was
+over, Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., hit his two hostile kinsmen such a
+blow, as one might expect from such a quarter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII.
+Mrs. Clive at Home
+
+
+Clive and his father did not think fit to conceal their opinions
+regarding their kinsman, Barnes Newcome, and uttered them in many
+public places when Sir Barnes’s conduct was brought into question, we
+may be sure that their talk came to the Baronet’s ears, and did not
+improve his already angry feeling towards those gentlemen. For a while
+they had the best of the attack. The Colonel routed Barnes out of his
+accustomed club at Bays’s; where also the gallant Sir George Tufto
+expressed himself pretty openly with respect to the poor Baronet’s want
+of courage: the Colonel had bullied and browbeaten Barnes in the
+parlour of his own bank, and the story was naturally well known in the
+City; where it certainly was not pleasant for Sir Barnes, as he walked
+to ’Change, to meet sometimes the scowls of the angry man of war, his
+uncle, striding down to the offices of the Bundelcund Bank, and armed
+with that terrible bamboo cane.
+
+But though his wife had undeniably run away after notorious
+ill-treatment from her husband; though he had shown two white feathers
+in those unpleasant little affairs with his uncle and cousin; though
+Sir Barnes Newcome was certainly neither amiable nor popular in the
+City of London, his reputation as a most intelligent man of business
+still stood; the credit of his house was deservedly high, and people
+banked with him, and traded with him, in spite of faithless wives and
+hostile colonels.
+
+When the outbreak between Colonel Newcome and his nephew took place, it
+may be remembered that Mr. Hobson Newcome, the other partner of the
+firm of Hobson Brothers, waited upon Colonel Newcome, as one of the
+principal English directors of the B. B. C., and hoped that although
+private differences would, of course, oblige Thomas Newcome to cease
+all personal dealings with the bank of Hobson, the affairs of the
+Company in which he was interested ought not to suffer on this account;
+and that the Indian firm should continue dealing with Hobsons on the
+same footing as before. Mr. Hobson Newcome represented to the Colonel,
+in his jolly frank way, that whatever happened between the latter and
+his nephew Barnes, Thomas Newcome had still one friend in the house;
+that the transactions between it and the Indian Company were mutually
+advantageous; finally, that the manager of the Indian bank might
+continue to do business with Hobsons as before. So the B. B. C. sent
+its consignments to Hobson Brothers, and drew its bills, which were
+duly honoured by that firm.
+
+More than one of Colonel Newcome’s City acquaintances, among them his
+agent, Mr. Jolly, and his ingenuous friend, Mr. Sherrick, especially,
+hinted to Thomas Newcome to be very cautious in his dealings with
+Hobson Brothers, and keep a special care lest that house should play
+him an evil turn. They both told him that Barnes Newcome had said more
+than once, in answer to reports of the Colonel’s own speeches against
+Barnes. “I know that hot-headed, blundering Indian uncle of mine is
+furious against me, on account of an absurd private affair and
+misunderstanding, which he is too obstinate to see in the proper light.
+What is my return for the abuse and rant which he lavishes against me?
+I cannot forget that he is my grandfather’s son, an old man, utterly
+ignorant both of society and business here; and as he is interested in
+this Indian Banking Company, which must be preciously conducted when it
+appointed him as the guardian and overseer of its affairs in England, I
+do my very best to serve the Company, and I can tell you, its
+blundering, muddleheaded managers, black and white, owe no little to
+the assistance which they have had from our house. If they don’t like
+us, why do they go on dealing with us? We don’t want them and their
+bills. We were a leading house fifty years before they were born, and
+shall continue to be so long after they come to an end.” Such was
+Barnes’s case, as stated by himself. It was not a very bad one, or very
+unfairly stated, considering the advocate. I believe he has always
+persisted in thinking that he never did his uncle any wrong.
+
+Mr. Jolly and Mr. Sherrick, then, both entreated Thomas Newcome to use
+his best endeavours, and bring the connexion of the B. B. C. and Hobson
+Brothers to a speedy end. But Jolly was an interested party; he and his
+friends would have had the agency of the B. B. C., and the profits
+thereof, which Hobsons had taken from them. Mr. Sherrick was an outside
+practitioner, a guerilla amongst regular merchants. The opinions of one
+and the other, though submitted by Thomas Newcome duly to his
+co-partners, the managers and London board of directors of the
+Bundelcund Banking Company, were overruled by that assembly.
+
+They had their establishment and apartments in the City; they had their
+clerks and messengers, their managers’ room and board-room, their
+meetings, where no doubt great quantities of letters were read, vast
+ledgers produced; where Tom Newcome was voted into the chair, and voted
+out with thanks; where speeches were made, and the affairs of the B. B.
+C. properly discussed. These subjects are mysterious, terrifying,
+unknown to me. I cannot pretend to describe them. Fred Bayham, I
+remember, used to be great in his knowledge of the affairs of the
+Bundelcund Banking Company. He talked of cotton, wool, copper, opium,
+indigo, Singapore, Manilla, China, Calcutta, Australia, with prodigious
+eloquence and fluency. His conversation was about millions. The most
+astounding paragraphs used to appear in the _Pall Mall Gazette_,
+regarding the annual dinner at Blackwall, which the directors gave, and
+to which he, and George, and I, as friends of the court, were invited.
+What orations were uttered, what flowing bumpers emptied in the praise
+of this great Company; what quantities of turtle and punch did Fred
+devour at its expense! Colonel Newcome was the kindly old chairman at
+these banquets; the prince, his son, taking but a modest part in the
+ceremonies, and sitting with us, his old cronies.
+
+All the gentlemen connected with the board, all those with whom the B.
+B. C. traded in London, paid Thomas Newcome extraordinary respect. His
+character for wealth was deservedly great, and of course multiplied by
+the tongue of Rumour. F. B. knew to a few millions of rupees, more or
+less, what the Colonel possessed, and what Clive would inherit. Thomas
+Newcome’s distinguished military services, his high bearing, lofty
+courtesy, simple but touching garrulity;—for the honest man talked much
+more now than he had been accustomed to do in former days, and was not
+insensible to the flattery which his wealth brought him,—his reputation
+as a keen man of business, who had made his own fortune by operations
+equally prudent and spirited, and who might make the fortunes of
+hundreds of other people, brought the worthy Colonel a number of
+friends, and I promise you that the loudest huzzahs greeted his health
+when it was proposed at the Blackwall dinners. At the second annual
+dinner after Clive’s marriage some friends presented Mrs. Clive Newcome
+with a fine testimonial. There was a superb silver cocoa-nut tree,
+whereof the leaves were dexterously arranged for holding candle and
+pickles; under the cocoa-nut was an Indian prince on a camel, giving
+his hand to a cavalry officer on horseback—a howitzer, a plough, a
+loom, a bale of cotton, on which were the East India Company’s arms, a
+Brahmin, Britannia, and Commerce with a cornucopia were grouped round
+the principal figures: and if you would see a noble account of this
+chaste and elegant specimen of British art, you are referred to the
+pages of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of that year, as well as to Fred
+Bayham’s noble speech in the course of the evening, when it was
+exhibited. The East and its wars, and its heroes, Assaye and
+Seringapatam (“and Lord Lake and Laswaree too,” calls out the Colonel
+greatly elated), tiger-hunting, palanquins, Juggernaut, elephants, the
+burning of widows—all passed before us in F. B.’s splendid oration. He
+spoke of the product of the Indian forest, the palm-tree, the cocoa-nut
+tree, the banyan-tree. Palms the Colonel had already brought back with
+him, the palms of valour, won in the field of war (cheers). Cocoa-nut
+trees he had never seen, though he had heard wonders related regarding
+the milky contents of their fruit. Here at any rate was one tree of the
+kind, under the branches of which he humbly trusted often to
+repose—and, if he might be so bold as to carry on the Eastern metaphor,
+he would say, knowing the excellence of the Colonel’s claret and the
+splendour of his hospitality, that he would prefer a cocoa-nut day at
+the Colonel’s to a banyan day anywhere else. Whilst F. B.’s speech went
+on, I remember J. J. eyeing the trophy, and the queer expression of his
+shrewd face. The health of British Artists was drunk a propos of this
+splendid specimen of their skill, and poor J. J. Ridley, Esq., A.R.A.,
+had scarce a word to say in return. He and Clive sat by one another,
+the latter very silent and gloomy. When J. J. and I met in the world,
+we talked about our friend, and it was easy for both of us to see that
+neither was satisfied with Clive’s condition.
+
+The fine house in Tyburnia was completed by this time, as gorgeous as
+money could make it. How different it was from the old Fitzroy Square
+mansion with its ramshackle furniture, and spoils of brokers’ shops,
+and Tottenham Court Road odds and ends! An Oxford Street upholsterer
+had been let loose in the yet virgin chambers; and that inventive
+genius had decorated them with all the wonders his fancy could devise.
+Roses and cupids quivered on the ceilings, up to which golden
+arabesques crawled from the walls; your face (handsome or otherwise)
+was reflected by countless looking-glasses, so multiplied and arranged
+as, as it were, to carry you into the next street. You trod on velvet,
+pausing with respect in the centre of the carpet, where Rosey’s cypher
+was worked in the sweet flowers which bear her name. What delightful
+crooked legs the chairs had! What corner cupboards there were filled
+with Dresden gimcracks, which it was a part of this little woman’s
+business in life to purchase! What etageres, and bonbonnieres, and
+chiffonnieres! What awfully bad pastels there were on the walls! What
+frightful Boucher and Lancret shepherds and shepherdesses leered over
+the portieres! What velvet-bound volumes, mother-of-pearl albums,
+inkstands representing beasts of the field, prie-dieu chairs, and
+wonderful knick-knacks I can recollect! There was the most magnificent
+piano, though Rosey seldom sang any of her six songs now; and when she
+kept her couch at a certain most interesting period, the good Colonel,
+ever anxious to procure amusement for his darling, asked whether she
+would not like a barrel-organ grinding fifty or sixty favourite pieces,
+which a bearer could turn? And he mentioned how Windus, of their
+regiment, who loved music exceedingly, had a very fine instrument of
+this kind out to Barrackpore in the year 1810, and relays of barrels by
+each ship with all the new tunes from Europe. The Testimonial took its
+place in the centre of Mrs. Clive’s table, surrounded by satellites of
+plate. The delectable parties were constantly gathered together, the
+grand barouche rolling in the Park, or stopping at the principal shops.
+Little Rosey bloomed in millinery, and was still the smiling little pet
+of her father-in-law, and poor Clive, in the midst of all these
+splendours, was gaunt, and sad, and silent; listless at most times,
+bitter and savage at others, pleased only when he was out of the
+society which bored him, and in the company of George and J. J., the
+simple friends of his youth.
+
+His careworn look and altered appearance mollified my wife towards
+him—who had almost taken him again into favour. But she did not care
+for Mrs. Clive, and the Colonel, somehow, grew cool towards us, and to
+look askance upon the little band of Clive’s friends. It seemed as if
+there were two parties in the house. There was Clive’s set—J. J., the
+shrewd, silent little painter; Warrington, the cynic; and the author of
+the present biography, who was, I believe, supposed to give himself
+contemptuous airs; and to have become very high and mighty since his
+marriage. Then there was the great, numerous, and eminently respectable
+set, whose names were all registered in little Rosey’s little
+visiting-book, and to whose houses she drove round, duly delivering the
+cards of Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome, and Colonel Newcome;—the generals
+and colonels, the judges and the fogies. The only man who kept well
+with both sides of the house was F. Bayham, Esq., who, having got into
+clover, remained in the enjoyment of that welcome pasture; who really
+loved Clive and the Colonel too, and had a hundred pleasant things and
+funny stories (the droll old creature!) to tell to the little lady for
+whom we others could scarcely find a word. The old friends of the
+student-days were not forgotten, but they did not seem to get on in the
+new house. The Miss Gandishes came to one of Mrs. Clive’s balls, still
+in blue crape, still with ringlets on their wizened old foreheads,
+accompanying papa, with his shirt-collars turned down—who gazed in mute
+wonder on the splendid scene. Warrington actually asked Miss Gandish to
+dance, making woeful blunders, however, in the quadrille, while Clive,
+with something like one of his old smiles on his face, took out Miss
+Zoe Gandish, her sister. We made Gandish overeat and overdrink himself
+in the supper-room, and Clive cheered him by ordering a full length of
+Mrs. Clive Newcome from his distinguished pencil. Never was seen a
+grander exhibition of white satin and jewels. Smee, R.A., was furious
+at the preference shown to his rival.
+
+We had Sandy M’Collop, too, at the party, who had returned from Rome,
+with his red beard, and his picture of the murder of the Red Comyn,
+which made but a dim effect in the Octagon Room of the Royal Academy,
+where the bleeding agonies of the dying warrior were veiled in an
+unkind twilight. On Sandy and his brethren little Rosey looked rather
+coldly. She tossed up her little head in conversation with me, and gave
+me to understand that this party was only an _omnium gatherum_, not one
+of the select parties, from which Heaven defend us. “We are Poins, and
+Nym, and Pistol,” growled out George Warrington, as he strode away to
+finish the evening in Clive’s painting- and smoking-room. “Now Prince
+Hal is married, and shares the paternal throne, his Princess is ashamed
+of his brigand associates of former days.” She came and looked at us
+with a feeble little smile, as we sat smoking, and let the daylight in
+on us from the open door, and hinted to Mr. Clive that it was time to
+go to bed.
+
+So Clive Newcome lay in a bed of down and tossed and tumbled there. He
+went to fine dinners, and sat silent over them; rode fine horses, and
+black Care jumped up behind the moody horseman. He was cut off in a
+great measure from the friends of his youth, or saw them by a kind of
+stealth and sufferance; was a very lonely, poor fellow, I am afraid,
+now that people were testimonialising his wife, and many an old comrade
+growling at his haughtiness and prosperity.
+
+In former days, when his good father recognised the difference which
+fate, and time, and temper, had set between him and his son, we have
+seen with what a gentle acquiescence the old man submitted to his
+inevitable fortune, and how humbly he bore that stroke of separation
+which afflicted the boy lightly enough, but caused the loving sire so
+much pain. Then there was no bitterness between them, in spite of the
+fatal division; but now, it seemed as if there was anger on Thomas
+Newcome’s part, because, though come together again, they were not
+united, though with every outward appliance of happiness Clive was not
+happy. What young man on earth could look for more? a sweet young wife,
+a handsome home, of which the only encumbrance was an old father, who
+would give his last drop of blood in his son’s behalf. And it was to
+bring about this end that Thomas Newcome had toiled and had amassed a
+fortune. Could not Clive, with his talents and education, go down once
+or twice a week to the City and take a decent part in the business by
+which his wealth was secured? He appeared at the various board-rooms
+and City conclaves, yawned at the meetings, and drew figures on the
+blotting-paper of the Company; had no interest in its transactions, no
+heart in its affairs; went away and galloped his horse alone; or
+returned to his painting-room, put on his old velvet jacket, and worked
+with his palettes and brushes. Palettes and brushes! Could he not give
+up these toys when he was called to a much higher station in the world?
+Could he not go talk with Rosey;—drive with Rosey, kind little soul,
+whose whole desire was to make him happy? Such thoughts as these, no
+doubt, darkened the Colonel’s mind, and deepened the furrows round his
+old eyes. So it is, we judge men by our own standards; judge our
+nearest and dearest often wrong.
+
+Many and many a time did Clive try and talk with the little Rosey, who
+chirped and prattled so gaily to his father. Many a time would she come
+and sit by his easel, and try her little powers to charm him, bring him
+little tales about their acquaintances, stories about this ball and
+that concert, practise artless smiles upon him, gentle little
+bouderies, tears, perhaps, followed by caresses and reconciliation. At
+the end of which he would return to his cigar; and she, with a sigh and
+a heavy heart, to the good old man who had bidden her to go and talk
+with him. He used to feel that his father had sent her; the thought
+came across him in their conversations, and straightway his heart would
+shut up and his face grew gloomy. They were not made to mate with one
+another. This was the truth; the shoe was a very pretty little shoe,
+but Clive’s foot was too big for it.
+
+Just before the testimonial, Mr. Clive was in constant attendance at
+home, and very careful and kind and happy with his wife, and the whole
+family party went very agreeably. Doctors were in constant attendance
+at Mrs. Clive Newcome’s door; prodigious care was taken by the good
+Colonel in wrapping her and in putting her little feet on sofas, and in
+leading her to her carriage. The Campaigner came over in immense flurry
+from Edinburgh (where Uncle James was now very comfortably lodged in
+Picardy Place with the most agreeable society round about him), and all
+this circle was in a word very close and happy and intimate; but woe is
+me, Thomas Newcome’s fondest hopes were disappointed this time: his
+little grandson lived but to see the light and leave it: and sadly,
+sadly, those preparations were put away, those poor little robes and
+caps, those delicate muslins and cambrics over which many a care had
+been forgotten, many a fond prayer thought, if not uttered. Poor little
+Rosey! she felt the grief very keenly; but she rallied from it very
+soon. In a very few months, her cheeks were blooming and dimpling with
+smiles again, and she was telling us how her party was an _omnium
+gatherum_.
+
+The Campaigner had ere this returned to the scene of her northern
+exploits; not, I believe, entirely of the worthy woman’s own free will.
+Assuming the command of the household, whilst her daughter kept her
+sofa, Mrs. Mackenzie had set that establishment into uproar and mutiny.
+She had offended the butler, outraged the housekeeper, wounded the
+sensibilities of the footmen, insulted the doctor, and trampled on the
+inmost corns of the nurse. It was surprising what a change appeared in
+the Campaigner’s conduct, and how little, in former days, Colonel
+Newcome had known her. What the Emperor Napoleon the First said
+respecting our Russian enemies, might be applied to this lady,
+Grattez-la, and she appeared a Tartar. Clive and his father had a
+little comfort and conversation in conspiring against her. The old man
+never dared to try, but was pleased with the younger’s spirit and
+gallantry in the series of final actions which, commencing over poor
+little Rosey’s prostrate body in the dressing-room, were continued in
+the drawing-room, resumed with terrible vigour on the enemy’s part in
+the dining-room, and ended, to the triumph of the whole establishment,
+at the outside of the hall-door.
+
+When the routed Tartar force had fled back to its native north, Rosey
+made a confession, which Clive told me afterwards, bursting with bitter
+laughter. “You and papa seem to be very much agitated,” she said.
+(Rosey called the Colonel papa in the absence of the Campaigner.) “I do
+not mind it a bit, except just at first, when it made me a little
+nervous. Mamma used always to be so; she used to scold and scold all
+day, both me and Josey, in Scotland, till grandmamma sent her away; and
+then in Fitzroy Square, and then in Brussels, she used to box my ears,
+and go into such tantrums; and I think,” adds Rosey, with one of her
+sweetest smiles, “she had quarrelled with Uncle James before she came
+to us.”
+
+“She used to box Rosey’s ears,” roars out poor Clive, “and go into such
+tantrums, in Fitzroy Square and Brussels afterwards, and the pair would
+come down with their arms round each other’s waists, smirking and
+smiling as if they had done nothing but kiss each other all their
+mortal lives! This is what we know about women—this is what we get, and
+find years afterwards, when we think we have married a smiling, artless
+young creature! Are you all such hypocrites, Mrs. Pendennis?” and he
+pulled his mustachios in his wrath.
+
+“Poor Clive!” says Laura, very kindly. “You would not have had her tell
+tales of her mother, would you?”
+
+“Oh, of course not,” breaks out Clive; “that is what you all say, and
+so you are hypocrites out of sheer virtue.”
+
+It was the first time Laura had called him Clive for many a day. She
+was becoming reconciled to him. We had our own opinion about the young
+fellow’s marriage.
+
+And, to sum up all, upon a casual rencontre with the young gentleman in
+question, whom we saw descending from a hansom at the steps of the
+Flag, Pall Mall, I opined that dark thoughts of Hoby had entered into
+Clive Newcome’s mind. Othello-like, he scowled after that unconscious
+Cassio as the other passed into the club in his lacquered boots.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV.
+Absit Omen
+
+
+At the first of the Blackwall festivals, Hobson Newcome was present, in
+spite of the quarrel which had taken place between his elder brother
+and the chief of the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcome. But it was
+the individual Barnes and the individual Thomas who had had a
+difference together; the Bundelcund Bank was not at variance with its
+chief house of commission in London; no man drank prosperity to the B.
+B. C., upon occasion of this festival, with greater fervour than Hobson
+Newcome, and the manner in which he just slightly alluded, in his own
+little speech of thanks, to the notorious differences between Colonel
+Newcome and his nephew, praying that these might cease some day, and,
+meanwhile, that the confidence between the great Indian establishment
+and its London agents might never diminish, was appreciated and admired
+by six-and-thirty gentlemen, all brimful of claret and enthusiasm, and
+in that happy state of mind in which men appreciate and admire
+everything.
+
+At the second dinner, when the testimonial was presented, Hobson was
+not present. Nor did his name figure amongst those engraven on the
+trunk of Mr. Newcome’s allegorical silver cocoa-nut tree. As we
+travelled homewards in the omnibus, Fred Bayham noticed the
+circumstance to me. “I have looked over the list of names,” says he,
+“not merely that on the trunk, sir, but the printed list; it was rolled
+up and placed in one of the nests on the top of the tree. Why is
+Hobson’s name not there?—Ha! it mislikes me, Pendennis.”
+
+F. B., who was now very great about City affairs, discoursed about
+stocks and companies with immense learning, and gave me to understand
+that he had transacted one or two little operations in Capel Court on
+his own account, with great present, and still larger prospective,
+advantages to himself. It is a fact that Mr. Ridley was paid, and that
+F. B.’s costume, though still eccentric, was comfortable, cleanly, and
+variegated. He occupied the apartments once tenanted by the amiable
+Honeyman. He lived in ease and comfort there. “You don’t suppose,” says
+he, “that the wretched stipend I draw from the _Pall Mall Gazette_
+enables me to maintain this kind of thing? F. B., sir, has a station in
+the world; F. B. moves among moneyers and City nobs, and eats cabobs
+with wealthy nabobs. He may marry, sir, and settle in life.” We
+cordially wished every worldly prosperity to the brave F. B.
+
+Happening to descry him one day in the Park, I remarked that his
+countenance wore an ominous and tragic appearance, which seemed to
+deepen as he neared me. I thought he had been toying affably with a
+nursery-maid the moment before, who stood with some of her little
+charges watching the yachts upon the Serpentine. Howbeit, espying my
+approach, F. B. strode away from the maiden and her innocent
+companions, and advanced to greet his old acquaintance, enveloping his
+face with shades of funereal gloom.
+
+“Yon were the children of my good friend Colonel Huckaback of the
+Bombay Marines! Alas! unconscious of their doom, the little infants
+play. I was watching them at their sports. There is a pleasing young
+woman in attendance upon the poor children. They were sailing their
+little boats upon the Serpentine; racing and laughing, and making
+merry; and as I looked on, Master Hastings Huckaback’s boat went down!
+_Absit omen_, Pendennis! I was moved by the circumstance. F. B. hopes
+that the child’s father’s argosy may not meet with shipwreck!”
+
+“You mean the little yellow-faced man whom we met at Colonel
+Newcome’s?” says Mr. Pendennis.
+
+“I do, sir,” growled F. B. “You know that he is a brother director with
+our Colonel in the Bundelcund Bank?”
+
+“Gracious Heavens!” I cried, in sincere anxiety, “nothin has happened,
+I hope, to the Bundelcund Bank?”
+
+“No,” answers the other, “nothing has happened, the good ship is safe,
+sir, as yet. But she has narrowly escaped a great danger, Pendennis,”
+cries F. B., gripping my arm with great energy, “there was a traitor in
+her crew—she has weathered the storm nobly—who would have sent her on
+the rocks, sir, who would have scuttled her at midnight.”
+
+“Pray drop your nautical metaphors, and tell me what you mean,” cries
+F. B.’s companion, and Bayham continued his narration.
+
+“Were you in the least conversant with City affairs,” he said, “or did
+you deign to visit the spot where merchants mostly congregate, you
+would have heard the story, which was over the whole City yesterday,
+and spread dismay from Threadneedle Street to Leadenhall. The story is,
+that the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcome, yesterday refused
+acceptance of thirty thousand pounds’ worth of bills of the Bundelcund
+Banking Company of India.
+
+“The news came like a thunderclap upon the London Board of Directors,
+who had received no notice of the intentions of Hobson Brothers, and
+caused a dreadful panic amongst the shareholders of the concern. The
+board-room was besieged by colonels and captains, widows and orphans;
+within an hour after protest of bills were taken up, and you will see,
+in the City article of the _Globe_ this very evening, an announcement
+that henceforward the house of Baines and Jolly, of Job Court, will
+meet engagements of the Bundelcund Banking Company of India, being
+provided with ample funds to do honour to every possible liability of
+that Company. But the shares fell, sir, in consequence of the panic. I
+hope they will rally. I trust and believe they will rally. For our good
+Colonel’s sake and that of his friends, for the sake of the innocent
+children sporting by the Serpentine yonder.
+
+“I had my suspicions when they gave that testimonial,” said F. B. “In
+my experience of life, sir, I always feel rather shy about
+testimonials, and when a party gets one, somehow look out to hear of
+his smashing the next month. _Absit omen!_ I will say again. I like not
+the going down of yonder little yacht.”
+
+The _Globe_ sure enough contained a paragraph that evening announcing
+the occurrence which Mr. Bayham had described, and the temporary panic
+which it had occasioned, and containing an advertisement stating that
+Messrs. Baines and Jolly would henceforth act as agents of the Indian
+Company. Legal proceedings were presently threatened by the solicitors
+of the Company against the banking firm which had caused so much
+mischief. Mr. Hobson Newcome was absent abroad when the circumstance
+took place, and it was known that the protest of the bills was solely
+attributable to his nephew and partner. But after the break between the
+two firms, there was a rupture between Hobson’s family and Colonel
+Newcome. The exasperated Colonel vowed that his brother and his nephew
+were traitors alike, and would have no further dealings with one or the
+other. Even poor innocent Sam Newcome, coming up to London from Oxford,
+where he had been plucked, and offering a hand to Clive, was frowned
+away by our Colonel, who spoke in terms of great displeasure to his son
+for taking the least notice of the young traitor.
+
+Our Colonel was changed, changed in his heart, changed in his whole
+demeanour towards the world, and above all towards his son, for whom he
+had made so many kind sacrifices in his old days. We have said how,
+ever since Clive’s marriage, a tacit strife had been growing up between
+father and son. The boy’s evident unhappiness was like a reproach to
+his father. His very silence angered the old man. His want of
+confidence daily chafed and annoyed him. At the head of a large
+fortune, which he rightly persisted in spending, he felt angry with
+himself because he could not enjoy it, angry with his son, who should
+have helped him in the administration of his new estate, and who was
+but a listless, useless member of the little confederacy, a living
+protest against all the schemes of the good man’s past life. The
+catastrophe in the City again brought father and son together somewhat,
+and the vindictiveness of both was roused by Barnes’s treason. Time was
+when the Colonel himself would have viewed his kinsman more charitably,
+but fate and circumstance had angered that originally friendly and
+gentle disposition; hate and suspicion had mastered him, and if it
+cannot be said that his new life had changed him, at least it had
+brought out faults for which there had hitherto been no occasion, and
+qualities latent before. Do we know ourselves, or what good or evil
+circumstance may bring from us? Did Cain know, as he and his younger
+brother played round their mother’s knee, that the little hand which
+caressed Abel should one day grow larger, and seize a brand to slay
+him? Thrice fortunate he, to whom circumstance is made easy: whom fate
+visits with gentle trial, and kindly Heaven keeps out of temptation.
+
+In the stage which the family feud now reached, and which the
+biographer of the Newcomes is bound to describe, there is one gentle
+moralist who gives her sentence decidedly against Clive’s father;
+whilst on the other hand a rough philosopher and friend of mine, whose
+opinions used to have some weight with me, stoutly declares that they
+were right. “War and justice are good things,” says George Warrington,
+rattling his clenched fist on the table. “I maintain them, and the
+common sense of the world maintains them, against the preaching of all
+the Honeymans that ever puled from the pulpit. I have not the least
+objection in life to a rogue being hung. When a scoundrel is whipped I
+am pleased, and say, serve him right. If any gentleman will horsewhip
+Sir Barnes Newcome, Baronet, I shall not be shocked, but, on the
+contrary, go home and order an extra mutton-chop for dinner.”
+
+“Ah! revenge is wrong, Pen,” pleads the other counsellor.
+
+“Let alone that the wisest and best of all Judges has condemned it. It
+blackens the hearts of men. It distorts their views of right. It sets
+them to devise evil. It causes them to think unjustly of others. It is
+not the noblest return for injury, not even the bravest way of meeting
+it. The greatest courage is to bear persecution, not to answer when you
+are reviled, and when wrong has been done you to forgive. I am sorry
+for what you call the Colonel’s triumph and his enemy’s humiliation.
+Let Barnes be as odious as you will, he ought never to have humiliated
+Ethel’s brother; but he is weak. Other gentlemen as well are weak, Mr.
+Pen, although you are so much cleverer than women. I have no patience
+with the Colonel, and I beg you to tell him, whether he asks you or not
+that he has lost my good graces, and that I for one will not huzzah at
+what his friends and flatterers call his triumphs, and that I don’t
+think in this instance he has acted like the dear Colonel, and the good
+Colonel, and the good Christian that I once thought him.”
+
+We must now tell what the Colonel and Clive had been doing, and what
+caused two such different opinions respecting their conduct from the
+two critics just named. The refusal of the London Banking House to
+accept the bills of the Great Indian Company of course affected very
+much the credit of that Company in this country. Sedative announcements
+were issued by the Directors in London; brilliant accounts of the
+Company’s affairs abroad were published; proof incontrovertible was
+given that the B. B. C. was never in so flourishing a state as at that
+time when Hobson Brothers had refused its drafts; there could be no
+question that the Company had received a severe wound and was deeply if
+not vitally injured by the conduct of the London firm.
+
+The propensity to sell out became quite epidemic amongst the
+shareholders. Everybody was anxious to realise. Why, out of the thirty
+names inscribed on poor Mrs. Clive’s cocoa-nut tree no less than twenty
+deserters might be mentioned, or at least who would desert could they
+find an opportunity of doing so with arms and baggage. Wrathfully the
+good Colonel scratched the names of those faithless ones out of his
+daughter’s visiting-book: haughtily he met them in the street; to
+desert the B. B. C. at the hour of peril was, in his idea, like
+applying for leave of absence on the eve of an action. He would not see
+that the question was not one of sentiment at all, but of chances and
+arithmetic; he would not hear with patience of men quitting the ship,
+as he called it. “They may go, sir,” says he, “but let them never more
+be officers of mine.” With scorn and indignation he paid off one or two
+timid friends, who were anxious to fly, and purchased their shares out
+of his own pocket. But his purse was not long enough for this kind of
+amusement. What money he had was invested in the Company already, and
+his name further pledged for meeting the engagements from which their
+late London bankers had withdrawn.
+
+Those gentlemen, in the meanwhile, spoke of their differences with the
+Indian Bank as quite natural, and laughed at the absurd charges of
+personal hostility which poor Thomas Newcome publicly preferred. “Here
+is a hot-headed old Indian dragoon,” says Sir Barnes, “who knows no
+more about business than I do about cavalry tactics or Hindostanee; who
+gets into a partnership along with other dragoons and Indian wiseacres,
+with some uncommonly wily old native practitioners; and they pay great
+dividends, and they set up a bank. Of course we will do these people’s
+business as long as we are covered, but I have always told their
+manager that we would run no risks whatever, and close the account the
+very moment it did not suit us to keep it: and so we parted company six
+weeks ago, since when there has been a panic in the Company, a panic
+which has been increased by Colonel Newcome’s absurd swagger and folly.
+He says I am his enemy; enemy indeed! So I am in private life, but what
+has that to do with business? In business, begad, there are no friends
+and no enemies at all. I leave all my sentiment on the other side of
+Temple Bar.”
+
+So Thomas Newcome, and Clive the son of Thomas, had wrath in their
+hearts against Barnes, their kinsman, and desired to be revenged upon
+him, and were eager after his undoing, and longed for an opportunity
+when they might meet him and overcome him, and put him to shame.
+
+When men are in this frame of mind, a certain personage is said always
+to be at hand to help them and give them occasion for indulging in
+their pretty little passion. What is sheer hate seems to the individual
+entertaining the sentiment so like indignant virtue, that he often
+indulges in the propensity to the full, nay, lauds himself for the
+exercise of it. I am sure if Thomas Newcome in his present desire for
+retaliation against Barnes, had known the real nature of his sentiments
+towards that worthy, his conduct would have been different, and we
+should have heard of no such active hostilities as ensued.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV.
+In which Mrs. Clive comes into her Fortune
+
+
+Speaking of the affairs of B. B. C., Sir Barnes Newcome always took
+care to maintain his candid surprise relating to the proceedings of
+that Company. He set about evil reports against it! He endeavour to do
+it a wrong—absurd! If a friend were to ask him (and it was quite
+curious what a number did manage to ask him) whether he thought the
+Company was an advantageous investment, of course he would give an
+answer. He could not say conscientiously he thought so—never once had
+said so—in the time of their connexion, which had been formed solely
+with a view of obliging his amiable uncle. It was a quarrelsome
+Company; a dragoon Company; a Company of gentlemen accustomed to
+gunpowder, and fed on mulligatawny. He, forsooth, be hostile to it!
+There were some Companies that required no enemies at all, and would be
+pretty sure to go to the deuce their own way.
+
+Thus, and with this amiable candour, spake Barnes, about a commercial
+speculation, the merits of which he had a right to canvass as well as
+any other citizen. As for Uncle Hobson, his conduct was characterised
+by a timidity which one would scarcely have expected from a gentleman
+of his florid, jolly countenance, active habits, and generally manly
+demeanour. He kept away from the cocoa-nut feast, as we have seen: he
+protested privily to the Colonel that his private goodwill continued
+undiminished but he was deeply grieved at the B. B. C. affair, which
+took place while he was on the Continent—confound the Continent, my
+wife would go—and which was entirely without his cognisance. The
+Colonel received his brother’s excuses, first with awful bows and
+ceremony, and finally with laughter. “My good Hobson,” said he, with
+the most insufferable kindness, “of course you intended to be friendly;
+of course the affair was done without your knowledge. We understand
+that sort of thing. London bankers have no hearts—for these last fifty
+years past that I have known you and your brother, and my amiable
+nephew, the present commanding officer, has there been anything in your
+conduct that has led me to suppose you had?” and herewith Colonel
+Newcome burst out into a laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear.
+Worthy Hobson took his hat, and walked away, brushing it round and
+round, and looking very confused. The Colonel strode after him
+downstairs, and made him an awful bow at the hall door. Never again did
+Hobson Newcome set foot in that Tyburnian mansion.
+
+During the whole of that season of the testimonial the cocoa-nut
+figured in an extraordinary number of banquets. The Colonel’s
+hospitalities were more profuse than ever, and Mrs. Clive’s toilettes
+more brilliant. Clive, in his confidential conversations with his
+friends, was very dismal and gloomy. When I asked City news of our
+well-informed friend F. B., I am sorry to say, his countenance became
+funereal. The B. B. C. shares, which had been at an immense premium
+twelve months since, were now slowly falling, falling.
+
+“I wish,” said Mr. Sherrick to me, “the Colonel would realise, even
+now, like that Mr. Ratray who has just come out of the ship, and
+brought a hundred thousand pounds with him.”
+
+“Come out of the ship! You little know the Colonel, Mr. Sherrick, if
+you think he will ever do that.”
+
+Mr. Ratray, though he had returned to Europe, gave the most cheering
+accounts of the B. B. C. It was in the most flourishing state. Shares
+sure to get up again. He had sold out entirely on account of his liver.
+Must come home—the doctor said so.
+
+Some months afterwards, another director, Mr. Hedges, came home. Both
+of these gentlemen, as we know, entertained the fashionable world, got
+seats in Parliament, purchased places in the country, and were greatly
+respected. Mr. Hedges came out, but his wealthy partner, Mr. M’Gaspey,
+entered into the B. B. C. The entry of Mr. M’Gaspey into the affairs of
+the Company did not seem to produce very great excitement in England.
+The shares slowly fell. However, there was a prodigious indigo crop.
+The London manager was in perfect good-humour. In spite of this and
+that, of defections, of unpleasantries, of unfavourable whispers, and
+doubtful friends—Thomas Newcome kept his head high, and his face was
+always kind and smiling, except when certain family enemies were
+mentioned, and he frowned like Jove in anger.
+
+We have seen how very fond little Rosey was of her mamma, of her uncle,
+James Binnie, and now of her papa, as she affectionately styled Thomas
+Newcome. This affection, I am sure, the two gentlemen returned with all
+their hearts, and but that they were much too generous and
+simple-minded to entertain such a feeling, it may be wondered that the
+two good old boys were not a little jealous of one another. Howbeit it
+does not appear that they entertained such a feeling; at least it never
+interrupted the kindly friendship between them, and Clive was regarded
+in the light of a son by both of them, and each contented himself with
+his moiety of the smiling little girl’s affection.
+
+As long as they were with her, the truth is, little Mrs. Clive was very
+fond of people, very docile, obedient, easily pleased, brisk, kind, and
+good-humoured. She charmed her two old friends with little songs,
+little smiles,—little kind offices, little caresses; and having
+administered Thomas Newcome’s cigar to him in the daintiest, prettiest
+way, she would trip off to drive with James Binnie, or sit at his
+dinner, if he was indisposed, and be as gay, neat-handed, watchful, and
+attentive a child as any old gentleman could desire.
+
+She did not seem to be very sorry to part with mamma, a want of feeling
+which that lady bitterly deplored in her subsequent conversation with
+her friends about Mrs. Clive Newcome. Possibly there were reasons why
+Rosey should not be very much vexed at quitting mamma; but surely she
+might have dropped a little tear as she took leave of kind, good old
+James Binnie. Not she. The gentleman’s voice faltered, but hers did not
+in the least. She kissed him on the face, all smiles, blushes, and
+happiness, and tripped into the railway carriage with her husband and
+father-in-law, leaving the poor old uncle very sad. Our women said, I
+know not why, that little Rosey had no heart at all. Women are
+accustomed to give such opinions respecting the wives of their newly
+married friends. I am bound to add (and I do so during Mr. Clive
+Newcome’s absence from England, otherwise I should not like to venture
+upon the statement), that some men concur with the ladies’ opinion of
+Mrs. Clive. For instance, Captains Goby and Hoby declare that her
+treatment of the latter, her encouragement, and desertion of him when
+Clive made his proposals, were shameful.
+
+At this time Rosey was in a pupillary state. A good, obedient little
+girl, her duty was to obey the wishes of her dear mamma. How show her
+sense of virtue and obedience better than by promptly and cheerfully
+obeying mamma, and at the orders of that experienced Campaigner, giving
+up Bobby Hoby, and going to England to a fine house, to be presented at
+Court, to have all sorts of pleasure with a handsome young husband and
+a kind father-in-law by her side? No wonder Rosey was not in a very
+active state of grief at parting from Uncle James. He strove to console
+himself with these considerations when he had returned to the empty
+house, where she had danced, and smiled, and warbled; and he looked at
+the chair she sat in; and at the great mirror which had so often
+reflected her fresh pretty face;—the great callous mirror, which now
+only framed upon its shining sheet the turban, and the ringlets, and
+the plump person, and the resolute smile of the old Campaigner.
+
+After that parting with her uncle at the Brussels railway, Rosey never
+again beheld him. He passed into the Campaigner’s keeping, from which
+alone he was rescued by the summons of pallid death. He met that
+summons like a philosopher; rejected rather testily all the mortuary
+consolations which his nephew-in-law, Josey’s husband, thought proper
+to bring to his bedside; and uttered opinions which scandalised that
+divine. But as he left Mrs. M’Craw only 500 pounds, thrice that sum to
+his sister, and the remainder of his property to his beloved niece,
+Rosa Mackenzie, now Rosa Newcome, let us trust that Mr. M’Craw, hurt
+and angry at the ill-favour shown to his wife, his third young wife,
+his best-beloved Josey, at the impatience with which the deceased had
+always received his, Mr. M’Craw’s, own sermons;—let us hope, I say,
+that the reverend gentleman was mistaken in his views respecting the
+present position of Mr. James Binnie’s soul; and that Heaven may have
+some regions yet accessible to James, which Mr. M’Craw’s intellect has
+not yet explored. Look, gentlemen! Does a week pass without the
+announcement of the discovery of a new comet in the sky, a new star in
+the heaven, twinkling dimly out of a yet farther distance, and only now
+becoming visible to human ken though existent for ever and ever? So let
+us hope divine truths may be shining, and regions of light and love
+extant, which Geneva glasses cannot yet perceive, and are beyond the
+focus of Roman telescopes.
+
+I think Clive and the Colonel were more affected by the news of James’s
+death than Rosey, concerning whose wonderful strength of mind good
+Thomas Newcome discoursed to my Laura and me, when, fancying that my
+friend’s wife needed comfort and consolation, Mrs. Pendennis went to
+visit her. “Of course we shall have no more parties this year,” sighed
+Rosey. She looked very pretty in her black dress. Clive, in his hearty
+way, said a hundred kind feeling things about the departed friend.
+Thomas Newcome’s recollections of him, and regret, were no less tender
+and sincere. “See,” says he, “how that dear child’s sense of duty makes
+her hide her feelings! Her grief is most deep, but she wears a calm
+countenance. I see her looking sad in private, but I no sooner speak
+than she smiles.” “I think,” said Laura, as we came away, “that Colonel
+Newcome performs all the courtship part in the marriage, and Clive,
+poor Clive, though he spoke very nobly and generously about Mr. Binnie,
+I am sure it is not his old friend’s death merely, which makes him so
+unhappy.”
+
+Poor Clive, by right of his wife, was now rich Clive; the little lady
+having inherited from her kind relative no inconsiderable sum of money.
+In a very early part of this story, mention has been made of a small
+sum producing one hundred pounds a year, which Clive’s father had made
+over to the lad when he sent him from India. This little sum Mr. Clive
+had settled upon his wife before his marriage, being indeed all he had
+of his own; for the famous bank shares which his father presented to
+him, were only made over formally when the young man came to London
+after his marriage, and at the paternal request and order appeared as a
+most inefficient director of the B. B. C. Now Mrs. Newcome, of her
+inheritance, possessed not only B. B. C. shares, but moneys in bank,
+and shares in East India Stock, so that Clive in the right of his wife
+had a seat in the assembly of East India shareholders, and a voice in
+the election of directors of that famous company. I promise you Mrs.
+Clive was a personage of no little importance. She carried her little
+head with an aplomb and gravity which amused some of us. F. B. bent his
+most respectfully down before her; she sent him on messages, and
+deigned to ask him to dinner. He once more wore a cheerful countenance;
+the clouds which gathered o’er the sun of Newcome were in the bosom of
+the ocean buried, Bayham said, by James Binnie’s brilliant behaviour to
+his niece.
+
+Clive was a proprietor of East India Stock, and had a vote in electing
+the directors of that Company; and who so fit to be a director of his
+affairs as Thomas Newcome, Esq., Companion of the Bath, and so long a
+distinguished officer in its army? To hold this position of director,
+used, up to very late days, to be the natural ambition of many East
+Indian gentlemen. Colonel Newcome had often thought of offering himself
+as a candidate, and now openly placed himself on the lists, and
+publicly announced his intention. His interest was rather powerful
+through the Indian bank, of which he was a director, and many of the
+shareholders of which were proprietors of the East India Company. To
+have a director of the B. B. C. also a member of the parliament in
+Leadenhall Street, would naturally be beneficial to the former
+institution. Thomas Newcome’s prospectuses were issued accordingly, and
+his canvass received with tolerable favour.
+
+Within a very short time another candidate appeared in the field—a
+retired Bombay lawyer, of considerable repute and large means—and at
+the head of this gentleman’s committee appeared the names of Hobson
+Brothers and Newcome, very formidable personages at the East India
+House, with which the bank of Hobson Brothers have had dealings for
+half a century past, and where the old lady, who founded or
+consolidated that family, had had three stars before her own venerable
+name, which had descended upon her son Sir Brian, and her grandson, Sir
+Barnes.
+
+War was thus openly declared between Thomas Newcome and his nephew. The
+canvass on both sides was very hot and eager. The number of promises
+was pretty equal. The election was not to come off yet for a while; for
+aspirants to the honourable office of director used to announce their
+wishes years before they could be fulfilled, and returned again and
+again to the contest before they finally won it. Howbeit, the Colonel’s
+prospects were very fair, and a prodigious indigo crop came in to
+favour the B. B. C., with the most brilliant report from the board at
+Calcutta. The shares, still somewhat sluggish, rose again, the
+Colonel’s hopes with them, and the courage of gentlemen at home who had
+invested their money in the transaction.
+
+We were sitting one day round the Colonel’s dinner-table; it was not
+one of the cocoa-nut-tree days; that emblem was locked up in the
+butler’s pantry, and only beheld the lamps on occasions of state. It
+was a snug family party in the early part of the year, when scarcely
+anybody was in town; only George Warrington, and F. B., and Mr. and
+Mrs. Pendennis; and the ladies having retired, we were having such a
+talk as we used to enjoy in quiet old days, before marriages and cares
+and divisions had separated us.
+
+F. B. led the conversation. The Colonel received his remarks with great
+gravity, and thought him an instructive personage. Others considered
+him rather as amusing than instructive, and so his eloquence was
+generally welcome. The canvass for the directorship was talked over.
+The improved affairs of a certain great Banking Company, which shall be
+nameless, but one which F. B. would take the liberty to state, would,
+in his opinion, for ever unite the mother country to our great Indian
+possessions;—the prosperity of this great Company was enthusiastically
+drunk by Mr. Bayham in some of the very best claret. The conduct of the
+enemies of that Company was characterised in terms of bitter, but not
+undeserved, satire. F. B. rather liked to air his oratory, and
+neglected few opportunities for making speeches after dinners.
+
+The Colonel admired his voice and sentiments not the less, perhaps,
+because the latter were highly laudatory of the good man. And not from
+interest, at least, as far as he himself knew—not from any mean or
+selfish motives, did F. B. speak. He called Colonel Newcome his friend,
+his benefactor: kissed the hem of his garment: he wished fervently that
+he could have been the Colonel’s son: he expressed, repeatedly, a
+desire that some one would speak ill of the Colonel, so that he, F. B.,
+might have the opportunity of polishing that individual off in about
+two seconds. He covered the Colonel with all his heart; nor is any
+gentleman proof altogether against this constant regard and devotion
+from another.
+
+The Colonel used to wag his head wisely, and say Mr. Bayham’s
+suggestions were often exceedingly valuable, as indeed the fact was,
+though his conduct was no more of a piece with his opinions than those
+of some other folks occasionally are.
+
+“What the Colonel ought to do, sir, to help him in the direction,” says
+F. B., “is to get into Parliament. The House of Commons would aid him
+into the Court of Directors, and the Court of Directors would help him
+in the House of Commons.”
+
+“Most wisely said,” says Warrington.
+
+The Colonel declined. “I have long had the House of Commons in my eye,”
+he said; “but not for me. I wanted my boy to go there. It would be a
+proud day for me if I could see him there.”
+
+“I can’t speak,” says Clive, from his end of the table. “I don’t
+understand about parties, like F. B. here.”
+
+“I believe I do know a thing or two,” Mr. Bayham here interposes.
+
+“And politics do not interest me in the least,” Clive sighs out,
+drawing pictures with his fork on his napkin, and not heeding the
+other’s interruption.
+
+“I wish I knew what would interest him,” his father whispers to me, who
+happened to be at his side. “He never cares to be out of his
+painting-room; and he doesn’t seem to be very happy even in there. I
+wish to God, Pen, I knew what had come over the boy.” I thought I knew;
+but what was the use of telling, now there was no remedy?
+
+“A dissolution is expected every day,” continued F. B. “The papers are
+full of it. Ministers cannot go on with this majority—cannot possibly
+go on, sir. I have it on the best authority; and men who are anxious
+about their seats are writing to their constituents, or are subscribing
+at missionary meetings, or are gone down to lecturing at Athenæums, and
+that sort of thing.”
+
+Here Warrington burst out into a laughter much louder than the occasion
+of the speech of F. B. seemed to warrant; and the Colonel, turning
+round with some dignity, asked the cause of George’s amusement.
+
+“What do you think your darling, Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, has been
+doing during the recess?” cries Warrington. “I had a letter this
+morning, from my liberal and punctual employer, Thomas Potts, Esquire,
+of the _Newcome Independent_, who states, in language scarcely
+respectful, that Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome is trying to come the
+religious dodge, as Mr. Potts calls it. He professes to be stricken
+down by grief on account of late family circumstances; wears black, and
+puts on the most piteous aspect, and asks ministers of various
+denominations to tea with him; and the last announcement is the most
+stupendous of all. Stop, I have it in my greatcoat;” and, ringing the
+bell, George orders a servant to bring him a newspaper from his
+great-coat pocket. “Here it is, actually in print,” Warrington
+continues, and reads to us:—“‘Newcome Athenæum. 1, for the benefit of
+the Newcome Orphan Children’s Home, and 2, for the benefit of the
+Newcome Soup Association, without distinction of denomination. Sir
+Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., proposes to give two lectures, on Friday
+the 23rd, and Friday the 30th, instant. No. 1, The Poetry of Childhood:
+Doctor Watts, Mrs. Barbauld, Jane Taylor, No. 2, The Poetry of
+Womanhood, and the Affections: Mrs. Hemans, L. E. L. Threepence will be
+charged at the doors, which will go to the use of the above two
+admirable Societies.’ Potts wants me to go down and hear him. He has an
+eye to business. He has had a quarrel with Sir Barnes, and wants me to
+go down and hear him, and smash him, he kindly says. Let us go down,
+Clive. You shall draw your cousin as you have drawn his villainous
+little mug a hundred times before; and I will do the smashing part, and
+we will have some fun out of the transaction.”
+
+“Besides, Florac will be in the country; going to Rosebury is a journey
+worth the taking, I can tell you; and we have old Mrs. Mason to go and
+see, who sighs after you, Colonel. My wife went to see her,” remarks
+Mr. Pendennis, “and——”
+
+“And Miss Newcome, I know,” says the Colonel.
+
+“She is away at Brighton, with her little charges, for sea air. My wife
+heard from her to-day.”
+
+“Oh, indeed. Mrs. Pendennis corresponds with her?” says our host,
+darkling under his eyebrows; and, at this moment, my neighbour, F. B.,
+is kind enough to scrunch my foot under the table with the weight of
+his heel, as much as to warn me, by an appeal to my own corns, to avoid
+treading on so delicate a subject in that house. “Yes,” said I, in
+spite, perhaps in consequence, of this interruption. “My wife does
+correspond with Miss Ethel, who is a noble creature, and whom those who
+know her know how to love and admire. She is very much changed since
+you knew her, Colonel Newcome; since the misfortunes in Sir Barnes’s
+family, and the differences between you and him. Very much changed and
+very much improved. Ask my wife about her, who knows her most
+intimately, and hears from her constantly.”
+
+“Very likely, very likely,” cried the Colonel, hurriedly, “I hope she
+is improved, with all my heart. I am sure there was room for it.
+Gentlemen, shall we go up to the ladies and have some coffee?” And
+herewith the colloquy ended, and the party ascended to the
+drawing-room.
+
+The party ascended to the drawing-room, where no doubt both the ladies
+were pleased by the invasion which ended their talk. My wife and the
+Colonel talked apart, and I saw the latter looking gloomy, and the
+former pleading very eagerly, and using a great deal of action, as the
+little hands are wont to do, when the mistress’s heart is very much
+moved. I was sure she was pleading Ethel’s cause with her uncle.
+
+So indeed she was. And Mr. George, too, knew what her thoughts were.
+“Look at her!” he said to me. “Don’t you see what she is doing? She
+believes in that girl whom you all said Clive took a fancy to before he
+married his present little placid wife; a nice little simple creature,
+who is worth a dozen Ethels.”
+
+“Simple certainly,” says Mr. P., with a shrug of the shoulders.
+
+“A simpleton of twenty is better than a roue of twenty. It is better
+not to have thought at all, than to have thought such things as must go
+through a girl’s mind whose life is passed in jilting and being jilted;
+whose eyes, as soon as they are opened, are turned to the main chance,
+and are taught to leer at earl, to languish at a marquis, and to grow
+blind before a commoner. I don’t know much about fashionable life.
+Heaven help us (you young Brummell! I see the reproach in your face!)
+Why, sir, it absolutely appears to me as if this little hop-o’-my-thumb
+of a creature has begun to give herself airs since her marriage and her
+carriage. Do you know, I rather thought she patronised me? Are all
+women spoiled by their contact with the world, and their bloom rubbed
+off in the market? I know one who seems to me to remain pure! to be
+sure, I only know her, and this little person, and Mrs. Flanagan our
+laundress, and my sisters at home, who don’t count. But that Miss
+Newcome to whom once you introduced me? Oh, the cockatrice! only that
+poison don’t affect your wife, the other would kill her. I hope the
+Colonel will not believe a word which Laura says.” And my wife’s
+_tête-à-tête_ with our host coming to an end about this time, Mr.
+Warrington in high spirits goes up to the ladies, recapitulates the
+news of Barnes’s lecture, recites “How doth the little busy bee,” and
+gives a quasi-satirical comment upon that well-known poem, which
+bewilders Mrs. Clive, until, set on by the laughter of the rest of the
+audience, she laughs very freely at that odd man, and calls him “you
+droll satirical creature you!” and says “she never was so much amused
+in her life. Were you, Mrs. Pendennis?”
+
+Meanwhile Clive, who has been sitting apart moodily biting his nails,
+not listening to F. B.’s remarks, has broken into a laugh once or
+twice, and gone to a writing-book, on which, whilst George is still
+disserting, Clive is drawing.
+
+At the end of the other’s speech, F. B. goes up to the draughtsman,
+looks over his shoulder, makes one or two violent efforts as of inward
+convulsion, and finally explodes in an enormous guffaw. “It’s capital!
+By Jove, it’s capital! Sir Barnes would never dare to face his
+constituents with that picture of him hung up in Newcome!”
+
+And F. B. holds up the drawing, at which we all laugh except Laura. As
+for the Colonel, he paces up and down the room, holding the sketch
+close to his eyes, holding it away from him, patting it, clapping his
+son delightedly on the shoulder. “Capital! capital! We’ll have the
+picture printed, by Jove, sir; show vice its own image; and shame the
+viper in his own nest, sir. That’s what we will.”
+
+Mrs. Pendennis came away with rather a heavy heart from this party. She
+chose to interest herself about the right or wrong of her friends; and
+her mind was disturbed by the Colonel’s vindictive spirit. On the
+subsequent day we had occasion to visit our friend J. J. (who was
+completing the sweetest little picture, No. 263 in the Exhibition,
+“Portrait of a Lady and Child”), and we found that Clive had been with
+the painter that morning likewise; and that J. J. was acquainted with
+his scheme. That he did not approve of it we could read in the artist’s
+grave countenance. “Nor does Clive approve of it either!” cried Ridley,
+with greater eagerness than he usually displayed, and more openness
+than he was accustomed to exhibit in judging unfavourably of his
+friends.
+
+“Among them they have taken him away from his art,” Ridley said. “They
+don’t understand him when he talks about it; they despise him for
+pursuing it. Why should I wonder at that? my parents despised it too,
+and my father was not a grand gentleman like the Colonel, Mrs.
+Pendennis. Ah! why did the Colonel ever grow rich? Why had not Clive to
+work for his bread as have? He would have done something that was
+worthy of him then; now his time must be spent in dancing attendance at
+balls land operas, and yawning at City board-rooms. They call that
+business: they think he is idling when he comes here, poor fellow! As
+if life was long enough for our art; and the best labour we can give,
+good enough for it! He went away groaning this morning, and quite
+saddened in spirits. The Colonel wants to set up himself for
+Parliament, or to set Clive up; but he says he won’t. I hope he won’t;
+do not you, Mrs. Pendennis?”
+
+The painter turned as he spoke; and the bright northern light which
+fell upon the sitter’s head was intercepted, and lighted up his own as
+he addressed us. Out of that bright light looked his pale thoughtful
+face, and long locks and eager brown eyes. The palette on his arm was a
+great shield painted of many colours: he carried his mall-stick and a
+sheaf of brushes along with the weapons of his glorious but harmless
+war. With these he achieves conquests, wherein none are wounded save
+the envious: with that he shelters him against how much idleness,
+ambition, temptations! Occupied over that consoling work, idle thoughts
+cannot gain mastery over him: selfish wishes or desires are kept at
+bay. Art is truth: and truth is religion: and its study and practice a
+daily work of pious duty. What are the world’s struggles, brawls,
+successes, to that calm recluse pursuing his calling? See, twinkling in
+the darkness round his chamber, numberless beautiful trophies of the
+graceful victories which he has won:—sweet flowers of fancy reared by
+him:—kind shapes of beauty which he has devised and moulded. The world
+enters into the artist’s studio, and scornfully bids him a price for
+his genius, or makes dull pretence to admire it. What know you of his
+art? You cannot read the alphabet of that sacred book, good old Thomas
+Newcome! What can you tell of its glories, joys, secrets, consolations?
+Between his two best-beloved mistresses, poor Clive’s luckless father
+somehow interposes; and with sorrowful, even angry protests. In place
+of Art the Colonel brings him a ledger; and in lieu of first love,
+shows him Rosey.
+
+No wonder that Clive hangs his head; rebels sometimes, desponds always:
+he has positively determined to refuse to stand for Newcome, Ridley
+says. Laura is glad of his refusal, and begins to think of him once
+more as of the Clive of old days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI.
+In which the Colonel and the Newcome Athenæum are both lectured
+
+
+At breakfast with his family, on the morning after the little
+entertainment to which we were bidden, in the last chapter, Colonel
+Newcome was full of the projected invasion of Barnes’s territories, and
+delighted to think that there was an opportunity of at last humiliating
+that rascal.
+
+“Clive does not think he is a rascal at all, papa,” cries Rosey, from
+behind her tea-urn; “that is, you said you thought papa judged him too
+harshly; you know you did, this morning!” And from her husband’s angry
+glances, she flies to his father’s for protection. Those were even
+fiercer than Clive’s. Revenge flashed from beneath Thomas Newcome’s
+grizzled eyebrows, and glanced in the direction where Clive sat. Then
+the Colonel’s face flushed up, and he cast his eyes down towards his
+tea-cup, which he lifted with a trembling hand. The father and son
+loved each other so, that each was afraid of the other. A war between
+two such men is dreadful; pretty little pink-faced Rosey, in a sweet
+little morning cap and ribbons, her pretty little fingers twinkling
+with a score of rings, sat simpering before her silver tea-urn, which
+reflected her pretty little pink baby face. Little artless creature!
+what did she know of the dreadful wounds which her little words
+inflicted in the one generous breast and the other?
+
+“My boy’s heart is gone from me,” thinks poor Thomas Newcome; “our
+family is insulted, our enterprises ruined, by that traitor, and my son
+is not even angry! he does not care for the success of our plans—for
+the honour of our name even; I make him a position of which any young
+man in England might be proud, and Clive scarcely deigns to accept it.”
+
+“My wife appeals to my father,” thinks poor Clive; “it is from him she
+asks counsel, and not from me. Be it about the ribbon in her cap, or
+any other transaction in our lives, she takes her colour from his
+opinion, and goes to him for advice, and I have to wait till it is
+given, and conform myself to it. If I differ from the dear old father,
+I wound him; if I yield up my opinion, as I do always, it is with a bad
+grace, and I wound him still. With the best intentions in the world,
+what a slave’s life it is that he has made for me!”
+
+“How interested you are in your papers!” resumes the sprightly nosey.
+“What can you find in those horrid politics?” Both gentlemen are
+looking at their papers with all their might, and no doubt cannot see
+one single word which those brilliant and witty leading articles
+contain.
+
+“Clive is like you, Rosey,” says the Colonel, laying his paper down,
+“and does not care for politics.”
+
+“He only cares for pictures, papa,” says Mrs. Clive. “He would not
+drive with me yesterday in the Park, but spent hours in his room, while
+you were toiling in the City, poor papa!—spent hours painting a horrid
+beggar-man dressed up as a monk. And this morning, he got up quite
+early, quite early, and has been out ever so long, and only came in for
+breakfast just now! just before the bell rung.”
+
+“I like a ride before breakfast,” says Clive.
+
+“A ride! I know where you have been, sir! He goes away morning after
+morning, to that little Mr. Ridley’s—his chums, papa, and he comes back
+with his hands all over horrid paint. He did this morning; you know you
+did, Clive.”
+
+“I did not keep any one waiting, Rosa,” says Clive. “I like to have two
+or three hours at my painting when I can spare time.” Indeed, the poor
+fellow used so to run away of summer meetings for Ridley’s
+instructions, and gallop home again, so as to be in time for the family
+meal.
+
+“Yes,” cries Rosey, tossing up the cap and ribbons, “he gets up so
+early in the morning, that at night he falls asleep after dinner; very
+pleasant and polite, isn’t he, papa?”
+
+“I am up betimes too, my dear,” says the Colonel (many and many a time
+he must have heard Clive as he left the house); “I have a great many
+letters to write, affairs of the greatest importance to examine and
+conduct. Mr. Betts from the City is often with me for hours before I
+come down to your breakfast-table. A man who has the affairs of such a
+great bank as ours to look to, must be up with the lark. We are all
+early risers in India.”
+
+“You dear kind papa!” says little Rosey, with unfeigned admiration; and
+she puts out one of the plump white little jewelled hands, and pats the
+lean brown paw of the Colonel which is nearest to her.
+
+“Is Ridley’s picture getting on well, Clive?” asks the Colonel, trying
+to interest himself about Ridley and his picture.
+
+“Very well; it is beautiful; he has sold it for a great price; they
+must make him an Academician next year,” replies Clive.
+
+“A most industrious and meritorious young man; he deserves every honour
+that may happen to him,” says the old soldier. “Rosa, my dear, it is
+time that you should ask Mr. Ridley to dinner, and Mr. Smee, and some
+of those gentlemen. We will drive this afternoon and see your
+portrait.”
+
+“Clive does not go to sleep after dinner when Mr. Ridley comes here,”
+cries Rosa.
+
+“No; I think it is my turn then,” says the Colonel, with a glance of
+kindness. The anger has disappeared from under his brows; at that
+moment the menaced battle is postponed.
+
+“And yet I know that it must come,” says poor Clive, telling me the
+story as he hangs on my arm, and we pace through the Park. “The Colonel
+and I are walking on a mine, and that poor little wife of mine is
+perpetually flinging little shells to fire it. I sometimes wish it were
+blown up, and I were done for, Pen. I don’t think my widow would break
+her heart about me. No; I have no right to say that; it’s a shame to
+say that; she tries her very best to please me, poor little dear. It’s
+the fault of my temper, perhaps, that she can’t. But they neither
+understand me, don’t you see? the Colonel can’t help thinking I am a
+degraded being, because I am fond of painting. Still, dear old boy, he
+patronises Ridley; a man of genius, whom those sentries ought to
+salute, by Jove, sir, when he passes. Ridley patronised by an old
+officer of Indian dragoons, a little bit of a Rosey, and a fellow who
+is not fit to lay his palette for him! I want sometimes to ask J. J.’s
+pardon, after the Colonel has been talking to him in his confounded
+condescending way, uttering some awful bosh about the fine arts. Rosey
+follows him, and trips round J. J.’s studio, and pretends to admire,
+and says, ‘How soft; how sweet!’ recalling some of mamma-in-law’s
+dreadful expressions, which make me shudder when I hear them. If my
+poor old father had a confidant into whose arm he could hook his own,
+and whom he could pester with his family griefs as I do you, the dear
+old boy would have his dreary story to tell too. I hate banks, bankers,
+Bundelcund, indigo, cotton, and the whole business. I go to that
+confounded board, and never hear one syllable that the fellows are
+talking about. I sit there because he wishes me to sit there; don’t you
+think he sees that my heart is out of the business; that I would rather
+be at home in my painting-room? We don’t understand each other, but we
+feel each other, as it were by instinct. Each thinks in his own way,
+but knows what the other is thinking. We fight mute battles, don’t you
+see, and, our thoughts, though we don’t express them, are perceptible
+to one another, and come out from our eyes, or pass out from us
+somehow, and meet, and fight, and strike, and wound.”
+
+Of course Clive’s confidant saw how sore and unhappy the poor fellow
+was, and commiserated his fatal but natural condition. The little ills
+of life are the hardest to bear, as we all very well know. What would
+the possession of a hundred thousand a year, or fame, and the applause
+of one’s countrymen, or the loveliest and best-beloved woman,—of any
+glory, and happiness, or good-fortune avail to a gentleman, for
+instance, who was allowed to enjoy them only with the condition of
+wearing a shoe with a couple of nails or sharp pebbles inside it? All
+fame and happiness would disappear, and plunge down that shoe. All life
+would rankle round those little nails. I strove, by such philosophic
+sedatives as confidants are wont to apply on these occasions, to soothe
+my poor friend’s anger and pain; and I dare say the little nails hurt
+the patient just as much as before.
+
+Clive pursued his lugubrious talk through the Park, and continued it as
+far as the modest-furnished house which we then occupied in the Pimlico
+region. It so happened that the Colonel and Mrs. Clive also called upon
+us that day, and found this culprit in Laura’s drawing-room, when they
+entered it, descending out of that splendid barouche in which we have
+already shown Mrs. Clive to the public.
+
+“He has not been here for months before; nor have you Rosa; nor have
+you, Colonel; though we have smothered our indignation, and been to
+dine with you, and to call, ever so many times!” cries Laura.
+
+The Colonel pleaded his business engagements; Rosa, that little woman
+of the world, had a thousand calls to make, and who knows how much to
+do? since she came out. She had been to fetch papa, at Bays’s, and the
+porter had told the Colonel that Mr. Clive and Mr. Pendennis had just
+left the club together.
+
+“Clive scarcely ever drives with me,” says Rosa; “papa almost always
+does.”
+
+“Rosey’s is such a swell carriage, that I feel ashamed,” says Clive.
+
+“I don’t understand you young men. I don’t see why you need be ashamed
+to go on the Course with your wife in her carriage, Clive,” remarks the
+Colonel.
+
+“The Course! the Course is at Calcutta, papa!” cries Rosey. “_We_ drive
+in the Park.”
+
+“We have a park at Barrackpore too, my dear,” says papa.
+
+“And he calls his grooms saices! He said he was going to send away a
+saice for being tipsy, and I did not know in the least what he could
+mean, Laura!”
+
+“Mr. Newcome! you must go and drive on the Course with Rosa now; and
+the Colonel must sit and talk with me, whom he has not been to see for
+such a long time.” Clive presently went off in state by Rosey’s side,
+and then Laura showed Colonel Newcome his beautiful white Cashmere
+shawl round a successor of that little person who had first been
+wrapped in that web, now a stout young gentleman whose noise could be
+clearly heard in the upper regions.
+
+“I wish you could come down with us, Arthur, upon our electioneering
+visit.”
+
+“That of which you were talking last night? Are you bent upon it?”
+
+“Yes, I am determined on it.”
+
+Laura heard a child’s cry at this moment, and left the room with a
+parting glance at her husband, who in fact had talked over the matter
+with Mrs. Pendennis, and agreed with her in opinion.
+
+As the Colonel had opened the question, I ventured to make a respectful
+remonstrance against the scheme. Vindictiveness on the part of a man so
+simple and generous, so fair and noble in all his dealings as Thomas
+Newcome, appeared in my mind unworthy of him. Surely his kinsman had
+sorrow and humiliation enough already at home. Barnes’s further
+punishment, we thought, might be left to time, to remorse, to the Judge
+of right and wrong; Who better understands than we can do, our causes
+and temptations towards evil actions, Who reserves the sentence for His
+own tribunal. But when angered, the best of us mistake our own motives,
+as we do those of the enemy who inflames us. What may be private
+revenge, we take to be indignant virtue and just revolt against wrong.
+The Colonel would not hear of counsels of moderation, such as I bore
+him from a sweet Christian pleader. “Remorse!” he cried out with a
+laugh, “that villain will never feel it until he is tied up and whipped
+at the cart’s tail! Time change that rogue! Unless he is wholesomely
+punished, he will grow a greater scoundrel every year. I am inclined to
+think, sir,” says he, his honest brows darkling as he looked towards
+me, “that you too are spoiled by this wicked world, and these
+heartless, fashionable, fine people. You wish to live well with the
+enemy, and with us too, Pendennis. It can’t be. He who is not with us
+is against us. I very much fear, sir, that the women, the women, you
+understand, have been talking you over. Do not let us speak any more
+about this subject, for I don’t wish that my son, and my son’s old
+friend, should have a quarrel.” His face became red, his voice quivered
+with agitation, and he looked with glances which I was pained to behold
+in those kind old eyes: not because his wrath and suspicion visited
+myself, but because an impartial witness, nay, a friend to Thomas
+Newcome in that family quarrel, I grieved to think that a generous
+heart was led astray, and to see a good man do wrong. So with no more
+thanks for his interference than a man usually gets who meddles in
+domestic strifes, the present luckless advocate ceased pleading.
+
+To be sure, the Colonel and Clive had other advisers, who did not take
+the peaceful side. George Warrington was one of these; he was for war
+_à l’outrance_ with Barnes Newcome; for keeping no terms with such a
+villain. He found a pleasure in hunting him, and whipping him. “Barnes
+ought to be punished,” George said, “for his poor wife’s misfortune; it
+was Barnes’s infernal cruelty, wickedness, selfishness, which had
+driven her into misery and wrong.” Mr. Warrington went down to Newcome,
+and was present at that lecture whereof mention has been made in a
+previous chapter. I am afraid his behaviour was very indecorous; he
+laughed at the pathetic allusions of the respected Member for Newcome;
+he sneered at the sublime passages; he wrote an awful critique in the
+_Newcome Independent_ two days after, whereof the irony was so subtle,
+that half the readers of the paper mistook his grave scorn for respect,
+and his gibes for praise.
+
+Clive, his father, and Frederick Bayham, their faithful aide-de-camp,
+were at Newcome likewise when Sir Barnes’s oration was delivered. At
+first it was given out at Newcome that the Colonel visited the place
+for the purpose of seeing his dear old friend and pensioner, Mrs.
+Mason, who was now not long to enjoy his bounty, and so old, as
+scarcely to know her benefactor. Only after her sleep, or when the sun
+warmed her and the old wine with which he supplied her, was the good
+old woman able to recognise her Colonel. She mingled father and son
+together in her mind. A lady who now often came in to her, thought she
+was wandering in her talk, when the poor old woman spoke of a visit she
+had had from her boy; and then the attendant told Miss Newcome that
+such a visit had actually taken place, and that but yesterday Clive and
+his father had been in that room, and occupied the chair where she sat.
+“The young lady was taken quite ill, and seemed ready to faint almost,”
+Mrs. Mason’s servant and spokeswoman told Colonel Newcome when that
+gentleman arrived shortly after Ethel’s departure, to see his old
+nurse. “Indeed! he was very sorry.” The maid told many stories about
+Miss Newcome’s goodness and charity; how she was constantly visiting
+the poor now; how she was for ever engaged in good works for the young,
+the sick, and the aged. She had had a dreadful misfortune in love; she
+was going to be married to a young marquis; richer even than Prince de
+Moncontour down at Rosebury; but it was all broke off on account of
+that dreadful affair at the Hall.
+
+Was she very good to the poor? did she come often to see her
+grandfather’s old friend? it was no more than she ought “to do,”
+Colonel Newcome said; without, however, thinking fit to tell his
+informant that he had himself met his niece Ethel, five minutes before
+he had entered Mrs. Mason’s door.
+
+The poor thing was in discourse with Mr. Harris, the surgeon, and
+talking (as best she might, for no doubt the news which she had just
+heard had agitated her), talking about blankets, and arrowroot, wine,
+and medicaments for her poor, when she saw her uncle coming towards
+her. She tottered a step or two forwards to meet him; held both her
+hands out, and called his name; but he looked her sternly in the face,
+took off his hat and bowed, and passed on. He did not think fit to
+mention the meeting even to his son, Clive; but we may be sure Mr.
+Harris, the surgeon, spoke of the circumstance that night after the
+lecture, at the club, where a crowd of gentlemen were gathered
+together, smoking their cigars, and enjoying themselves according to
+their custom, and discussing Sir Barnes Newcome’s performance.
+
+According to established usage in such cases, our esteemed
+representative was received by the committee of the Newcome Athenæum,
+assembled in their committee-room, and thence marshalled by the
+chairman and vice-chairman to his rostrum in the lecture-hall, round
+about which the magnates of the institution and the notabilities of the
+town were rallied on this public occasion. The Baronet came in some
+state from his own house, arriving at Newcome in his carriage with four
+horses, accompanied by my lady his mother, and Miss Ethel his beautiful
+sister, who now was mistress at the Hall. His little girl was
+brought—five years old now; she sate on her aunt’s knee, and slept
+during a greater part of the performance. A fine bustle, we may be
+sure, was made on the introduction of these personages to their
+reserved seats on the platform, where they sate encompassed by others
+of the great ladies of Newcome, to whom they and the lecturer were
+especially gracious at this season. Was not Parliament about to be
+dissolved, and were not the folks at Newcome Park particularly civil at
+that interesting period? So Barnes Newcome mounts his pulpit, bows
+round to the crowded assembly in acknowledgment of their buzz of
+applause or recognition, passes his lily-white pocket-handkerchief
+across his thin lips, and dashes off into his lecture about Mrs. Hemans
+and the poetry of the affections. A public man, a commercial man as we
+well know, yet his heart is in his home, and his joy in his affections;
+the presence of this immense assembly here this evening; of the
+industrious capitalists; of the intelligent middle class; of the pride
+and mainstay of England, the operatives of Newcome; these, surrounded
+by their wives and their children (a graceful bow to the bonnets to the
+right of the platform), show that they too have hearts to feel, and
+homes to cherish; that they, too, feel the love of women, the innocence
+of children, the love of song! Our lecturer then makes a distinction
+between man’s poetry and woman’s poetry, charging considerably in
+favour of the latter. We show that to appeal to the affections is after
+all the true office of the bard; to decorate the homely threshold, to
+wreathe flowers round the domestic hearth, the delightful duty of the
+Christian singer. We glance at Mrs. Hemans’s biography, and state where
+she was born, and under what circumstances she must have at first, etc.
+etc. Is this a correct account of Sir Barnes Newcome’s lecture? I was
+not present, and did not read the report. Very likely the above may be
+a reminiscence of that mock lecture which Warrington delivered in
+anticipation of the Baronet’s oration.
+
+After he had read for about five minutes, it was remarked the Baronet
+suddenly stopped and became exceedingly confused over his manuscript:
+betaking himself to his auxiliary glass of water before he resumed his
+discourse, which for a long time was languid, low, and disturbed in
+tone. This period of disturbance, no doubt, must have occurred when Sir
+Barnes saw before him F. Bayham and Warrington seated in the
+amphitheatre; and, by the side of those fierce scornful countenances,
+Clive Newcome’s pale face.
+
+Clive Newcome was not looking at Barnes. His eyes were fixed upon the
+lady seated not far from the lecturer—upon Ethel, with her arm round
+her little niece’s shoulder, and her thick black ringlets drooping down
+over a face paler than Clive’s own.
+
+Of course she knew that Clive was present. She was aware of him as she
+entered the hall; saw him at the very first moment; saw nothing but
+him, I dare say, though her eyes were shut and her head was turned now
+towards her mother, and now bent down on the little niece’s golden
+curls. And the past and its dear histories, and youth and its hopes and
+passions, and tones and looks for ever echoing in the heart, and
+present in the memory—these, no doubt, poor Clive saw and heard as he
+looked across the great gulf of time, and parting, and grief, and
+beheld the woman he had loved for many years. There she sits; the same,
+but changed: as gone from him as if she were dead; departed indeed into
+another sphere, and entered into a kind of death. If there is no love
+more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied. Strew round it the
+flowers of youth. Wash it with tears of passion. Wrap it and envelop it
+with fond devotion. Break heart, and fling yourself on the bier, and
+kiss her cold lips and press her hand! It falls back dead on the cold
+breast again. The beautiful lips have never a blush or a smile. Cover
+them and lay them in the ground, and so take thy hatband off, good
+friend, and go to thy business. Do you suppose you are the only man who
+has had to attend such a funeral? You will find some men smiling and at
+work the day after. Some come to the grave now and again out of the
+world, and say a brief prayer, and a “God bless her!” With some men,
+she gone, and her viduous mansion your heart to let, her successor, the
+new occupant, poking in all the drawers and corners, and cupboards of
+the tenement, finds her miniature and some of her dusty old letters
+hidden away somewhere, and says—Was this the face he admired so? Why,
+allowing even for the painter’s flattery, it is quite ordinary, and the
+eyes certainly do not look straight. Are these the letters you thought
+so charming? Well, upon my word, I never read anything more commonplace
+in my life! See, here’s a line half blotted out. Oh, I suppose she was
+crying then—some of her tears, idle tears—Hark, there is Barnes
+Newcome’s eloquence still plapping on like water from a cistern—and our
+thoughts, where have they wandered? far away from the lecture—as far
+away as Clive’s almost. And now the fountain ceases to trickle; the
+mouth from which issued that cool and limpid flux ceases to smile; the
+figure is seen to bow and retire; a buzz, a hum, a whisper, a scuffle,
+a meeting of bonnets and wagging of feathers and rustling of silks
+ensues. “Thank you! delightful, I am sure!” “I really was quite
+overcome;” “Excellent;” “So much obliged,” are rapid phrases heard
+amongst the polite on the platform. While down below, “Yaw! quite
+enough of _that;_” “Mary Jane, cover your throat up, and don’t kitch
+cold, and don’t push me, please, sir;” “’Arry! coom along and ’av’ a
+pint a ale,” etc., are the remarks heard, or perhaps not heard, by
+Clive Newcome, as he watches at the private entrance of the Athenæum,
+where Sir Barnes’s carriage is waiting with its flaming lamps, and
+domestics in state liveries. One of them comes out of the building
+bearing the little girl in his arms, and lays her in the carriage. Then
+Sir Barnes, and Lady Anne, and the Mayor; then Ethel issues forth, and
+as she passes under the lamps, beholds Clive’s face as pale and sad as
+her own.
+
+Shall we go visit the lodge-gates of Newcome Park the moon shining on
+their carving? Is there any pleasure in walking by miles of grey
+paling, and endless palisades of firs? Oh, you fool, what do you hope
+to see behind that curtain? Absurd fugitive, whither would you run? Can
+you burst the tether of fate: and is not poor dear little Rosey
+Mackenzie sitting yonder waiting for you by the stake? Go home, sir;
+and don’t catch cold. So Mr. Clive returns to the King’s Arms, and goes
+up to his bedroom, and he hears Mr. F. Bayham’s deep voice as he passes
+by the Boscawen Room, where the Jolly Britons are as usual assembled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII.
+Newcome and Liberty
+
+
+We have said that the Baronet’s lecture was discussed in the midnight
+senate assembled at the King’s Arms, where Mr. Tom Potts showed the
+orator no mercy. The senate of the King’s Arms was hostile to Sir
+Barnes Newcome. Many other Newcomites besides were savage and inclined
+to revolt against the representative of their borough. As these
+patriots met over their cups, and over the bumper of friendship uttered
+the sentiments of freedom, they had often asked of one another, where
+should a man be found to rid Newcome of its dictator? Generous hearts
+writhed under the oppression: patriotic eyes scowled when Barnes
+Newcome went by: with fine satire, Tom Potts at Brown the hatter’s
+shop, who made the hats for Sir Barnes Newcome’s domestics, proposed to
+take one of the beavers—a gold-laced one with a cockade and a cord—and
+set it up in the market-place and bid all Newcome come bow to it, as to
+the hat of Gessler. “Don’t you think, Potts,” says F. Bayham, who of
+course was admitted into the King’s Arms club, and ornamented that
+assembly by his presence and discourse, “Don’t you think the Colonel
+would make a good William Tell to combat against that Gessler?” Ha!
+Proposal received with acclamation—eagerly adopted by Charles Tucker,
+Esq., Attorney-at-Law, who would not have the slightest objection to
+conduct Colonel Newcome’s, or any other gentleman’s electioneering
+business in Newcome or elsewhere.
+
+Like those three gentlemen in the plays and pictures of William Tell,
+who conspire under the moon, calling upon liberty and resolving to
+elect Tell as their especial champion—like Arnold, Melchthal, and
+Werner—Tom Potts, Fred Bayham, and Charles Tucker, Esqs., conspired
+round a punch-bowl, and determined that Thomas Newcome should be
+requested to free his country. A deputation from the electors of
+Newcome, that is to say, these very gentlemen waited on the Colonel in
+his apartment the very next morning, and set before him the state of
+the borough; Barnes Newcome’s tyranny, under which it groaned; and the
+yearning of all honest men to be free from that usurpation. Thomas
+Newcome received the deputation with great solemnity and politeness,
+crossed his legs, folded his arms, smoked his cheroot, and listened
+moat decorously, as now Potts, now Tucker, expounded to him; Bayham
+giving the benefit of his emphatic “hear, hear,” to their statements,
+and explaining dubious phrases to the Colonel in the most affable
+manner.
+
+Whatever the conspirators had to say against Barnes, Colonel Newcome
+was only too ready to believe. He had made up his mind that that
+criminal ought to be punished and exposed. The lawyer’s covert
+innuendoes, who was ready to insinuate any amount of evil against
+Barnes which could safely be uttered, were by no means strong enough
+for Thomas Newcome. “‘Sharp practice! exceedingly alive to his own
+interests—reported violence of temper and tenacity of money’—say
+swindling at once, sir—say falsehood and rapacity—say cruelty and
+avarice,” cries the Colonel. “I believe, upon my honour and conscience,
+that unfortunate young man to be guilty of every one of those crimes.”
+
+Mr. Bayham remarks to Mr. Potts that our friend the Colonel, when he
+does utter an opinion, takes care that there shall be no mistake about
+it.
+
+“And I took care there should be no mistake before I uttered it at all,
+Bayham!” cries F. B.’s patron. “As long as I was in any doubt about
+this young man, I gave the criminal the benefit of it, as a man who
+admires our glorious constitution should do, and kept my own counsel,
+sir.”
+
+“At least,” remarks Mr. Tucker, “enough is proven to show that Sir
+Barnes Newcome Newcome, Baronet, is scarce a fit person to represent
+this great borough in Parliament.”
+
+“Represent Newcome in Parliament! It is a disgrace to that noble
+institution the English House of Commons, that Barnes Newcome should
+sit in it. A man whose word you cannot trust; a man stained with every
+private crime. What right has he to sit in the assembly of the
+legislators of the land, sir?” cries the Colonel, waving his hand as if
+addressing a chamber of deputies.
+
+“You are for upholding the House of Commons?” inquires the lawyer.
+
+“Of course, sir, of course.”
+
+“And for increasing the franchise, Colonel Newcome, I should hope?”
+continues Mr. Tucker.
+
+“Every man who can read and write ought to have a vote, sir; that is my
+opinion!” cries the Colonel.
+
+“He’s a Liberal to the backbone,” says Potts to Tucker.
+
+“To the backbone!” responds Tucker to Potts. “The Colonel will do for
+us, Potts.”
+
+“We want such a man, Tucker; the _Independent_ has been crying out for
+such a man for years past. We ought to have a Liberal as second
+representative of this great town—not a sneaking half-and-half
+Ministerialist like Sir Barnes, a fellow with one leg in the Carlton
+and the other in Brookes’s. Old Mr. Bunce we can’t touch. His place is
+safe; he is a good man of business: we can’t meddle with Mr. Bunce—I
+know that, who know the feeling of the country pretty well.”
+
+“Pretty well! Better than any man in Newcome, Potts!” cries Mr. Tucker.
+
+“But a good man like the Colonel,—a good Liberal like the Colonel,—a
+man who goes in for household suffrage——”
+
+“Certainly, gentlemen.”
+
+“And the general great Liberal principles—we know, of course—such a man
+would assuredly have a chance against Sir Barnes Newcome at the coming
+election! could we find such a man! a real friend of the people!”
+
+“I know a friend of the people if ever there was one,” F. Bayham
+interposes.
+
+“A man of wealth, station, experience; a man who has fought for his
+country; a man who is beloved in this place as you are, Colonel
+Newcome: for your goodness is known, sir—_You_ are not ashamed of your
+origin, and there is not a Newcomite old or young, but knows how
+admirably good you have been to your old friend, Mrs.—Mrs.
+What-d’-you-call’-em.”
+
+“Mrs. Mason,” from F. B.
+
+“Mrs. Mason. If such a man as you, sir, would consent to put himself in
+nomination at the next election, every true Liberal in this place would
+rush to support you; and crush the oligarchy who rides over the
+liberties of this borough!”
+
+“Something of this sort, gentlemen, I own to you had crossed my mind,”
+Thomas Newcome remarked. “When I saw that disgrace to my name, and the
+name of my father’s birthplace, representing the borough in Parliament,
+I thought for the credit of the town and the family, the Member for
+Newcome at least might be an honest man. I am an old soldier; have
+passed all my life in India; and am little conversant with affairs at
+home” (cries of “You are, you are”). “I hoped that my son, Mr. Clive
+Newcome, might have been found qualified to contest this borough
+against his unworthy cousin, and possibly to sit as your representative
+in Parliament. The wealth I have had the good fortune to amass will
+descend to him naturally, and at no very distant period of time, for I
+am nearly seventy years of age, gentlemen.”
+
+The gentlemen are astonished at this statement.
+
+“But,” resumed the Colonel; “my son Clive, as my friend Bayham knows,
+and to my own regret and mortification, as I don’t care to confess to
+you, declares he has no interest or desire in politics, or for public
+distinction—prefers his own pursuits—and even these I fear do not
+absorb him—declines the offer which I made him, to present himself in
+opposition to Sir Barnes Newcome. It becomes men in a certain station,
+as I think, to assert that station; and though a few years back I never
+should have thought of public life at all, and proposed to end my days
+in quiet as a retired dragoon officer, since—since it has pleased
+Heaven to increase very greatly my pecuniary means, to place me, as a
+director and manager of an important banking company, in a station of
+great public responsibility, I and my brother-directors have thought it
+but right that one of us should sit in Parliament, if possible, and I
+am not a man to shirk from that or from any other duty.”
+
+“Colonel, will you attend a meeting of electors which we will call, and
+say as much to them and as well?” cries Mr. Potts. “Shall I put an
+announcement in my paper to the effect that you are ready to come
+forward?”
+
+“I am prepared to do so, my good sir.”
+
+And presently this solemn palaver ended.
+
+Besides the critical article upon the Baronet’s lecture, of which Mr.
+Warrington was the author, there appeared in the leading columns of the
+ensuing number of Mr. Potts’ _Independent_, some remarks of a very
+smashing or hostile nature, against the Member for Newcome. “This
+gentleman has shown such talent in the lecturing business,” the
+_Independent_ said, “that it is a great pity he should not withdraw
+himself from politics, and cultivate what all Newcome knows are the
+arts which he understands best; namely, poetry and the domestic
+affections. The performance of our talented representative last night
+was so pathetic as to bring tears into the eyes of several of our fair
+friends. We have heard, but never believed until now, that Sir Barnes
+Newcome possessed such a genius _for making women cry_. Last week we
+had the talented Miss Noakes, from Slowcome, reading Milton to us; how
+far superior was the eloquence of Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart.,
+even to that of the celebrated jestress! Bets were freely offered in
+the room last night that Sir Barnes would _beat any woman_,—bets which
+were not taken, as we scarcely need say, so well do our citizens
+appreciate the character of our excellent, our admirable
+representative.—Let the Baronet stick to his lectures, and let Newcome
+relieve him of his political occupations. He is not fit for them, he is
+too sentimental a man for us; the men of Newcome want a sound practical
+person; the Liberals of Newcome have a desire to be represented. When
+we elected Sir Barnes, he talked liberally enough, and we thought he
+would do, but you see the honourable Baronet is so poetical! we ought
+to have known that, and not to have believed him. Let us have a
+straightforward gentleman. If not a man of words, at least let us have
+a practical man. If not a man of eloquence, one at any rate whose word
+we can trust, and we can’t trust Sir Barnes Newcome’s; we have tried
+him, and we can’t really. Last night when the ladies were crying, we
+could not for the souls of us help laughing. We hope we know how to
+conduct ourselves as gentlemen. We trust we did not interrupt the
+harmony of the evening; but Sir Barnes Newcome, prating about children
+and virtue, and affection and poetry, this is really too strong.
+
+“The _Independent_, faithful to its name, and ever actuated by
+principles of honour, has been, as our thousands of readers know,
+disposed to give Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., a fair trial. When
+he came forward after his father’s death, we believed in his pledges
+and promises, as a retrencher and reformer, and we stuck by him. Is
+there any man in Newcome, except, perhaps, our twaddling old
+contemporary the _Sentinel_, who believes in Sir B. N. any more? We say
+no, and we now give the readers of the _Independent_, and the electors
+of this borough, fair notice, that when the dissolution of Parliament
+takes place, a good man, a true man, a man of experience, no dangerous
+Radical, or brawling tap orator—Mr. Hicks’s friends well understand
+whom we mean—but a gentleman of Liberal principles, well-won wealth,
+and deserved station and honour, will ask the electors of Newcome
+whether they are, or are not discontented with their present unworthy
+Member. The _Independent_ for one, says, we know good men of your
+family, we know in it men who would do honour to any name; but you, Sir
+Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., we trust no more.”
+
+In the electioneering matter, which had occasioned my unlucky
+interference, and that subsequent little coolness upon the good
+Colonel’s part, Clive Newcome had himself shown that the scheme was not
+to his liking; had then submitted as his custom was: and doing so with
+a bad grace, as also was to be expected, had got little thanks for his
+obedience. Thomas Newcome was hurt at his son’s faint-heartedness, and
+of course little Rosey was displeased at his hanging back. He set off
+in his father’s train, a silent, unwilling partisan. Thomas Newcome had
+the leisure to survey Clive’s glum face opposite to him during the
+whole of their journey, and to chew his mustachios, and brood upon his
+wrath and wrongs. His life had been a sacrifice for that boy! What
+darling schemes had he not formed in his behalf, and how superciliously
+did Clive meet his projects! The Colonel could not see the harm of
+which he had himself been the author. Had he not done everything in
+mortal’s power for his son’s happiness, and how many young men in
+England were there with such advantages as this moody, discontented,
+spoiled boy? As Clive backed out of the contest, of course his father
+urged it only the more vehemently. Clive slunk away from committees and
+canvassing, and lounged about the Newcome manufactories, whilst his
+father, with anger and bitterness in his heart, remained at the post of
+honour, as he called it, bent upon overcoming his enemy and carrying
+his point against Barnes Newcome. “If Paris will not fight, sir,” the
+Colonel said, with a sad look following his son, “Priam must.” Good old
+Priam believed his cause to be a perfectly just one, and that duty and
+his honour called upon him to draw the sword. So there was difference
+between Thomas Newcome and Clive his son. I protest it is with pain and
+reluctance I have to write that the good old man was in error—that
+there was a wrong-doer, and that Atticus was he.
+
+Atticus, be it remembered, thought himself compelled by the very best
+motives. Thomas Newcome, the Indian banker, was at war with Barnes, the
+English banker. The latter had commenced the hostilities by a sudden
+and cowardly act of treason. There were private wrongs to envenom the
+contest, but it was the mercantile quarrel on which the Colonel chose
+to set his declaration of war. Barnes’s first dastardly blow had
+occasioned it, and his uncle was determined to carry it through. This I
+have said was also George Warrington’s judgment, who, in the ensuing
+struggle between Sir Barnes and his uncle, acted as a very warm and
+efficient partisan of the latter. “Kinsmanship!” says George, “what has
+old Tom Newcome ever had from his kinsman but cowardice and treachery?
+If Barnes had held up his finger, the young one might have been happy;
+if he could have effected it, the Colonel and his bank would have been
+ruined. I am for war, and for seeing the old boy in Parliament. He
+knows no more about politics than I do about dancing the polka; but
+there are five hundred wiseacres in that assembly who know no more than
+he does, and an honest man taking his seat there, in place of a
+confounded little rogue, at least makes a change for the better.”
+
+I dare say Thomas Newcome, Esq. would by no means have concurred in the
+above estimate of his political knowledge, and thought himself as well
+informed as another. He used to speak with the greatest gravity about
+our constitution as the pride and envy of the world, though he
+surprised you as much by the latitudinarian reforms, which he was eager
+to press forward, as by the most singular old Tory opinions which he
+advocated on other occasions. He was for having every man to vote;
+every poor man to labour short time and get high wages; every poor
+curate to be paid double or treble; every bishop to be docked of his
+salary, and dismissed from the House of Lords. But he was a staunch
+admirer of that assembly, and a supporter of the rights of the Crown.
+He was for sweeping off taxes from the poor, and as money must be
+raised to carry on government, he opined that the rich should pay. He
+uttered all these opinions with the greatest gravity and emphasis,
+before a large assembly of electors, and others convened in the Newcome
+Town Hall, amid the roars of applause of the non-electors, and the
+bewilderment and consternation of Mr. Potts, of the _Independent_, who
+had represented the Colonel in his paper as a safe and steady reformer.
+Of course the _Sentinel_ showed him up as a most dangerous radical, a
+sepoy republican, and so forth, to the wrath and indignation of Colonel
+Newcome. He a republican! he scorned the name! He would die as he had
+bled many a time for his sovereign. He an enemy of our beloved Church!
+He esteemed and honoured it, as he hated and abhorred the superstitions
+of Rome. (Yells, from the Irish in the crowd.) He an enemy of the House
+of Lords! He held it to be the safeguard of the constitution and the
+legitimate prize of our most illustrious, naval, military,
+and—and—legal heroes (ironical cheers). He repelled with scorn the
+dastard attacks of the journal which had assailed him; he asked, laying
+his hands on his heart, if as a gentleman, an officer bearing Her
+Majesty’s commission, he could be guilty of a desire to subvert her
+empire and to insult the dignity of her crown?
+
+After this second speech at the Town Hall, it was asserted by a
+considerable party in Newcome, that Old Tom (as the mob familiarly
+called him) was a Tory, while an equal number averred that he was a
+Radical. Mr. Potts tried to reconcile his statements, a work in which I
+should think the talented editor of the _Independent_ had no little
+difficulty. “He knows nothing about it,” poor Clive said with a sigh;
+“his politics are all sentiment and kindness; he will have the poor man
+paid double wages, and does not remember that the employer would be
+ruined: you have heard him, Pen, talking in this way at his own table,
+but when he comes out armed _cap-à-pied_, and careers against windmills
+in public, don’t you see that as Don Quixote’s son I had rather the
+dear brave old gentleman was at home?”
+
+So this _fainéant_ took but little part in the electioneering doings,
+holding moodily aloof from the meetings, and councils, and
+public-houses, where his father’s partisans were assembled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII.
+A Letter and a Reconciliation
+
+
+Miss Ethel Newcome to Mrs. Pendennis:
+
+“Dearest Laura,—I have not written to you for many weeks past. There
+have been some things too trivial, and some too sad, to write about;
+some things I know I shall write of if I begin, and yet that I know I
+had best leave; for of what good is looking to the past now? Why vex
+you or myself by reverting to it? Does not every day bring its own duty
+and task, and are these not enough to occupy one? What a fright you
+must have had with my little goddaughter! Thank heaven she is well now,
+and restored to you. You and your husband I know do not think it
+essential, but I do, _most essential_, and am very grateful that she
+was taken to church before her illness.
+
+“Is Mr. Pendennis proceeding with his canvass? I try and avoid a
+certain subject, but it _will_ come. You know who is canvassing against
+us here. My poor uncle has met with very considerable success amongst
+the lower classes. He makes them rambling speeches at which my brother
+and his friends laugh, but which the people applaud. I saw him only
+yesterday, on the balcony of the King’s Arms, speaking to a great mob,
+who were cheering vociferously below. I had met him before. He would
+not even stop and give his Ethel of old days his hand. I would have
+given him I don’t know what, for one kiss, for one kind word; but he
+passed on and would not answer me. He thinks me—what the world thinks
+me, worldly and heartless; what I _was_. But at least, dear Laura, you
+know that I always truly loved _him_, and do now, although he is our
+enemy, though he believes and utters the most cruel things against
+Barnes, though he says that Barnes Newcome, my father’s son, my
+brother, Laura, is not an honest man. Hard, selfish, worldly, I own my
+poor brother to be, and pray Heaven to amend him; but dishonest! and to
+be so maligned by the person one loves best in the world! This is a
+hard trial. I pray a proud heart may be bettered by it.
+
+“And I have seen my cousin; once at a lecture which poor Barnes gave,
+and who seemed very much disturbed on perceiving Clive; once afterwards
+at good old Mrs. Mason’s, whom I have always continued to visit for
+uncle’s sake. The poor old woman, whose wits are very nearly gone, held
+both our hands, and asked when we were going to be married? and
+laughed, poor old thing! I cried out to her that Mr. Clive had a wife
+at home, a young dear wife, I said. He gave a dreadful sort of laugh,
+and turned away into the window. He looks terribly ill, pale, and
+oldened.
+
+“I asked him a great deal about his wife, whom I remember a very
+pretty, sweet-looking girl indeed, at my Aunt Hobson’s, but with a not
+agreeable mother as I thought then. He answered me by monosyllables,
+appeared as though he would speak, and then became silent. I am pained,
+and yet glad that I saw him, I said, not very distinctly, I dare say,
+that I hoped the difference between Barnes and uncle would not
+extinguish his regard for mamma and me, who have always loved him; when
+I said loved him, he give one of his bitter laughs again; and so he did
+when I said I hoped his wife was well. You never would tell me much
+about Mrs. Newcome; and I fear she does not make my cousin happy. And
+yet this marriage was of my uncle’s making: another of the unfortunate
+marriages in our family. I am glad that I paused in time, before the
+commission of that sin; I strive my best, and to amend my temper, my
+inexperience, my shortcomings, and try to be the mother of my poor
+brother’s children. But Barnes has never forgiven me my refusal of Lord
+Farintosh. He is of the world still, Laura. Nor must we deal too
+harshly with people of his nature, who cannot perhaps comprehend a
+world beyond. I remember in old days, when we were travelling on the
+Rhine, in the happiest days of my whole life, I used to hear Clive and
+his friend Mr. Ridley, talk of art and of nature in a way that I could
+not understand at first, but came to comprehend better as my cousin
+taught me; and since then, I see pictures, landscapes, and flowers,
+with quite different eyes, and beautiful secrets as it were, of which I
+had no idea before. The secret of all secrets, the secret of the other
+life, and the better world beyond ours, may not this be unrevealed to
+some? I pray for them all, dearest Laura, for those nearest and dearest
+to me, that the truth may lighten their darkness, and Heaven’s great
+mercy defend them in the perils and dangers of their night.
+
+“My boy at Sandhurst has done very well indeed; and Egbert, I am happy
+to say, thinks of taking orders; he has been very moderate at College.
+Not so Alfred; but the Guards are a sadly dangerous school for a young
+man; I have promised to pay his debts, and he is to exchange into the
+line. Mamma is coming to us at Christmas with Alice; my sister is very
+pretty indeed, I think, and I am rejoiced she is to marry young Mr.
+Mumford, who has a tolerable living, and who has been attached to her
+ever since he was a boy at Rugby School.
+
+“Little Barnes comes on bravely with his Latin; and Mr. Whitestock, _a
+most excellent and valuable_ person in this place, where there is so
+much Romanism and Dissent, speaks highly of him. Little Clara is so
+like her unhappy mother in a thousand ways and actions, that I am
+shocked often; and see my brother starting back and turning his head
+away, as if suddenly wounded. I have heard the most deplorable accounts
+of Lord and Lady Highgate. Oh, dearest friend and sister!-save you, I
+think I scarce know any one that is happy in the world: I trust you may
+continue so-you who impart your goodness and kindness to all who come
+near you-you in whose sweet serene happiness I am thankful to be
+allowed to repose sometimes. You are the island in the desert, Laura!
+and the birds sing there, and the fountain flows; and we come and
+repose by you for a little while, and to-morrow the march begins again,
+and the toil, and the struggle, and the desert. Good-bye, fountain!
+Whisper kisses to my dearest little ones from their affectionate Aunt
+Ethel.
+
+“A friend of his, a Mr. Warrington, has spoken against us several times
+with extraordinary ability, as Barnes owns. Do you know Mr. W.? He
+wrote a dreadful article in the _Independent_, about the last poor
+lecture, which was indeed sad, sentimental, commonplace: and the
+critique is terribly comical. I could not help laughing, remembering
+some passages in it, when Barnes mentioned it: and my brother became so
+angry! They have put up a dreadful caricature of B. in Newcome: and my
+brother says he did it, but I hope not. It is very droll, though: he
+used to make them very funnily. I am glad he has spirits for it.
+Good-bye again.—E. N.”
+
+“He says he did it!” cries Mr. Pendennis, laying the letter down.
+“Barnes Newcome would scarcely caricature himself, my dear?”
+
+“‘He’ often means—means Clive—I think,” says Mrs. Pendennis, in an
+offhand manner.
+
+“Oh! he means Clive, does he, Laura?”
+
+“Yes—and you mean goose, Mr. Pendennis!” that saucy lady replies.
+
+It must have been about the very time when this letter was written,
+that a critical conversation occurred between Clive and his father, of
+which the lad did not inform me until much later days; as was the
+case—the reader has been more than once begged to believe—with many
+other portions of this biography.
+
+One night the Colonel, having come home from a round of electioneering
+visits, not half satisfied with himself; exceedingly annoyed (much more
+than he cared to own) with the impudence of some rude fellows at the
+public-houses, who had interrupted his fine speeches with odious
+hiccups and familiar jeers, was seated brooding over his cheroot by the
+chimney-fire; friend F. B. (of whose companionship his patron was
+occasionally tired) finding much better amusement with the Jolly
+Britons in the Boscawen Room below. The Colonel, as an electioneering
+business, had made his appearance in the club. But that ancient Roman
+warrior had frightened those simple Britons. His manners were too awful
+for them: so were Clive’s, who visited them also under Mr. Pott’s
+introduction; but the two gentlemen, each being full of care and
+personal annoyance at the time, acted like wet blankets upon the
+Britons—whereas F. B. warmed them and cheered them, affably partook of
+their meals with them, and graciously shared their cups. So the Colonel
+was alone, listening to the far-off roar of the Britons’ choruses by an
+expiring fire, as he sate by a glass of cold negus and the ashes of his
+cigar.
+
+I dare say he may have been thinking that his fire was well-nigh
+out,—his cup of the dregs, his pipe little more now than dust and
+ashes—when Clive, candle in hand, came into their sitting-room.
+
+As each saw the other’s face, it was so very sad and worn and pale,
+that the young man started back; and the elder, with quite the
+tenderness of old days, cried, “God bless me, my boy, how ill you look!
+Come and warm yourself—look, the fire’s out. Have something, Clivy!”
+
+For months past they had not had a really kind word. The tender old
+voice smote upon Clive, and he burst into sudden tears. They rained
+upon his father’s trembling old brown hand, and stooped down and kissed
+it.
+
+“You look very ill too, father,” says Clive.
+
+“Ill? not I!” cries the father, still keeping the boy’s hand under both
+his own on the mantelpiece. “Such a battered old fellow as I am has a
+right to look the worse for wear; but you, boy; why do you look so
+pale?”
+
+“I have seen a ghost, father,” Clive answered. Thomas, however, looked
+alarmed and inquisitive as though the boy was wandering in his mind.
+
+“The ghost of my youth, father, the ghost of my happiness, and the best
+days of my life,” groaned out the young man. “I saw Ethel to-day. I
+went to see Sarah Mason, and she was there.”
+
+“I had seen her, but I did not speak of her,” said the father. “I
+thought it was best not to mention her to you, my poor boy. And are—are
+you fond of her still, Clive?”
+
+“Still! once means always in these things, father, doesn’t it? Once
+means to-day, and yesterday, and forever and ever.”
+
+“Nay, my boy, you mustn’t talk to me so, or even to yourself so. You
+have the dearest little wife at home, a dear little wife and child.”
+
+“You had a son, and have been kind enough to him, God knows. _You_ had
+a wife: but that doesn’t prevent other—other thoughts. Do you know you
+never spoke twice in your life about my mother? You didn’t care for
+her.”
+
+“I—I did my duty by her; I denied her nothing. I scarcely ever had a
+word with her, and I did my best to make her happy,” interposed the
+Colonel.
+
+“I know, but your heart was with the other. So is mine. It’s fatal; it
+runs in the family, father.”
+
+The boy looked so ineffably wretched that the father’s heart melted
+still more. “I did my best, Clive,” the Colonel gasped out. “I went to
+that villain Barnes and offered him to settle every shilling I was
+worth on you—I did—you didn’t know that—I’d kill myself for your sake,
+Clivy. What’s an old fellow worth living for? I can live upon a crust
+and a cigar. I don’t care about a carriage, and only go in it to please
+Rosey. I wanted to give up all for you, but he played me false, that
+scoundrel cheated us both; he did, and so did Ethel.”
+
+“No, sir; I may have thought so in my rage once, but I know better now.
+She was the victim and not the agent. Did Madame de Florac play _you_
+false when she married her husband? It was her fate, and she underwent
+it. We all bow to it, we are in the track and the car passes over us.
+You know it does, father.” The Colonel was a fatalist: he had often
+advanced this Oriental creed in his simple discourses with his son and
+Clive’s friends.
+
+“Besides,” Clive went on, “Ethel does not care for me. She received me
+to-day quite coldly, and held her hand out as if we had only parted
+last year. I suppose she likes that marquis who jilted her—God bless
+her! How shall we know what wins the hearts of women? She has mine.
+There was my Fate. Praise be to Allah! It is over.”
+
+“But there’s that villain who injured you. His isn’t over yet,” cried
+the Colonel, clenching his trembling hand.
+
+“Ah, father! Let us leave him to Allah too! Suppose Madame de Florac
+had a brother who insulted you. You know you wouldn’t have revenged
+yourself. You would have wounded her in striking him.”
+
+“You called out Barnes yourself, boy,” cried the father.
+
+“That was for another cause, and not for my quarrel. And how do you
+know I intended to fire? By Jove, I was so miserable then that an ounce
+of lead would have done me little harm!”
+
+The father saw the son’s mind more clearly than he had ever done
+hitherto. They had scarcely ever talked upon that subject which the
+Colonel found was so deeply fixed in Clive’s heart. He thought of his
+own early days, and how he had suffered, and beheld his son before him
+racked with the same cruel pangs of enduring grief. And he began to own
+that he had pressed him too hastily in his marriage; and to make an
+allowance for an unhappiness of which he had in part been the cause.
+
+“Mashallah! Clive, my boy,” said the old man, “what is done is done.”
+
+“Let us break up our camp before this place, and not go to war with
+Barnes, father,” said Clive. “Let us have peace—and forgive him if we
+can.”
+
+“And retreat before this scoundrel, Clive?”
+
+“What is a victory over such a fellow? One gives a chimney-sweep the
+wall, father.”
+
+“I say again—What is done is done. I have promised to meet him at the
+hustings, and I will. I think it is best: and you are right: and you
+act like a high-minded gentleman—and my dear old boy—not to meddle in
+the quarrel—though I didn’t think so—and the difference gave me a great
+deal of pain—and so did what Pendennis said—and I’m wrong—and thank God
+I am wrong—and God bless you, my own boy!” the Colonel cried out in a
+burst of emotion; and the two went to their bedrooms together, and were
+happier as they shook hands at the doors of their adjoining chambers
+than they had been for many a long day and year.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX.
+The Election
+
+
+Having thus given his challenge, reconnoitred the enemy, and pledged
+himself to do battle at the ensuing election, our Colonel took leave of
+the town of Newcome, and returned to his banking affairs in London. His
+departure was as that of a great public personage; the gentlemen of the
+Committee followed him obsequiously down to the train. “Quick,” bawls
+out Mr. Potts to Mr. Brown, the station-master, “Quick, Mr. Brown, a
+carriage for Colonel Newcome!” Half a dozen hats are taken off as he
+enters into the carriage, F. Bayham and his servant after him, with
+portfolios, umbrellas, shawls, despatch-boxes. Clive was not there to
+act as his father’s aide-de-camp. After their conversation together the
+young man had returned to Mrs. Clive and his other duties in life.
+
+It has been said that Mr. Pendennis was in the country, engaged in a
+pursuit exactly similar to that which occupied Colonel Newcome. The
+menaced dissolution of Parliament did not take place so soon as we
+expected. The Ministry still hung together, and by consequence, Sir
+Barnes Newcome kept the seat in the House of Commons, from which his
+elder kinsman was eager to oust him. Away from London, and having but
+few correspondents, save on affairs of business, I heard little of
+Clive and the Colonel, save an occasional puff of one of Colonel
+Newcome’s entertainments in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, to which journal
+F. Bayham still condescended to contribute; and a satisfactory
+announcement in a certain part of that paper, that on such a day, in
+Hyde Park Gardens, Mrs. Clive Newcome had presented her husband with a
+son. Clive wrote to me presently, to inform me of the circumstance,
+stating at the same time, with but moderate gratification on his own
+part, that the Campaigner, Mrs. Newcome’s mamma, had upon this second
+occasion made a second lodgment in her daughter’s house and bedchamber,
+and showed herself affably disposed to forget the little unpleasantries
+which had clouded over the sunshine of her former visit.
+
+Laura, with a smile of some humour, said she thought now would be the
+time when, if Clive could be spared from his bank, he might pay us that
+visit at Fairoaks which had been due so long, and hinted that change of
+air and a temporary absence from Mrs. Mackenzie might be agreeable to
+my old friend.
+
+It was, on the contrary, Mr. Pendennis’s opinion that his wife artfully
+chose that period of time when little Rosey was, perforce, kept at home
+and occupied with her delightful maternal duties, to invite Clive to
+see us. Mrs. Laura frankly owned that she liked our Clive better
+without his wife than with her, and never ceased to regret that pretty
+Rosey had not bestowed her little hand upon Captain Hoby, as she had
+been very well disposed at one time to do. Against all marriages of
+interest this sentimental Laura never failed to utter indignant
+protests; and Clive’s had been a marriage of interest, a marriage made
+up by the old people, a marriage which the young man had only yielded
+out of good-nature and obedience. She would apostrophise her
+unconscious young ones, and inform those innocent babies that _they_
+should never be made to marry except for love, never—an announcement
+which was received with perfect indifference by little Arthur on his
+rocking-horse, and little Helen smiling and crowing in her mother’s
+lap.
+
+So Clive came down to us, careworn in appearance, but very pleased and
+happy, he said, to stay for a while with the friends of his youth. We
+showed him our modest rural lions; we got him such sport and company as
+our quiet neighbourhood afforded, we gave him fishing in the Brawl, and
+Laura in her pony-chaise drove him to Baymouth, and to Clavering Park
+and town, and visit the famous cathedral at Chatteris, where she was
+pleased to recount certain incidents of her husband’s youth.
+
+Clive laughed at my wife’s stories; he pleased himself in our home; he
+played with our children, with whom he had became a great favourite; he
+was happier, he told me with a sigh, than he had been for many a day.
+His gentle hostess echoed the sigh of the poor young fellow. She was
+sure that his pleasure was only transitory, and was convinced that many
+deep cares weighed upon his mind.
+
+Ere long my old schoolfellow made me sundry confessions, which showed
+that Laura’s surmises were correct. About his domestic affairs he did
+not treat much; the little boy was said to be a very fine little boy;
+the ladies had taken entire possession of him. “I can’t stand Mrs.
+Mackenzie any longer, I own,” says Clive; “but how resist a wife at
+such a moment? Rosa was sure she would die, unless her mother came to
+her, and of course we invited Mrs. Mack. This time she is all smiles
+and politeness with the Colonel: the last quarrel is laid upon me, and
+in so far I am easy, as the old folks get on pretty well together.” To
+me, considering these things, it was clear that Mr. Clive Newcome was
+but a very secondary personage indeed in his father’s new fine house
+which he inhabited, and in which the poor Colonel had hoped they were
+to live such a happy family.
+
+But it was about Clive Newcome’s pecuniary affairs that I felt the most
+disquiet when he came to explain these to me. The Colonel’s capital and
+that considerable sum which Mrs. Clive had inherited from her good old
+uncle, were all involved in a common stock, of which Colonel Newcome
+took the management. “The governor understands business so well, you
+see,” says Clive; “is a most remarkable head for accounts: he must have
+inherited that from my grandfather, you know, who made his own fortune:
+all the Newcomes are good at accounts, except me, a poor useless devil
+who knows nothing but to paint a picture, and who can’t even do that.”
+He cuts off the head of a thistle as he speaks, bites his tawny
+mustachios, plunges his hands into his pockets and his soul into
+reverie.
+
+“You don’t mean to say,” asks Mr. Pendennis, “that your wife’s fortune
+has not been settled upon herself?”
+
+“Of course it has been settled upon herself; that is, it is entirely
+her own—you know the Colonel has managed all the business, he
+understands it better than we do.”
+
+“Do you say that your wife’s money is not vested in the hands of
+trustees, and for her benefit?”
+
+“My father is one of the trustees. I tell you he manages the whole
+thing. What is his property is mine and ever has been; and I might draw
+upon him as much as I liked: and you know it’s five times as great as
+my wife’s. What is his is ours, and what is ours is his, of course; for
+instance, the India Stock, which poor Uncle James left, that now stands
+in the Colonel’s name. He wants to be a Director: he will be at the
+next election—he must have a certain quantity of India Stock, don’t you
+see?”
+
+“My dear fellow, is there then no settlement made upon your wife at
+all?”
+
+“You needn’t look so frightened,” says Clive. “I made a settlement on
+her: with all my worldly goods I did her endow three thousand three
+hundred and thirty-three pounds six and eightpence, which my father
+sent over from India to my uncle, years ago, when I came home.”
+
+I might well indeed be aghast at this news, and had yet further
+intelligence from Clive, which by no means contributed to lessen my
+anxiety. This worthy old Colonel, who fancied himself to be so clever a
+man of business, chose to conduct it in utter ignorance and defiance of
+law. If anything happened to the Bundelcund Bank, it was clear that not
+only every shilling of his own property, but every farthing bequeathed
+to Rosa Mackenzie would be lost; only his retiring pension, which was
+luckily considerable, and the hundred pounds a year which Clive had
+settled on his wife, would be saved out of the ruin.
+
+And now Clive confided to me his own serious doubts and misgivings
+regarding the prosperity of the Bank itself. He did not know why, but
+he could not help fancying that things were going wrong. Those partners
+who had come home, having sold out of the Bank, and living in England
+so splendidly, why had they quitted it? The Colonel said it was a proof
+of the prosperity of the company, that so many gentlemen were enriched
+who had taken shares in it. “But when I asked my father,” Clive
+continued, “why he did not himself withdraw, the dear old Colonel’s
+countenance fell: he told me such things were not to be done every day;
+and ended, as usual, by saying that I do not understand anything about
+business. No more I do: that is the truth. I hate the whole concern,
+Pen! I hate that great tawdry house in which we live; and those
+fearfully stupid parties:—Oh, how I wish we were back in Fitzroy
+Square! But who can recall bygones, Arthur; or wrong steps in life? We
+must make the best of to-day, and to-morrow must take care of itself.
+‘Poor little child!’ I could not help thinking, as I took it crying in
+my arms the other day, ‘what has life in store for you, my poor weeping
+baby?’ My mother-in-law cried out that I should drop the baby, and that
+only the Colonel knew how to hold it. My wife called from her bed; the
+nurse dashed up and scolded me; and they drove me out of the room
+amongst them. By Jove, Pen, I laugh when some of my friends
+congratulate me on my good fortune! I am not quite the father of my own
+child, nor the husband of my own wife, nor even the master of my own
+easel. I am managed for, don’t you see? boarded, lodged, and done for.
+And here is the man they call happy. Happy! Oh!!! Why had I not your
+strength of mind; and why did I ever leave my art, my mistress?”
+
+And herewith the poor lad fell to chopping thistles again; and quitted
+Fairoaks shortly, leaving his friends there very much disquieted about
+his prospects, actual and future.
+
+The expected dissolution of Parliament came at length. All the country
+papers in England teemed with electioneering addresses; and the country
+was in a flutter with particoloured ribbons. Colonel Thomas Newcome,
+pursuant to his promise, offered himself to the independent electors of
+Newcome in the Liberal journal of the family town, whilst Sir Barnes
+Newcome, Bart., addressed himself to his old and tried friends, and
+called upon the friends of the constitution to rally round him, in the
+Conservative print. The addresses of our friend were sent to us at
+Fairoaks by the Colonel’s indefatigable aide-de-camp, Mr. Frederick
+Bayham. During the period which had elapsed since the Colonel’s last
+canvassing visit and the issuing of the writs now daily expected for
+the new Parliament, many things of great importance had occurred in
+Thomas Newcome’s family—events which were kept secret from his
+biographer, who was, at this period also, pretty entirely occupied with
+his own affairs. These, however, are not the present subject of this
+history, which has Newcome for its business, and the parties engaged in
+the family quarrel there.
+
+There were four candidates in the field for the representation of that
+borough. That old and tried member of Parliament, Mr. Bunce, was
+considered to be secure; and the Baronet’s seat was thought to be
+pretty safe on account of his influence in the place. Nevertheless,
+Thomas Newcome’s supporters were confident for their champion, and that
+when the parties came to the poll, the extreme Liberals of the borough
+would divide their votes between him and the fourth candidate, the
+uncompromising Radical, Mr. Barker.
+
+In due time the Colonel and his staff arrived at Newcome, and resumed
+the active canvass which they had commenced some months previously.
+Clive was not in his father’s suite this time, nor Mr. Warrington,
+whose engagements took him elsewhere. The lawyer, the editor of the
+_Independent_, and F. B., were the Colonel’s chief men. His
+headquarters (which F. B. liked very well) were at the hotel where we
+last saw him, and whence issuing with his aide-de-camp at his heels,
+the Colonel went round to canvass personally, according to his promise,
+every free and independent elector of the borough. Barnes too was
+canvassing eagerly on his side, and was most affable and active; the
+two parties would often meet nose to nose in the same street, and their
+retainers exchange looks of defiance. With Mr. Potts of the
+_Independent_, a big man, on his left; with Mr. Frederick, a still
+bigger man, on his right; his own trusty bamboo cane in his hand,
+before which poor Barnes had shrunk abashed ere now, Colonel Newcome
+had commonly the best of these street encounters, and frowned his
+nephew Barnes, and Barnes’s staff, off the pavement. With the
+non-electors the Colonel was a decided favourite; the boys invariably
+hurrayed him; whereas they jeered and uttered ironical cries after poor
+Barnes, asking, “Who beat his wife? Who drove his children to the
+workhouse?” and other unkind personal questions. The man upon whom the
+libertine Barnes had inflicted so cruel an injury in his early days,
+was now the Baronet’s bitterest enemy. He assailed him with curses and
+threats when they met, and leagued his brother-workmen against him. The
+wretched Sir Barnes owned with contrition that the sins of his youth
+pursued him; his enemy scoffed at the idea of Barnes’s repentance; he
+was not moved at the grief, the punishment in his own family, the
+humiliation and remorse which the repentant prodigal piteously pleaded.
+No man was louder in his cries of _mea culpa_ than Barnes: no man
+professed a more edifying repentance. He was hat in hand to every
+black-coat, established or dissenting. Repentance was to his interest,
+to be sure, but yet let us hope it was sincere. There is some
+hypocrisy, of which one does not like even to entertain the thought;
+especially that awful falsehood which trades with divine truth, and
+takes the name of Heaven in vain.
+
+The Roebuck Inn at Newcome stands in the market-place, directly facing
+the King’s Arms, where, as we know, Colonel Newcome and uncompromising
+toleration held their headquarters. Immense banners of blue and yellow
+floated from every window of the King’s Arms, and decorated the balcony
+from which the Colonel and the assistants were in the habit of
+addressing the multitude. Fiddlers and trumpeters, arrayed in his
+colours, paraded the town and enlivened it with their melodious
+strains. Other trumpeters and fiddlers, bearing the true-blue cockades
+and colours of Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., would encounter the Colonel’s
+musicians, on which occasions of meeting, it is to be feared, small
+harmony was produced. They banged each other with their brazen
+instruments. The warlike drummers thumped each other’s heads in lieu of
+the professional sheepskin. The townboys and street-blackguards
+rejoiced in these combats, and exhibited their valour on one side or
+the other. The Colonel had to pay a long bill for broken brass when he
+settled the little accounts of the election.
+
+In after times, F. B. was pleased to describe the circumstances of a
+contest in which he bore a most distinguished part. It was F. B.’s
+opinion that his private eloquence brought over many waverers to the
+Colonel’s side, and converted numbers of the benighted followers of Sir
+Barnes Newcome. Bayham’s voice was indeed magnificent, and could be
+heard from the King’s Arm’s balcony above the shout and roar of the
+multitude, the gongs and bugles of the opposition bands. He was
+untiring in his oratory—undaunted in the presence of the crowds below.
+He was immensely popular, F. B. Whether he laid his hand upon his broad
+chest, took off his hat and waved it, or pressed his blue and yellow
+ribbons to his bosom, the crowd shouted, “Hurra: silence! bravo! Bayham
+for ever!” “They would have carried me in triumph,” said F. B.; “if I
+had but the necessary qualification I might be member for Newcome this
+day or any other I chose.”
+
+I am afraid in this conduct of the Colonel’s election Mr. Bayham
+resorted to acts of which his principal certainly would disapprove, and
+engaged auxiliaries whose alliance was scarcely creditable. Whose was
+the hand which flung the potato which struck Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart.,
+on the nose as he was haranguing the people from the Roebuck? How came
+it that whenever Sir Barnes and his friends essayed to speak, such an
+awful yelling and groaning took place in the crowd below, that the
+words of those feeble orators were inaudible? Who smashed all the front
+windows of the Roebuck? Colonel Newcome had not words to express his
+indignation at proceedings so unfair. When Sir Barnes and staff were
+hustled in the market-place and most outrageously shoved, jeered, and
+jolted, the Colonel from the King’s Arms organised a rapid sally, which
+he himself headed with his bamboo cane; cut out Sir Barnes and his
+followers from the hands of the mob, and addressed those ruffians in a
+noble speech, of which bamboo-cane—Englishman—shame—fair-play, were the
+most emphatic expressions. The mob cheered Old Tom as they called
+him—they made way for Sir Barnes, who shrunk pale and shuddering back
+into his hotel again—who always persisted in saying that that old
+villain of a dragoon had planned both the assault and the rescue.
+
+“When the dregs of the people—the scum of the rabble, sir, banded
+together by the myrmidons of Sir Barnes Newcome, attacked us at the
+King’s Arms, and smashed ninety-six pounds’ worth of glass at one
+volley, besides knocking off the gold unicorn head and the tail of the
+British lion; it was fine, sir,” F. B. said, “to see how the Colonel
+came forward, and the coolness of the old boy in the midst of the
+action. He stood there in front, sir, with his old hat off, never so
+much as once bobbing his old head, and I think he spoke rather better
+under fire than he did when there was no danger. Between ourselves, he
+ain’t much of a speaker, the old Colonel; he hems and haws, and repeats
+himself a good deal. He hasn’t the gift of natural eloquence which some
+men have, Pendennis. You should have heard my speech, sir, on the
+Thursday in the Town Hall—that was something like a speech. Potts was
+jealous of it, and always reported me most shamefully.”
+
+In spite of his respectful behaviour to the gentlemen in black coats,
+his soup-tickets and his flannel-tickets, his own pathetic lectures and
+his sedulous attendance at other folk’s sermons, poor Barnes could not
+keep up his credit with the serious interest at Newcome, and the
+meeting-houses and their respective pastors and frequenters turned
+their backs upon him. The case against him was too flagrant: his enemy,
+the factory-man, worked it with an extraordinary skill, malice, and
+pertinacity. Not a single man, woman, or child in Newcome but was made
+acquainted with Sir Barnes’s early peccadillo. Ribald ballads were
+howled through the streets describing his sin, and his deserved
+punishment. For very shame, the reverend dissenting gentlemen were
+obliged to refrain from voting for him; such as ventured, believing in
+the sincerity of his repentance, to give him their voices, were yelled
+away from the polling-places. A very great number who would have been
+his friends, were compelled to bow to decency and public opinion, and
+supported the Colonel.
+
+Hooted away from the hustings, and the public places whence the rival
+candidates addressed the free and independent electors, this wretched
+and persecuted Sir Barnes invited his friends and supporters to meet
+him at the Athenæum Room—scene of his previous eloquent performances.
+But, though this apartment was defended by tickets, the people burst
+into it; and Nemesis, in the shape of the persevering factory-man,
+appeared before the scared Sir Barnes and his puzzled committee. The
+man stood up and bearded the pale Baronet. He had a good cause, and was
+in truth a far better master of debate than our banking friend, being a
+great speaker amongst his brother-operatives, by whom political
+questions are discussed, and the conduct of political men examined,
+with a ceaseless interest and with an ardour and eloquence which are
+often unknown in what is called superior society. This man and his
+friends round about him fiercely silenced the clamour of “Turn him
+out,” with which his first appearance was assailed by Sir Barnes’s
+hangers-on. He said, in the name of justice he would speak up; if they
+were fathers of families and loved their wives and daughters he dared
+them to refuse him a hearing. Did they love their wives and their
+children? it was a shame that they should take such a man as that
+yonder for their representative in Parliament. But the greatest
+sensation he made was when, in the middle of his speech, after
+inveighing against Barnes’s cruelty and parental ingratitude, he asked,
+“Where were Barnes’s children?” and actually thrust forward two, to the
+amazement of the committee and the ghastly astonishment of the guilty
+Baronet himself.
+
+“Look at them,” says the man: “they are almost in rags, they have to
+put up with scanty and hard food; contrast them with his other
+children, whom you see lording in gilt carriages, robed in purple and
+fine linen, and scattering mud from their wheels over us humble people
+as we walk the streets; ignorance and starvation is good enough for
+these, for those others nothing can be too fine or too dear. What can a
+factory-girl expect from such a fine, high-bred, white-handed,
+aristocratic gentleman as Sir Barnes Newcome, Baronet, but to be
+cajoled, and seduced, and deserted, and left to starve! When she has
+served my lord’s pleasure, her natural fate is to be turned into the
+street; let her go and rot there and her children beg in the gutter.
+
+“This is the most shameful imposture,” gasps out Sir Barnes, “these
+children are not—are not——”
+
+The man interrupted him with a bitter laugh. “No,” he says; “they are
+not his; that’s true enough, friends. It’s Tom Martin’s girl and boy, a
+precious pair of lazy little scamps. But, at least he _thought_ they
+were his children. See how much he knows about them! He hasn’t seen his
+children for years; he would have left them and their mother to starve,
+and did, but for shame and fear. The old man, his father, pensioned
+them, and he hasn’t the heart to stop their wages now. Men of Newcome,
+will you have this man to represent you in Parliament?” And the crowd
+roared “No;” and Barnes and his shamefaced committee slunk out of the
+place, and no wonder the dissenting clerical gentlemen were shy of
+voting for him.
+
+A brilliant and picturesque diversion in Colonel Newcome’s favour was
+due to the inventive genius of his faithful aide-de-camp, F. B. On the
+polling-day, as the carriages full of voters came up to the
+market-place, there appeared nigh to the booths an open barouche,
+covered all over with ribbon, and containing Frederick Bayham, Esq.,
+profusely decorated with the Colonel’s colours, and a very old woman
+and her female attendant, who were similarly ornamented. It was good
+old Mrs. Mason, who was pleased with the drive and the sunshine, though
+she scarcely understood the meaning of the turmoil, with her maid by
+her side, delighted to wear such ribbons, and sit in such a post of
+honour. Rising up in the carriage, F. B. took off his hat, bade his men
+of brass be silent, who were accustomed to bray “See the Conquering
+Hero come,” whenever the Colonel, or Mr. Bayham, his brilliant
+aide-de-camp, made their appearance;—bidding, we say, the musicians and
+the universe to be silent, F. B. rose, and made the citizens of Newcome
+a splendid speech. Good old unconscious Mrs. Mason was the theme of it,
+and the Colonel’s virtues and faithful gratitude in tending her. “She
+was his father’s old friend. She was Sir Barnes Newcome’s grandfather’s
+old friend. She had lived for more than forty years at Sir Barnes
+Newcome’s door, and how often had he been to see her? Did he go every
+week? No. Every month? No. Every year? No. Never in the whole course of
+his life had he set his foot into her doors!” (Loud yells, and cries of
+‘Shame!’) “Never had he done her one single act of kindness. Whereas
+for years and years past, when he was away in India, heroically
+fighting the battles of his country, when he was distinguishing himself
+at Assaye, and—and—Mulligatawny, and Seringapatam, in the hottest of
+the fight and the fiercest of the danger, in the most terrible moment
+of the conflict, and the crowning glory of the victory, the good, the
+brave, the kind old Colonel,—why should he say Colonel? why should he
+not say Old Tom at once?” (immense roars of applause) “always
+remembered his dear old nurse and friend. Look at that shawl, boys,
+which she has got on! My belief is that Colonel Newcome took that shawl
+in single combat, and on horseback, from the prime minister of Tippoo
+Sahib.” (Immense cheers and cries of ‘Bravo, Bayham!’) “Look at that
+brooch the dear old thing wears!” (he kissed her hand whilst so
+apostrophising her). “Tom Newcome never brags about his military
+achievements, he is the most modest as well as the bravest man in the
+world. What if I were to tell you that he cut that brooch from the
+throat of an Indian rajah? He’s man enough to do it.” (‘He is! he is!’
+from all parts of the crowd.) “What, you want to take the horses out,
+do you?” (to the crowd, who were removing those quadrupeds). “I ain’t
+agoing to prevent you; I expected as much of you. Men of Newcome, I
+expected as much of you, for I know you! Sit still, old lady; don’t be
+frightened, ma’am: they are only going to pull you to the King’s Arms,
+and show you to the Colonel.”
+
+This, indeed, was the direction in which the mob (whether inflamed by
+spontaneous enthusiasm, or excited by cunning agents placed amongst the
+populace by F. B., I cannot say), now took the barouche and its three
+occupants. With a myriad roar and shout the carriage was dragged up in
+front of the King’s Arms, from the balconies of which a most
+satisfactory account of the polling was already placarded. The extra
+noise and shouting brought out the Colonel, who looked at first with
+curiosity at the advancing procession, and then, as he caught sight of
+Sarah Mason, with a blush and a bow of his kind old head.
+
+“Look at him, boys!” cried the enraptured F. B., pointing up to the old
+man. “Look at him; the dear old boy! Isn’t he an old trump? which will
+you have for your Member, Barnes Newcome or Old Tom?”
+
+And as might be supposed, an immense shout of “Old Tom!” arose from the
+multitude; in the midst of which, blushing and bowing still, the
+Colonel went back to his committee-room: and the bands played “See the
+Conquering Hero” louder than ever; and poor Barnes in the course of his
+duty having to come out upon his balcony at the Roebuck opposite, was
+saluted with a yell as vociferous as the cheer for the Colonel had
+been; and old Mrs. Mason asked what the noise was about; and after
+making several vain efforts, in dumb show, to the crowd, Barnes slunk
+back into his hole again as pale as the turnip which was flung at his
+head: and the horses were brought, and Mrs. Mason driven home; and the
+day of election came to an end.
+
+Reasons of personal gratitude, as we have stated already, prevented His
+Highness the Prince de Moncontour from taking a part in this family
+contest. His brethren of the House of Higg, however, very much to
+Florac’s gratification, gave their second votes to Colonel Newcome,
+carrying with them a very great number of electors: we know that in the
+present Parliament, Mr. Higg and Mr. Bunce sit for the borough of
+Newcome. Having had monetary transactions with Sir Barnes Newcome, and
+entered largely into railway speculations with him, the Messrs. Higg
+had found reason to quarrel with the Baronet; accuse him of sharp
+practices to the present day, and have long stories to tell which do
+not concern us about Sir Barnes’s stratagems, grasping, and extortion.
+They their following, deserting Sir Barnes, whom they had supported in
+previous elections, voted for the Colonel, although some of the
+opinions of that gentleman were rather too extreme for such sober
+persons.
+
+Not exactly knowing what his politics were when he commenced the
+canvass, I can’t say to what opinions the poor Colonel did not find
+himself committed by the time when the election was over. The worthy
+gentleman felt himself not a little humiliated by what he had to say
+and to unsay, by having to answer questions, and submit to
+familiarities, to shake hands which, to say truth, he did not care for
+grasping at all. His habits were aristocratic; his education had been
+military; the kindest and simplest soul alive, he yet disliked all
+familiarity, and expected from common people the sort of deference
+which he had received from his men in the regiment. The contest
+saddened and mortified him; he felt that he was using wrong means to
+obtain an end that perhaps was not right (for so his secret conscience
+must have told him); he was derogating from his own honour in tampering
+with political opinions, submitting to familiarities, condescending to
+stand by whilst his agents solicited vulgar suffrages or uttered
+claptraps about retrenchment and reform. “I felt I was wrong,” he said
+to me, in after days, “though _I_ was too proud to own my error in
+those times, and you and your good wife and my boy were right in
+protesting against that mad election.” Indeed, though we little knew
+what events were speedily to happen, Laura and I felt very little
+satisfaction when the result of the Newcome election was made known to
+us, and we found Sir Barnes Newcome third, and Col. Thomas Newcome
+second upon the poll.
+
+Ethel was absent with her children at Brighton. She was glad, she
+wrote, not to have been at home during the election. Mr. and Mrs. C.
+were at Brighton, too. Ethel had seen Mrs. C. and her child once or
+twice. It was a very fine child. “My brother came down to us,” she
+wrote, “after all was over. He is furious against M. de Moncontour,
+who, he says, persuaded the Whigs to vote against him, and turned the
+election.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXX.
+Chiltern Hundreds
+
+
+We shall say no more regarding Thomas Newcome’s political doings; his
+speeches against Barnes, and the Baronet’s replies. The nephew was
+beaten by his stout old uncle.
+
+In due time the _Gazette_ announced that Thomas Newcome, Esq., was
+returned as one of the Members of Parliament for the borough of
+Newcome; and after triumphant dinners, speeches, and rejoicings, the
+Member came back to his family in London, and to his affairs in that
+city.
+
+The good Colonel appeared to be by no means elated by his victory. He
+would not allow that he was wrong in engaging in that family war, of
+which we have just seen the issue; though it may be that his secret
+remorse on this account in part occasioned his disquiet. But there were
+other reasons, which his family not long afterwards came to understand,
+for the gloom and low spirits which now oppressed the head of their
+home.
+
+It was observed (that is, if simple little Rosey took the trouble to
+observe) that the entertainments at the Colonel’s mansion were more
+frequent and splendid even than before; the silver cocoa-nut tree was
+constantly in requisition, and around it were assembled many new
+guests, who had not formerly been used to sit under those branches. Mr.
+Sherrick and his wife appeared at those parties, at which the
+proprietor of Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel made himself perfectly familiar.
+Sherrick cut jokes with the master of the house, which the latter
+received with a very grave acquiescence; he ordered the servants about,
+addressing the butler as “Old Corkscrew,” and bidding the footman, whom
+he loved to call by his Christian name, to “look alive.” He called the
+Colonel “Newcome” sometimes, and facetiously speculated upon the degree
+of relationship subsisting between them now that his daughter was
+married to Clive’s uncle, the Colonel’s brother-in-law. Though I dare
+say Clive did not much relish receiving news of his aunt, Sherrick was
+sure to bring such intelligence when it reached him; and announced, in
+due time, the birth of a little cousin at Boggley Wollah, whom the fond
+parents designed to name “Thomas Newcome Honeyman.”
+
+A dreadful panic and ghastly terror seized poor Clive on occasion which
+he described to me afterwards. Going out from home one day with his
+father, he beheld a wine-merchant’s cart, from which hampers were
+carried down the area gate into the lower regions of Colonel Newcome’s
+house. “Sherrick and Co., Wine Merchants, Walpole Street,” was painted
+upon the vehicle.
+
+“Good heavens! sir, do you get your wine from _him?_” Clive cried out
+to his father, remembering Honeyman’s provisions in early times. The
+Colonel, looking very gloomy and turning red, said, “Yes, he bought
+wine from Sherrick, who had been very good-natured and serviceable; and
+who—and who, you know, is our connexion now.” When informed of the
+circumstance by Clive, I too, as I confess, thought the incident
+alarming.
+
+Then Clive, with a laugh, told me of a grand battle which had taken
+place in consequence of Mrs. Mackenzie’s behaviour to the
+wine-merchant’s wife. The Campaigner had treated this very kind and
+harmless, but vulgar woman, with extreme _hauteur_—had talked loud
+during her singing—the beauty of which, to say truth, time had
+considerably impaired—had made contemptuous observations regarding her
+upon more than one occasion. At length the Colonel broke out in great
+wrath against Mrs. Mackenzie—bade her to respect that lady as one of
+his guests—and, if she did not like the company which assembled at his
+house, hinted to her that there were many thousand other houses in
+London where she could find a lodging. For the sake of her grandchild,
+and her adored child, the Campaigner took no notice of this hint; and
+declined to remove from the quarter which she had occupied ever since
+she had become a grandmamma.
+
+I myself dined once or twice with my old friends, under the shadow of
+the pickle-bearing cocoa-nut tree; and could not but remark a change of
+personages in the society assembled. The manager of the City branch of
+the B. B. C. was always present—an ominous-looking man, whose whispers
+and compliments seemed to make poor Clive, at his end of the table,
+very melancholy. With the City manager came the City manager’s friends,
+whose jokes passed gaily round, and who kept the conversation to
+themselves. Once I had the happiness to meet Mr. Ratray, who had
+returned, filled with rupees from the Indian Bank; who told us many
+anecdotes of the splendour of Rummun Loll at Calcutta, who complimented
+the Colonel on his fine house and grand dinners with sinister
+good-humour. Those compliments did not seem to please our poor friend;
+that familiarity choked him. A brisk little chattering attorney, very
+intimate with Sherrick, with a wife of dubious gentility, was another
+constant guest. He enlivened the table by his jokes, and recounted
+choice stories about the aristocracy, with certain members of whom the
+little man seemed very familiar. He knew to a shilling how much this
+lord owed—and how much the creditors allowed to that marquis. He had
+been concerned with such and such a nobleman, who was now in the
+Queen’s Bench. He spoke of their lordships affably and without their
+titles—calling upon “Louisa, my dear,” his wife, to testify to the day
+when Viscount Tagrag dined with them, and Earl Bareacres sent them the
+pheasants. F. B., as sombre and downcast as his hosts now seemed to be,
+informed me demurely that the attorney was a member of one of the most
+eminent firms in the City—that he had been engaged in procuring the
+Colonel’s parliamentary title for him—and in various important matters
+appertaining to the B. B. C.; but my knowledge of the world and the law
+was sufficient to make me aware that this gentleman belonged to a
+well-known firm of money-lending solicitors, and I trembled to see such
+a person in the home of our good Colonel. Where were the generals and
+the judges? Where were the fogies and their respectable ladies? Stupid
+they were, and dull their company; but better a stalled ox in their
+society, than Mr. Campion’s jokes over Mr. Sherrick’s wines.
+
+After the little rebuke administered by Colonel Newcome, Mrs. Mackenzie
+abstained from overt hostilities against any guests of her daughter’s
+father-in-law; and contented herself by assuming grand and
+princess-like airs in the company of the new ladies. They flattered her
+and poor little Rosa intensely. The latter liked their company, no
+doubt. To a man of the world looking on, who has seen the men and
+morals of many cities, it was curious, almost pathetic, to watch that
+poor little innocent creature fresh and smiling, attired in bright
+colours and a thousand gewgaws, simpering in the midst of these
+darkling people—practising her little arts and coquetries, with such a
+court round about her. An unconscious little maid, with rich and rare
+gems sparkling on all her fingers, and bright gold rings as many as
+belonged to the late Old Woman of Banbury Cross—still she smiled and
+prattled innocently before these banditti—I thought of Zerlina and the
+Brigands, in Fra Diavolo.
+
+Walking away with F. B. from one of these parties of the Colonel’s, and
+seriously alarmed at what I had observed there, I demanded of Bayham
+whether my conjectures were not correct, that some misfortune overhung
+our old friend’s house? At first Bayham denied stoutly or pretended
+ignorance; but at length, having reached the Haunt together, which I
+had not visited since I was a married man, we entered that place of
+entertainment, and were greeted by its old landlady and waitress, and
+accommodated with a quiet parlour. And here F. B., after groaning and
+sighing—after solacing himself with a prodigious quantity of bitter
+beer—fairly burst out, and, with tears in his eyes, made a full and sad
+confession respecting this unlucky Bundelcund Banking Company. The
+shares had been going lower and lower, so that there was no sale now
+for them at all. To meet the liabilities, the directors must have
+undergone the greatest sacrifices. He did know—he did not like to think
+what the Colonel’s personal losses were. The respectable solicitors of
+the Company had retired, long since, after having secured payment of a
+most respectable bill; and had given place to the firm of dubious
+law-agents of whom I had that evening seen a partner. How the retiring
+partners from India had been allowed to withdraw, and to bring fortunes
+along with them, was a mystery to Mr. Frederick Bayham. The great
+Indian millionnaire was in his, F. B.’s eyes, “a confounded
+mahogany-coloured heathen humbug.” These fine parties which the Colonel
+was giving, and that fine carriage which was always flaunting about the
+Park with poor Mrs. Clive and the Campaigner, and the nurse and the
+baby, were, in F. B.’s opinion, all decoys and shams. He did not mean
+to say that the meals were not paid, and that the Colonel had to
+plunder for his horses’ corn; but he knew that Sherrick, and the
+attorney, and the manager, insisted upon the necessity of giving these
+parties, and keeping up this state and grandeur, and opined that it was
+at the special instance of these advisers that the Colonel had
+contested the borough for which he was now returned. “Do you know how
+much that contest cost?” asks F. B. “The sum, sir, was awful! and we
+have ever so much of it to pay. I came up twice myself from Newcome to
+Campion and Sherrick about it. I betray no secrets—F. B., sir, would
+die a thousand deaths before he would tell the secrets of his
+benefactor!—But, Pendennis, you understand a thing or two. You know
+what o’clock it is, and so does yours truly, F. B., who drinks your
+health. _I_ know the taste of Sherrick’s wine well enough. F. B., sir,
+fears the Greeks and all the gifts they bring. Confound his
+Amontillado! I had rather drink this honest malt and hops all my life
+than ever see a drop of his abominable sherry. Golden? F. B. believes
+it _is_ golden—and a precious deal dearer than gold too”—and herewith,
+ringing the bell, my friend asked for a second pint of the just-named
+and cheaper fluid.
+
+I have of late had to recount portions of my dear old friend’s history
+which must needs be told, and over which the writer does not like to
+dwell. If Thomas Newcome’s opulence was unpleasant to describe, and to
+contrast with the bright goodness and simplicity I remembered in former
+days, how much more painful is that part of his story to which we are
+now come perforce, and which the acute reader of novels has, no doubt,
+long foreseen? Yes, sir or madam, you are quite right in the opinion
+which you have held all along regarding that Bundelcund Banking
+Company, in which our Colonel has invested every rupee he possesses,
+_Solvuntur rupees_, etc. I disdain, for the most part, the tricks and
+surprises of the novelist’s art. Knowing, from the very beginning of
+our story, what was the issue of this Bundelcund Banking concern, I
+have scarce had patience to keep my counsel about it; and whenever I
+have had occasion to mention the Company, have scarcely been able to
+refrain from breaking out into fierce diatribes against that
+complicated, enormous, outrageous swindle. It was one of many similar
+cheats which have been successfully practised upon the simple folks,
+civilian and military, who toil and struggle—who fight with sun and
+enemy—who pass years of long exile and gallant endurance in the service
+of our empire in India. Agency houses after agency houses have been
+established, and have flourished in splendour and magnificence, and
+have paid fabulous dividends—and have enormously enriched two or three
+wary speculators—and then have burst in bankruptcy, involving widows,
+orphans, and countless simple people who trusted their all to the
+keeping of these unworthy treasurers.
+
+The failure of the Bundelcund Bank which we now have to record, was one
+only of many similar schemes ending in ruin. About the time when Thomas
+Newcome was chaired as Member of Parliament for the borough of which he
+bore the name, the great Indian merchant who was at the head of the
+Bundelcund Banking Company’s affairs at Calcutta, suddenly died of
+cholera at his palace at Barackpore. He had been giving of late a
+series of the most splendid banquets with which Indian prince ever
+entertained a Calcutta society. The greatest and proudest personages of
+that aristocratic city had attended his feasts. The fairest Calcutta
+beauties had danced in his halls. Did not poor F. B. transfer from the
+columns of the _Bengal Hurkaru_ to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ the most
+astounding descriptions of those Asiatic Nights Entertainments, of
+which the very grandest was to come off on the night when cholera
+seized Rummun Loll in its grip? There was to have been a masquerade
+outvying all European masquerades in splendour. The two rival queens of
+the Calcutta society were to have appeared each with her court around
+her. Young civilians at the College, and young ensigns fresh landed,
+had gone into awful expenses and borrowed money at interest from the B.
+B. C. and other banking companies, in order to appear with befitting
+splendour as knights and noblemen of Henrietta Maria’s Court (Henrietta
+Maria, wife of Hastings Hicks, Esq., Sudder Dewanee Adawlut), or as
+princes and warriors surrounding the palanquin of Lalla Rookh (the
+lovely wife of Hon. Cornwallis Bobus, Member of Council): all these
+splendours were there. As carriage after carriage drove up from
+Calcutta, they were met at Rummun Loll’s gate by ghastly weeping
+servants, who announced their master’s demise.
+
+On the next day the Bank at Calcutta was closed, and the day after,
+when heavy bills were presented which must be paid, although by this
+time Rummun Loll was not only dead but buried, and his widows howling
+over his grave, it was announced throughout Calcutta that but 800
+rupees were left in the treasury of the B. B. C. to meet engagements to
+the amount of four lakhs then immediately due, and sixty days
+afterwards the shutters were closed at No. 175 Lothbury, the London
+offices of the B. B. C. of India, and 35,000 pounds worth of their
+bills refused by their agents, Messrs. Baines, Jolly and Co., of Fog
+Court.
+
+When the accounts of that ghastly bankruptcy arrived from Calcutta, it
+was found, of course, that the merchant-prince Rummun Loll owed the B.
+B. C. twenty-five lakhs of rupees, the value of which was scarcely even
+represented by his respectable signature. It was found that one of the
+auditors of the bank, the generally esteemed Charley Conder (a capital
+fellow, famous for his good dinners, and for playing low-comedy
+characters at the Chowringhee Theatre), was indebted to the bank in
+90,000 pounds; and also it was discovered that the revered Baptist
+Bellman, Chief Registrar of the Calcutta Tape and Sealing-Wax Office (a
+most valuable and powerful amateur preacher who had converted two
+natives, and whose serious soirées were thronged at Calcutta), had
+helped himself to 73,000 pounds more, for which he settled in the
+Bankruptcy Court before he resumed his duties in his own. In justice to
+Mr. Bellman, it must be said that he could have had no idea of the
+catastrophe impending over the B. B. C. For, only three weeks before
+that great bank closed its doors, Mr. Bellman, as guardian of the
+children of his widowed sister Mrs. Green, had sold the whole of the
+late Colonel’s property out of Company’s paper and invested it in the
+bank, which gave a high interest, and with bills of which, drawn upon
+their London correspondents, he had accommodated Mrs. Colonel Green
+when she took her departure for Europe with her numerous little family
+on board the Burrumpooter.
+
+And now you have the explanation of the title of this chapter, and know
+wherefore Thomas Newcome never sat in Parliament. Where are our dear
+old friends now? Where are Rosey’s chariots and horses? Where her
+jewels and gewgaws? Bills are up in the fine new house. Swarms of
+Hebrew gentlemen with their hats on are walking about the
+drawing-rooms, peering into the bedrooms, weighing and poising the poor
+old silver cocoa-nut tree, eyeing the plate and crystal, thumbing the
+damask of the curtains, and inspecting ottomans, mirrors, and a hundred
+articles of splendid trumpery. There is Rosey’s boudoir which her
+father-in-law loved to ornament—there is Clive’s studio with a hundred
+sketches—there is the Colonel’s bare room at the top of the house, with
+his little iron bedstead and ship’s drawers, and a camel trunk or two
+which have accompanied him on many an Indian march, and his old
+regulation sword, and that one which the native officers of his
+regiment gave him when he bade them farewell. I can fancy the brokers’
+faces as they look over this camp wardrobe, and that the uniforms will
+not fetch much in Holywell Street. There is the old one still, and that
+new one which he ordered and wore when poor little Rosey was presented
+at court. I had not the heart to examine their plunder, and go amongst
+those wreckers. F. B. used to attend the sale regularly, and report its
+proceedings to us with eyes full of tears. “A fellow laughed at me,”
+says F. B., “because when I came into the dear old drawing-room I took
+my hat off. I told him that if he dared say another word I would knock
+him down.” I think F. B. may be pardoned in this instance for emulating
+the office of auctioneer. Where are you, pretty Rosey and poor little
+helpless baby? Where are you, dear Clive—gallant young friend of my
+youth? Ah! it is a sad story—a melancholy page to pen! Let us pass it
+over quickly—I love not to think of my friend in pain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXI.
+In which Mrs. Clive Newcome’s Carriage is ordered
+
+
+All the friends of the Newcome family, of course, knew the disaster
+which had befallen the good Colonel, and I was aware, for my own part,
+that not only his own, but almost the whole of Rosa Newcome’s property
+was involved in the common ruin. Some proposals of temporary relief
+were made to our friends from more quarters than one, but were
+thankfully rejected—and we were led to hope that the Colonel, having
+still his pension secured to him, which the law could not touch, might
+live comfortably enough the retirement to which, of course, he would
+betake himself, when the melancholy proceedings consequent on the
+bankruptcy were brought to an end. It was shown that he had been
+egregiously duped in the transaction—that his credulity had cost him
+and his family a large fortune—that he had given up every penny which
+belonged to him—that there could not be any sort of stain upon his
+honest reputation. The judge before whom he appeared spoke with feeling
+and regard of the unhappy gentleman—the lawyer who examined him
+respected the grief and fall of that simple old man. Thomas Newcome
+took a little room near the court where his affairs and the affairs of
+the company were adjudged—lived with a frugality which never was
+difficult to him—And once when perchance I met him in the City, avoided
+me, with a bow and courtesy that was quite humble, though proud and
+somehow inexpressibly touching to me. Fred Bayham was the only person
+whom he admitted. Fred always faithfully insisted upon attending him in
+and out of court. J. J. came to me immediately after he heard of the
+disaster, eager to place all his savings at the service of his friends.
+Laura and I came to London, and were urgent with similar offers. Our
+good friend declined to see any of us. F. B., again, with tears
+trickling on his rough cheeks, and a break in his voice, told me he
+feared that affairs must be very bad indeed, for the Colonel absolutely
+denied himself a cheroot to smoke. Laura drove to his lodgings and took
+him a box, which was held up to him as he came to open the door to my
+wife’s knock by our smiling little boy, He patted the child on his
+golden head and kissed him. My wife wished he would have done as much
+for her—but he would not—though she owned she kissed his hand. He drew
+it across his eyes and thanked her in a very calm and stately
+manner—but he did not invite her within the threshold of his door,
+saying simply, that such a room was not a fit place to receive a lady,
+“as you ought to know very well, Mrs. Smith,” he said to the landlady,
+who had accompanied my wife up the stairs. “He will eat scarcely
+anything,” the woman told us, “his meals come down untouched; his
+candles are burning all night, almost, as he sits poring over his
+papers.”
+
+“He was bent—he who used to walk so uprightly,” Laura said. He seemed
+to have grown many years older, and was, indeed, quite a decrepit old
+man.
+
+“I am glad they have left Clive out of the bankruptcy,” the Colonel
+said to Bayham; it was almost the only time when his voice exhibited
+any emotion. “It was very kind of them to leave out Clive, poor boy,
+and I have thanked the lawyers in court.” Those gentlemen, and the
+judge himself, were very much moved at this act of gratitude. The judge
+made a very feeling speech to the Colonel when he came up for his
+certificate. He passed very different comments on the conduct of the
+Manager of the Bank, when that person appeared for examination. He
+wished that the law had power to deal with those gentlemen who had come
+home with large fortunes from India, realised but a few years before
+the bankruptcy. Those gentlemen had known how to take care of
+themselves very well; and as for the Manager, is not his wife giving
+elegant balls at her elegant house at Cheltenham at this very day?
+
+What weighed most upon the Colonel’s mind, F. B. imagined, was the
+thought that he had been the means of inducing many poor friends to
+embark their money in this luckless speculation. Take J. J.’s money
+after he had persuaded old Ridley to place 200 pounds in Indian shares!
+Good God, he and his family should rather perish than he would touch a
+farthing of it! Many fierce words were uttered to him by Mrs.
+Mackenzie, for instance—by her angry daughter at Musselburgh—Josey’s
+husband, by Mr. Smee, R.A., and two or three Indian officers, friends
+of his own, who had entered into the speculation on his recommendation.
+These rebukes Thomas Newcome bore with an affecting meekness, as his
+faithful F. B. described to me, striving with many oaths and much
+loudness to carry off his own emotion. But what moved the Colonel most
+of all, was a letter which came at this time from Honeyman in India,
+saying that he was doing well—that of course he knew of his
+benefactor’s misfortune, and that he sent a remittance which, _D. V._,
+should be annual, in payment of his debt to the Colonel, and his good
+sister at Brighton. “On receipt of this letter,” said F. B., “the old
+man was fairly beaten—the letter, with the bill in it, dropped out of
+his hands. He clasped them together, shaking in every limb, and his
+head dropped down on his breast as he said, ‘I thank my God Almighty
+for this!’ and he sent the cheque off to Mrs. Honeyman by the post that
+night, sir, every shilling of it; and he passed his old arm under
+mine—and we went out to Tom’s Coffee-House, and he ate some dinner the
+first time for ever so long, and drank a couple of glasses of port
+wine, and F. B. stood it, sir, and would stand his heart’s blood that
+dear old boy.”
+
+It was on a Monday morning that those melancholy shutters were seen
+over the offices of the Bundelcund Bank in Lothbury, which were not to
+come down until the rooms were handed over to some other, and, let us
+trust, more fortunate speculators. The Indian bills had arrived, and
+been protested in the City on the previous Saturday. The Campaigner and
+Mrs. Rosey had arranged a little party to the theatre that evening, and
+the gallant Captain Goby had agreed to quit the delights of the Flag
+Club, in order to accompany the ladies. Neither of them knew what was
+happening in the City, or could account otherwise than by the common
+domestic causes, for Clive’s gloomy despondency and his father’s sad
+reserve. Clive had not been in the City on this day. He had spent it,
+as usual, in his studio, _boudé_ by his wife, and not disturbed by the
+messroom raillery of the Campaigner. They had dined early, in order to
+be in time for the theatre. Goby entertained them with the latest jokes
+from the smoking-room at the Flag, and was in his turn amused by the
+brilliant plans for the season which Rosey and her mamma sketched out
+the entertainments which Mrs. Clive proposed to give, the ball—she was
+dying for a masked ball just such a one as that was described in the
+_Pall Mall Gazette_ of last week, out of that paper with the droll
+title, the _Bengal Hurkaru_, which the merchant-prince, the head of the
+bank, you know, in India, had given at Calcutta. “We must have a ball,
+too,” says Mrs. Mackenzie; “society demands it of you.” “Of course it
+does,” echoes Captain Goby, and he bethought him of a brilliant circle
+of young fellows from the Flag, whom he would bring in splendid uniform
+to dance with the pretty Mrs. Clive Newcome.
+
+After the dinner—they little knew it was to be their last in that fine
+house—the ladies retired to give their parting kiss to baby—a parting
+look to the toilettes, with which they proposed to fascinate the
+inhabitants of the pit and the public boxes at the Olympic. Goby made
+vigorous play with the claret-bottle during the brief interval of
+potation allowed to him; he, too, little deeming that he should never
+drink bumper there again; Clive looking on with the melancholy and
+silent acquiescence which had, of late, been his part in the household.
+The carriage was announced—the ladies came down—pretty capotes on the
+lovely Campaigner, Goby vowed, looking as young and as handsome as her
+daughter, by Jove, and the ball door was opened to admit the two
+gentlemen and ladies to their carriage, when, as they were about to
+step in, a hansom cab drove up rapidly, in which was perceived Thomas
+Newcome’s anxious face. He got out of the vehicle—his own carriage
+making way for him—the ladies still on the steps. “Oh, the play! I
+forgot,” said the Colonel.
+
+“Of course we are going to the play, papa,” cries little Rosey, with a
+gay little tap of her hand.
+
+“I think you had better not,” Colonel Newcome said gravely.
+
+“Indeed my darling child has set her heart upon it, and I would not
+have her disappointed for the world in her situation,” cries the
+Campaigner, tossing up her head.
+
+The Colonel for reply bade his coachman drive to the stables, and come
+for further orders; and, turning to his daughter’s guest, expressed to
+Captain Goby his regret that the proposed party could not take place on
+that evening, as he had matter of very great importance to communicate
+to his family. On hearing these news, and understanding that his
+further company was not desirable, the Captain, a man of great presence
+of mind, arrested the hansom cabman, who was about to take his
+departure, and who blithely, knowing the Club and its inmates full
+well, carried off the jolly Captain to finish his evening at the Flag.
+
+“Has it come, father?” said Clive with a sure prescience, looking in
+his father’s face.
+
+The father took and grasped the hand which his son held out. “Let us go
+back into the dining-room,” he said. They entered it, and he filled
+himself a glass of wine out of the bottle still standing amidst the
+dessert. He bade the butler retire, who was lingering about the room
+and sideboard, and only wanted to know whether his master would have
+dinner, that was all. And, this gentleman having withdrawn, Colonel
+Newcome finished his glass of sherry and broke a biscuit; the
+Campaigner assuming an attitude of surprise and indignation, whilst
+Rosey had leisure to remark that papa looked very ill, and that
+something must have happened.
+
+The Colonel took both her hands and drew her towards him and kissed
+her, whilst Rosey’s mamma, flouncing down on a chair, beat a tattoo
+upon the tablecloth with her fan. “Something has happened, my love,”
+the Colonel said very sadly; “you must show all your strength of mind,
+for a great misfortune has befallen us.”
+
+“Good heavens, Colonel, what is it? don’t frighten my beloved child,”
+cries the Campaigner, rushing towards her darling, and enveloping her
+in her robust arms. “What can have happened, don’t agitate this darling
+child, sir,” and she looked indignantly towards the poor Colonel.
+
+“We have received the very worst news from Calcutta, a confirmation of
+the news by the last mail, Clivey, my boy.”
+
+“It is no news to me. I have always been expecting it, father,” says
+Clive, holding down his head.
+
+“Expecting what? What have you been keeping back from us? In what have
+you been deceiving us, Colonel Newcome?” shrieks the Campaigner; and
+Rosa, crying out, “Oh, mamma, mamma!” begins to whimper.
+
+“The chief of the bank in India is dead,” the Colonel went on. “He has
+left its affairs in worse than disorder. We are, I fear, ruined, Mrs.
+Mackenzie.” And the Colonel went on to tell how the bank could not open
+on Monday morning, and its bills to a great amount had already been
+protested in the City that day.
+
+Rosey did not understand half these news, or comprehend the calamity
+which was to follow; but Mrs. Mackenzie, rustling in great wrath, made
+a speech, of which the anger gathered as he proceeded; in which she
+vowed and protested that her money, which the Colonel, she did not know
+from _what motives_, had induced her to subscribe, should not be
+sacrificed, and that have it she would, the bank shut or not, the next
+Monday morning—that her daughter had a fortune of her own which her
+poor dear brother James should have divided and would have divided much
+more fairly, had he not been wrongly influenced—she would not say by
+whom, and she commanded Colonel Newcome upon that _instant_, if he was,
+as he always pretended to be, an _honourable_ man, to give an account
+of her blessed darling’s property, and to pay back her own, every
+sixpence of it. She would not lend it for an hour longer, and to see
+that that dear blessed child now sleeping unconsciously upstairs, and
+his dear brothers and sisters who might follow, for Rosey was a young
+woman, a poor innocent creature, too young to be married, and never
+would have been married had she listened to her mamma’s advice. She
+demanded that the baby, and all succeeding babies, should have their
+_rights_, and should be looked to by their grandmother, if their
+father’s father was so _unkind_, and so _wicked_, and so _unnatural_,
+as to give their money to rogues, and deprive them of their just bread.
+
+Rosey began to cry more loudly than ever during the utterance of
+mamma’s sermon, so loudly that Clive peevishly cried out, “Hold your
+tongue,” on which the Campaigner, clutching her daughter to her breast
+again, turned on her son-in-law, and abused him as she had abused his
+father before him, calling out that they were both in a conspiracy to
+defraud her child, and the little darling upstairs of its bread, and
+she would speak, yes, she would, and no power should prevent her, and
+her money she would have on Monday, as sure as her poor dear husband,
+Captain Mackenzie, was dead, and she never would have been _cheated_
+so, yes, _cheated_, if he had been alive.
+
+At the word “cheated” Clive broke out with an execration—the poor
+Colonel with a groan of despair—the widow’s storm continued, and above
+that howling tempest of words rose Mrs. Clive’s piping scream, who went
+off into downright hysterics at last, in which she was encouraged by
+her mother, and in which she gasped out frantic ejaculations regarding
+baby; dear, darling, ruined baby, and so forth.
+
+The sorrow-stricken Colonel had to quell the women’s tongues and shrill
+anger, and his son’s wrathful replies, who could not bear the weight of
+Mrs. Mackenzie upon him; and it was not until these three were allayed,
+that Thomas Newcome was able to continue his sad story, to explain what
+had happened, and what the actual state of the case was, and to oblige
+the terror-stricken women at length to hear something like reason.
+
+He then had to tell them, to their dismay, that he would inevitably be
+declared a bankrupt in the ensuing week; that the whole of his property
+in that house, as elsewhere, would be seized and sold for the
+creditors’ benefit; and that his daughter had best immediately leave a
+home where she would be certainly subject to humiliation and annoyance.
+“I would have Clive, my boy, take you out of the country, and—and
+return to me when I have need of him, and shall send for him,” the
+father said fondly in reply to a rebellious look on his son’s face. “I
+would have you quit this house as soon as possible. Why not to-night?
+The law blood-hound may be upon us ere an hour is over—at this moment
+for what I know.”
+
+At that moment the door-bell was heard to ring, and the women gave a
+scream apiece, as if the bailiffs were actually coming to take
+possession. Rosey went off in quite a series of screams, peevishly
+repressed by her husband, and always encouraged by mamma, who called
+her son-in-law an unfeeling wretch. It must be confessed that Mrs.
+Clive Newcome did not exhibit much strength of mind, or comfort her
+husband much at a moment when he needed consolation.
+
+From angry rebellion and fierce remonstrance, this pair of women now
+passed to an extreme terror and desire for instantaneous flight. They
+would go that moment—they would wrap the blessed child up in its
+shawls—and nurse should take it anywhere—anywhere, poor neglected
+thing. “My trunks,” cries Mrs. Mackenzie, “you know are ready packed—I
+am sure it is not the treatment which I have received—it is nothing but
+my _duty_ and my _religion_—and the protection which I owe to this
+blessed unprotected—yes, _unprotected_, and _robbed_, and _cheated_,
+darling child—which have made me stay a _single day_ in this house. I
+never thought I should have been _robbed_ in it, or my darlings with
+their fine fortunes flung naked on the world. If my Mac was here, you
+never had dared to have done this, Colonel Newcome—no, never. He had
+his faults—Mackenzie had—but he would never have robbed his own
+children! Come away, Rosey, my blessed love, come let us pack your
+things, and let us go and _hide_ our _heads_ in sorrow somewhere. Ah!
+didn’t I tell you to beware of all _painters_, and that Clarence was a
+true gentleman, and loved you with all his heart, and would never have
+cheated you out of your money, for which I will have justice as sure as
+there is justice in England.”
+
+During this outburst the Colonel sat utterly scared and silent,
+supporting his poor head between his hands. When the harem had departed
+he turned sadly to his son. Clive did not believe that his father was a
+cheat and a rogue. No, thank God! The two men embraced with tender
+cordiality and almost happy emotion on the one side and the other.
+Never for one moment could Clive think his dear old father meant
+wrong—though the speculations were unfortunate in which he had
+engaged—though Clive had not liked them; it was a relief to his mind
+that they were now come to an end; they should all be happier now,
+thank God! those clouds of distrust being removed. Clive felt not one
+moment’s doubt but that they should be able to meet fortune with a
+brave face; and that happier, much happier days were in store for him
+than ever they had known since the period of this confounded
+prosperity.
+
+“Here’s a good end to it,” says Clive, with flashing eyes and a flushed
+face, “and here’s a good health till to-morrow, father!” and he filled
+into two glasses the wine still remaining in the flask. “Good-bye to
+our fortune, and bad luck go with her—I puff the prostitute away—_Si
+celeres quatit pennas_, you remember what we used to say at Grey
+Friars—_resigno quæ dedit, et mea virtute me involvo, probamque
+pauperiem sine dote quæro_.” And he pledged his father, who drank his
+wine, his hand shaking as he raised the glass to his lips, and his kind
+voice trembling as he uttered the well-known old school words, with an
+emotion that was as sacred as a prayer. Once more, and with hearts full
+of love, the two men embraced. Clive’s voice would tremble now if he
+told the story, as it did when he spoke it to me in happier times, one
+calm summer evening when we sat together and talked of dear old days.
+
+Thomas Newcome explained to his son the plan, which, to his mind, as he
+came away from the City after the day’s misfortunes, he thought it was
+best to pursue. The women and the child were clearly best out of the
+way. “And you too, my boy, must be on duty with them until I send for
+you, which I will do if your presence can be of the least service to
+me, or is called for by—by—our honour,” said the old man with a drop in
+his voice. “You must obey me in this, dear Clive, as you have done in
+everything, and been a good and dear, and obedient son to me. God
+pardon me for having trusted to my own simple old brains too much, and
+not to you who know so much better. You will obey me this once more, my
+boy—you will promise me this?” and the old man as he spoke took Clive’s
+hand in both his, and fondly caressed it.
+
+Then with a shaking hand he took out of his pocket his old purse with
+the steel rings, which he had worn for many and many a long year. Clive
+remembered it, and his father’s face how it would beam with delight,
+when he used to take that very purse out in Clive’s boyish days and tip
+him just after he left school. “Here are some notes and some gold,” he
+said. “It is Rosey’s, honestly, Clive dear, her half-year’s dividend,
+for which you will give an order, please, to Sherrick. He has been very
+kind and good, Sherrick. All the servants were providentially paid last
+week—there are only the outstanding week’s bills out—we shall manage to
+meet those, I dare say. And you will see that Rosey only takes away
+such clothes for herself and her baby as are actually necessary, won’t
+you, dear? the plain things, you know—none of the fineries—they may be
+packed in a petara or two, and you will take them with you—but the
+pomps and vanities, you know, we will leave behind—the pearls and
+bracelets, and the plate, and all that rubbish—and I will make an
+inventory of them to-morrow when you are gone, and give them up, every
+rupee’s worth, sir, every anna, by Jove, to the creditors.”
+
+The darkness had fallen by this time, and the obsequious butler entered
+to light the dining-room lamps. “You have been a very good and kind
+servant to us, Martin,” says the Colonel, making him a low bow. “I
+should like to shake you by the hand. We must part company now, and I
+have no doubt you and your fellow servants will find good places, all
+of you, as you merit, Martin—as you merit. Great losses have fallen
+upon our family—we are ruined, sir—we are ruined! The great Bundelcund
+Banking Company has stopped payment in India, and our branch here must
+stop on Monday. Thank my friends downstairs for their kindness to me
+and my family.” Martin bowed in silence with great respect. He and his
+comrades in the servants’-hall had been expecting this catastrophe,
+quite as long as the Colonel himself who thought he had kept his
+affairs so profoundly secret.
+
+Clive went up into his women’s apartments, looking with but little
+regret, I dare say, round those cheerless nuptial chambers with all
+their gaudy fittings; the fine looking-glasses, in which poor Rosey’s
+little person had been reflected; the silken curtains under which he
+had lain by the poor child’s side, wakeful and lonely. Here he found
+his child’s nurse, and his wife, and wife’s mother, busily engaged with
+a multiplicity of boxes; with flounces, feathers, fal-lals, and finery,
+which they were stowing away in this trunk and that; while the baby lay
+on its little pink pillow breathing softly, a little pearly fist placed
+close to its mouth. The aspect of the tawdry vanities scattered here
+and there chafed and annoyed the young man. He kicked the robes over
+with his foot. When Mrs. Mackenzie interposed with loud ejaculations,
+he sternly bade her to be silent, and not wake the child. His words
+were not to be questioned when he spoke in that manner. “You will take
+nothing with you, Rosey, but what is strictly necessary—only two or
+three of your plainest dresses, and what is required for the boy. What
+is in this trunk?” Mrs. Mackenzie stepped forward and declared, and the
+nurse vowed upon her honour, and the lady’s-maid asserted really now
+upon honour too, that there was nothing but what was most strictly
+necessary in that trunk, to which affidavits, when Clive applied to his
+wife, she gave a rather timid assent.
+
+“Where are the keys of that trunk?” Upon Mrs. Mackenzie’s exclamation
+of “What nonsense!” Clive, putting his foot upon the flimsy oil-covered
+box, vowed he would kick the lid off unless it was instantly opened.
+Obeying this grim summons, the fluttering women produced the keys, and
+the black box was opened before him.
+
+The box was found to contain a number of objects which Clive pronounced
+to be by no means necessary to his wife’s and child’s existence.
+Trinket-boxes and favourite little gimcracks, chains, rings and pearl
+necklaces, the tiara poor Rosey had worn at court—the feathers and the
+gorgeous train which had decorated the little person—all these were
+found packed away in this one receptacle; and in another box, I am
+sorry to say, were the silver forks and spoons (the butler wisely
+judging that the rich and splendid electrotype ware might as well be
+left behind)—all the silver forks, spoons, and ladles, and our poor old
+friend the cocoa-nut tree, which these female robbers would have
+carried out of the premises.
+
+Mr. Clive Newcome burst out into fierce laughter when he saw the
+cocoa-nut tree; he laughed so loud that baby woke, and his
+mother-in-law called him a brute, and the nurse ran to give its
+accustomed quietus to the little screaming infant. Rosey’s eyes poured
+forth a torrent of little protests, and she would have cried yet more
+loudly than the other baby, had not her husband, again fiercely
+checking her, sworn with a dreadful oath, that unless she told him the
+whole truth, “By heavens she should leave the house with nothing but
+what covered her.” Even the Campaigner could not make head against
+Clive’s stern resolution; and the incipient insurrection of the maids
+and the mistresses was quelled by his spirit. The lady’s-maid, a
+flighty creature, received her wages and took her leave: but the nurse
+could not find it in her heart to quit her little nursling so suddenly,
+and accompanied Clive’s household in the journey upon which those poor
+folks were bound. What stolen goods were finally discovered when the
+family reached foreign parts were found in Mrs. Mackenzie’s trunks, not
+in her daughter’s: a silver filigree basket, a few teaspoons, baby’s
+gold coral, and a costly crimson velvet-bound copy of the Hon. Miss
+Grimstone’s Church Service, to which articles, having thus appropriated
+them, Mrs. Mackenzie henceforward laid claim as her own.
+
+So when the packing was done a cab was called to receive the modest
+trunks of this fugitive family—the coachman was bidden to put his
+horses to again, and for the last time poor Rosey Newcome sate in her
+own carriage, to which the Colonel conducted her with his courtly old
+bow, kissing the baby as it slept once more unconscious in its nurse’s
+embrace, and bestowing a very grave and polite parting salute upon the
+Campaigner.
+
+Then Clive and his father entered a cab on which the trunks were borne,
+and they drove to the Tower Stairs, where the ship lay which was to
+convey them out of England; and, during that journey, no doubt, they
+talked over their altered prospects, and I am sure Clive’s father
+blessed his son fondly, and committed him and his family to a good
+God’s gracious keeping, and thought of him with sacred love when they
+had parted, and Thomas Newcome had returned to his lonely house to
+watch and to think of his ruined fortunes, and to pray that he might
+have courage under them; that he might bear his own fate honourably;
+and that a gentle one might be dealt to those beloved beings for whom
+his life had been sacrificed in vain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXII.
+Belisarius
+
+
+When the sale of Colonel Newcome’s effects took place, a friend of the
+family bought in for a few shillings those two swords which had hung,
+as we have said, in the good man’s chamber, and for which no single
+broker present had the heart to bid. The head of Clive’s father,
+painted by himself, which had always kept its place in the young man’s
+studio, together with a lot of his oil-sketchings, easels, and painting
+apparatus, were purchased by the faithful J. J., who kept them until
+his friend should return to London and reclaim them, and who showed the
+most generous solicitude in Clive’s behalf. J. J. was elected of the
+Royal Academy this year, and Clive, it was evident, was working hard at
+the profession which he had always loved; for he sent over three
+pictures to the Academy, and I never knew man more mortified than the
+affectionate J. J., when two of these unlucky pieces were rejected by
+the committee for the year. One pretty little piece, called “The
+Stranded Boat,” got a fair place on the Exhibition walls, and, you may
+be sure, was loudly praised by a certain critic in the _Pall Mall
+Gazette_. The picture was sold on the first day of the exhibition at
+the price of twenty-five pounds, which the artist demanded; and when
+the kind J. J. wrote to inform his friend of this satisfactory
+circumstance, and to say that he held the money at Clive’s disposal,
+the latter replied with many expressions of sincere gratitude, at the
+same time begging him directly to forward the money, with our old
+friend Thomas Newcome’s love, to Mrs. Sarah Mason, at Newcome. But J.
+J. never informed his friend that he himself was the purchaser of the
+picture; nor was Clive made acquainted with the fact until some time
+afterwards, when he found it hanging in Ridley’s studio.
+
+I have said that we none of us were aware at this time what was the
+real state of Colonel Newcome’s finances, and hoped that, after giving
+up every shilling of his property which was confiscated to the
+creditors of the Bank, he had still, from his retiring pension and
+military allowances, at least enough reputably to maintain him. On one
+occasion, having business in the City, I there met Mr. Sherrick.
+Affairs had been going ill with that gentleman—he had been let in
+terribly, he informed me, by Lord Levant’s insolvency—having had large
+money transactions with his lordship. “There’s none of them so good as
+old Newcome,” Mr. Sherrick said with a sigh; “that was a good one—that
+was an honest man if ever I saw one—with no more guile, and no more
+idea of business than a baby. Why didn’t he take my advice, poor old
+cove?—he might be comfortable now. Why did he sell away that annuity,
+Pendennis? I got it done for him when nobody else perhaps could have
+got it done for him—for the security ain’t worth twopence if Newcome
+wasn’t an honest man;—but I know he is, and would rather starve and eat
+the nails off his fingers than not keep his word, the old trump. And
+when he came to me, a good two months before the smash of the Bank,
+which I knew it, sir, and saw that it must come—when he came and raised
+three thousand pounds to meet them d—d electioneering bills, having to
+pay lawyers, commission, premium, life-insurance—you know the whole
+game, Mr. P.—I as good as went down on my knees to him—I did—at the
+North and South American Coffee-house, where he was to meet the party
+about the money, and said, ‘Colonel, don’t raise it—I tell you, let it
+stand over—let it go in along with the bankruptcy that’s a-coming,’—but
+he wouldn’t—he went on like an old Bengal tiger, roaring about his
+honour; he paid the bills every shilling—infernal long bills they were,
+and it’s my belief that, at this minute, he ain’t got fifty pounds a
+year of his own to spend. I would send him back my commission—I would
+by Jove—only times is so bad, and that rascal Levant let me in. It went
+to my heart to take the old cock’s money—but it’s gone—that and ever so
+much more—and Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel too, Mr. P. Hang that young
+Levant.”
+
+Squeezing my hand after this speech, Sherrick ran across the street
+after some other capitalist who was entering the Diddlesex Insurance
+Office, and left me very much grieved and dismayed at finding that my
+worst fears in regard to Thomas Newcome were confirmed. Should we
+confer with his wealthy family respecting the Colonel’s impoverished
+condition? Was his brother Hobson Newcome aware of it? As for Sir
+Barnes, the quarrel between him and his uncle had been too fierce to
+admit of hopes of relief from that quarter. Barnes had been put to very
+heavy expenses in the first contested election; had come forward again
+immediately on his uncle’s resignation, but again had been beaten by a
+more liberal candidate, his quondam former friend, Mr. Higg—who
+formally declared against Sir Barnes, and who drove him finally out of
+the representation of Newcome. From this gentleman it was vain of
+course for Colonel Newcome’s friends to expect relief.
+
+How to aid him? He was proud—past work—nearly seventy years old. “Oh,
+why did those cruel Academicians refuse Clive’s pictures?” cries Laura.
+“I have no patience with them—had the pictures been exhibited I know
+who might have bought them—but that is vain now. He would suspect at
+once, and send her money away. Oh, Pen! why, why didn’t he come when I
+wrote that letter to Brussels?”
+
+From persons so poorly endowed with money as ourselves, any help, but
+of the merest temporary nature, was out of the question. We knew our
+friends too well not to know that they would disdain to receive it. It
+was agreed between me and Laura that at any rate I should go and see
+Clive. Our friends indeed were at a very short distance from us, and,
+having exiled themselves from England, could yet see its coasts from
+their windows upon any clear day. Boulogne was their present
+abiding-place—refuge of how many thousands of other unfortunate
+Britons—and to this friendly port I betook myself speedily, having the
+address of Colonel Newcome. His quarters were in a quiet grass-grown
+old street of the Old Town. None of the family were at home when I
+called. There was indeed no servant to answer the bell, but the
+good-natured French domestic of a neighbouring lodger told me that the
+young monsieur went out every day to make his designs, and that I
+should probably find the elder gentleman upon the rampart, where he was
+in the custom of going every day. I strolled along by those pretty old
+walks and bastions, under the pleasant trees which shadow them, and the
+grey old gabled houses from which you look down upon the gay new city,
+and the busy port, and the piers stretching into the shining sea,
+dotted with a hundred white sails or black smoking steamers, and
+bounded by the friendly lines of the bright English shore. There are
+few prospects more charming than the familiar view from those old
+French walls—few places where young children may play, and ruminating
+old age repose more pleasantly than on those peaceful rampart gardens.
+
+I found our dear old friend seated on one of the benches, a newspaper
+on his knees, and by his side a red-cheeked little French lass, upon
+whose lap Thomas Newcome the younger lay sleeping. The Colonel’s face
+flushed up when he saw me. As he advanced a step or two towards me I
+could see that he trembled in his walk. His hair had grown almost quite
+white. He looked now to be more than his age—he whose carriage last
+year had been so erect, whose figure had been so straight and manly. I
+was very much moved at meeting him, and at seeing the sad traces which
+pain and grief had left in the countenance of the dear old man.
+
+“So you are come to see me, my good young friend,” cried the Colonel,
+with a trembling voice. “It is very, very kind of you. Is not this a
+pretty drawing-room to receive our friends in? We have not many of them
+now; Boy and I come and sit here for hours every day. Hasn’t he grown a
+fine boy? He can say several words now, sir, and can walk surprisingly
+well. Soon he will be able to walk with his grandfather, and then Marie
+will not have the trouble to wait upon either of us.” He repeated this
+sentiment in his pretty old French, and turning with a bow to Marie.
+The girl said monsieur knew very well that she did not desire better
+than to come out with baby; that it was better than staying at home,
+pardieu; and, the clock striking at this moment, she rose up with her
+child, crying out that it was time to return or madame would scold.
+
+“Mrs. Mackenzie has rather a short temper,” the Colonel said with a
+gentle smile. “Poor thing, she has had a great deal to bear in
+consequence, Pen, of my imprudence. I am glad you never took shares in
+our bank. I should not be so glad to see you as I am now, if I had
+brought losses upon you as I have upon so many of my friends.” I, for
+my part, trembled to hear the good old man was under the domination of
+the Campaigner.
+
+“Bayham sends me the paper regularly; he is a very kind faithful
+creature. How glad I am that he has got a snug berth in the City! His
+company really prospers, I am happy to think, unlike some companies you
+know of, Pen. I have read your two speeches, sir, and Clive and I liked
+them very much. The poor boy works all day at his pictures. You know he
+has sold one at the exhibition, which has given us a great deal of
+heart—and he has completed two or three more—and I am sitting to him
+now for—what do you think, sir? for Belisarius. Will you give
+Belisarius and the Obolus kind word?”
+
+“My dear, dear old friend,” I said in great emotion, “if you will do me
+the kindness to take my Obolus or to use my services in any way, you
+will give me more pleasure than ever I had from your generous bounties
+in old days. Look, sir, I wear the watch which you gave me when you
+went to India. Did you not tell me then to look over Clive and serve
+him if I could? Can’t I serve him now?” and I went on further in this
+strain, asseverating with great warmth and truth that my wife’s
+affection and my own were most sincere for both of them, and that our
+pride would be to be able to help such dear friends.
+
+The Colonel said I had a good heart, and my wife had, though—though—he
+did not finish this sentence, but I could interpret it without need of
+its completion. My wife and the two ladies of Colonel Newcome’s family
+never could be friends, however much my poor Laura tried to be intimate
+with these women. Her very efforts at intimacy caused a frigidity and
+hauteur which Laura could not overcome. Little Rosey and her mother set
+us down as two aristocratic personages; nor for our parts were we very
+much disturbed at this opinion of the Campaigner and little Rosa.
+
+I talked with the Colonel for half an hour or more about his affairs,
+which indeed were very gloomy, and Clive’s prospects, of which he
+strove to present as cheering a view as possible. He was obliged to
+confirm the news which Sherrick had given me, and to own, in fact, that
+all his pension was swallowed up by a payment of interest and life
+insurance for sums which he had been compelled to borrow. How could he
+do otherwise than meet his engagements? Thank God, he had Clive’s full
+approval for what he had done—had communicated the circumstance to his
+son almost immediately after it took place, and that was a comfort to
+him—an immense comfort. “For the women are very angry,” said the poor
+Colonel; “you see they do not understand the laws of honour, at least
+as we understand them: and perhaps I was wrong in hiding the truth as I
+certainly did from Mrs. Mackenzie, but I acted for the best—I hoped
+against hope that some chance might turn in our favour. God knows, I
+had a hard task enough in wearing a cheerful face for months, and in
+following my little Rosa about to her parties and balls; but poor Mrs.
+Mackenzie has a right to be angry, only I wish my little girl did not
+side with her mother so entirely, for the loss of her affection gives
+me great pain.”
+
+So it was as I suspected. The Campaigner ruled over this family, and
+added to all their distresses by her intolerable presence and tyranny.
+“Why, sir,” I ventured to ask, “if, as I gather from you—and I
+remember,” I added with a laugh, “certain battles-royal which Clive
+described to me in old days—if you and the Campai—Mrs. Mackenzie do not
+agree, why should she continue to live with you, when you would all be
+so much happier apart?”
+
+“She has a right to live in the house,” says the Colonel; “It is I who
+have no right in it. I am a poor old pensioner, don’t you see,
+subsisting on Rosey’s bounty? We live on the hundred a year, secured to
+her at her marriage, and Mrs. Mackenzie has her forty pounds of pension
+which she adds to the common stock. It is I who have made away with
+every shilling of Rosey’s 17,000 pounds, God help me, and with 1500
+pounds of her mother’s. They put their little means together, and they
+keep us—me and Clive. What can we do for a living? Great God! What can
+we do? Why, I am so useless that even when my poor boy earned 25 pounds
+for his picture, I felt we were bound to send it to Sarah Mason, and
+you may fancy when this came to Mrs. Mackenzie’s ears, what a life my
+boy and I led. I have never spoken of these things to any mortal soul—I
+even don’t speak of them with Clive—but seeing your kind and honest
+face has made me talk—you must pardon my garrulity—I am growing old,
+Arthur. This poverty and these quarrels have beaten my spirit
+down—there, I shall talk on this subject no more. I wish, sir, I could
+ask you to dine with us, but”—and here he smiled—“we must get the leave
+of the higher powers.”
+
+I was determined, in spite of prohibitions and Campaigners, to see my
+old friend Clive, and insisted on walking back with the Colonel to his
+lodgings, at the door of which we met Mrs. Mackenzie and her daughter.
+Rosa blushed up a little—looked at her mamma—and then greeted me with a
+hand and a curtsey. The Campaigner also saluted me in a majestic but
+amicable manner, made no objection even to my entering her apartments
+and seeing _the condition to which they were reduced:_ this phrase was
+uttered with particular emphasis and a significant look towards the
+Colonel, who bowed his meek head and preceded me into the lodgings,
+which were in truth very homely, pretty, and comfortable. The
+Campaigner was an excellent manager—restless, bothering, brushing
+perpetually. Such fugitive gimcracks as they had brought away with them
+decorated the little salon. Mrs. Mackenzie, who took the entire
+command, even pressed me to dine and partake, if so fashionable a
+gentleman would _condescend_ to partake, of a humble exile’s fare. No
+fare was perhaps very pleasant to me in company with that woman, but I
+wanted to see my dear old Clive, and gladly accepted his voluble
+mother-in-law’s not disinterested hospitality. She beckoned the Colonel
+aside; whispered to him, putting something into his hand; on which he
+took his hat and went away. Then Rosey was dismissed upon some other
+pretext, and I had the felicity to be left alone with Mrs. Captain
+Mackenzie.
+
+She instantly improved the occasion; and with great eagerness and
+volubility entered into her statement of the present affairs and
+position of this unfortunate family. She described darling Rosey’s
+delicate state, poor thing—nursed with tenderness and in the lap of
+luxury—brought up with every delicacy and the fondest mother—never
+knowing in the least how to take care of herself, and likely to fall
+down and perish unless the kind Campaigner were by to prop and protect
+her. She was in delicate health—very delicate—ordered cod-liver oil by
+the doctor. Heaven knows how he could be paid for those expensive
+medicines out of the pittance to which the _imprudence_—the most
+culpable and designing _imprudence_, and _extravagance_, and _folly_ of
+Colonel Newcome had reduced them! Looking out from the window as she
+spoke I saw—we both saw—the dear old gentleman sadly advancing towards
+the house, a parcel in his hand. Seeing his near approach, and that our
+interview was likely to come to an end, Mrs. Mackenzie rapidly
+whispered to me that she knew I had a good heart—that I had been
+blessed by Providence with a fine fortune, which I knew how to keep
+better than _some_ folks—and that if, as no doubt was my intention—for
+with what other but a charitable view could I have come to see
+them?—“and most generous and noble was it of you to come, and I always
+thought it of you, Mr. Pendennis, whatever _other_ people said to the
+contrary—if I proposed to give them relief, which was most needful—and
+for which a _mother’s blessings_ would follow me—let it be to her, the
+Campaigner, that my loan should be confided—for as for the Colonel, he
+is not fit to be trusted with a shilling, and has already flung away
+_immense sums_ upon some old woman he keeps in the country, leaving his
+darling Rosey without the actual necessaries of life.
+
+The woman’s greed and rapacity—the flattery with which she chose to
+belabour me at dinner, so choked and disgusted me, that I could hardly
+swallow the meal, though my poor old friend had been sent out to
+purchase a pâté from the pastrycook’s for my especial refection. Clive
+was not at the dinner. He seldom returned till late at night on
+sketching days. Neither his wife nor his mother-in-law seemed much to
+miss him; and seeing that the Campaigner engrossed the entire share of
+the conversation, and proposed not to leave me for five minutes alone
+with the Colonel, I took leave rather speedily of my entertainers,
+leaving a message for Clive, and a prayer that he would come and see me
+at my hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIII.
+In which Belisarius returns from Exile
+
+
+I was sitting in the dusk in my room at Hotel des Bains, when the
+visitor for whom I hoped made his appearance in the person of Clive,
+with his broad shoulders, and broad hat, and a shaggy beard, which he
+had thought fit in his quality of painter to assume. Our greeting it
+need not be said was warm; and our talk, which extended far into the
+night, very friendly and confidential. If I make my readers confidants
+in Mr. Clive’s private affairs, I ask my friend’s pardon for narrating
+his history in their behoof. The world had gone very ill with my poor
+Clive, and I do not think that the pecuniary losses which had visited
+him and his father afflicted him near so sorely as the state of his
+home. In a pique with the woman he loved, and from that generous
+weakness which formed part of his character, and which led him to
+acquiesce in most wishes of his good father, the young man had
+gratified the darling desire of the Colonel’s heart, and taken the wife
+whom his two old friends brought to him. Rosey, who was also, as we
+have shown, of a very obedient and ductile nature, had acquiesced
+gladly enough in her mamma’s opinion, that she was in love with the
+rich and handsome young Clive, and accepted him for better or worse. So
+undoubtedly would this good child have accepted Captain Hoby, her
+previous adorer, have smilingly promised fidelity to the Captain at
+church, and have made a very good, happy, and sufficient little wife
+for that officer,—had not mamma commanded her to jilt him. What wonder
+that these elders should wish to see their two dear young ones united?
+They began with suitable age, money, good temper, and parents’
+blessings. It is not the first time that, with all these excellent
+helps to prosperity and happiness, a marriage has turned out
+unfortunately—a pretty, tight ship gone to wreck that set forth on its
+voyage with cheers from the shore, and every prospect of fair wind and
+fine weather.
+
+We have before quoted poor Clive’s simile of the shoes with which his
+good old father provided him—as pretty a little pair of shoes as need
+be—only they did not fit the wearer. If they pinched him at first, how
+they blistered and tortured him now! If Clive was gloomy and
+discontented even when the honeymoon had scarce waned, and he and his
+family sat at home in state and splendour under the boughs of the
+famous silver cocoa-nut tree, what was the young man’s condition now in
+poverty, when they had no love along with a scant dinner of herbs; when
+his mother-in-law grudged each morsel which his poor old father
+ate—when a vulgar, coarse-minded woman pursued with brutal sarcasm and
+deadly rancour one of the tenderest and noblest gentlemen in the
+world—when an ailing wife, always under some one’s domination, received
+him with helpless hysterical cries and reproaches—when a coarse female
+tyrant, stupid, obstinate, utterly unable to comprehend the son’s
+kindly genius, or the father’s gentle spirit, bullied over both, using
+the intolerable undeniable advantage which her actual wrongs gave her
+to tyrannise over these two wretched men! He had never heard the last
+of that money which they had sent to Mrs. Mason, Clive said. When the
+knowledge of the fact came to the Campaigner’s ears, she raised such a
+storm as almost killed the poor Colonel, and drove his son half mad.
+She seized the howling infant, vowing that its unnatural father and
+grandfather were bent upon starving it—she consoled and sent Rosey into
+hysterics—she took the outlawed parson to whose church they went, and
+the choice society of bankrupt captains, captains’ ladies, fugitive
+stockbrokers’ wives, and dingy frequenters of billiard-rooms, and
+refugees from the Bench, into her councils; and in her daily visits
+amongst these personages, and her walks on the pier, whither she
+trudged with poor Rosey in her train, Mrs. Mackenzie made known her own
+wrongs and her daughter’s—showed how the Colonel, having robbed and
+cheated them previously, was now living upon them; insomuch that Mrs.
+Bolter, the levanting auctioneer’s wife, would not make the poor old
+man a bow when she met him—that Mrs. Captain Kitely, whose husband had
+lain for seven years past in Boulogne gaol ordered her son to cut
+Clive; and when, the child being sick, the poor old Colonel went for
+arrowroot to the chemist’s, young Snooks, the apothecary’s assistant,
+refused to allow him to take the powder away without previously
+depositing the money.
+
+He had no money, Thomas Newcome. He gave up every farthing. After
+having impoverished all around him, he had no right, he said, to touch
+a sixpence of the wretched pittance remaining to them—he had even given
+up his cigar, the poor old man, the companion and comforter of forty
+years. He was “not fit to be trusted with money,” Mrs. Mackenzie said,
+and the good man owned as he ate his scanty crust, and bowed his noble
+old head in silence under that cowardly persecution.
+
+And this, at the end of threescore and seven or eight years, was to be
+the close of a life which had been spent in freedom and splendour, and
+kindness and honour; this the reward of the noblest heart that ever
+beat—the tomb and prison of a gallant warrior who had ridden in twenty
+battles—whose course through life had been a bounty wherever it had
+passed—whose name had been followed by blessings, and whose career was
+to end here—here—in a mean room, in a mean alley of a foreign town—a
+low furious woman standing over him and stabbing the kind defenceless
+heart with killing insult and daily outrage!
+
+As we sat together in the dark, Clive told me this wretched story,
+which was wrung from him with a passionate emotion that I could not but
+keenly share. He wondered the old man lived, Clive said. Some of the
+women’s taunts and gibes, as he could see, struck his father so that he
+gasped and started back as if some one had lashed him with a whip. “He
+would make away with himself,” said poor Clive, “but he deems this is
+his punishment, and that he must bear it as long as it pleases God. He
+does not care for his own losses, as far as they concern himself: but
+these reproaches of Mrs. Mackenzie, and some things which were said to
+him in the Bankruptcy Court, by one or two widows of old friends, who
+were induced through his representations, to take shares in that
+infernal bank, have affected him dreadfully. I hear him lying awake and
+groaning at night, God bless him. Great God! what can I do—what can I
+do?” burst out the young man in a dreadful paroxysm of grief. “I have
+tried to get lessons—I went to London on the deck of a steamer, and
+took a lot of drawings with me—tried
+picture-dealers—pawnbrokers—Jews—Moss, whom you may remember at
+Gandish’s, and who gave me for forty-two drawings, eighteen pounds. I
+brought the money back to Boulogne. It was enough to pay the doctor,
+and bury our last poor little dead baby. _Tenez_, Pen, you must give me
+some supper: I have had nothing all day but a _pain de deux sous;_ I
+can’t stand it at home. My heart’s almost broken—you must give me some
+money, Pen, old boy. I know you will. I thought of writing to you, but
+I wanted to support myself, you see. When I went to London with the
+drawings I tried George’s chambers, but he was in the country, I saw
+Crackthorpe on the street in Oxford Street, but I could not face him,
+and bolted down Hanway Yard. I tried, and I could not ask him, and I
+got the 18 pounds from Moss that day, and came home with it.”
+
+Give him money? of course I would give him money—my dear old friend!
+And, as an alternative and a wholesome shock to check that burst of
+passion and grief in which the poor fellow indulged, I thought fit to
+break into a very fierce and angry invective on my own part, which
+served to disguise the extreme feeling of pain and pity that I did not
+somehow choose to exhibit. I rated Clive soundly, and taxed him with
+unfriendliness and ingratitude for not having sooner applied to friends
+who would think shame of themselves whilst he was in need. Whatever he
+wanted was his as much as mine. I could not understand how the
+necessity of the family should, in truth, be so extreme as he described
+it, for after all many a poor family lived upon very much less; but I
+uttered none of these objections, checking them with the thought that
+Clive, on his first arrival at Boulogne, entirely ignorant of the
+practice of economy, might have imprudently engaged in expenses which
+had reduced him to this present destitution.*
+
+* I did not know at the time that Mrs. Mackenzie had taken entire
+superintendence of the family treasury—and that this exemplary woman
+was putting away, as she had done previously, sundry little sums to
+meet rainy days.
+
+
+I took the liberty of asking about debts, and of these Clive gave me to
+understand there were none—at least none of his or his father’s
+contracting. “If we were too proud to borrow, and I think we were
+wrong, Pen, my dear old boy—I think we were wrong now—at least, we were
+too proud to owe. My colourman takes his bill out in drawings, and I
+think owes me a trifle. He got me some lessons at fifty sous a ticket—a
+pound the ten—from an economical swell who has taken a château here,
+and has two flunkeys in livery. He has four daughters, who take
+advantage of the lessons, and screws ten per cent upon the poor
+colourman’s pencils and drawing-paper. It’s pleasant work to give the
+lessons to the children; and to be patronised by the swell; and not
+expensive to him, is it, Pen? But I don’t mind that, if I could but get
+lessons enough: for, you see, besides our expenses here, we must have
+some more money, and the dear old governor would die outright if poor
+old Sarah Mason did not get her 50 pounds a year.”
+
+And now there arrived a plentiful supper, and a bottle of good wine, of
+which the giver was not sorry to partake after the meagre dinner at
+three o’clock, to which I had been invited by the Campaigner; and it
+was midnight when I walked back with my friend to his house in the
+upper town; and all the stars of heaven were shining cheerily; and my
+dear Clive’s face wore an expression of happiness, such as I remembered
+in old days, as we shook hands and parted with a “God bless you.”
+
+To Clive’s friend, revolving these things in his mind, as he lay in one
+of those most snug and comfortable beds at the excellent Hotel des
+Bains, it appeared that this town of Boulogne was a very bad market for
+the artist’s talents; and that he had to bring them to London, where a
+score of old friends would assuredly be ready to help him. And if the
+Colonel, too, could be got away from the domination of the Campaigner,
+I felt certain that the dear old gentleman could but profit by his
+leave of absence. My wife and I at this time inhabited a spacious old
+house in Queens Square, Westminster, where there was plenty of room for
+father and son. I knew that Laura would be delighted to welcome these
+guests—may the wife of every worthy gentleman who reads these pages be
+as ready to receive her husband’s friends. It was the state of Rosa’s
+health, and the Campaigner’s authority and permission, about which I
+was in doubt, and whether this lady’s two slaves would be allowed to go
+away.
+
+These cogitations kept the present biographer long awake, and he did
+not breakfast next day until an hour before noon. I had the coffee-room
+to myself by chance, and my meal was not yet ended when the waiter
+announced a lady to visit Mr. Pendennis, and Mrs. Mackenzie made her
+appearance. No signs of care or poverty were visible in the attire or
+countenance of the buxom widow. A handsome bonnet, decorated within
+with a profusion of poppies, bluebells; and ears of corn; a jewel on
+her forehead, not costly, but splendid in appearance, and glittering
+artfully over that central spot from which her wavy chestnut hair
+parted to cluster in ringlets round her ample cheeks; a handsome India
+shawl, smart gloves, a rich silk dress, a neat parasol of blue with
+pale yellow lining, a multiplicity of glittering rinks, and a very
+splendid gold watch and chain, which I remembered in former days as
+hanging round poor Rosey’s white neck;—all these adornments set off the
+widow’s person, so that you might have thought her a wealthy
+capitalist’s lady, and never could have supposed that she was a poor,
+cheated, ruined, robbed, unfortunate Campaigner.
+
+Nothing could be more gracious than the _accueil_ of this lady. She
+paid me many handsome compliments about my literary work—asked most
+affectionately for dear Mrs. Pendennis and the dear children—and then,
+as I expected, coming to business, contrasted the happiness and genteel
+position of my wife and family with the misery and wrongs of her own
+blessed child and grandson. She never could call that child by the
+odious name which he received at his baptism. _I_ knew what bitter
+reasons she had to dislike the name of Thomas Newcome.
+
+She again rapidly enumerated the wrongs she had received at the hands
+of that gentleman; mentioned the vast sums of money out of which she
+and her soul’s darling had been tricked by that poor muddle-headed
+creature, to say no worse of him; and described finally their present
+pressing need. The doctors, the burial, Rosey’s delicate condition, the
+cost of sweetbreads, calf’s-foot jelly, and cod-liver oil, were again
+passed in a rapid calculation before me; and she ended her speech by
+expressing her gratification that I had attended to her advice of the
+previous day, and not given Clive Newcome a direct loan; that the
+family wanted it, the Campaigner called upon Heaven to witness; that
+Clive and his absurd poor father would fling guineas out of the window
+was a fact equally certain; the rest of the argument was obvious,
+namely, that Mr. Pendennis should administer a donation to herself.
+
+I had brought but a small sum of money in my pocket-book, though Mrs.
+Mackenzie, intimate with bankers, and having, thank Heaven, in spite of
+all her misfortunes, the utmost confidence of _all_ her tradesmen,
+hinted a perfect willingness on her part to accept an order upon her
+friends, Hobson Brothers of London.
+
+This direct thrust I gently and smilingly parried by asking Mrs.
+Mackenzie whether she supposed a gentleman who had just paid an
+electioneering bill, and had, at the best of times, but a very small
+income, might sometimes not be in a condition to draw satisfactorily
+upon Messrs. Hobson or any other bankers? Her countenance fell at this
+remark, nor was her cheerfulness much improved by the tender of one of
+the two bank-notes which then happened to be in my possession. I said
+that I had a use for the remaining note, and that it would not be more
+than sufficient to pay my hotel bill, and the expenses of my party back
+to London.
+
+My party? I had here to divulge, with some little trepidation, the plan
+which I had been making overnight; to explain how I thought that
+Clive’s great talents were wasted at Boulogne, and could only find a
+proper market in London; how I was pretty certain, through my
+connection with booksellers, to find some advantageous employment for
+him, and would have done so months ago had I known the state of the
+case; but I had believed, until within a very few days since, that the
+Colonel, in spite of his bankruptcy, was still in the enjoyment of
+considerable military pensions.
+
+This statement, of course, elicited from the widow a number of remarks
+not complimentary to my dear old Colonel. He might have kept his
+pensions had he not been a fool—he was a baby about money
+matters—misled himself and everybody—was a log in the house, etc. etc.
+etc.
+
+I suggested that his annuities might possibly be put into some more
+satisfactory shape—that I had trustworthy lawyers with whom I would put
+him in communication—that he had best come to London to see to these
+matters—and that my wife had a large house where she would most gladly
+entertain the two gentlemen.
+
+This I said with some reasonable dread—fearing, in the first place, her
+refusal; in the second, her acceptance of the invitation, with a
+proposal, as our house was large, to come herself and inhabit it for a
+while. Had I not seen that Campaigner arrive for a month at poor James
+Binnie’s house in Fitzroy Square, and stay there for many years? Was I
+not aware that when she once set her foot in a gentleman’s
+establishment, terrific battles must ensue before she could be
+dislodged? Had she not once been routed by Clive? and was she not now
+in command and possession? Do I not, finally, know something of the
+world; and have I not a weak, easy temper? I protest it was with terror
+that I awaited the widow’s possible answer to my proposal.
+
+To my great relief, she expressed the utmost approval of both my plans.
+I was uncommonly kind, she was sure, to interest myself about the two
+gentlemen, and for her blessed Rosa’s sake, a fond mother thanked me.
+It was most advisable that he should earn some money by that horrid
+profession which he had chosen to adopt—_trade, she_ called it. She was
+clearly anxious get rid both of father and son, and agreed that the
+sooner they went the better.
+
+We walked back arm-in-arm to the Colonel’s quarters in the Old Town,
+Mrs. Mackenzie, in the course of our walk, doing me the honour to
+introduce me by name to several dingy acquaintances, whom we met
+sauntering up the street, and imparting to me, as each moved away, the
+pecuniary cause of his temporary residence in Boulogne. Spite of
+Rosey’s delicate state of health, Mrs. Mackenzie did not hesitate to
+break the news to her of the gentlemen’s probable departure, abruptly
+and eagerly, as if the intelligence was likely to please her:—and it
+did, rather than otherwise. The young woman, being in the habit of
+letting mamma judge for her, continued it in this instance; and whether
+her husband stayed or went, seemed to be equally content or apathetic.
+“And is it not most kind and generous of dear Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis to
+propose to receive Mr. Newcome and the Colonel?” This opportunity for
+gratitude being pointed out to Rosey, she acquiesced in it
+straightway—it was very kind of me, Rosey was sure. “And don’t you ask
+after dear Mrs. Pendennis and the dear children—you poor dear suffering
+darling child?” Rosey, who had neglected this inquiry, immediately
+hoped Mrs. Pendennis and the children were well. The overpowering
+mother had taken utter possession of this poor little thing. Rosey’s
+eyes followed the Campaigner about, and appealed to her at all moments.
+She sat under Mrs. Mackenzie as a bird before a boa-constrictor,
+doomed—fluttering—fascinated—scared and fawning as a whipt spaniel
+before a keeper.
+
+The Colonel was on his accustomed bench on the rampart at this sunny
+hour. I repaired thither, and found the old gentleman seated by his
+grandson, who lay, as yesterday, on the little bonne’s lap, one of his
+little purple hands closed round the grandfather’s finger. “Hush!” says
+the good man, lifting up his other finger to his moustache, as I
+approached, “Boy’s asleep. Il est bien joli quand il dort—le Boy,
+n’est-ce pas, Marie?” The maid believed monsieur well—the boy was a
+little angel. “This maid is a most trustworthy, valuable person,
+Pendennis,” the Colonel said, with much gravity.
+
+The boa-constrictor had fascinated him, too—the lash of that woman at
+home had cowed that helpless, gentle, noble spirit. As I looked at the
+head so upright and manly, now so beautiful and resigned—the year of
+his past life seemed to pass before me somehow in a flash of thought. I
+could fancy the accursed tyranny—the dumb acquiescence—the brutal
+jeer—the helpless remorse—the sleepless nights of pain and
+recollection—the gentle heart lacerated with deadly stabs—and the
+impotent hope. I own I burst into a sob at the sight, and thought of
+the noble suffering creature, and hid my face, and turned away.
+
+He sprang up, releasing his hand from the child’s, and placing it, the
+kind shaking hand, on my shoulder. “What is it, Arthur—my dear boy?” he
+said, looking wistfully in my face. “No bad news from home, my dear?
+Laura and the children well?”
+
+The emotion was mastered in a moment, I put his arm under mine, and as
+we slowly sauntered up and down the sunny walk of the old rampart, I
+told him how I had come with special commands from Laura to bring him
+for a while to stay with us, and to settle his business, which I was
+sure had been wofully mismanaged, and to see whether we could not find
+the means of getting some little out of the wreck of the property for
+the boy yonder.
+
+At first Colonel Newcome would not hear of quitting Boulogne, where
+Rosey would miss him—he was sure she would want him—but before the
+ladies of his family, to whom we presently returned, Thomas Newcome’s
+resolution was quickly recalled. He agreed to go, and Clive coming in
+at this time was put in possession of our plan and gladly acquiesced in
+it. On that very evening I came with a carriage to conduct my two
+friends to the steamboat. Their little packets were made and ready.
+There was no pretence of grief at parting on the women’s side, but
+Marie, the little maid, with Boy in her arms, cried sadly; and Clive
+heartily embraced the child; and the Colonel, going back to give it one
+more kiss, drew out of his neckcloth a little gold brooch which he
+wore, and which, trembling, he put into Marie’s hand, bidding her take
+good care of Boy till his return.
+
+“She is a good girl—a most faithful, attached girl, Arthur, do you
+see,” the kind old gentleman said; “and I had no money to give her—no,
+not one single rupee.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIV.
+In which Clive begins the World
+
+
+We are ending our history, and yet poor Clive is but beginning the
+world. He has to earn the bread which he eats henceforth; and, as I saw
+his labours, his trials, and his disappointments, I could not but
+compare his calling with my own.
+
+The drawbacks and penalties attendant upon our profession are taken
+into full account, as we well know, by literary men, and their friends.
+Our poverty, hardships, and disappointments are set forth with great
+emphasis, and often with too great truth by those who speak of us; but
+there are advantages belonging to our trade which are passed over, I
+think, by some of those who exercise it and describe it, and for which,
+in striking the balance of our accounts, we are not always duly
+thankful. We have no patron, so to speak—we sit in ante-chambers no
+more, waiting the present of a few guineas from my lord, in return for
+a fulsome dedication. We sell our wares to the book-purveyor, between
+whom and us there is no greater obligation than between him and his
+paper-maker or printer. In the great towns in our country immense
+stores of books are provided for us, with librarians to class them,
+kind attendants to wait upon us, and comfortable appliances for study.
+We require scarce any capital wherewith to exercise our trade. What
+other so-called learned profession is equally fortunate? A doctor, for
+example, after carefully and expensively educating himself, must invest
+in house and furniture, horses, carriage, and menservants, before the
+public patient will think of calling him in. I am told that such
+gentlemen have to coax and wheedle dowagers, to humour hypochondriacs,
+to practise a score of little subsidiary arts in order to make that of
+healing profitable. How many many hundreds of pounds has a barrister to
+sink upon his stock-in-trade before his returns are available? There
+are the costly charges of university education—the costly chambers in
+the Inn of Court—the clerk and his maintenance—the inevitable travels
+on circuit—certain expenses all to be defrayed before the possible
+client makes his appearance, and the chance of fame or competency
+arrives. The prizes are great, to be sure, in the law, but what a
+prodigious sum the lottery-ticket costs! If a man of letters cannot
+win, neither does he risk so much. Let us speak of our trade as we find
+it, and not be too eager in calling out for public compassion.
+
+The artists, for the most part, do not cry out their woes as loudly as
+some gentlemen of the literary fraternity, and yet I think the life of
+many of them is harder; their chances even more precarious, and the
+conditions of their profession less independent and agreeable than
+ours. I have watched Smee, Esq., R.A., flattering and fawning, and at
+the same time boasting and swaggering, poor fellow, in order to secure
+a sitter. I have listened to a Manchester magnate talking about fine
+arts before one of J. J.’s pictures, assuming the airs of a painter,
+and laying down the most absurd laws respecting the art. I have seen
+poor Tomkins bowing a rich amateur through a private view, and noted
+the eager smiles on Tomkins’ face at the amateur’s slightest joke, the
+sickly twinkle of hope in his eyes as Amateur stopped before his own
+picture. I have been ushered by Chipstone’s black servant through hall
+after hall peopled with plaster gods and heroes, into Chipstone’s own
+magnificent studio, where he sat longing vainly for an order, and
+justly dreading his landlord’s call for the rent. And, seeing how
+severely these gentlemen were taxed in their profession, I have been
+grateful for my own more fortunate one, which necessitates cringing to
+no patron; which calls for no keeping up of appearances; and which
+requires no stock-in-trade save the workman’s industry, his best
+ability, and a dozen sheets of paper.
+
+Having to turn with all his might to his new profession, Clive Newcome,
+one of the proudest men alive, chose to revolt and to be restive at
+almost every stage of his training. He had a natural genius for his
+art, and had acquired in his desultory way a very considerable skill.
+His drawing was better than his painting (an opinion which, were my
+friend present, he of course would utterly contradict); his designs and
+sketches were far superior to his finished compositions. His friends,
+presuming to judge of this artist’s qualifications, ventured to counsel
+him accordingly, and were thanked for their pains in the usual manner.
+We had in the first place to bully and browbeat Clive most fiercely,
+before he would take fitting lodgings for the execution of those
+designs which we had in view for him. “Why should I take expensive
+lodgings?” says Clive, slapping his fist on the table. “I am a pauper,
+and can scarcely afford to live in a garret. Why should you pay me for
+drawing your portrait and Laura’s and the children? What the deuce does
+Warrington want with the effigy of his old mug? You don’t want them a
+bit—you only want to give me money.—It would be much more honest of me
+to take the money at once and own that I am a beggar; and I tell you
+what, Pen, the only money which I feel I come honestly by, is that
+which is paid me by a little printseller in Long Acre who buys my
+drawings, one with another, at fourteen shillings apiece, and out of
+whom I can earn pretty nearly two hundred a year. I am doing Coaches
+for him, sir, and Charges of Cavalry; the public like the Mail Coaches
+best—on a dark paper—the horses and miles picked out white—yellow
+dust—cobalt distance, and the guard and coachman of course in
+vermilion. That’s what a gentleman can get his bread by—portraits,
+pooh! it’s disguised beggary, Crackthorpe, and a half-dozen men of his
+regiment came, like good fellows as they are, and sent me five pounds
+apiece for their heads, but I tell you I am ashamed to take the money.”
+Such used to be the tenor of Clive Newcome’s conversation as he strode
+up and down our room after dinner, pulling his moustache, and dashing
+his long yellow hair off his gaunt face.
+
+When Clive was inducted into the new lodgings at which his friends
+counselled him to hang up his ensign, the dear old Colonel accompanied
+his son, parting with a sincere regret from our little ones at home, to
+whom he became greatly endeared during his visit to us, and who always
+hailed him when he came to see us with smiles and caresses and sweet
+infantile welcome. On that day when he went away, Laura went up and
+kissed him with tears in her eyes. “You know how long I have been
+wanting to do it,” this lady said to her husband. Indeed I cannot
+describe the behaviour of the old man during his stay with us, his
+gentle gratitude, his sweet simplicity and kindness, his thoughtful
+courtesy. There was not a servant in our little household but was eager
+to wait upon him. Laura’s maid was as tender-hearted at his departure
+as her mistress. He was ailing for a short time, when our cook
+performed prodigies of puddings and jellies to suit his palate. The
+youth who held the offices of butler and valet in our establishment—a
+lazy and greedy youth whom Martha scolded in vain—would jump up and
+leave his supper to carry a message to our Colonel. My heart is full as
+I remember the kind words which he said to me at parting, and as I
+think that we were the means of giving a little comfort to that
+stricken and gentle soul.
+
+Whilst the Colonel and his son stayed with us, letters of course passed
+between Clive and his family at Boulogne, but my wife remarked that the
+receipt of those letters appeared to give our friend but little
+pleasure. They were read in a minute, and he would toss them over to
+his father, or thrust them into his pocket with a gloomy face. “Don’t
+you see,” groans out Clive to me one evening, “that Rosa scarcely
+writes the letters, or if she does, that her mother is standing over
+her? That woman is the Nemesis of our life, Pen. How can I pay her off?
+Great God! how can I pay her off?” And so having spoken, his head fell
+between his hands, and as I watched him I saw a ghastly domestic
+picture before me of helpless pain, humiliating discord, stupid
+tyranny.
+
+What, I say again, are the so-called great ills of life compared to
+these small ones?
+
+The Colonel accompanied Clive to the lodgings which we had found for
+the young artist, in a quarter not far removed from the old house in
+Fitzroy Square, where some happy years of his youth had been spent.
+When sitters came to Clive—as at first they did in some numbers, many
+of his early friends being anxious to do him a service—the old
+gentleman was extraordinarily cheered and comforted. We could see by
+his face that affairs were going on well at the studio. He showed us
+the rooms which Rosey and the boy were to occupy. He prattled to our
+children and their mother, who was never tired of hearing him, about
+his grandson. He filled up the future nursery with a hundred little
+knick-knacks of his own contriving; and with wonderful cheap bargains,
+which he bought in his walks about Tottenham Court Road. He pasted a
+most elaborate book of prints and sketches for Boy. It was astonishing
+what notice Boy already took of pictures. He would have all the genius
+of his father. Would he had had a better grandfather than the foolish
+old man who had ruined all belonging to him!
+
+However much they like each other, men in the London world see their
+friends but seldom. The place is so vast that even next door is
+distant; the calls of business, society, pleasure, so multifarious that
+mere friendship can get or give but an occasional shake of the hand in
+the hurried moments of passage. Men must live their lives; and are
+perforce selfish, but not unfriendly. At a great need you know where to
+look for your friend, and he that he is secure of you. So I went very
+little to Howland Street, where Clive now lived; very seldom to Lamb
+Court, where my dear old friend Warrington still sate in his old
+chambers, though our meetings were none the less cordial when they
+occurred, and our trust in one another always the same. Some folks say
+the world is heartless: he who says so either prates commonplaces (the
+most likely and charitable suggestion), or is heartless himself, or is
+most singular and unfortunate in having made no friends. Many such a
+reasonable mortal cannot have: our nature, I think, not sufficing for
+that sort of polygamy. How many persons would you have to deplore your
+death; or whose death would you wish to deplore? Could our hearts let
+in such a harem of dear friendships, the mere changes and recurrences
+of grief and mourning would be intolerable, and tax our lives beyond
+their value. In a word, we carry our own burthen in the world; push and
+struggle along on our own affairs; are pinched by our own shoes—though
+Heaven forbid we should not stop and forget ourselves sometimes, when a
+friend cries out in his distress, or we can help a poor stricken
+wanderer in his way. As for good women—these, my worthy reader, are
+different from us—the nature of these is to love, and to do kind
+offices, and devise untiring charities:—so I would have you to know,
+that, though Mr. Pendennis was _parcus suorum cultor et infrequens_,
+Mrs. Laura found plenty of time to go from Westminster to Bloomsbury;
+and to pay visits to her Colonel and her Clive, both of whom she had
+got to love with all her heart again, now misfortune was on them; and
+both of whom returned her kindness with an affection blessing the
+bestower and the receiver; and making the husband proud and thankful
+whose wife had earned such a noble regard. What is the dearest praise
+of all to a man? his own—or that you should love those whom he loves? I
+see Laura Pendennis ever constant and tender and pure, ever ministering
+in her sacred office of kindness—bestowing love and followed by
+blessings. Which would I have, think you; that priceless crown
+hymeneal, or the glory of a Tenth Edition?
+
+Clive and his father had found not only a model friend in the lady
+above mentioned, but a perfect prize landlady in their happy lodgings.
+In her house, besides those apartments which Mr. Newcome had originally
+engaged, were rooms just sufficient to accommodate his wife, child, and
+servant, when they should come to him, with a very snug little upper
+chamber for the Colonel, close by Boy’s nursery, where he liked best to
+be. “And if there is not room for the Campaigner, as you call her,”
+says Mrs. Laura, with a shrug of her shoulders, “why, I am very sorry,
+but Clive must try and bear her absence as well as possible. After all,
+my dear Pen, you know he is married to Rosa and not to her mamma; and
+so, and so I think it will be quite best that they shall have their
+_ménage_ as before.”
+
+The cheapness of the lodgings which the prize landlady let, the
+quantity of neat new furniture which she put in, the consultations
+which she had with my wife regarding these supplies, were quite
+singular to me. “Have you pawned your diamonds, you reckless little
+person, in order to supply all this upholstery?” “No, sir, I have not
+pawned my diamonds,” Mrs. Laura answers; and I was left to think (if I
+thought on the matter at all) that the landlady’s own benevolence had
+provided these good things for Clive. For the wife of Laura’s husband
+was perforce poor; and she asked me for no more money at this time than
+at any other.
+
+At first, in spite of his grumbling, Clive’s affairs looked so
+prosperous, and so many sitters came to him from amongst his old
+friends, that I was half inclined to believe with the Colonel and my
+wife, that he was a prodigious genius, and that his good fortune would
+go on increasing. Laura was for having Rosey return to her husband.
+Every wife ought to be with her husband. J. J. shook his head about the
+prosperity. “Let us see whether the Academy will have his pictures this
+year, and what a place they will give him,” said Ridley. To do him
+justice, Clive thought far more humbly of his compositions than Ridley
+did. Not a little touching was it to us, who had known the young men in
+former days, to see them in their changed positions. It was Ridley,
+whose genius and industry had put him in the rank of a patron—Ridley,
+the good industrious apprentice, who had won the prize of his art—and
+not one of his many admirers saluted his talent and success with such a
+hearty recognition as Clive, whose generous soul knew no envy, and who
+always fired and kindled at the success of his friends.
+
+When Mr. Clive used to go over to Boulogne from time to time to pay his
+dutiful visits to his wife, the Colonel did not accompany his son, but,
+during the latter’s absence, would dine with Mrs. Pendennis.
+
+Though the preparations were complete in Howland Street, and Clive
+dutifully went over to Boulogne, Mrs. Pendennis remarked that he seemed
+still to hesitate about bringing his wife to London.
+
+Upon this Mr. Pendennis observed that some gentlemen were not
+particularly anxious about the society of their wives, and that this
+pair were perhaps better apart. Upon which Mrs. Pendennis, drubbing on
+the ground with a little foot, said, “Nonsense, for shame, Arthur! How
+can you speak so flippantly? Did he not swear before Heaven to love and
+cherish her, never to leave her, sir? Is not his _duty_ his _duty_,
+sir?” (a most emphatic stamp of the foot). “Is she not his for better,
+or for worse?”
+
+“Including the Campaigner, my dear?” says Mr. P.
+
+“Don’t laugh, sir! She _must_ come to him. There is no room in Howland
+Street for Mrs. Mackenzie.”
+
+“You artful scheming creature! We have some spare rooms. Suppose we ask
+Mrs. Mackenzie to come and live with us, my dear? and we could then
+have the benefit of the garrison anecdotes, and mess jocularities of
+your favourite, Captain Goby.”
+
+“I could never bear the horrid man!” cried Mrs. Pendennis. And how can
+I tell why she disliked him?
+
+Everything being now ready for the reception of Clive’s little family,
+we counselled our friend to go over to Boulogne, and bring back his
+wife and child, and then to make some final stipulation with the
+Campaigner. He saw, as well as we, that the presence and tyranny of
+that fatal woman destroyed his father’s health and spirits—that the old
+man knew no peace or comfort in her neighbourhood, and was actually
+hastening to his grave under that dreadful and unremitting persecution.
+Mrs. Mackenzie made Clive scarcely less wretched than his father—she
+governed his household—took away his weak wife’s allegiance and
+affection from him—and caused the wretchedness of every single person
+round about her. They ought to live apart. If she was too poor to
+subsist upon her widow’s pension, which, in truth, was but a very small
+pittance, let Clive give up to her, say, the half of his wife’s income
+of one hundred pounds a year. His prospects and present means of
+earning money were such that he might afford to do without that portion
+of his income; at any rate, he and his father would be cheaply ransomed
+at that price from their imprisonment to this intolerable person. “Go,
+Clive,” said his counsellors, “and bring back your wife and child, and
+let us all be happy together.” For, you see, those advisers opined that
+if we had written over to Mrs. Newcome—“Come”—she would have come with
+the Campaigner in her suite.
+
+Vowing that he would behave like a man of courage—and we knew that
+Clive had shown himself to be such in two or three previous
+battles—Clive crossed the water to bring back his little Rosey. Our
+good Colonel agreed to dine at our house during the days of his son’s
+absence. I have said how beloved he was by young and old there—and he
+was kind enough to say afterwards, that no woman had made him so happy
+as Laura. We did not tell him—I know not from what reticence—that we
+had advised Clive to offer a bribe of fifty pounds a year to Mrs.
+Mackenzie; until about a fortnight after Clive’s absence, and a week
+after his return, when news came that poor old Mrs. Mason was dead at
+Newcome, whereupon we informed the Colonel that he had another
+pensioner now in the Campaigner.
+
+Colonel Newcome was thankful that his dear old friend had gone out of
+the world in comfort and without pain. She had made a will long since,
+leaving all her goods and chattels to Thomas Newcome—but having no
+money to give, the Colonel handed over these to the old lady’s faithful
+attendant, Keziah.
+
+Although many of the Colonel’s old friends had parted from him or
+quarrelled with him in consequence of the ill success of the B. B. C.,
+there were two old ladies who yet remained faithful to him—Miss Cann,
+namely, and honest little Miss Honeyman of Brighton, who, when she
+heard of the return to London of her nephew and brother-in-law, made a
+railway journey to the metropolis (being the first time she ever
+engaged in that kind of travelling), rustled into Clive’s apartments in
+Howland Street in her neatest silks, and looking not a day older than
+on that when we last beheld her; and after briskly scolding the young
+man for permitting his father to enter into money affairs—of which the
+poor dear Colonel was as ignorant as a baby—she gave them both to
+understand that she had a little sum at her banker’s at their
+disposal—and besought the Colonel to remember that her house was his,
+and that she should be proud and happy to receive him as soon and as
+often and for as long a time as he would honour her with his company.
+“Is not my house full of your presents”—cried the stout little old
+lady—“have I not reason to be grateful to all the Newcomes—yes, to all
+the Newcomes;—for Miss Ethel and her family have come to me every year
+for months, and I don’t quarrel with them, and I won’t, although you
+do, sir? Is not this shawl—are not these jewels that I wear,” she
+continued, pointing to those well-known ornaments, “my dear Colonel’s
+gift? Did you not relieve my brother Charles in this country and
+procure for him his place in India? Yes, my dear friend—and though you
+have been imprudent in money matters, my obligations towards you, and
+my gratitude, and my affection are always the same.” Thus Miss Honeyman
+spoke, with somewhat of a quivering voice at the end of her little
+oration, but with exceeding state and dignity—for she believed that her
+investment of two hundred pounds in that unlucky B. B. C., which failed
+for half a million, was a sum of considerable importance, and gave her
+a right to express her opinion to the Managers.
+
+Clive came back from Boulogne in a week, as we have said—but he came
+back without his wife, much to our alarm, and looked so exceedingly
+fierce and glum when we demanded the reason of his return without his
+family, that we saw wars and battles had taken place, and thought that
+in this last continental campaign the Campaigner had been too much for
+her friend.
+
+The Colonel, to whom Clive communicated, though with us the poor lad
+held his tongue, told my wife what had happened:—not all the battles;
+which no doubt raged at breakfast, dinner, supper, during the week of
+Clive’s visit to Boulogne,—but the upshot of these engagements. Rosey,
+not unwilling in her first private talk with her husband to come to
+England with him and the boy, showed herself irresolute on the second
+day at breakfast, when the fire was opened on both sides; cried at
+dinner when fierce assaults took place, in which Clive had the
+advantage; slept soundly, but besought him to be very firm, and met the
+enemy at breakfast with a quaking heart; cried all that day during
+which, pretty well without cease, the engagement lasted; and when Clive
+might have conquered and brought her off, but the weather was windy and
+the sea was rough, and he was pronounced a brute to venture on it with
+a wife in Rosey’s situation.
+
+Behind that “situation” the widow shielded herself. She clung to her
+adored child, and from that bulwark discharged abuse and satire at
+Clive and his father. He could not rout her out of her position. Having
+had the advantage on the first two or three days, on the four last he
+was beaten, and lost ground in each action. Rosey found that in her
+situation she could not part from her darling mamma. The Campaigner for
+her part averred that she might be reduced to beggary; that she might
+be robbed of her last farthing and swindled and cheated; that she might
+see her daughter’s fortune flung away by unprincipled adventurers, and
+her blessed child left without even the comforts of life; but desert
+her in such a situation, she never would—no, never! Was not dear Rosa’s
+health already impaired by the various shocks which she had undergone?
+Did she not require every comfort, every attendance? Monster! ask the
+doctor! She would stay with her darling child in spite of insult and
+rudeness and vulgarity. (Rosey’s father was a King’s officer, not a
+Company’s officer, thank God!) She would stay as long at least as
+Rosey’s situation continued, at Boulogne, if not in London, but with
+her child. They might refuse to send her money, having robbed her of
+all her own, but she would pawn her gown off her back for her child.
+Whimpers from Rosey—cries of “Mamma, mamma, compose
+yourself,”—convulsive sobs—clenched knuckles—flashing eyes—embraces
+rapidly clutched—laughs—stamps—snorts—from the dishevelled Campaigner;
+grinding teeth—livid fury and repeated breakages of the third
+commandment by Clive—I can fancy the whole scene. He returned to London
+without his wife, and when she came she brought Mrs. Mackenzie with
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXV.
+Founder’s Day at the Grey Friars
+
+
+Rosey came, bringing discord and wretchedness with her to her husband,
+and the sentence of death or exile to his dear old father, all of which
+we foresaw—all of which Clive’s friends would have longed to
+prevent—all of which were inevitable under the circumstances. Clive’s
+domestic affairs were often talked over by our little set. Warrington
+and F. B. knew of his unhappiness. We three had strongly opined that
+the women being together at Boulogne, should stay there and live there,
+Clive sending them over pecuniary aid as his means permitted. “They
+must hate each other pretty well by this time,” growls George
+Warrington. “Why on earth should they not part?” “What a woman that
+Mrs. Mackenzie is!” cries F. B. “What an infernal tartar and catamaran!
+She who was so uncommonly smiling and soft-spoken, and such a fine
+woman, by jingo! What puzzles all women are!” F. B. sighed, and drowned
+further reflection in beer.
+
+On the other side, and most strongly advocating Rosey’s return to
+Clive, was Mrs. Laura Pendennis; with certain arguments for which she
+had chapter and verse, and against which we of the separatist party had
+no appeal. “Did he marry her only for the days of her prosperity?”
+asked Laura. “Is it right, is it manly, that he should leave her now
+she is unhappy—poor little creature—no woman had ever more need of
+protection; and who should be her natural guardian save her husband?
+Surely, Arthur, you forget—have you forgotten them yourself, sir?—the
+solemn vows which Clive made at the altar. Is he not bound to his wife
+to keep only unto her so long as they both shall live, to love and
+comfort her, honour her, and keep her in sickness and health?”
+
+“To keep her, yes—but not to keep the Campaigner,” cries Mr. Pendennis.
+“It is a moral bigamy, Laura, which you advocate, you wicked, immoral
+young woman!”
+
+But Laura, though she smiled at this notion, would not be put off from
+her first proposition. Turning to Clive, who was with us, talking over
+his doleful family circumstances, she took his hand, and pleaded the
+cause of right and religion with sweet artless fervour. She agreed with
+us that it was a hard lot for Clive to bear. So much the nobler the
+task, and the fulfilment of duty in enduring it. A few months too would
+put an end to his trials. When his child was born Mrs. Mackenzie would
+take her departure. It would even be Clive’s duty to separate from her
+then, as it now was to humour his wife in her delicate condition, and
+to soothe the poor soul who had had a great deal of ill-health, of
+misfortune, of domestic calamity to wear and shatter her. Clive
+acquiesced with a groan, but—with a touching and generous resignation
+as we both thought. “She is right, Pen,” he said, “I think your wife is
+always right. I will try, Laura, and bear my part, God help me! I will
+do my duty and strive my best to soothe and gratify my poor dear little
+woman. They will be making caps and things, and will not interrupt me
+in my studio. Of nights I can go to Clipstone Street and work at the
+Life. There’s nothing like the Life, Pen. So you see I shan’t be much
+at home except at meal-times, when by nature I shall have my mouth
+full, and no opportunity of quarrelling with poor Mrs. Mac.” So he went
+home, followed and cheered by the love and pity of my dear wife, and
+determined stoutly to bear this heavy yoke which fate had put on him.
+
+To do Mrs. Mackenzie justice, that lady backed up with all her might
+the statement which my wife had put forward, with a view of soothing
+poor Clive, viz., that the residence of his mother-in-law in his house
+was only to be temporary. “Temporary!” cries Mrs. Mac (who was kind
+enough to make a call on Mrs. Pendennis, and treat that lady to a piece
+of her mind). “Do you suppose, madam, that it could be otherwise? Do
+you suppose that worlds would induce me to stay in a house where I have
+received such _treatment;_ where, after I and my daughter had been
+robbed of every shilling of our fortune, where we are daily insulted by
+Colonel Newcome and his son? Do you suppose, ma’am, that I do not know
+that Clive’s friends hate me, and give themselves airs and look down
+upon my darling child, and try and make differences between my sweet
+Rosa and me—Rosa who might have been dead, or might have been starving,
+but that her dear mother came to her rescue? No, I would never stay. I
+loathe every day that I remain in the house—I would rather beg my
+bread—I would rather sweep the streets and starve—though, thank God, I
+have my pension as the widow of an officer in Her Majesty’s Service,
+and I can live upon that—and of _that_ Colonel Newcome _cannot_ rob me;
+and when my darling love needs a mother’s care no longer, I will leave
+her. I will shake the dust off my feet and leave that house. I will—And
+Mr. Newcome’s friends may then sneer at me and abuse me, and blacken my
+darling child’s heart towards me if they choose. And I thank you, Mrs.
+Pendennis, for all your _kindness_ towards my daughter’s family, and
+for the furniture which you have sent into the house, and for the
+_trouble_ you have taken about our family arrangements. It was for this
+I took the liberty of calling upon you, and I wish you a very good
+morning.” So speaking, the Campaigner left my wife; and Mrs. Pendennis
+enacted the pleasing scene with great spirit to her husband afterwards,
+concluding the whole with a splendid curtsey and toss of the head, such
+as Mrs. Mackenzie performed as her parting salute.
+
+Our dear Colonel had fled before. He had acquiesced humbly with the
+decree of fate; and, lonely, old and beaten, marched honestly on the
+path of duty. It was a great blessing, he wrote to us, to him to think
+that in happier days and during many years he had been enabled to
+benefit his kind and excellent relative, Miss Honeyman. He could
+thankfully receive her hospitality now, and claim the kindness and
+shelter which this old friend gave him. No one could be more anxious to
+make him comfortable. The air of Brighton did him the greatest good; he
+had found some old friends, some old Bengalees there, with whom he
+enjoyed himself greatly, etc. How much did we, who knew his noble
+spirit, believe of this story? To us Heaven had awarded health,
+happiness, competence, loving children, united hearts, and modest
+prosperity. To yonder good man, whose long life shone with
+benefactions, and whose career was but kindness and honour, fate
+decreed poverty, disappointment, separation, a lonely old age. We bowed
+our heads, humiliated at the contrast of his lot and ours; and prayed
+Heaven to enable us to bear our present good fortune meekly, and our
+evil days, if they should come, with such a resignation as this good
+Christian showed.
+
+I forgot to say that our attempts to better Thomas Newcome’s money
+affairs were quite in vain, the Colonel insisting upon paying over
+every shilling of his military allowances and retiring pension to the
+parties from whom he had borrowed money previous to his bankruptcy.
+“Ah! what a good man that is,” says Mr. Sherrick with tears in his
+eyes, “what a noble fellow, sir! He would die rather than not pay every
+farthing over. He’d starve, sir, that he would. The money ain’t mine,
+sir, or if it was do you think I’d take it from the poor old boy? No,
+sir; by Jove! I honour and reverence him more now he ain’t got a
+shilling in his pocket, than ever I did when we thought he was
+a-rolling in money.”
+
+My wife made one or two efforts at Samaritan visits in Howland Street,
+but was received by Mrs. Clive with such a faint welcome, and by the
+Campaigner with so grim a countenance, so many sneers, innuendoes,
+insults almost, that Laura’s charity was beaten back, and she ceased to
+press good offices thus thanklessly received. If Clive came to visit
+us, as he very rarely did, after an official question or two regarding
+the health of his wife and child, no further mention was made of his
+family affairs. His painting, he said, was getting on tolerably well;
+he had work, scantily paid it is true, but work sufficient. He was
+reserved, uncommunicative, unlike the frank Clive of former times, and
+oppressed by his circumstances, as it was easy to see. I did not press
+the confidence which he was unwilling to offer, and thought best to
+respect his silence. I had a thousand affairs of my own; who has not in
+London? If you die to-morrow, your dearest friend will feel for you a
+hearty pang of sorrow, and go to his business as usual. I could divine,
+but would not care to describe, the life which my poor Clive was now
+leading; the vulgar misery, the sordid home, the cheerless toil, and
+lack of friendly companionship which darkened his kind soul. I was glad
+Clive’s father was away. The Colonel wrote to us twice or thrice; could
+it be three months ago?—bless me, how time flies! He was happy, he
+wrote, with Miss Honeyman, who took the best care of him.
+
+Mention has been made once or twice in the course of this history of
+the Grey Friars school,—where the Colonel and Clive and I had been
+brought up,—an ancient foundation of the time of James I., still
+subsisting in the heart of London city. The death-day of the founder of
+the place is still kept solemnly by Cistercians. In their chapel, where
+assemble the boys of the school, and the fourscore old men of the
+Hospital, the founder’s tomb stands, a huge edifice: emblazoned with
+heraldic decorations and clumsy carved allegories. There is an old
+Hall, a beautiful specimen of the architecture of James’s time; an old
+Hall? many old halls; old staircases, passages, old chambers decorated
+with old portraits, walking in the midst of which we walk as it were in
+the early seventeenth century. To others than Cistercians, Grey Friars
+is a dreary place possibly. Nevertheless, the pupils educated there
+love to revisit it; and the oldest of us grow young again for an hour
+or two as we come back into those scenes of childhood.
+
+The custom of the school is, that on the 12th of December, the
+Founder’s Day, the head gown-boy shall recite a Latin oration, in
+praise of _Fundatoris Nostri_, and upon other subjects; and a goodly
+company of old Cistercians is generally brought together to attend this
+oration: after which we go to chapel and hear a sermon; after which we
+adjourn to a great dinner, where old condisciples meet, old toasts are
+given, and speeches are made. Before marching from the oration-hall to
+chapel, the stewards of the day’s dinner, according to old-fashioned
+rite, have wands put into their hands, walk to church at the head of
+the procession, and sit there in places of honour. The boys are already
+in their seats, with smug fresh faces, and shining white collars; the
+old black-gowned pensioners are on their benches; the chapel is
+lighted, and Founder’s Tomb, with its grotesque carvings, monsters,
+heraldries, darkles and shines with the most wonderful shadows and
+lights. There he lies, Fundator Noster, in his ruff and gown, awaiting
+the great Examination Day. We oldsters, be we ever so old, become boys
+again as we look at that familiar old tomb, and think how the seats are
+altered since we were here, and how the doctor—not the present doctor,
+the doctor of our time—used to sit yonder, and his awful eye used to
+frighten us shuddering boys, on whom it lighted; and how the boy next
+us _would_ kick our shins during service time, and how the monitor
+would cane us afterwards because our shins were kicked. Yonder sit
+forty cherry-cheeked boys, thinking about home and holidays to-morrow.
+Yonder sit some threescore old gentlemen pensioners of the hospital,
+listening to the prayers and the psalms. You hear them coughing feebly
+in the twilight,—the old reverend blackgowns. Is Codd Ajax alive, you
+wonder?—the Cistercian lads called these old gentlemen Codds, I know
+not wherefore—I know not wherefore—but is old Codd Ajax alive, I
+wonder? or Codd Soldier? or kind old Codd Gentleman, or has the grave
+closed over them? A plenty of candles lights up this chapel, and this
+scene of age and youth, and early memories, and pompous death. How
+solemn the well-remembered prayers are, here uttered again in the place
+wherein childhood we used to hear them! How beautiful and decorous the
+rite; how noble the ancient words of the supplications which the priest
+utters, and to which generations of fresh children and troops of bygone
+seniors have cried Amen! under those arches! The service for Founder’s
+Day is a special one; one of the psalms selected being the
+thirty-seventh, and we hear—
+
+23. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth
+in his way.
+24. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord
+upholdeth him with his hand.
+25. I have been young, and now am old: yet have I not seen the
+righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.
+
+
+As we came to this verse, I chanced to look up from my book towards the
+swarm of black-coated pensioners: and amongst them—amongst them—sate
+Thomas Newcome.
+
+His dear old head was bent down over his prayer-book—there was no
+mistaking him. He wore the black gown of the pensioners of the Hospital
+of Grey Friars. His order of the Bath was on his breast. He stood there
+amongst the poor brethren, uttering the responses to the psalm. The
+steps of this good man had been ordered him hither by Heaven’s decree:
+to this almshouse! Here it was ordained that a life all love, and
+kindness, and honour, should end! I heard no more of prayers, and
+psalms, and sermon, after that. How dared I to be in a place of mark,
+and he, he yonder among the poor? Oh, pardon, you noble soul! I ask
+forgiveness of you for being of a world that has so treated you—you my
+better, you the honest, and gentle, and good! I thought the service
+would never end, or the organist’s voluntaries, or the preacher’s
+homily.
+
+The organ played us out of chapel at length, and I waited in the
+ante-chapel until the pensioners took their turn to quit it. My dear,
+dear old friend! I ran to him with a warmth and eagerness of
+recognition which no doubt showed themselves in my face and accents, as
+my heart was moved at the sight of him. His own face flushed up when he
+saw me, and his hand shook in mine. “I have found a home, Arthur,” said
+he. “Don’t you remember before I went to India, when we came to see the
+old Grey Friars, and visited Captain Scarsdale in his room?—a poor
+brother like me—an old Peninsular man. Scarsdale is gone now, sir, and
+is where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest; and
+I thought then, when we saw him,—here would be a place for an old
+fellow when his career was over, to hang his sword up; to humble his
+soul, and to wait thankfully for the end. Arthur. My good friend, Lord
+H., who is a Cistercian like ourselves, and has just been appointed a
+governor, gave me his first nomination. Don’t be agitated, Arthur my
+boy, I am very happy. I have good quarters, good food, good light and
+fire, and good friends; blessed be God! my dear kind young friend—my
+boy’s friend; you have always been so, sir; and I take it uncommonly
+kind of you, and I thank God for you, sir. Why, sir, I am as happy as
+the day is long.” He uttered words to this effect as he walked through
+the courts of the building towards his room, which in truth I found
+neat and comfortable, with a brisk fire crackling on the hearth; a
+little tea-table laid out, a Bible and spectacles by the side of it,
+and over the mantelpiece a drawing of his grandson by Clive.
+
+“You may come and see me here, sir, whenever you like, and so may your
+dear wife and little ones, tell Laura, with my love;—but you must not
+stay now. You must go back to your dinner.” In vain I pleaded that I
+had no stomach for it. He gave me a look, which seemed to say he
+desired to be alone, and I had to respect that order and leave him.
+
+Of course I came to him on the very next day; though not with my wife
+and children, who were in truth absent in the country at Rosebury,
+where they were to pass the Christmas holidays; and where, this
+school-dinner over, I was to join them. On my second visit to Grey
+Friars my good friend entered more at length into the reasons why he
+had assumed the Poor Brother’s gown; and I cannot say but that I
+acquiesced in his reasons, and admired that noble humility and
+contentedness of which he gave me an example.
+
+“That which had caused him most grief and pain,” he said, “in the issue
+of that unfortunate bank, was the thought that poor friends of his had
+been induced by his representations to invest their little capital in
+that speculation. Good Miss Honeyman, for instance, meaning no harm,
+and in all respects a most honest and kindly-disposed old lady, had
+nevertheless alluded more than once to the fact that her money had been
+thrown away; and these allusions, sir, made her hospitality somewhat
+hard to bear,” said the Colonel. “At home—at poor Clivey’s, I mean—it
+was even worse,” he continued; “Mrs. Mackenzie for months past, by her
+complaints, and—and her conduct, has made my son and me so
+miserable—that flight before her, and into any refuge, was the best
+course. She too does not mean ill, Pen. Do not waste any of your oaths
+upon that poor woman,” he added, holding up his finger, and smiling
+sadly. “She thinks I deceived her, though Heaven knows it was myself I
+deceived. She has great influence over Rosa. Very few persons can
+resist that violent and headstrong woman, sir. I could not bear her
+reproaches, or my poor sick daughter, whom her mother leads almost
+entirely now, and it was with all this grief on my mind, that, as I was
+walking one day upon Brighton cliff, I met my schoolfellow, my Lord
+H——, who has ever been a good friend of mine—and who told me how he had
+just been appointed a governor of Grey Friars. He asked me to dine with
+him on the next day, and would take no refusal. He knew of my pecuniary
+misfortunes, of course—and showed himself most noble and liberal in his
+offers of help. I was very much touched by his goodness, Pen,—and made
+a clean breast of it to his lordship; who at first would not hear of my
+coming to this place—and offered me out of the purse of an old
+brother-schoolfellow and an old brother soldier as much—as much as
+should last me my time. Wasn’t it noble of him, Arthur? God bless him!
+There are good men in the world, sir, there are true friends, as I have
+found in these later days. Do you know, sir”—here the old man’s eyes
+twinkled,—“that Fred Bayham fixed up that bookcase yonder—and brought
+me my little boy’s picture to hang up? Boy and Clive will come and see
+me soon.”
+
+“Do you mean they do not come?” I cried.
+
+“They don’t know I am here, sir,” said the Colonel, with a sweet, kind
+smile. “They think I am visiting his lordship in Scotland. Ah! they are
+good people! When we had had a talk downstairs over our bottle of
+claret—where my old commander-in-chief would not hear of my plan—we
+went upstairs to her ladyship, who saw that her husband was disturbed,
+and asked the reason. I dare say it was the good claret that made me
+speak, sir; for I told her that I and her husband had had a dispute and
+that I would take her ladyship for umpire. And then I told her the
+story over, that I had paid away every rupee to the creditors, and
+mortgaged my pensions and retiring allowances for the same end, that I
+was a burden upon Clivey, who had enough, poor boy, to keep his own
+family, and his wife’s mother, whom my imprudence had
+impoverished,—that here was an honourable asylum which my friend could
+procure for me, and was not that better than to drain his purse? She
+was very much moved, sir—she is a very kind lady, though she passed for
+being very proud and haughty in India—so wrongly are people judged. And
+Lord H. said, in his rough way, ‘that, by Jove, if Tom Newcome took a
+thing into his obstinate old head no one could drive it out.’ And so,”
+said the Colonel, with his sad smile, “I _had_ my own way. Lady H. was
+good enough to come and see me the very next day—and do you know, Pen,
+she invited me to go and live with them for the rest of my life—made me
+the most generous, the most delicate offers. But I knew I was right,
+and held my own. I am too old to work, Arthur: and better here whilst I
+am to stay, than elsewhere. Look! all this furniture came from H.
+House—and that wardrobe is full of linen, which she sent me. She has
+been twice to see me, and every officer in this hospital is as
+courteous to me as if I had my fine house.”
+
+I thought of the psalm we had heard on the previous evening, and turned
+to it in the opened Bible, and pointed to the verse, “Though he fall,
+he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him.” Thomas
+Newcome seeing my occupation, laid a kind, trembling hand on my
+shoulder; and then, putting on his glasses, with a smile bent over the
+volume. And who that saw him then, and knew him and loved him as I
+did—who would not have humbled his own heart, and breathed his inward
+prayer, confessing and adoring the Divine Will, which ordains these
+trials, these triumphs, these humiliations, these blest griefs, this
+crowning Love?
+
+I had the happiness of bringing Clive and his little boy to Thomas
+Newcome that evening; and heard the child’s cry of recognition and
+surprise, and the old man calling the boy’s name, as I closed the door
+upon that meeting; and by the night’s mail I went down to Newcome, to
+the friends with whom my own family was already staying.
+
+Of course, my conscience-keeper at Rosebury was anxious to know about
+the school-dinner, and all the speeches made, and the guests assembled
+there; but she soon ceased to inquire about these when I came to give
+her the news of the discovery of our dear old friend in the habit of a
+Poor Brother of Grey Friars. She was very glad to hear that Clive and
+his little son had been reunited to the Colonel; and appeared to
+imagine at first, that there was some wonderful merit upon my part in
+bringing the three together.
+
+“Well—no great merit, Pen, as you _will_ put it,” says the Confessor;
+“but it was kindly thought, sir—and I like my husband when he is kind
+best; and don’t wonder at your having made a stupid speech at the
+dinner, as you say you did, when you had this other subject to think
+of. That is a beautiful psalm, Pen, and those verses which you were
+reading when you saw him, especially beautiful.”
+
+“But in the presence of eighty old gentlemen, who have all come to
+decay, and have all had to beg their bread in a manner, don’t you think
+the clergyman might choose some other psalm?” asks Mr. Pendennis.
+
+“They were not forsaken _utterly_, Arthur,” says Mrs. Laura, gravely:
+but rather declines to argue the point raised by me; namely, that the
+selection of that especial thirty-seventh psalm was not complimentary
+to those decayed old gentlemen.
+
+“_All_ the psalms are good, sir,” she says, “and this one, of course,
+is included,” and thus the discussion closed.
+
+I then fell to a description of Howland Street, and poor Clive, whom I
+had found there over his work. A dubious maid scanned my appearance
+rather eagerly when I asked to see him. I found a picture-dealer
+chaffering with him over a bundle of sketches, and his little boy,
+already pencil in hand, lying in one corner of the room, the sun
+playing about his yellow hair. The child looked languid and pale, the
+father worn and ill. When the dealer at length took his bargains away,
+I gradually broke my errand to Clive, and told him from whence I had
+just come.
+
+He had thought his father in Scotland with Lord H.: and was immensely
+moved with the news which I brought.
+
+“I haven’t written to him for a month. It’s not pleasant the letters I
+have to write, Pen, and I can’t make them pleasant. Up, Tommykin, and
+put on your cap.” Tommykin jumps up. “Put on your cap, and tell them to
+take off your pinafore, tell grandmamma——”
+
+At that name Tommykin begins to cry.
+
+“Look at that!” says Clive, commencing to speak in the French language,
+which the child interrupts by calling out in that tongue. “I speak also
+French, papa.”
+
+“Well, my child! You will like to come out with papa, and Betsy can
+dress you.” He flings off his own paint-stained shooting-jacket as he
+talks, takes a frock-coat out of a carved wardrobe, and a hat from a
+helmet on the shelf. He is no longer the handsome splendid boy of old
+times. Can that be Clive, with that haggard face and slouched
+handkerchief? “I am not the dandy I was, Pen,” he says bitterly.
+
+A little voice is heard crying overhead—and giving a kind of gasp the
+wretched father stops in some indifferent speech he was trying to make.
+“I can’t help myself,” he groans out; “my wife is so ill, she can’t
+attend to the child. Mrs. Mackenzie manages the house for me—and—here!
+Tommy, Tommy! papa is coming!” Tommy has been crying again; and
+flinging open the studio door, Clive calls out, and dashes upstairs.
+
+I hear scuffling, stamping, loud voices, poor Tommy’s scared little
+pipe—Clive’s fierce objurgations, and the Campaigner’s voice barking
+out—“Do, sir, do! with my child suffering in the next room. Behave like
+a brute to me, do. He shall not go! He shall not have the hat”—“He
+shall”—“Ah—ah!” A scream is heard. It is Clive tearing a child’s hat
+out of the Campaigner’s hands, with which, and a flushed face, he
+presently rushes downstairs, bearing little Tommy on his shoulder.
+
+“You see what I am come to, Pen,” he says with a heartbroken voice,
+trying, with hands all of a tremble, to tie the hat on the boy’s head.
+He laughs bitterly at the ill success of his endeavours. “Oh, you silly
+papa!” laughs Tommy, too.
+
+The door is flung open, and the red-faced Campaigner appears. Her face
+is mottled with wrath, her bandeaux of hair are disarranged upon her
+forehead, the ornaments of her cap, cheap, and dirty, and numerous,
+only give her a wilder appearance. She is in a large and dingy wrapper,
+very different from the lady who had presented herself a few months
+back to my wife—how different from the smiling Mrs. Mackenzie of old
+days!
+
+“He shall not go out of a winter day, sir,” she breaks out. “I have his
+mother’s orders, whom you are _killing_. Mr. Pendennis!” She starts,
+perceiving me for the first time, and her breast heaves, and she
+prepares for combat, and looks at me over her shoulder.
+
+“You and his father are the best judges upon this point, ma’am,” said
+Mr. Pendennis, with a bow.
+
+“The child is delicate, sir,” cries Mrs. Mackenzie; “and this winter——”
+
+“Enough of this,” says Clive with a stamp, and passes through her guard
+with Tommy, and we descend the stairs, and at length are in the free
+street. Was it not best not to describe at full length this portion of
+poor Clive’s history?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVI.
+Christmas at Rosebury
+
+
+We have known our friend Florac under two aristocratic names, and might
+now salute him by a third, to which he was entitled, although neither
+he nor his wife ever chose to assume it. His father was lately dead,
+and M. Paul de Florac might sign himself Duc d’Ivry if he chose, but he
+was indifferent as to the matter, and his wife’s friends indignant at
+the idea that their kinswoman, after having been a Princess, should
+descend to the rank of a mere Duchess. So Prince and Princess these
+good folks remained, being exceptions to that order, inasmuch as their
+friends could certainly put their trust in them.
+
+On his father’s death Florac went to Paris, to settle the affairs of
+the paternal succession; and, having been for some time absent in his
+native country, returned to Rosebury for the winter, to resume that
+sport of which he was a distinguished amateur. He hunted in black
+during the ensuing season; and, indeed, henceforth laid aside his
+splendid attire and his _allures_ as a young man. His waist expanded,
+or was no longer confined by the cestus which had given it a shape.
+When he laid aside his black, his whiskers, too, went into a sort of
+half-mourning, and appeared in grey. “I make myself old, my friend,” he
+said, pathetically; “I have no more neither twenty years nor forty.” He
+went to Rosebury Church no more; but, with great order and sobriety,
+drove every Sunday to the neighbouring Catholic chapel at C—— Castle.
+We had an ecclesiastic or two to dine with us at Rosebury, one of whom
+I inclined to think was Florac’s director.
+
+A reason, perhaps, for Paul’s altered demeanour, was the presence of
+his mother at Rosebury. No politeness or respect could be greater than
+Paul’s towards the Countess. Had she been a sovereign princess, Madame
+de Florac could not have been treated with more profound courtesy than
+she now received from her son. I think the humble-minded lady could
+have dispensed with some of his attentions; but Paul was a personage
+who demonstrated all his sentiments, and performed his various parts in
+life with the greatest vigour. As a man of pleasure, for instance, what
+more active roué than he? As a _jeune homme_, who could be younger, and
+for a longer time? As a country gentleman, or an _homme d’affaires_, he
+insisted upon dressing each character with the most rigid accuracy, and
+an exactitude that reminded one somewhat of Bouffé, or Ferville, at the
+play. I wonder whether, when is he quite old, he will think proper to
+wear a pigtail, like his old father? At any rate, that was a good part
+which the kind fellow was now acting, of reverence towards his widowed
+mother, and affectionate respect for her declining days. He not only
+felt these amiable sentiments, but he imparted them to his friends most
+freely, as his wont was. He used to weep freely,—quite unrestrained by
+the presence of the domestics, as English sentiment would be:—and when
+Madame de Florac quitted the room after dinner, would squeeze my hand
+and tell me with streaming eyes, that his mother was an angel. “Her
+life has been but a long trial, my friend,” he would say. “Shall not I,
+who have caused her to shed so many tears, endeavour to dry some?” Of
+course the friends who liked him best encouraged him in an intention so
+pious.
+
+The reader has already been made acquainted with this lady by the
+letters of hers, which came into my possession some time after the
+events which I am at present narrating: my wife, through our kind
+friend, Colonel Newcome, had also had the honour of an introduction to
+Madame de Florac at Paris; and, on coming to Rosebury for the Christmas
+holidays, I found Laura and the children greatly in favour with the
+good Countess. She treated her son’s wife with a perfect though distant
+courtesy. She was thankful to Madame de Moncontour for the latter’s
+great goodness to her son. Familiar with but very few persons, she
+could scarcely be intimate with her homely daughter-in-law. Madame de
+Moncontour stood in the greatest awe of her; and, to do that good lady
+justice, admired and reverenced Paul’s mother with all her simple
+heart. In truth, I think almost every one had a certain awe of Madame
+de Florac, except children, who came to her trustingly, and, as it
+were, by instinct. The habitual melancholy of her eyes vanished as they
+lighted upon young faces and infantile smiles. A sweet love beamed out
+of her countenance: an angelic smile shone over her face, as she bent
+towards them and caressed them. Her demeanour then, nay, her looks and
+ways at other times;—a certain gracious sadness, a sympathy with all
+grief, and pity for all pain; a gentle heart, yearning towards all
+children; and, for her own especially, feeling a love that was almost
+an anguish: in the affairs of the common world only a dignified
+acquiescence, as if her place was not in it, and her thoughts were in
+her Home elsewhere;—these qualities, which we had seen exemplified in
+another life, Laura and her husband watched in Madame de Florac, and we
+loved her because she was like our mother. I see in such women, the
+good and pure, the patient and faithful, the tried and meek, the
+followers of Him whose earthly life was divinely sad and tender.
+
+But, good as she was to us and to all, Ethel Newcome was the French
+lady’s greatest favourite. A bond of extreme tenderness and affection
+united these two. The elder friend made constant visits to the younger
+at Newcome; and when Miss Newcome, as she frequently did, came to
+Rosebury, we used to see that they preferred to be alone; divining and
+respecting the sympathy which brought those two faithful hearts
+together. I can imagine now the two tall forms slowly pacing the garden
+walks, or turning, as they lighted on the young ones in their play.
+What was their talk! I never asked it. Perhaps Ethel never said what
+was in her heart, though, be sure, the other knew it. Though the grief
+of those they love is untold, women hear it; as they soothe it with
+unspoken consolations. To see the elder lady embrace her friend as they
+parted was something holy—a sort of saintlike salutation.
+
+Consulting the person from whom I had no secrets, we had thought best
+at first not to mention to our friends the place and position in which
+we had found our dear Colonel; at least to wait for a fitting
+opportunity on which we might break the news to those who held him in
+such affection. I told how Clive was hard at work, and hoped the best
+for him. Good-natured Madame de Moncontour was easily satisfied with my
+replies to her questions concerning our friend. Ethel only asked if he
+and her uncle were well, and once or twice made inquiries respecting
+Rosa and her child. And now it was that my wife told me, what I need no
+longer keep secret, of Ethel’s extreme anxiety to serve her distressed
+relatives, and how she, Laura, had already acted as Miss Newcome’s
+almoner in furnishing and hiring those apartments, which Ethel believed
+were occupied by Clive and his father, and wife and child. And my wife
+further informed me with what deep grief Ethel had heard of her uncle’s
+misfortune, and how, but that she feared to offend his pride, she
+longed to give him assistance. She had even ventured to offer to send
+him pecuniary help; but the Colonel (who never mentioned the
+circumstance to me or any other of his friends), in a kind but very cold
+letter, had declined to be beholden to his niece for help.
+
+So I may have remained some days at Rosebury, and the real position of
+the two Newcomes was unknown to our friends there. Christmas Eve was
+come, and, according to a long-standing promise, Ethel Newcome and her
+two children had arrived from the Park, which dreary mansion, since his
+double defeat, Sir Barnes scarcely ever visited. Christmas was come,
+and Rosebury hall was decorated with holly. Florac did his best to
+welcome his friends, and strove to make the meeting gay, though in
+truth it was rather melancholy. The children, however, were happy: and
+they had pleasure enough, in the school festival, in the distribution
+of cloaks and blankets to the poor, and in Madame de Moncontour’s
+gardens, delightful and beautiful though the winter was there.
+
+It was only a family meeting, Madame de Florac’s widowhood not
+permitting her presence in large companies. Paul sate at his table
+between his mother and Mrs. Pendennis; Mr. Pendennis opposite to him,
+with Ethel and Madame de Moncontour on each side. The four children
+were placed between these personages, on whom Madame de Florac looked
+with her tender glances, and to whose little wants the kindest of hosts
+ministered with uncommon good-nature and affection. He was very
+soft-hearted about children. “Pourquoi n’en avons-nous pas, Jeanne? He!
+quoi n’en avons-nous pas?” he said, addressing his wife by her
+Christian name. The poor little lady looked kindly at her husband, and
+then gave a sigh, and turned and heaped cake upon the plate of the
+child next to her. No mamma or Aunt Ethel could interpose. It was a
+very light wholesome cake. Brown made it on purpose for the children,
+“the little darlings!” cries the Princess.
+
+The children were very happy at being allowed to sit up so late to
+dinner, at all the kindly amusements of the day, at the holly and
+mistletoe clustering round the lamps—the mistletoe, under which the
+gallant Florac, skilled in all British usages, vowed he would have his
+privilege. But the mistletoe was clustered round the lamp, the lamp was
+over the centre of the great round table—the innocent gratification
+which he proposed to himself was denied to M. Paul.
+
+In the greatest excitement and good-humour, our host at the dessert
+made us _des speech_. He carried a toast to the charming Ethel, another
+to the charming Mistriss Laura, another to his good fren’, his brave
+frren’, his ’appy fren’, Pendennis—’appy as possessor of such a wife,
+’appy as writer of works destined to the immortality, etc. etc. The
+little children round about clapped their happy little hands, and
+laughed and crowed in chorus. And now the nursery and its guardians
+were about to retreat, when Florac said he had yet a speech, yet a
+toast—and he bade the butler pour wine into every one’s glass—yet a
+toast—and he carried it to the health of our dear friends, of Clive and
+his father,—the good, the brave Colonel! “We who are happy,” says he,
+“shall we not think of those who are good? We who love each other,
+shall we not remember those whom we all love?” He spoke with very great
+tenderness and feeling. “Ma bonne mere, thou too shalt drink this
+toast!” he said, taking his mother’s hand, and kissing it. She returned
+his caress gently, and tasted the wine with her pale lips. Ethel’s head
+bent in silence over her glass; and, as for Laura, need I say what
+happened to her! When the ladies went away my heart was opened to my
+friend Florac, and I told him where and how I had left my dear Clive’s
+father.
+
+The Frenchman’s emotion on hearing this tale was such that I have loved
+him ever since. Clive in want! Why had he not sent to his friend?
+Grands Dieux! Clive who had helped him in his greatest distress!
+Clive’s father, ce _preux chevalier, ce parfait gentilhomme!_ In a
+hundred rapid exclamations Florac exhibited his sympathy, asking of
+Fate, why such men as he and I were sitting surrounded by
+splendours—before golden vases crowned with flowers—with valets to kiss
+our feet—(those were merely figures of speech in which Paul expressed
+his prosperity)—whilst our friend the Colonel, so much better than we,
+spent his last days in poverty, and alone.
+
+I liked Florac none the less, I own, because that one of the conditions
+of the Colonel’s present life, which appeared the hardest to most
+people, affected Florac but little. To be a Pensioner of an Ancient
+Institution? Why not? Might not a man retire without shame to the
+Invalides at the close of his campaigns, and, had not Fortune conquered
+our old friend, and age and disaster overcome him? It never once
+entered Thomas Newcome’s head; nor Clive’s, nor Florac’s, nor his
+mother’s, that the Colonel demeaned himself at all by accepting that
+bounty; and I recollect Warrington sharing our sentiment and trowling
+out those noble lines of the old poet:—
+
+“His golden locks time hath to silver turned;
+    O time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing!
+His youth ’gainst time and age hath ever spurned,
+    But spurned in vain; youth waneth by encreasing.
+Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen.
+Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.
+
+“His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
+    And lovers’ songs be turned to holy psalms;
+A man at arms must now serve on his knees,
+    And feed on prayers, which are old age’s alms.”
+
+
+These, I say, respected our friend, whatever was the coat he wore;
+whereas, among the Colonel’s own kinsfolk, dire was the dismay, and
+indignation even, which they expressed when they came to hear of this,
+what they were pleased to call degradation to their family. Clive’s
+dear mother-in-law made outcries over the good old man as over a
+pauper, and inquired of Heaven, what she had done that her blessed
+child should have a mendicant for a father? And Mrs. Hobson, in
+subsequent confidential communication with the writer of these memoirs,
+improved the occasion religiously as her wont was; referred the matter
+to Heaven too, and thought fit to assume that the celestial powers had
+decreed this _humiliation_, this _dreadful trial_ for the Newcome
+family, as a warning to them all that they should not be too much
+puffed up with prosperity, nor set their affections too much upon
+things of this earth. Had they not already received _one_ chastisement
+in Barnes’s punishment, and Lady Clara’s awful falling away? They had
+taught her a lesson, which the Colonel’s _lamentable errors_ had
+_confirmed_,—the vanity of trusting in all earthly grandeurs! Thus it
+was this worthy woman plumed herself, as it were, on her relative’s
+misfortunes; and was pleased to think the latter were designed for the
+special warning and advantage of her private family. But Mrs. Hobson’s
+philosophy is only mentioned by the way. Our story, which is drawing to
+its close, has to busy itself with other members of the house of The
+Newcomes.
+
+My talk with Florac lasted for some time: at its close, when we went to
+join the ladies in the drawing-room, we found Ethel cloaked and
+shawled, and prepared for her departure with her young ones, who were
+already asleep. The little festival was over, and had ended in
+melancholy—even in weeping. Our hostess sate in her accustomed seat by
+her lamp and her worktable; but, neglecting her needle, she was having
+perpetual recourse to her pocket-handkerchief, and uttering
+ejaculations of pity between the intervals of her gushes of tears.
+Madame de Florac was in her usual place, her head cast downwards, and
+her hands folded. My wife was at her side, a grave commiseration
+showing itself in Laura’s countenance, whilst I read a yet deeper
+sadness in Ethel’s pale face. Miss Newcome’s carriage had been
+announced; the attendants had already carried the young ones asleep to
+the vehicle; and she was in the act of taking leave. We looked round at
+this disturbed party, guessing very likely what the subject of their
+talk had been, to which, however, Miss Ethel did not allude: but,
+announcing that she had intended to depart without disturbing the two
+gentlemen, she bade us farewell and good night. “I wish I could say a
+merry Christmas,” she added gravely, “but none of us, I fear, can hope
+for that.” It was evident that Laura had told the last chapter of the
+Colonel’s story.
+
+Madame de Florac rose up and embraced Miss Newcome, and, that farewell
+over, she sank back on the sofa exhausted, and with such an expression
+of affliction in her countenance, that my wife ran eagerly towards her.
+“It is nothing, my dear,” she said, giving a cold hand to the younger
+lady, and sate silent for a few moments, during which we heard Florac’s
+voice without crying Adieu! and the wheels of Miss Newcome’s carriage
+when it drove away.
+
+Our host entered a moment afterwards; and remarking, as Laura had done,
+his mother’s pallor and look of anguish, went up and spoke to her with
+the utmost tenderness and anxiety.
+
+She gave her hand to her son, and a faint blush rose up out of the past
+as it were, and trembled upon her wan cheek. “He was the first friend I
+ever had in the world, Paul,” she said “the first and the best. He
+shall not want, shall he, my son?”
+
+No signs of that emotion in which her daughter-in-law had been
+indulging were as yet visible in Madame de Florac’s eyes, but, as she
+spoke, holding her son’s hand in hers, the tears at length overflowed,
+and with a sob, her head fell forwards. The impetuous Frenchman flung
+himself on his knees before his mother, uttered a hundred words of love
+and respect for her, and with tears and sobs of his own called God to
+witness that their friend should never want. And so this mother and son
+embraced each other, and clung together in a sacred union of love,
+before which we who had been admitted as spectators of that scene,
+stood hushed and respectful.
+
+That night Laura told me, how, when the ladies left us, the talk had
+been entirely about the Colonel and Clive. Madame de Florac had spoken
+especially, and much more freely than was her wont. She had told many
+reminiscences of Thomas Newcome, and his early days; how her father
+taught him mathematics when they were quite poor, and living in their
+dear little cottage at Blackheath; how handsome he was then, with
+bright eyes, and long black hair flowing over his shoulders; how
+military glory was his boyish passion, and he was for ever talking of
+India, and the famous deeds of Clive and Lawrence. His favourite book
+was a history of India—the history of Orme. “He read it, and I read it
+also, my daughter,” the French lady said, turning to Ethel; “ah! I may
+say so after so many years.”
+
+Ethel remembered the book as belonging to her grandmother, and now in
+the library at Newcome. Doubtless the same sympathy which caused me to
+speak about Thomas Newcome that evening, impelled my wife likewise. She
+told her friends, as I had told Florac, all the Colonel’s story; and it
+was while these good women were under the impression of the melancholy
+history, that Florac and his guest found them.
+
+Retired to our rooms, Laura and I talked on the same subject until the
+clock tolled Christmas, and the neighbouring church bells rang out a
+jubilation. And, looking out into the quiet night, where the stars were
+keenly shining, we committed ourselves to rest with humbled hearts;
+praying, for all those we loved, a blessing of peace and goodwill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVII.
+The Shortest and Happiest in the Whole History
+
+
+In the ensuing Christmas morning I chanced to rise betimes, and
+entering my dressing-room, opened the windows and looked out on the
+soft landscape, over which mists were still lying; whilst the serene
+sky above, and the lawns and leafless woods in the foreground near,
+were still pink with sunrise. The grey had not even left the west yet,
+and I could see a star or two twinkling there, to vanish with that
+twilight.
+
+As I looked out, I saw the not very distant lodge-gate open after a
+brief parley, and a lady on horseback, followed by a servant, rode
+rapidly up to the house. This early visitor was no other than Miss
+Ethel Newcome. The young lady espied me immediately. “Come down; come
+down to me this moment, Mr. Pendennis,” she cried out. I hastened down
+to her, supposing rightly that news of importance had brought her to
+Rosebury so early.
+
+The news were of importance indeed. “Look here!” she said, “read this;”
+and she took a paper from the pocket of her habit. “When I went home
+last night, after Madame de Florac had been talking to us about Orme’s
+India, I took the volumes from the bookcase and found this paper. It is
+in my grandmother’s—Mrs. Newcome’s—handwriting; I know it quite well,
+it is dated on the very day of her death. She had been writing and
+reading in her study on that very night; I have often heard papa speak
+of the circumstance. Look and read. You are a lawyer, Mr. Pendennis;
+tell me about this paper.”
+
+I seized it eagerly, and cast my eyes over it; but having read it, my
+countenance fell.
+
+“My dear Miss Newcome, it is not worth a penny,” I was obliged to own.
+
+“Yes, it is, sir, to honest people!” she cried out. “My brother and
+uncle will respect it as Mrs. Newcome’s dying wish. They _must_ respect
+it.”
+
+The paper in question was a letter in ink that had grown yellow from
+time, and was addressed by the late Mrs. Newcome, to “my dear Mr.
+Luce.”
+
+“That was her solicitor, my solicitor still,” interposes Miss Ethel.
+
+“THE HERMITAGE, March 14, 182-.
+
+
+“My Dear Mr. Luce” (the defunct lady wrote)—“My late husband’s grandson
+has been staying with me lately, and is a most pleasing, handsome, and
+engaging little boy. He bears a strong likeness to his grandfather, I
+think; and though he has no claims upon me, and I know is sufficiently
+provided for by his father Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, C.B., of the
+East India Company’s Service, I am sure my late dear husband will be
+pleased that I should leave his grandson, Clive Newcome, a token of
+_peace and goodwill;_ and I can do so with the more readiness, as it
+has pleased Heaven greatly to increase my means since my husband was
+called away hence.
+
+“I desire to bequeath a sum equal to that which Mr. Newcome willed to my
+eldest son, Brian Newcome, Esq., to Mr. Newcome’s grandson, Clive
+Newcome; and furthermore, that a token of my esteem and affection, a
+ring, or a piece of plate, of the value of one £100, be given to
+Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Newcome, my stepson, whose excellent conduct
+_for many years_, and whose repeated acts of gallantry in the _service
+of his sovereign_, have long obliterated the just feelings of
+displeasure with which I could not but view his early _disobedience and
+misbehaviour_, before he quitted England against my will, and entered
+the military service.
+
+“I beg you to prepare immediately a codicil to my will providing for
+the above bequests; and desire that the amount of these legacies should
+be taken from the property bequeathed to my eldest son. You will be so
+good as to prepare the necessary document, and bring it with you when
+you come on Saturday, to
+
+yours very truly,
+“Sophia Alethea Newcome.
+
+
+“Tuesday night.”
+
+I gave back the paper with a sigh to the finder. “It is but a wish of
+Mrs. Newcome, my dear Miss Ethel,” I said. “Pardon me, if I say, I
+think I know your elder brother too well to supposes that he will
+fulfil it.”
+
+“He _will_ fulfil it, sir, I am sure he will,” Miss Newcome said, in a
+haughty manner. “He would do as much without being asked, I am certain
+he would, did he know the depth of my dear uncle’s misfortune. Barnes
+is in London now, and——”
+
+“And you will write to him? I know what the answer will be.”
+
+“I will go to him this very day, Mr. Pendennis! I will go to my dear,
+dear uncle. I cannot bear to think of him in that place,” cried the
+young lady, the tears starting into her honest eyes. “It was the will
+of Heaven. Oh, God be thanked for it! Had we found my grandmamma’s
+letter earlier, Barnes would have paid the legacy immediately, and the
+money would have gone in that dreadful bankruptcy. I will go to Barnes
+to-day. Will you come with me? Won’t you come to your old friends? We
+may be at his—at Clive’s house this evening; and oh, praise be to God!
+there need be no more want in his family.”
+
+“My dear friend, I will go with you round the world on such an errand,”
+I said, kissing her hand. How beautiful she looked; the generous colour
+rose in her face, her voice thrilled with happiness. The music of
+Christmas church bells leaped up at this moment with joyful
+gratulations; the face of the old house, before which we stood talking,
+shone out in the morning sun.
+
+“You will come I thank you! I must run and tell Madame de Florac,”
+cried the happy young lady, and we entered the house together. “How
+came you to be kissing Ethel’s hand, sir; and what is the meaning of
+this early visit?” asks Mrs. Laura, as soon as I had returned to my own
+apartments.
+
+“Martha, get me a carpet-bag! I am going to London in an hour,” cries
+Mr. Pendennis. If I had kissed Ethel’s hand just now, delighted at the
+news which she brought to me, was not one a thousand times dearer to
+me, as happy as her friend? I know who prayed with a thankful heart
+that day as we sped, in the almost solitary train, towards London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVIII.
+In which the Author goes on a Pleasant Errand
+
+
+Before I parted with Miss Newcome at the station, she made me promise
+to see her on the morrow at an early hour at her brother’s house; and
+having bidden her farewell and repaired to my own solitary residence,
+which presented but a dreary aspect on that festive day, I thought I
+would pay Howland Street a visit; and, if invited, eat my Christmas
+dinner with Clive.
+
+I found my friend at home, and at work still, in spite of the day. He
+had promised a pair of pictures to a dealer for the morrow. “He pays me
+pretty well, and I want all the money he will give me, Pen,” the
+painter said, rubbing on at his canvas. “I am pretty easy in my mind
+since I have become acquainted with a virtuous dealer. I sell myself to
+him, body and soul, for some half-dozen pounds a week. I know I can get
+my money, and he is regularly supplied with his pictures. But for
+Rosey’s illness we might carry on well enough.”
+
+Rosey’s illness? I was sorry to hear of that: and poor Clive, entering
+into particulars, told me how he had spent upon doctors rather more
+than a fourth of his year’s earnings. “There is a solemn fellow, to
+whom the women have taken a fancy, who lives but a few doors off in
+Gower Street; and who, for his last sixteen visits, has taken sixteen
+pounds sixteen shillings out of my pocket, and as if guineas grew
+there, with the most admirable gravity. He talks the fashions to my
+mother-in-law. My poor wife hangs on every word he says. Look! There is
+his carriage coming up now! and there is his fee, confound him!” says
+Clive, casting a rueful look towards a little packet lying upon the
+mantelpiece, by the side of that skinned figure in plaster of Paris
+which we have seen in most studios.
+
+I looked out of window and saw a certain Fashionable Doctor tripping
+out of his chariot; that Ladies’ Delight, who has subsequently migrated
+from Bloomsbury to Belgravia; and who has his polite foot now in a
+thousand nurseries and boudoirs. What Confessors were in old times,
+Quackenboss and his like are in our Protestant country. What secrets
+they know! into what mystic chambers do they not enter! I suppose the
+Campaigner made a special toilette to receive her fashionable friend,
+for that lady attired in considerable splendour, and with the precious
+jewel on her head, which I remembered at Boulogne, came into the studio
+two minutes after the Doctor’s visit was announced, and made him a low
+curtsey. I cannot describe the overpowering civilities of that woman.
+
+Clive was very gracious and humble to her. He adopted a lively air in
+addressing her—“Must work, you know, Christmas Day and all—for the
+owner of the pictures will call for them in the morning. Bring me a
+good report about Rosey, Mrs. Mackenzie, please—and if you will have
+the kindness to look by the _écorché_ there, you will see that little
+packet which I have left for you.” Mrs. Mack, advancing, took the
+money. “I thought that plaster of Paris figure was not the only
+_écorché_ in the room.”
+
+“I want you to stay to dinner. You must stay, Pen, please,” cried
+Clive; “and be civil to her, will you? My dear old father is coming to
+dine here. They fancy that he has lodgings at the other end of the
+town, and that his brothers do something for him. Not a word about Grey
+Friars. It might agitate Rosa, you know. Ah! isn’t he noble, the dear
+old boy! and isn’t it fine to see him in that place?” Clive worked on
+as he talked, using up the last remnant of the light of Christmas Day,
+and was cleaning his palette and brushes, when Mrs. Mackenzie returned
+to us.
+
+Darling Rosey was very delicate, but Doctor Quackenboss was going to
+give her the very same medicine which had done the charming young
+Duchess of Clackmannanshire so much good, and he was not in the least
+disquiet.
+
+On this I cut into the conversation with anecdotes concerning the
+family of the Duchess of Clackmannanshire, remembering early days, when
+it used to be my sport to entertain the Campaigner with anecdotes of
+the aristocracy, about whose proceedings she still maintained a
+laudable curiosity. Indeed, one of few the books escaped out of the
+wreck of Tyburn Gardens was a Peerage, now a well-worn volume, much
+read by Rosa and her mother.
+
+The anecdotes were very politely received—perhaps it was the season
+which made Mrs. Mack and her son-in-law on more than ordinarily good
+terms. When, turning to the Campaigner, Clive said he wished that she
+could persuade me to stay to dinner, she acquiesced graciously and at
+once in that proposal, and vowed that her daughter would be delighted
+if I could condescend to eat their _humble_ fare. “It is not such a
+dinner as you _have_ seen at her house, with six side-dishes, two
+flanks, that splendid epergne, and the silver dishes top and bottom;
+but such as my Rosey _has_ she offers with a willing _heart_,” cries
+the Campaigner.
+
+“And Tom may sit to dinner, mayn’t he, grandmamma?” asks Clive, in a
+humble voice.
+
+“Oh, if you wish it, sir.”
+
+“His grandfather will like to sit by him,” said Clive. “I will go out
+and meet him; he comes through Guildford Street and Russell Square,”
+says Clive. “Will you walk, Pen?”
+
+“Oh, pray don’t let us detain you,” says Mrs. Mackenzie, with a toss of
+her head: and when she retreated Clive whispered that she would not
+want me; for she looked to the roasting of the beef and the making of
+the pudding and the mince-pie.
+
+“I thought she might have a finger in it,” I said; and we set forth to
+meet the dear old father, who presently came, walking very slowly,
+along the line by which we expected him. His stick trembled as it fell
+on the pavement: so did his voice, as he called out Clive’s name: so
+did his hand, as he stretched it to me. His body was bent, and feeble.
+Twenty years had not weakened him so much as the last score of months.
+I walked by the side of my two friends as they went onwards, linked
+lovingly together. How I longed for the morrow, and hoped they might be
+united once more! Thomas Newcome’s voice, once so grave, went up to a
+treble, and became almost childish, as he asked after Boy. His white
+hair hung over his collar. I could see it by the gas under which we
+walked—and Clive’s great back and arm, as his father leaned on it, and
+his brave face turned towards the old man. Oh, Barnes Newcome, Barnes
+Newcome! Be an honest man for once, and help your kinsfolk! thought I.
+
+The Christmas meal went off in a friendly manner enough. The
+Campaigner’s eyes were everywhere: it was evident that the little maid
+who served the dinner, and had cooked a portion of it under their keen
+supervision, cowered under them, as well as other folks. Mrs. Mack did
+not make more than ten allusions to former splendours during the
+entertainment, or half as many apologies to me for sitting down to a
+table very different from that to which I was _accustomed_. Good,
+faithful F. Bayham was the only other guest. He complimented the
+mince-pies, so that Mrs. Mackenzie owned she had made them. The Colonel
+was very silent, but he tried to feed Boy, and was only once or twice
+sternly corrected by the Campaigner. Boy, in the best little words he
+could muster, asked why grandpapa wore a black cloak? Clive nudged my
+foot under the table. The secret of the Poor Brothership was very
+nearly out. The Colonel blushed, and with great presence of mind said
+he wore a cloak to keep him warm in winter.
+
+Rosey did not say much. She had grown lean and languid: the light of
+her eyes had gone out: all her pretty freshness had faded. She ate
+scarce anything, though her mother pressed her eagerly, and whispered
+loudly that a woman in her situation ought to strengthen herself. Poor
+Rosey was always in a situation.
+
+When the cloth was withdrawn, the Colonel bending his head said, “Thank
+God for what we have received,” so reverently, and with an accent so
+touching, that Fred Bayham’s big eyes as he turned towards the old man
+filled up with tears. When his mother and grandmother rose to go away,
+poor little Boy cried to stay longer, and the Colonel would have meekly
+interposed, but the domineering Campaigner cried, “Nonsense, let him go
+to bed!” and flounced him out of the room: and nobody appealed against
+that sentence. Then we three remained, and strove to talk as cheerfully
+as we might, speaking now of old times, and presently of new. Without
+the slightest affectation, Thomas Newcome told us that his life was
+comfortable, and that he was happy in it. He wished that many others of
+the old gentlemen, he said, were as contented as himself, but some of
+them grumbled sadly, he owned and quarrelled with their
+bread-and-butter. He, for his part, had everything he could desire: all
+the officers of the Establishment were most kind to him; an excellent
+physician came to him when wanted; a most attentive woman waited on
+him. “And if I wear a black gown,” said he, “is not that uniform as
+good as another, and if we have to go to church every day, at which
+some of the Poor Brothers grumble, I think an old fellow can’t do
+better; and I can say my prayers with a thankful heart, Clivey my boy,
+and should be quite happy but for my—for my past imprudence, God
+forgive me. Think of Bayham here coming to our chapel to-day!—he often
+comes—that was very right, sir—very right.”
+
+Clive, filling a glass of wine, looked at F. B. with eyes that said God
+bless you. F. B. gulped down another bumper. “It is almost a merry
+Christmas,” said I; “and oh, I hope it will be a happy New Year!”
+
+Shortly after nine o’clock the Colonel rose to depart, saying he must
+be “in barracks” by ten; and Clive and F. B. went a part of the way
+with him. I would have followed them, but he whispered me to stay and
+talk to Mrs. Mack, for Heaven’s sake, and that he would be back ere
+long. So I went and took tea with the two ladies; and as we drank it,
+Mrs. Mackenzie took occasion to tell me she did not know what amount of
+income the Colonel had from his _wealthy brother_, but that _they_
+never received any benefit from it; and again she computed to me all
+the sums, principal and interest, which ought at that moment to belong
+to her darling Rosey. Rosey now and again made a feeble remark. She did
+not seem pleased or sorry when her husband came in; and presently,
+dropping me a little curtsey, went to bed under charge of the
+Campaigner. So Bayham and I and Clive retired to the studio, where
+smoking was allowed, and where we brought that Christmas day to an end.
+
+At the appointed time on the next forenoon I called upon Miss Newcome
+at her brother’s house. Sir Barnes Newcome was quitting his own door as
+I entered it, and he eyed me with such a severe countenance, as made me
+augur but ill of the business upon which I came. The expression of
+Ethel’s face was scarcely more cheering: she was standing at the
+window, sternly looking at Sir Barnes, who yet lingered at his own
+threshold, having some altercation with his cab-boy ere he mounted his
+vehicle to drive into the City.
+
+Miss Newcome was very pale when she advanced and gave me her hand. I
+looked with some alarm into her face, and inquired what news?
+
+“It is as you expected, Mr. Pendennis,” she said—“not as I did. My
+brother is averse to making restitution. He just now parted from me in
+some anger. But it does not matter; the restitution must be made, if
+not by Barnes, by one of our family—must it not?”
+
+“God bless you for a noble creature, my dear, dear Miss Newcome!” was
+all I could say.
+
+“For doing what is right? Ought I not to do it? I am the eldest of our
+family after Barnes: I am the richest after him. Our father left all
+his younger children the very sum of money which Mrs. Newcome here
+devises to Clive; and you know, besides, I have all my grandmother’s,
+Lady Kew’s, property. Why, I don’t think I could sleep if this act of
+justice were not done. Will you come with me to my lawyer’s? He and my
+brother Barnes are trustees of my property; and I have been thinking,
+dear Mr. Pendennis—and you are very good to be so kind, and to express
+so kind an opinion of me, and you and Laura have always, always been
+the best friends to me”—(she says this, taking one of my hands and
+placing her other hand over it)—“I have been thinking, you know, that
+this transfer had better be made through Mr. Luce, you understand, and
+as coming from the _family_, and then I need not appear in it at all,
+you see; and—and my dear good uncle’s pride need not be wounded.” She
+fairly gave way to tears as she spoke—and for me, I longed to kiss the
+hem of her robe, or anything else she would let me embrace, I was so
+happy, and so touched by the simple demeanour and affection of the
+noble young lady.
+
+“Dear Ethel,” I said, “did I not say I would go to the end of the world
+with you—and won’t I go to Lincoln’s Inn?”
+
+A cab was straightway sent for, and in another half-hour we were in the
+presence of the courtly little old Mr. Luce in his chambers in
+Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
+
+He knew the late Mrs. Newcome’s handwriting at once. He remembered
+having seen the little boy at the Hermitage, had talked with Mr.
+Newcome regarding his son in India, and had even encouraged Mrs.
+Newcome in her idea of leaving some token of goodwill to the latter. “I
+was to have dined with your grandmamma on the Saturday, with my poor
+wife. Why, bless my soul! I remember the circumstance perfectly well,
+my dear young lady. There can’t be a doubt about the letter, but of
+course the bequest is no bequest at all, and Colonel Newcome has
+behaved so ill to your brother that I suppose Sir Barnes will not go
+out of his way to benefit the Colonel.”
+
+“What would you do, Mr. Luce?” asks the young lady.
+
+“H’m! And pray why should I tell you what I should do under the
+circumstances?” replied the little lawyer. “Upon my word, Miss Newcome,
+I think I should leave matters as they stand. Sir Barnes and I, you are
+aware, are not the very best of friends—as your father’s, your
+grandmother’s old friend and adviser, your own too, my dear young lady,
+I and Sir Barnes Newcome remain on civil terms. But neither is over
+much pleased with the other, to say the truth; and, at any rate, I
+cannot be accused—nor can any one else that I know of—of being a very
+warm partisan of your brother’s. But candidly, were his case mine—had I
+a relation who had called me unpleasant names, and threatened me I
+don’t know with what, with sword and pistol—who had put me to five or
+six thousand pounds’ expense in contesting an election which I had
+lost,—I should give him, I think, no more than the law obliged me to
+give him; and that, my dear Miss Newcome, is not one farthing.”
+
+“I am very glad you say so,” said Miss Newcome, rather to my
+astonishment.
+
+“Of course, my dear young lady; and so you need not be alarmed at
+showing your brother this document. Is not that the point about which
+you came to consult me? You wished that I should prepare him for the
+awful disclosure, did you not? You know, perhaps, that he does not like
+to part with his money, and thought the appearance of this note might
+agitate him? It has been a long time coming to its address, but nothing
+can be done, don’t you see? and be sure Sir Barnes Newcome will not be
+the least agitated when I tell him its contents.”
+
+“I mean I am very glad you think my brother is not called upon to obey
+Mrs. Newcome’s wishes, because I need not think so hardly of him as I
+was disposed to do,” Miss Newcome said. “I showed him the paper this
+morning, and he repelled it with scorn; and not kind words passed
+between us, Mr. Luce, and unkind thoughts remained in my mind. But if
+he, you think, is justified, it is I who have been in the wrong for
+saying that he was self—for upbraiding him as I own I did.”
+
+“You called him selfish!—You had words with him! Such things have
+happened before, my dear Miss Newcome, in the best-regulated families.”
+
+“But if he is not wrong, sir, holding his opinions, surely I should be
+wrong, sir, with mine, not to do as my conscience tells me; and having
+found this paper only yesterday at Newcome, in the library there, in
+one of my grandmother’s books, I consulted with this gentleman, the
+husband of my dearest friend, Mrs. Pendennis—the most intimate friend
+of my uncle and cousin Clive; and I wish, and I desire and insist, that
+my share of what my poor father left us girls should be given to my
+cousin, Mr. Clive Newcome, in accordance with my grandmother’s dying
+wishes.”
+
+“My dear, you gave away your portion to your brothers and sisters ever
+so long ago!” cried the lawyer.
+
+“I desire, sir, that six thousand pounds may be given to my cousin,”
+Miss Newcome said, blushing deeply. “My dear uncle, the best man in the
+world, whom I love with all my heart, sir, is in the most dreadful
+poverty. Do you know where he is, sir? My dear, kind, generous
+uncle!”—and, kindling as she spoke, and with eyes beaming a bright
+kindness, and flushing cheeks, and a voice that thrilled to the heart
+of those two who heard her, Miss Newcome went on to tell of her uncle’s
+and cousin’s misfortunes, and of her wish, under God, to relieve them.
+I see before me now the figure of the noble girl as she speaks; the
+pleased little old lawyer, bobbing his white head, looking up at her
+with his twinkling eyes—patting his knees, patting his snuff-box—as he
+sits before his tapes and his deeds, surrounded by a great background
+of tin boxes.
+
+“And I understand you want this money paid as coming from the family,
+and not from Miss Newcome?” says Mr. Luce.
+
+“Coming from the family—exactly,” answers Miss Newcome.
+
+Mr. Luce rose up from his old chair—his worn-out old horsehair
+chair—where he had sat for half a century and listened to many a
+speaker, very different from this one. “Mr. Pendennis,” he said, “I
+envy you your journey along with this young lady. I envy you the good
+news you are going to carry to your friends—and, Miss Newcome, as I am
+an old—old gentleman who have known your family these sixty years, and
+saw your father in his long-clothes, may I tell you how heartily and
+sincerely I—I love and respect you, my dear? When should you wish Mr.
+Clive Newcome to have his legacy?”
+
+“I think I should like Mr. Pendennis to have it this instant, Mr. Luce,
+please,” said the young lady—and her veil dropped over her face as she
+bent her head down, and clasped her hands together for a moment, as if
+she was praying.
+
+Mr. Luce laughed at her impetuosity; but said that if she was bent upon
+having the money, it was at her instant service; and before we left the
+room, Mr. Luce prepared a letter, addressed to Clive Newcome, Esquire,
+in which he stated, that amongst the books of the late Mrs. Newcome a
+paper had only just been found, of which a copy was enclosed, and that
+the family of the late Sir Brian Newcome, desirous to do honour to the
+wishes of the late Mrs. Newcome, had placed the sum of 6000 pounds at
+the bank of Messrs. H. W——, at the disposal of Mr. Clive Newcome, of
+whom Mr. Luce had the honour to sign himself the most obedient servant,
+etc. And, the letter approved and copied, Mr. Luce said Mr. Pendennis
+might be the postman thereof; if Miss Newcome so willed it; and, with
+this document in my pocket, I quitted the lawyer’s chambers, with my
+good and beautiful young companion.
+
+Our cab had been waiting several hours in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and I
+asked Miss Ethel whither I now should conduct her?
+
+“Where is Grey Friars?” she said. “Mayn’t I go to see my uncle?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIX.
+In which Old Friends come together
+
+
+We made the descent of Snowhill, we passed by the miry pens of
+Smithfield; we travel through the street of St. John, and presently
+reach the ancient gateway, in Cistercian Square, where lies the old
+Hospital of Grey Friars. I passed through the gate, my fair young
+companion on my arm, and made my way to the rooms occupied by brother
+Newcome.
+
+As we traversed the court the Poor Brothers were coming from dinner. A
+couple of score, or more, of old gentlemen in black gowns, issued from
+the door of their refectory, and separated over the court, betaking
+themselves to their chambers. Ethel’s arm trembled under mine as she
+looked at one and another, expecting to behold her dear uncle’s
+familiar features. But he was not among the brethren. We went to his
+chamber, of which the door was open: a female attendant was arranging
+the room; she told us Colonel Newcome was out for the day, and thus our
+journey had been made in vain.
+
+Ethel went round the apartment and surveyed its simple decorations; she
+looked at the pictures of Clive and his boy; the two sabres crossed
+over the mantelpiece, the Bible laid on the table, by the old latticed
+window. She walked slowly up to the humble bed, and sat down on a chair
+near it. No doubt her heart prayed for him who slept there; she turned
+round where his black pensioner’s cloak was hanging on the wall, and
+lifted up the homely garment, and kissed it. The servant looked on
+admiring, I should think, her melancholy and her gracious beauty. I
+whispered to the woman that the young lady was the Colonel’s niece. “He
+has a son who comes here, and is very handsome, too,” said the
+attendant.
+
+The two women spoke together for a while. “Oh, miss!” cried the elder
+and humbler, evidently astonished at some gratuity which Miss Newcome
+bestowed upon her, “I didn’t want this to be good to him. Everybody
+here loves him for himself; and I would sit up for him for weeks—that I
+would.”
+
+My companion took a pencil from her bag, and wrote “Ethel” on a piece
+of paper, and laid the paper on the Bible. Darkness had again fallen by
+this time, feeble lights were twinkling in the chamber windows of the
+Poor Brethren as we issued into the courts;—feeble lights illumining a
+dim, grey, melancholy old scene. Many a career, once bright, was
+flickering out here in the darkness; many a night was closing in. We
+went away silently from that quiet place; and in another minute were in
+the flare and din and tumult of London.
+
+“The Colonel is most likely gone to Clive’s,” I said. Would not Miss
+Newcome follow him thither? We consulted whether she should go. She
+took heart and said yes. “Drive, cabman, to Howland Street!” The horse
+was, no doubt, tired, for the journey seemed extraordinarily long; I
+think neither of us spoke a word on the way.
+
+I ran upstairs to prepare our friends for the visit. Clive, his wife,
+his father, and his mother-in-law were seated by a dim light in Mrs.
+Clive’s sitting-room. Rosey on the sofa, as usual; the little boy on
+his grandfather’s knees.
+
+I hardly made a bow to the ladies, so eager was I to communicate with
+Colonel Newcome. “I have just been to your quarters at Grey Friars,
+sir,” said I. “That is——”
+
+“You have been to the Hospital, sir! You need not be ashamed to mention
+it, as Colonel Newcome is not ashamed _to go there_,” cried out the
+Campaigner. “Pray speak in your own language, Clive, unless there is
+something _not fit_ for ladies to hear.” Clive was growling out to me
+in German that there had just been a terrible scene, his father having,
+a quarter of an hour previously, let slip the secret about Grey Friars.
+
+“Say at once, Clive!” the Campaigner cried, rising in her might, and
+extending a great strong arm over her helpless child, “that Colonel
+Newcome owns that he has gone to live as a pauper in a hospital! He who
+has squandered his own money. He who has squandered my money. He who
+has squandered the money of that darling helpless child—compose
+yourself, Rosey my love!—has completed the disgrace of the family, by
+his present mean and unworthy—yes, I say, mean and _unworthy_ and
+_degraded_ conduct. Oh, my child, my blessed child! to think that your
+husband’s father should have come to a _workhouse!_” Whilst this
+maternal agony bursts over her, Rosa, on the sofa, bleats and whimpers
+amongst the faded chintz cushions.
+
+I took Clive’s hand, which was cast up to his head striking his
+forehead with mad impotent rage, whilst this fiend of a woman lashed
+his good father. The veins of his great fist were swollen, his whole
+body was throbbing and trembling with the helpless pain under which he
+writhed. “Colonel Newcome’s friends, ma’am,”, I said, “think very
+differently from you; and that he is a better judge than you, or any
+one else, of his own honour. We all, who loved him in his prosperity,
+love and respect him more than ever for the manner in which he bears
+his misfortune. Do you suppose that his noble friend, the Earl of H——,
+would have counselled him to a step unworthy of a gentleman; that the
+Prince de Moncontour would applaud his conduct as he does, if he did
+not think it admirable?” I can hardly say with what scorn I used this
+argument, or what depth of contempt I felt for the woman whom I knew it
+would influence. “And at this minute,” I added, “I have come from
+visiting the Gray Friars with one of the Colonel’s relatives, whose
+love and respect for him is boundless; who longs to be reconciled to
+him, and who is waiting below, eager to shake his hand, and embrace
+Clive’s wife.”
+
+“Who is that?” says the Colonel, looking gently up, as he pats Boy’s
+head.
+
+“Who is it, Pen?” says Clive. I said in a low voice, “Ethel;” and
+starting up and crying “Ethel! Ethel!” he ran from the room.
+
+Little Mrs. Rosa started up too on her sofa, clutching hold of the
+table-cover with her lean hand, and the two red spots on her cheeks
+burning more fiercely than ever. I could see what passion was beating
+in that poor little heart. “Heaven help us! what a resting-place had
+friends and parents prepared for it! for shame!”
+
+“Miss Newcome, is it? My darling Rosa, get on your shawl!” cried the
+Campaigner, a grim smile lighting her face.
+
+“It is Ethel; Ethel is my niece. I used to love her when she was quite
+a little girl,” says the Colonel, patting Boy on the head; “and she is
+a very good, beautiful little child—a very good child.” The torture had
+been too much for that kind old heart: there were times when Thomas
+Newcome passed beyond it. What still maddened Clive, excited his father
+no more; the pain yonder woman inflicted, only felled and stupefied
+him.
+
+As the door opened, the little white-headed child trotted forward
+towards the visitor, and Ethel entered on Clive’s arm, who was as
+haggard and pale as death. Little Boy, looking up at the stately lady,
+still followed beside her, as she approached her uncle, who remained
+sitting, his head bent to the ground. His thoughts were elsewhere.
+Indeed he was following the child, and about to caress it again.
+
+“Here is a friend, father!” says Clive, laying a hand on the old man’s
+shoulder. “It is I, Ethel, uncle!” the young lady said, taking his
+hand; and kneeling down between his knees, she flung her arms round
+him, and kissed him, and wept on his shoulder.
+
+His consciousness had quite returned ere an instant was over. He
+embraced her with the warmth of his old affection, uttering many brief
+words of love, kindness, and tenderness, such as men speak when
+strongly moved.
+
+The little boy had come wondering up to the chair whilst this embrace
+took place, and Clive’s tall figure bent over the three. Rosa’s eyes
+were not good to look at, as she stared at the group with a ghastly
+smile. Mrs. Mackenzie surveyed the scene in haughty state, from behind
+the sofa cushions. She tried to take one of Rosa’s lean hot hands. The
+poor child tore it away, leaving her rings behind her; lifted her hands
+to her face: and cried, cried as if her little heart would break. Ah
+me! what a story was there! what an outburst of pent-up feeling! what a
+passion of pain! The ring had fallen to the ground; the little boy
+crept towards it, and picked it up, and came towards his mother, fixing
+on her his large wondering eyes. “Mamma crying. Mamma’s ring!” he said,
+holding up the circle of gold. With more feeling than I had ever seen
+her exhibit, she clasped the boy in her wasted arms. Great Heaven! what
+passion, jealousy, grief, despair, were tearing and trying all these
+hearts, that but for fate might have been happy?
+
+Clive went round, and with the utmost sweetness and tenderness hanging
+round his child and wife, soothed her with words of consolation, that
+in truth I scarce heard, being ashamed almost of being present at this
+sudden scene. No one, however, took notice of the witnesses; and even
+Mrs. Mackenzie’s voice was silent for the moment. I dare say Clive’s
+words were incoherent; but women have more presence of mind; and now
+Ethel, with a noble grace which I cannot attempt to describe, going up
+to Rosa, seated herself by her, spoke of her long grief at the
+differences between her dearest uncle and herself; of her early days,
+when he had been as a father to her; of her wish, her hope that Rosa
+should love her as a sister; and of her belief that better days and
+happiness were in store for them all. And she spoke to the mother about
+her boy so beautiful and intelligent, and told her how she had brought
+up her brother’s children, and hoped that this one too would call her
+Aunt Ethel. She would not stay now, might she come again? Would Rosa
+come to her with her little boy? Would he kiss her? He did so with a
+very good grace; but when Ethel at parting embraced the child’s mother,
+Rosa’s face wore a smile ghastly to look at, and the lips that touched
+Ethel’s cheeks, were quite white.
+
+“I shall come and see you again to-morrow, uncle, may I not? I saw your
+room to-day, sir, and your housekeeper; such a nice old lady, and your
+black gown. And you shall put it on to-morrow, and walk with me, and
+show me the beautiful old buildings of that old hospital. And I shall
+come and make tea for you, the housekeeper says I may. Will you come
+down with me to my carriage? No, Mr. Pendennis must come;” and she
+quitted the room, beckoning me after her. “You will speak to Clive now,
+won’t you?” she said, “and come to me this evening, and tell me all
+before you go to bed?” I went back, anxious in truth to the messenger
+of good tidings to my dear old friends.
+
+Brief as my absence had been, Mrs. Mackenzie had taken advantage of
+that moment again to outrage Clive and his father, and to announce that
+Rosa might go to see this Miss Newcome, whom people respected because
+she was rich, but whom _she_ would never visit; no, never! “An
+insolent, proud, impertinent thing! Does she take me for a housemaid?”
+Mrs. Mackenzie had inquired.
+
+“Am I dust to be trampled beneath her feet? Am I a dog that she can’t
+throw me a word?” Her arms were stretched out, and she was making this
+inquiry as to her own canine qualities as I re-entered the room, and
+remembered that Ethel had never once addressed a single word to Mrs.
+Mackenzie in the course of her visit.
+
+I affected not to perceive the incident, and presently said that I
+wanted to speak to Clive in his studio. Knowing that I had brought my
+friend one or two commissions for drawings, Mrs. Mackenzie was civil to
+me, and did not object to our colloquies.
+
+“Will you come too, and smoke a pipe, father?” says Clive.
+
+“_Of course_ your father intends to stay to _dinner?_” says the
+Campaigner, with a scornful toss of her head. Clive groaned out as we
+were on the stair, “that he could not bear this much longer, by heavens
+he could not.”
+
+“Give the Colonel his pipe, Clive,” said I. “Now, sir, down with you in
+the sitter’s chair, and smoke the sweetest cheroot you ever smoked in
+your life! My dear, dear old Clive! you need not bear with the
+Campaigner any longer; you may go to bed without this nightmare
+to-night if you like; you may have your father back under your roof
+again.”
+
+“My dear Arthur! I must be back at ten, sir, back at ten, military
+time; drum beats; no—bell tolls at ten, and gates close;” and he
+laughed and shook his old head. “Besides, I am to see a young lady,
+sir; and she is coming to make tea for me, and I must speak to Mrs.
+Jones to have all things ready—all things ready;” and again the old man
+laughed as he spoke.
+
+His son looked at him and then at me with eyes full of sad meaning.
+“How do you mean, Arthur,” Clive said, “that he can come and stay with
+me, and that that woman can go?”
+
+Then feeling in my pocket for Mr. Luce’s letter, I grasped my dear
+Clive by the hand and bade him prepare for good news. I told him how
+providentially, two days since, Ethel, in the library at Newcome,
+looking into Orme’s History of India, a book which old Mrs. Newcome had
+been reading on the night of her death, had discovered a paper, of
+which the accompanying letter enclosed a copy, and I gave my friend the
+letter.
+
+He opened it, and read it through. I cannot say that I saw any
+particular expression of wonder in his countenance, for somehow, all
+the while Clive perused this document, I was looking at the Colonel’s
+sweet kind face. “It—it is Ethel’s doing,” said Clive, in a hurried
+voice. “There was no such letter.”
+
+“Upon my honour,” I answered, “there was. We came up to London with it
+last night, a few hours after she had found it. We showed it to Sir
+Barnes Newcome, who—who could not disown it. We took it to Mr. Luce,
+who recognised it at once, who was old Mrs. Newcome’s man of business,
+and continues to be the family lawyer, and the family recognises the
+legacy and has paid it, and you may draw for it to-morrow, as you see.
+What a piece of good luck it is that it did not come before the B. B.
+C. time! That confounded Bundelcund Bank would have swallowed up this
+like all the rest.”
+
+“Father! father! do you remember Orme’s History of India?” cries Clive.
+
+“Orme’s History! of course I do, I could repeat whole pages of it when
+I was a boy,” says the old man, and began forthwith. “‘The two
+battalions advanced against each other cannonading, until the French,
+coming to a hollow way, imagined that the English would not venture to
+pass it. But Major Lawrence ordered the sepoys and artillery—the sepoys
+and artillery to halt and defend the convoy against the
+Morattoes’—Morattoes Orme calls ’em. Ho! ho! I could repeat whole
+pages, sir.”
+
+“It is the best book that ever was written,” calls out Clive. The
+Colonel said he had not read it, but he was informed Mr. Mill’s was a
+very learned history; he intended to read it. “Eh! there is plenty of
+time now,” said the good Colonel. “I have all day long at Grey
+Friars,—after chapel, you know. Do you know, sir, when I was a boy I
+used what they call to tib out and run down to a public-house in
+Cistercian Lane—the Red Cowl sir,—and buy rum there? I was a terrible
+wild boy, Clivy. You weren’t so, sir, thank Heaven! A terrible wild
+boy, and my poor father flogged me, though I think it was very hard on
+me. It wasn’t the pain, you know: it wasn’t the pain, but——” Here tears
+came into his eyes and he dropped his head on his hand, and the cigar
+from it fell on to the floor, burnt almost out, and scattering white
+ashes.
+
+Clive looked sadly at me. “He was often so at Boulogne, Arthur,” he
+whispered; “after a scene with that—that woman yonder, his head would
+go: he never replied to her taunts; he bore her infernal cruelty
+without an unkind word—Oh! I pay her back, thank God I can pay her! But
+who shall pay her,” he said, trembling in every limb, “for what she has
+made that good man suffer?”
+
+He turned to his father, who still sate lost in his meditations. “You
+need never go back to Grey Friars, father!” he cried out.
+
+“Not go back, Clivy? Must go back, boy, to say Adsum, when my name is
+called. Newcome! Adsum! Hey! that is what we used to say—we used to
+say!”
+
+“You need not go back, except to pack your things, and return and live
+with me and Boy,” Clive continued, and he told Colonel Newcome rapidly
+the story of the legacy. The old man seemed hardly to comprehend it.
+When he did, the news scarcely elated him; when Clive said “they could
+now pay Mrs. Mackenzie,” the Colonel replied, “Quite right, quite
+right,” and added up the sum, principal and interest, in which they
+were indebted to her—he knew it well enough, the good old man. “Of
+course we shall pay her, Clivy, when we can!” But in spite of what
+Clive had said he did not appear to understand the fact that the debt
+to Mrs. Mackenzie was now actually to be paid.
+
+As we were talking, a knock came to the studio door, and that summons
+was followed by the entrance of the maid, who said to Clive, “If you
+please, sir, Mrs. Mackenzie says, how long are you a-going to keep the
+dinner waiting?”
+
+“Come, father, come to dinner!” cries Clive; “and, Pen, you will come
+too, won’t you?” he added; “it may be the last time you dine in such
+pleasant company. Come along,” he whispered hurriedly. “I should like
+you to be there, it will keep her tongue quiet.” As we proceeded to the
+dining-room, I gave the Colonel my arm; and the good man prattled to me
+something about Mrs. Mackenzie having taken shares in the Bundelcund
+Banking Company, and about her not being a woman of business, and
+fancying we had spent her money. “And I have always felt a wish that
+Clivy should pay her, and he will pay her, I know he will,” says the
+Colonel; “and then we shall lead a quiet life, Arthur; for, between
+ourselves, some women are the deuce when they are angry, sir.” And
+again he laughed, as he told me this sly news, and he bowed meekly his
+gentle old head as we entered the dining-room.
+
+That apartment was occupied by little Boy already seated in his high
+chair, and by the Campaigner only, who stood at the mantelpiece in a
+majestic attitude. On parting with her, before we adjourned to Clive’s
+studio, I had made my bow and taken my leave in form, not supposing
+that I was about to enjoy her hospitality yet once again. My return did
+not seem to please her. “Does Mr. Pendennis favour us with his company
+to dinner again, Clive?” she said, turning to her son-in-law. Clive
+curtly said, Yes, he had asked Mr. Pendennis to stay.
+
+“You might at least have been _so kind_ as to give me notice,” says the
+Campaigner, still majestic, but ironical. “You will have but a poor
+meal, Mr. Pendennis; and one such as I’m not accustomed to give my
+guests.”
+
+“Cold beef! what the deuce does it matter;” says Clive, beginning to
+carve the joint, which, hot, had served our yesterday’s Christmas
+table.
+
+“It does matter, sir! I am not accustomed to treat my guests in this
+way. Maria! who has been cutting that beef? Three pounds of that beef
+have been cut away since one o’clock to-day,” and with flashing eyes,
+and a finger twinkling all over with rings, she pointed towards the
+guilty joint.
+
+Whether Maria had been dispensing secret charities, or kept company
+with an occult policeman partial to roast-beef, I do not know; but she
+looked very much alarmed, and said, Indeed, and indeed, mum, she had
+not touched a morsel of it!—not she.
+
+“Confound the beef!” says Clive, carving on.
+
+“She _has_ been cutting it!” cries the Campaigner, bringing her fist
+down with a thump upon the table. “Mr. Pendennis! you saw the beef
+yesterday; eighteen pounds it weighed, and this is what comes up of it!
+As if there was not already ruin enough in the house!”
+
+“D—n the beef!” cries out Clive.
+
+“No! no! Thank God for our good dinner! Benedicti benedicamus, Clivy my
+boy,” says the Colonel, in a tremulous voice.
+
+“Swear on, sir! let the child hear your oaths! Let my blessed child,
+who is too ill to sit at table and picks her bite! sweetbread on her
+sofa,—which her poor mother prepares for her, Mr. Pendennis,—which I
+cooked it, and gave it to her with _these hands_,—let _her_ hear your
+curses and blasphemies, Clive Newcome! They are loud enough.”
+
+“Do let us have a quiet life,” groans out Clive; and for me, I must
+confess, I kept my eyes steadily down upon my plate, nor dared to lift
+them until my portion of cold beef had vanished.
+
+No further outbreak took place until the appearance of the second
+course, which consisted, as the ingenious reader may suppose, of the
+plum-pudding, now in a grilled state, and the remanent of mince-pies
+from yesterday’s meal. Maria, I thought, looked particularly guilty as
+these delicacies were placed on the table: she set them down hastily,
+and was for operating an instant retreat.
+
+But the Campaigner shrieked after her, “Who has eaten that pudding? I
+insist upon knowing who has eaten it. I saw it at two o’clock when I
+went down to the kitchen and fried a bit for my darling child, and
+there’s pounds of it gone since then! There were five mince-pies! Mr.
+Pendennis! you saw yourself there were five that went away from table
+yesterday—where’s the other two Maria? You leave the house this night,
+you thieving, wicked wretch—and I’ll thank you to come back to me
+afterwards for a character. Thirteen servants have we had in nine
+months, Mr. Pendennis, and this girl is the worst of them all, and the
+greatest liar and the greatest thief.”
+
+At this charge the outraged Maria stood up in arms, and as the phrase
+is, gave the Campaigner as good as she got. Go! wouldn’t she go? Pay
+her her wages, and let her go out of that ell upon hearth, was Maria’s
+prayer. “It isn’t you, sir,” she said, turning to Clive. “_You_ are
+good enough, and works hard enough to git the guineas which you give
+out to pay that doctor; and she don’t pay him—and I see five of them in
+her purse wrapped up in paper, myself I did, and she abuses you to
+him—and I heard her, and Jane Black, who was here before, told me she
+heard her. Go! won’t I just go, I dispises your puddens and pies!” and
+with a laugh of scorn this rude Maria snapped her black fingers in the
+immediate vicinity of the Campaigner’s nose.
+
+“I will pay her her wages, and she shall go this instant!” says Mrs.
+Mackenzie, taking her purse out.
+
+“Pay me with them suvverings that you have got in it, wrapped up in
+paper. See if she haven’t, Mr. Newcome,” the refractory waiting-woman
+cried out, and again she laughed a strident laugh.
+
+Mrs. Mackenzie briskly shut her portemonnaie, and rose up from table,
+quivering with indignant virtue. “Go!” she exclaimed, “go and pack your
+trunks this instant! you quit the house this night, and a policeman
+shall see to your boxes before you leave it!”
+
+Whilst uttering this sentence against the guilty Maria, the Campaigner
+had intended, no doubt, to replace her purse in her pocket,—a handsome
+filagree gimcrack of poor Ross’s, one of the relics of former
+splendours,—but, agitated by Maria’s insolence, the trembling hand
+missed the mark, and the purse fell to the ground.
+
+Maria dashed at the purse in a moment, with a scream of laughter shook
+its contents upon the table, and sure enough, five little packets
+wrapped in paper rolled out upon the cloth, besides bank-notes and
+silver and golden coin. “I’m to go, am I? I’m a thief, am I?” screamed
+the girl, clapping her hands. “_I_ sor ’em yesterday when I was
+a-lacing of her; and thought of that pore young man working night and
+day to get the money;—me a thief, indeed!—I despise you, and _I_ give
+you warning.”
+
+“Do you wish to see me any longer insulted by this woman, Clive? Mr.
+Pendennis, I am shocked that you should witness such horrible
+vulgarity,” cries the Campaigner, turning to her guest. “Does the
+wretched creature suppose that I, I who have given _thousands_, I who
+have denied myself _everything_, I who have spent my _all_ in support
+of this house; and Colonel Newcome _knows_ whether I have given
+thousands or not, and _who_ has spent them, and _who_ has been robbed,
+I say, and——”
+
+“Here! you! Maria! go about your business,” shouted out Clive Newcome,
+starting up; “go and pack your trunks if you like, and pack this
+woman’s trunks too. Mrs. Mackenzie, I can bear you no more; go in
+peace, and if you wish to see your daughter she shall come to you; but
+I will never, so help me God! sleep under the same roof with you; or
+break the same crust with you; or bear your infernal cruelty; or sit to
+hear my father insulted; or listen to your wicked pride and folly more.
+There has not been a day since you thrust your cursed foot into our
+wretched house, but you have tortured one and all of us. Look here, at
+the best gentleman, and the kindest heart in all the world, you fiend!
+and see to what a condition you have brought him! Dearest father! she
+is going, do you hear? She leaves us, and you will come back to me,
+won’t you? Great God, woman,” he gasped out, “do you know what you have
+made me suffer—what you have done to this good man? Pardon, father,
+pardon!”—and he sank down by his father’s side, sobbing with passionate
+emotion. The old man even now did not seem to comprehend the scene.
+When he heard that woman’s voice in anger, a sort of stupor came over
+him.
+
+“I am a _fiend_, am I?” cries the lady. “You hear, Mr. Pendennis, this
+is the language to which I am accustomed; I am a widow, and I trusted
+my child and my all to that old man; he robbed me and my darling of
+almost every farthing we had; and what has been my return for such
+baseness? I have lived in this house and toiled like a _slave;_ I have
+acted as servant to my blessed child; night after night I have sat with
+her; and month after month, when _her husband_ has been away, I have
+nursed that poor innocent; and the father having robbed me, the son
+turns me out of doors!”
+
+A sad thing it was to witness, and a painful proof how frequent were
+these battles, that, as this one raged, the poor little boy sat almost
+careless, whilst his bewildered grandfather stroked his golden head.
+“It is quite clear to me, madam,” I said, turning to Mrs. Mackenzie,
+“that you and your son-in-law are better apart; and I came to tell him
+to-day of a most fortunate legacy, which has been left to him, and
+which will enable him to pay you to-morrow morning every shilling,
+every shilling which he does NOT owe you?”
+
+“I will not leave this house until I am paid every shilling of which I
+have been robbed,” hissed out Mrs. Mackenzie; and she sat down, folding
+her arms across her chest.
+
+“I am sorry,” groaned out Clive, wiping the sweat off his brow, “I used
+a harsh word; I will never sleep under the same roof with you.
+To-morrow I will pay you what you claim; and the best chance I have of
+forgiving you the evil which you have done me, is that we never should
+meet again. Will you give me a bed at your house, Arthur? Father, will
+you come out and walk? Good night, Mrs. Mackenzie; Pendennis will
+settle with you in the morning. You will not be here, if you please,
+when I return; and so God forgive you, and farewell.”
+
+Mrs. Mackenzie in a tragic manner dashed aside the hand which poor
+Clive held out to her, and disappeared from the scene of this dismal
+dinner. Boy presently fell a-crying; in spite of all the battle and
+fury, there was sleep in his eyes.
+
+“Maria is too busy, I suppose, to put him to bed,” said Clive, with a
+sad smile; “shall we do it, father? Come, Tommy, my son!” and he folded
+his arms round the child, and walked with him to the upper regions. The
+old man’s eyes lighted up; his seared thoughts returned to him; he
+followed his two children up the stairs, and saw his grandson in his
+little bed; and, as we walked home with him, he told me how sweetly Boy
+said “Our Father,” and prayed God bless all those who loved him, as
+they laid him to rest.
+
+So these three generations had joined in that supplication: the strong
+man, humbled by trial and grief, whose loyal heart was yet full of
+love;—the child, of the sweet age of those little ones whom the Blessed
+Speaker of the prayer first bade to come unto Him;—and the old man,
+whose heart was well-nigh as tender and as innocent; and whose day was
+approaching, when he should be drawn to the bosom of the Eternal Pity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXX.
+In which the Colonel says “Adsum” when his Name is called
+
+
+The vow which Clive had uttered, never to share bread with his
+mother-in-law, or sleep under the same roof with her, was broken on the
+very next day. A stronger will than the young man’s intervened, and he
+had to confess the impotence of his wrath before that superior power.
+In the forenoon of the day following that unlucky dinner, I went with
+my friend to the banking-house whither Mr. Luce’s letter directed us,
+and carried away with me the principal sum, in which the Campaigner
+said Colonel Newcome was indebted to her, with the interest accurately
+computed and reimbursed. Clive went off with a pocketful of money to
+the dear old Poor Brother of Grey Friars; and he promised to return
+with his father, and dine with my wife in Queen Square. I had received
+a letter from Laura by the morning’s post, announcing her return by the
+express train from Newcome, and desiring that a spare bedroom should be
+got ready for a friend who accompanied her.
+
+On reaching Howland Street, Clive’s door was opened, rather to my
+surprise, by the rebellious maid-servant who had received her dismissal
+on the previous night; and the doctor’s carriage drove up as she was
+still speaking to me. The polite practitioner sped upstairs to Mrs.
+Newcome’s apartment. Mrs. Mackenzie, in a robe-de-chambre and cap very
+different from yesterday’s, came out eagerly to meet the physician on
+the landing. Ere they had been a quarter of an hour together, arrived a
+cab, which discharged an elderly person with her bandbox and bundles; I
+had no difficulty in recognising a professional nurse in the new-comer.
+She too disappeared into the sick-room, and left me sitting in the
+neighbouring chamber, the scene of the last night’s quarrel.
+
+Hither presently came to me Maria, the maid. She said she had not the
+heart to go away now she was wanted; that they had passed a sad night,
+and that no one had been to bed. Master Tommy was below, and the
+landlady taking care of him: the landlord had gone out for the nurse.
+Mrs. Clive had been taken bad after Mr. Clive went away the night
+before. Mrs. Mackenzie had gone to the poor young thing, and there she
+went on, crying, and screaming, and stamping, as she used to do in her
+tantrums, which was most cruel of her, and made Mrs. Clive so ill. And
+presently the young lady began: my informant told me. She came
+screaming into the sitting-room, her hair over her shoulders, calling
+out she was deserted, deserted, and would like to die. She was like a
+mad woman for some time. She had fit after fit of hysterics: and there
+was her mother, kneeling, and crying, and calling out to her darling
+child to calm herself;—which it was all her own doing, and she had much
+better have held her own tongue, remarked the resolute Maria. I
+understood only too well from the girl’s account what had happened, and
+that Clive, if resolved to part with his mother-in-law, should not have
+left her, even for twelve hours, in possession of his house. The
+wretched woman, whose Self was always predominant, and who, though she
+loved her daughter after her own fashion, never forgot her own vanity
+or passion, had improved the occasion of Clive’s absence: worked upon
+her child’s weakness, jealousy, ill-health, and driven her, no doubt,
+into the fever which yonder physician was called to quell.
+
+The doctor presently enters to write a prescription, followed by
+Clive’s mother-in-law, who had cast Rosa’s fine Cashmere shawl over her
+shoulders, to hide her disarray. “You here still, Mr. Pendennis!” she
+exclaims. She knew I was there. Had not she changed her dress in order
+to receive me?
+
+“I have to speak to you for two minutes on important business, and then
+I shall go,” I replied gravely.
+
+“Oh, sir! to what a scene you have come! To what a state has Clive’s
+conduct last night driven my darling child!”
+
+As the odious woman spoke so, the doctor’s keen eyes, looking up from
+the prescription, caught mine. “I declare before Heaven, madam,” I said
+hotly, “I believe you yourself are the cause of your daughter’s present
+illness, as you have been of the misery of my friends.”
+
+“Is this, sir,” she was breaking out, “is this language to be used
+to——?”
+
+“Madam, will you be silent?” I said. “I am come to bid you farewell on
+the part of those whom your temper has driven into infernal torture. I
+am come to pay you every halfpenny of the sum which my friends do not
+owe you, but which they restore. Here is the account, and here is the
+money to settle it. And I take this gentleman to witness, to whom, no
+doubt, you have imparted what you call your wrongs” (the doctor smiled,
+and shrugged his shoulders) “that now you are paid.”
+
+“A widow—a poor, lonely, insulted widow!” cries the Campaigner, with
+trembling hands taking possession of the notes.
+
+“And I wish to know,” I continued, “when my friend’s house will be free
+to him, and he can return in peace.”
+
+Here Rosa’s voice was heard from the inner apartment, screaming,
+“Mamma, mamma!”
+
+“I go to my child, sir,” she said. “If Captain Mackenzie had been
+alive, you would not have _dared_ to insult me so.” And carrying off
+her money, she left us.
+
+“Cannot she be got out of the house?” I said to the doctor. “My friend
+will never return until she leaves it. It is my belief she is the cause
+of her daughter’s present illness.”
+
+“Not altogether, my dear sir. Mrs. Newcome was in a very, very delicate
+state of health. Her mother is a lady of impetuous temper, who
+expresses herself very strongly—too strongly, I own. In consequence of
+unpleasant family discussions, which no physician can prevent, Mrs.
+Newcome has been wrought up to a state of—of agitation. Her fever is,
+in fact, at present very high. You know her condition. I am
+apprehensive of ulterior consequences. I have recommended an excellent
+and experienced nurse to her. Mr. Smith, the medical man at the corner,
+is a most able practitioner. I shall myself call again in a few hours,
+and I trust that, after the event which I apprehend, everything will go
+well.
+
+“Cannot Mrs. Mackenzie leave the house, sir?” I asked.
+
+“Her daughter cries out for her at every moment. Mrs. Mackenzie is
+certainly not a judicious nurse, but in Mrs. Newcome’s present state I
+cannot take upon myself to separate them. Mr. Newcome may return, and I
+do think and believe that his presence may tend to impose silence and
+restore tranquillity.”
+
+I had to go back to Clive with these gloomy tidings. The poor fellow
+must put up a bed in his studio, and there await the issue of his
+wife’s illness. I saw Thomas Newcome could not sleep under his son’s
+roof that night. That dear meeting, which both so desired, was delayed,
+who could say for how long?
+
+“The Colonel may come to us,” I thought; “our old house is big enough.”
+I guessed who was the friend coming in my wife’s company; and pleased
+myself by thinking that two friends so dear should meet in our home.
+Bent upon these plans, I repaired to Grey Friars, and to Thomas
+Newcome’s chamber there.
+
+Bayham opened the door when I knocked, and came towards me with a
+finger on his lip, and a sad, sad countenance. He closed the door
+gently behind him, and led me into the court. “Clive is with him, and
+Miss Newcome. He is very ill. He does not know them,” said Bayham with
+a sob. “He calls out for both of them: they are sitting there and he
+does not know them.”
+
+In a brief narrative, broken by more honest tears, Fred Bayham, as we
+paced up and down the court, told me what had happened. The old man
+must have passed a sleepless night, for on going to his chamber in the
+morning, his attendant found him dressed in his chair, and his bed
+undisturbed. He must have sat all through the bitter night without a
+fire: but his hands were burning hot, and he rambled in his talk. He
+spoke of some one coming to drink tea with him, pointed to the fire,
+and asked why it was not made; he would not go to bed, though the nurse
+pressed him. The bell began to ring for morning chapel; he got up and
+went towards his gown, groping towards it as though he could hardly
+see, and put it over his shoulders, and would go out, but he would have
+fallen in the court if the good nurse had not given him her arm; and
+the physician of the hospital, passing fortunately at this moment, who
+had always been a great friend of Colonel Newcome’s, insisted upon
+leading him back to his room again, and got him to bed. “When the bell
+stopped, he wanted to rise once more; he fancied he was a boy at school
+again,” said the nurse, “and that he was going in to Dr. Raine, who was
+schoolmaster here ever so many years ago.” So it was, that when happier
+days seemed to be dawning for the good man, that reprieve came too
+late. Grief, and years, and humiliation, and care, and cruelty had been
+too strong for him, and Thomas Newcome was stricken down.
+
+Bayham’s story told, I entered the room, over which the twilight was
+falling, and saw the figures of Clive and Ethel seated at each end of
+the bed. The poor old man within it was calling incoherent sentences. I
+had to call Clive from the present grief before him, with intelligence
+of further sickness awaiting him at home. Our poor patient did not heed
+what I said to his son. “You must go home to Rosa,” Ethel said. “She
+will be sure to ask for her husband, and forgiveness is best, dear
+Clive. I will stay with uncle. I will never leave him. Please God, he
+will be better in the morning when you come back.” So Clive’s duty
+called him to his own sad home; and, the bearer of dismal tidings, I
+returned to mine. The fires were lit there and the table spread; and
+kind hearts were waiting to welcome the friend who never more was to
+enter my door.
+
+It may be imagined that the intelligence which I brought alarmed and
+afflicted my wife and Madame de Florac, our guest. Laura immediately
+went away to Rosa’s house to offer her services if needed. The accounts
+which she brought thence were very bad: Clive came to her for a minute
+or two, but Mrs. Mackenzie could not see her. Should she not bring the
+little boy home to her children? Laura asked; and Clive thankfully
+accepted that offer. The little man slept in our nursery that night,
+and was at play with our young ones on the morrow—happy and unconscious
+of the fate impending over his home.
+
+Yet two more days passed, and I had to take two advertisements to _The
+Times_ newspaper on the part of poor Clive. Among the announcements of
+Births was printed, “On the 28th, in Howland Street, Mrs. Clive Newcome
+of a son, still-born.” And a little lower, in the third division of the
+same column, appeared the words, “On the 29th, in Howland Street, aged
+26, Rosa, wife of Clive Newcome, Esq.” So, one day, shall the names of
+all of us be written there; to be deplored by how many?—to be
+remembered how long?—to occasion what tears, praises, sympathy,
+censure?—yet for a day or two, while the busy world has time to
+recollect us who have passed beyond it. So this poor little flower had
+bloomed for its little day, and pined, and withered, and perished.
+There was only one friend by Clive’s side following the humble
+procession which laid poor Rosa and her child out of sight of a world
+that had been but unkind to her. Not many tears were there to water her
+lonely little grave. A grief that was akin to shame and remorse humbled
+him as he knelt over her. Poor little harmless lady! no more childish
+triumphs and vanities, no more hidden griefs are you to enjoy or
+suffer; and earth closes over your simple pleasures and tears! The snow
+was falling and whitening the coffin as they lowered it into the
+ground. It was at the same cemetery in which Lady Kew was buried. I
+dare say the same clergyman read the same service over the two graves,
+as he will read it for you or any of us to-morrow, and until his own
+turn comes. Come away from the place, poor Clive! Come sit with your
+orphan little boy; and bear him on your knee, and hug him to your
+heart. He seems yours now, and all a father’s love may pour out upon
+him. Until this hour, Fate uncontrollable and homely tyranny had
+separated him from you.
+
+It was touching to see the eagerness and tenderness with which the
+great strong man now assumed the guardianship of the child, and endowed
+him with his entire wealth of affection. The little boy now ran to
+Clive whenever he came in, and sat for hours prattling to him. He would
+take the boy out to walk, and from our windows we could see Clive’s
+black figure striding over the snow in St. James’s Park, the little man
+trotting beside him, or perched on his father’s shoulder. My wife and I
+looked at them one morning as they were making their way towards the
+City.
+
+“He has inherited that loving heart from his father,” Laura said; “and
+he is paying over the whole property to his son.”
+
+Clive, and the boy sometimes with him, used to go daily to Grey Friars,
+where the Colonel still lay ill. After some days the fever which had
+attacked him left him, but left him so weak and enfeebled that he could
+only go from his bed to the chair by his fireside. The season was
+exceedingly bitter, the chamber which he inhabited was warm and
+spacious; it was considered unadvisable to move him until he had
+attained greater strength, and till warmer weather. The medical men of
+the House hoped he might rally in spring. My friend, Dr. Goodenough,
+came to him; he hoped too: but not with a hopeful face. A chamber,
+luckily vacant, hard by the Colonel’s, was assigned to his friends,
+where we sate when we were too many for him. Besides his customary
+attendant, he had two dear and watchful nurses, who were almost always
+with him—Ethel and Madame de Florac, who had passed many a faithful
+year by an old man’s bedside; who would have come, as to a work of
+religion, to any sick couch, much more to this one, where he lay for
+whose life she would once gladly have given her own.
+
+But our Colonel, we all were obliged to acknowledge, was no more our
+friend of old days. He knew us again, and was good to every one round
+him, as his wont was; especially when Boy came, his old eyes lighted up
+with simple happiness, and, with eager trembling hands, he would seek
+under his bedclothes, or the pockets of his dressing-gown, for toys or
+cakes, which he had caused to be purchased for his grandson. There was
+a little laughing, red-cheeked, white-headed gown-boy of the school, to
+whom the old man had taken a great fancy. One of the symptoms of his
+returning consciousness and recovery, as we hoped, was his calling for
+this child, who pleased our friend by his archness and merry ways; and
+who, to the old gentleman’s unfailing delight, used to call him, “Codd
+Colonel.” “Tell little F——, that Codd Colonel wants to see him;” and
+the little gown-boy was brought to him; and the Colonel would listen to
+him for hours; and hear all about his lessons and his play; and prattle
+almost as childishly about Dr. Raine, and his own early school-days.
+The boys of the school, it must be said, had heard the noble old
+gentleman’s touching history, and had all got to know and love him.
+They came every day to hear news of him; sent him in books and papers
+to amuse him; and some benevolent young souls,—God’s blessing on all
+honest boys, say I,—painted theatrical characters, and sent them in to
+Codd Colonel’s grandson. The little fellow was made free of gown-boys,
+and once came thence to his grandfather in a little gown, which
+delighted the old man hugely. Boy said he would like to be a little
+gown-boy; and I make no doubt, when he is old enough, his father will
+get him that post, and put him under the tuition of my friend Dr.
+Senior.
+
+So, weeks passed away, during which our dear old friend still remained
+with us. His mind was gone at intervals, but would rally feebly; and
+with his consciousness returned his love, his simplicity, his
+sweetness. He would talk French with Madame de Florac, at which time,
+his memory appeared to awaken with surprising vividness, his cheek
+flushed, and he was a youth again,—a youth all love and hope,—a
+stricken old man, with a beard as white as snow covering the noble
+careworn face. At such times he called her by her Christian name of
+Léonore; he addressed courtly old words of regard and kindness to the
+aged lady; anon he wandered in his talk, and spoke to her as if they
+still were young. Now, as in those early days, his heart was pure; no
+anger remained in it; no guile tainted it; only peace and goodwill
+dwelt in it.
+
+Rosa’s death had seemed to shock him for a while when the unconscious
+little boy spoke of it. Before that circumstance, Clive had even
+forbore to wear mourning, lest the news should agitate his father. The
+Colonel remained silent and was very much disturbed all that day, but
+he never appeared to comprehend the fact quite; and, once or twice
+afterwards, asked, why she did not come to see him? She was prevented,
+he supposed—she was prevented, he said, with a look of terror: he never
+once otherwise alluded to that unlucky tyrant of his household, who had
+made his last years so unhappy.
+
+The circumstance of Clive’s legacy he never understood: but more than
+once spoke of Barnes to Ethel, and sent his compliments to him, and
+said he should like to shake him by the hand. Barnes Newcome never once
+offered to touch that honoured hand, though his sister bore her uncle’s
+message to him. They came often from Bryanstone Square; Mrs. Hobson
+even offered to sit with the Colonel, and read to him, and brought him
+books for his improvement. But her presence disturbed him; he cared not
+for her books; the two nurses whom he loved faithfully watched him; and
+my wife and I were admitted to him sometimes, both of whom he honoured
+with regard and recognition. As for F. B., in order to be near his
+Colonel, did not that good fellow take up his lodging in Cistercian
+Lane, at the Red Cow? He is one whose errors, let us hope, shall be
+pardoned, _quia multum amavit_. I am sure he felt ten times more joy at
+hearing of Clive’s legacy, than if thousands had been bequeathed to
+himself. May good health and good fortune speed him!
+
+The days went on, and our hopes, raised sometimes, began to flicker and
+fail. One evening the Colonel left his chair for his bed in pretty good
+spirits, but passed a disturbed night, and the next morning was too
+weak to rise. Then he remained in his bed, and his friends visited him
+there. One afternoon he asked for his little gown-boy, and the child
+was brought to him, and sate by the bed with a very awestricken face;
+and then gathered courage, and tried to amuse him by telling him how it
+was a half-holiday, and they were having a cricket-match with the St.
+Peter’s boys in the green, and Grey Friars was in and winning. The
+Colonel quite understood about it; he would like to see the game; he
+had played many a game on that green when he was a boy. He grew
+excited; Clive dismissed his father’s little friend, and put a
+sovereign into his hand; and away he ran to say that Codd Colonel had
+come into a fortune, and to buy tarts, and to see the match out. _I,
+curre_, little white-haired gown-boy! Heaven speed you, little friend!
+
+After the child had gone, Thomas Newcome began to wander more and more.
+He talked louder; he gave the word of command, spoke Hindustanee as if
+to his men. Then he spoke words in French rapidly, seizing a hand that
+was near him and crying, “Toujours, toujours!” But it was Ethel’s hand
+which he took.
+
+Ethel and Clive and the nurse were in the room with him; the latter
+came to us, who were sitting in the adjoining apartment; Madame de
+Florac was there, with my wife and Bayham.
+
+At the look in the woman’s countenance Madame de Florac started up. “He
+is very bad, he wanders a great deal,” the nurse whispered. The French
+lady fell instantly on her knees, and remained rigid in prayer.
+
+Some time afterwards Ethel came in with a scared face to our pale
+group. “He is calling for you again, dear lady,” she said, going up to
+Madame de Florac, who was still kneeling; “and just now he said he
+wanted Pendennis to take care of his boy. He will not know you.” She
+hid her tears as she spoke.
+
+She went into the room, where Clive was at the bed’s foot; the old man
+within it talked on rapidly for a while: then again he would sigh and
+be still: once more I heard him say hurriedly, “Take care of him while
+I’m in India;” and then with a heart-rending voice he called out,
+“Léonore, Léonore!” She was kneeling by his side now. The patient’s
+voice sank into faint murmurs; only a moan now and then announced that
+he was not asleep.
+
+At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas
+Newcome’s hands outside the bed feebly beat a time. And just as the
+last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he
+lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, “Adsum!” and fell back.
+It was the word we used at school, when names were called; and lo, he,
+whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name,
+and stood in the presence of The Master.
+
+
+Two years ago, walking with my children in some pleasant fields, near
+to Berne in Switzerland, I strayed from them into a little wood; and,
+coming out of it presently, told them how the story had been revealed
+to me somehow, which for three-and-twenty months the reader has been
+pleased to follow. As I write the last line with a rather sad heart,
+Pendennis and Laura, and Ethel and Clive, fade away into Fable-land. I
+hardly know whether they are not true: whether they do not live near us
+somewhere. They were alive, and I heard their voices, but five minutes
+since was touched by their grief. And have we parted with them here on
+a sudden, and without so much as a shake of the hand? Is yonder line
+(——), which I drew with my own pen, a barrier between me and Hades as
+it were, across which I can see those figures retreating and only dimly
+glimmering? Before taking leave of Mr. Arthur Pendennis, might he not
+have told us whether Miss Ethel married anybody finally? It was
+provoking that he should retire to the shades without answering that
+sentimental question.
+
+But though he has disappeared as irrevocably as Eurydice, these minor
+questions may settle the major one above mentioned. How could Pendennis
+have got all that information about Ethel’s goings-on at Baden, and
+with Lord Kew, unless she had told somebody—her husband, for instance,
+who, having made Pendennis an early confidant in his amour, gave him
+the whole story? Clive, Pendennis writes expressly, is travelling
+abroad with his wife. Who is that wife? By a most monstrous blunder,
+Mr. Pendennis killed Lord Farintosh’s mother at one page and brought
+her to life again at another; but Rosey, who is so lately consigned to
+Kensal Green, it is not surely with _her_ that Clive is travelling, for
+then Mrs. Mackenzie would probably be with them to a live certainty,
+and the tour would be by no means pleasant. How could Pendennis have
+got all those private letters, etc., but that the Colonel kept them in
+a teak box, which Clive inherited and made over to his friend? My
+belief then is, that in Fable-land somewhere Ethel and Clive are living
+most comfortably together: that she is immensely fond of his little
+boy, and a great deal happier now than they would have been had they
+married at first, when they took a liking to each other as young
+people. That picture of J. J.’s of Mrs. Clive Newcome (in the Crystal
+Palace Exhibition in Fable-land), is certainly not in the least like
+Rosey, who we read was fair; but it represents a tall, handsome, dark
+lady, who must be Mrs. Ethel.
+
+Again, why did Pendennis introduce J. J. with such a flourish, giving
+us, as it were, an overture, and no piece to follow it? J. J.’s
+history, let me confidentially state, has been revealed to me too, and
+may be told some of these fine summer months, or Christmas evenings,
+when the kind reader has leisure to hear.
+
+What about Sir Barnes Newcome ultimately? My impression is that he is
+married again, and it is my fervent hope that his present wife bullies
+him. Mrs. Mackenzie cannot have the face to keep that money which Clive
+paid over to her, beyond her lifetime; and will certainly leave it and
+her savings to little Tommy. I should not be surprised if Madame de
+Moncontour left a smart legacy to the Pendennis children; and Lord Kew
+stood godfather in case—in case Mr. and Mrs. Clive wanted such an
+article. But have they any children? I, for my part, should like her
+best without, and entirely devoted to little Tommy. But for you, dear
+friend, it is as you like. You may settle your Fable-land in your own
+fashion. Anything you like happens in Fable-land. Wicked folks die
+apropos (for instance, that death of Lady Kew was most artful, for if
+she had not died, don’t you see that Ethel would have married Lord
+Farintosh the next week?)—annoying folks are got out of the way; the
+poor are rewarded—the upstarts are set down in Fable-land,—the frog
+bursts with wicked rage, the fox is caught in his trap, the lamb is
+rescued from the wolf, and so forth, just in the nick of time. And the
+poet of Fable-land rewards and punishes absolutely. He splendidly deals
+out bags of sovereigns, which won’t buy anything; belabours wicked
+backs with awful blows, which do not hurt; endows heroines with
+preternatural beauty, and creates heroes, who, if ugly sometimes, yet
+possess a thousand good qualities, and usually end by being immensely
+rich; makes the hero and heroine happy at last, and happy ever after.
+Ah, happy, harmless Fable-land, where these things are! Friendly
+reader! may you and the author meet there on some future day. He hopes
+so; as he yet keeps a lingering hold of your hand, and bids you
+farewell with a kind heart.
+
+PARIS, 28th June 1855.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 7467 ***