автордың кітабын онлайн тегін оқу The Newcomes / Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family
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Title: The Newcomes
Author: William Makepeace Thackeray
Release Date: July 28, 2009 [EBook #7467]
Last Updated: December 17, 2012
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEWCOMES ***
Produced by Tapio Riikonen, and David Widger
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
CHAPTER XXIII. In which we hear a Soprano and a Contralto
CHAPTER XXIV. In which the Newcome Brothers once more meet together in
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. Return 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 Athenaeum 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 repertoire, 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 elite 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 Leonore, 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 fiancee, 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 Leonore was a young lady perfectly bien elevee, 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 Leonore 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 Leonore, 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 fete in celebrating it, after how many years of absence, of silence! Comtesse De Florac. (Nee 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, Major Newcome. B. 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 praesenti, 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."
"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, etc."
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 pounds 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 protege 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 Neaera, 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 Caesar 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, apropos 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 comite, 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 grace. 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 foemina, 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 bonjour. 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 ddfends de parler a 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 mechantes 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'etoit bong de Mouseer le Collonel, mademoiselle? Madamaselle Lebrun, le Collonel Newcome, mong frere." (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 pere a ete le General favvory."
"O Dieu! que n'ai je pu le voir," interjaculates mademoiselle. "Lui dont parle l'univers, dont mon pere m'a si souvent parle!" 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, Mr 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 pate, 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 reunion 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 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 arrive—avez-vous fait ung bong voyage? Je recois 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 entree.
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 confrere, 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 roue 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 soirees 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 Caesar, 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 Litterature Universelle et de Science Comprehensive 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'etes qu'une panache," 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 ecclesiae," 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 who 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 protege; 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 Parthenopoeon, 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 ecclesiae (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 mouillee, 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 soiree 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 versa. 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 soiree 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 Caesar 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 Preville'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 no 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—Cirindey 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 regle, 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 Paestum,' 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 soirees.
"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 soiree 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 soiree. 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 gene 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 embarrasse 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 fete, 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 the 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 caetera
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 o kai hae alaethaes kai to alaethaes. 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 delassement 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.
"Hotel 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 dejeuner soigne; 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 Cafe 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 Mole, 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, 'Voila, 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 carriere. 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 garcon.'
"'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 Freres Provencaux—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 Cafe 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 Nall 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 debut. 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 manoeuvre 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 reunions 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 manoeuvres 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 bead 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'etoit un plaisir 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 demi-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."
