The Colonel began his second verse: and here, as will often happen to

amateur singers, his falsetto broke down. He was not in the least

annoyed, for I saw him smile very good-naturedly; and he was going to

try the verse again, when that unlucky Barnes first gave a sort of

crowing imitation of the song, and then burst into a yell of laughter.

Clive dashed a glass of wine in his face at the next minute, glass and

all; and no one who had watched the young man’s behaviour was sorry for

the insult.

I never saw a kind face express more terror than Colonel Newcome’s. He

started back as if he had himself received the blow from his son.

“Gracious God!” he cried out. “My boy insult a gentleman at my table!”

“I’d like to do it again,” says Clive, whose whole body was trembling

with anger.

“Are you drunk, sir?” shouted his father.

“The boy served the young fellow right, sir,” growled Fred Bayham in

his deepest voice. “Come along, young man. Stand up straight, and keep

a civil tongue in your head next time, mind you, when you dine with

gentlemen. It’s easy to see,” says Fred, looking round with a knowing

air, “that this young man hasn’t got the usages of society—he’s not

been accustomed to it:” and he led the dandy out.

Others had meanwhile explained the state of the case to the

Colonel—including Sir Thomas de Boots, who was highly energetic and

delighted with Clive’s spirit; and some were for having the song to

continue; but the Colonel, puffing his cigar, said, “No. My pipe is

out. I will never sing again.” So this history will record no more of

Thomas Newcome’s musical performances.

CHAPTER XIV.

Park Lane

Clive woke up the next morning to be aware of a racking headache, and,

by the dim light of his throbbing eyes, to behold his father with

solemn face at his bed-foot—a reproving conscience to greet his waking.

“You drank too much wine last night, and disgraced yourself, sir,” the

old soldier said. “You must get up and eat humble pie this morning, my

boy.”

“Humble what, father?” asked the lad, hardly aware of his words, or the

scene before him. “Oh, I’ve got such a headache!”

“Serve you right, sir. Many a young fellow has had to go on parade in

the morning, with a headache earned overnight. Drink this water. Now,

jump up. Now, dash the water well over your head. There you come! Make

your toilette quickly; and let us be off, and find cousin Barnes before

he has left home.”

Clive obeyed the paternal orders; dressed himself quickly; and

descending, found his father smoking his morning cigar in the apartment

where they had dined the night before, and where the tables still were

covered with the relics of yesterday’s feast—the emptied bottles, the

blank lamps, the scattered ashes and fruits, the wretched heel-taps

that have been lying exposed all night to the air. Who does not know

the aspect of an expired feast?

“The field of action strewed with the dead, my boy,” says Clive’s

father. “See, here’s the glass on the floor yet, and a great stain of

claret on the carpet.”

“Oh, father!” says Clive, hanging his head down, “I know I shouldn’t

have done it. But Barnes Newcome would provoke the patience of Job; and

I couldn’t bear to have my father insulted.”

“I am big enough to fight my own battles, my boy,” the Colonel said

good-naturedly, putting his hand on the lad’s damp head. “How your head

throbs! If Barnes laughed at my singing, depend upon it, sir, there was

something ridiculous in it, and he laughed because he could not help

it. If he behaved ill, we should not; and to a man who is eating our

salt too, and is of our blood.”

“He is ashamed of our blood, father,” cries Clive, still indignant.

“We ought to be ashamed of doing wrong. We must go and ask his pardon.

Once when I was a young man in India,” the father continued very

gravely, “some hot words passed at mess—not such an insult as that of

last night; I don’t think I could have quite borne that—and people

found fault with me for forgiving the youngster who had uttered the

offensive expressions over his wine. Some of my acquaintance sneered at

my courage, and that is a hard imputation for a young fellow of spirit

to bear. But providentially, you see, it was war-time, and very soon

after I had the good luck to show that I was not a _poule mouillée_, as

the French call it; and the man who insulted me, and whom I forgave,

became my fastest friend, and died by my side—it was poor Jack

Cutler—at Argaum. We must go and ask Barnes Newcome’s pardon, sir, and

forgive other people’s trespasses, my boy, if we hope forgiveness of

our own.” His voice sank down as he spoke, and he bowed his honest head

reverently. I have heard his son tell the simple story years

afterwards, with tears in his eyes.

Piccadilly was hardly yet awake the next morning, and the sparkling

dews and the poor homeless vagabonds still had possession of the grass

of Hyde Park, as the pair walked up to Sir Brian Newcome’s house, where

the shutters were just opening to let in the day. The housemaid, who

was scrubbing the steps of the house, and washing its trim feet in a

manner which became such a polite mansion’s morning toilet, knew Master

Clive, and smiled at him from under her blousy curl-papers, admitting

the two gentlemen into Sir Brian’s dining-room, where they proposed to

wait until Mr. Barnes should appear. There they sate for an hour

looking at Lawrence’s picture of Lady Anne, leaning over a harp,

attired in white muslin; at Harlowe’s portrait of Mrs. Newcome, with

her two sons simpering at her knees, painted at a time when the Newcome

Brothers were not the bald-headed, red-whiskered British merchants with

whom the reader has made acquaintance, but chubby children with hair

flowing down their backs, and quaint little swallow-tailed jackets and

nankeen trousers. A splendid portrait of the late Earl of Kew in his

peer’s robes hangs opposite his daughter and her harp. We are writing

of George the Fourth’s reign; I dare say there hung in the room a fine

framed print of that great sovereign. The chandelier is in a canvas

bag; the vast sideboard, whereon are erected open frames for the

support of Sir Brian Newcome’s grand silver trays, which on dinner days

gleam on that festive board, now groans under the weight of Sir Brian’s

bluebooks. An immense receptacle for wine, shaped like a Roman

sarcophagus, lurks under the sideboard. Two people sitting at that

large dining-table must talk very loud so as to make themselves heard

across those great slabs of mahogany covered with damask. The butler

and servants who attend at the table take a long time walking round it.

I picture to myself two persons of ordinary size sitting in that great

room at that great table, far apart, in neat evening costume, sipping a

little sherry, silent, genteel, and glum; and think the great and

wealthy are not always to be envied, and that there may be more comfort

and happiness in a snug parlour, where you are served by a brisk little

maid, than in a great dark, dreary dining-hall, where a funereal

major-domo and a couple of stealthy footmen minister to you your

mutton-chops. They come and lay the cloth presently, wide as the

main-sheet of some tall ammiral. A pile of newspapers and letters for

the master of the house; the _Newcome Sentinel_, old county paper,

moderate conservative, in which our worthy townsman and member is

praised, his benefactions are recorded, and his speeches given at full

length; the _Newcome Independent_, in which our precious member is

weekly described as a ninny, and informed almost every Thursday morning

that he is a bloated aristocrat, as he munches his dry toast. Heaps of

letters, county papers, _Times_ and _Morning Herald_ for Sir Brian

Newcome; little heaps of letters (dinner and soirée cards most of

these) and _Morning Post_ for Mr. Barnes. Punctually as eight o’clock

strikes, that young gentleman comes to breakfast; his father will lie

yet for another hour; the Baronet’s prodigious labours in the House of

Commons keeping him frequently out of bed till sunrise.

As his cousin entered the room, Clive turned very red, and perhaps a

faint blush might appear on Barnes’s pallid countenance. He came in, a

handkerchief in one hand, a pamphlet in the other, and both hands being

thus engaged, he could offer neither to his kinsmen.

“You are come to breakfast, I hope,” he said—calling it “weakfast,” and

pronouncing the words with a most languid drawl—“or, perhaps, you want

to see my father? He is never out of his room till half-past nine.

Harper, did Sir Brian come in last night before or after me?” Harper,

the butler, thinks Sir Brian came in after Mr. Barnes.

When that functionary had quitted the room, Barnes turned round to his

uncle in a candid, smiling way, and said, “The fact is, sir, I don’t

know when I came home myself very distinctly, and can’t, of course,

tell about my father. Generally, you know, there are two candles left

in the hall, you know; and if there are two, you know, I know of course

that my father is still at the House. But last night, after that

capital song you sang, hang me if I know what happened to me. I beg

your pardon, sir, I’m shocked at having been so overtaken. Such a

confounded thing doesn’t happen to me once in ten years. I do trust I

didn’t do anything rude to anybody, for I thought some of your friends

the pleasantest fellows I ever met in my life; and as for the claret,

’gad, as if I hadn’t had enough after dinner, I brought a quantity of

it away with me on my shirt-front and waistcoat!”

“I beg your pardon, Barnes,” Clive said, blushing deeply, “and I’m very

sorry indeed for what passed; I threw it.”

The Colonel, who had been listening with a queer expression of wonder

and doubt on his face, here interrupted Mr. Barnes. “It was Clive

that—that spilled the wine over you last night,” Thomas Newcome said;

“the young rascal had drunk a great deal too much wine, and had neither

the use of his head nor his hands, and this morning I have given him a

lecture, and he has come to ask your pardon for his clumsiness; and if

you have forgotten your share in the night’s transaction, I hope you

have forgotten his, and will accept his hand and his apology.”

“Apology: There’s no apology,” cries Barnes, holding out a couple of

fingers of his hand, but looking towards the Colonel. “I don’t know

what happened any more than the dead. Did we have a row? Were there any

glasses broken? The best way in such cases is to sweep ’em up. We can’t

mend them.”

The Colonel said gravely—“that he was thankful to find that the

disturbance of the night before had no worse result.” He pulled the

tail of Clive’s coat, when that unlucky young blunderer was about to

trouble his cousin with indiscreet questions or explanations, and

checked his talk. “The other night you saw an old man in drink, my

boy,” he said, “and to what shame and degradation the old wretch had

brought himself. Wine has given you a warning too, which I hope you

will remember all your life; no one has seen me the worse for drink

these forty years, and I hope both you young gentlemen will take

counsel by an old soldier, who fully preaches what he practises, and

beseeches you to beware of the bottle.”

After quitting their kinsman, the kind Colonel further improved the

occasion with his son; and told him out of his own experience many

stories of quarrels, and duels, and wine;—how the wine had occasioned

the brawls, and the foolish speech overnight the bloody meeting at

morning; how he had known widows and orphans made by hot words uttered

in idle orgies: how the truest honour was the manly confession of

wrong; and the best courage the courage to avoid temptation. The

humble-minded speaker, whose advice contained the best of all wisdom,

that which comes from a gentle and reverent spirit, and a pure and

generous heart, never for once thought of the effect which he might be

producing, but uttered his simple say according to the truth within

him. Indeed, he spoke out his mind pretty resolutely on all subjects

which moved or interested him; and Clive, his son, and his honest chum,

Mr. Binnie, who had a great deal more reading and much keener

intelligence than the Colonel, were amused often at his naive opinion

about men, or books, or morals. Mr. Clive had a very fine natural sense

of humour, which played perpetually round his father’s simple

philosophy with kind and smiling comments. Between this pair of friends

the superiority of wit lay, almost from the very first, on the younger

man’s side; but, on the other hand, Clive felt a tender admiration for

his father’s goodness, a loving delight in contemplating his elder’s

character, which he has never lost, and which in the trials of their

future life inexpressibly cheered and consoled both of them! _Beati

illi!_ O man of the world, whose wearied eyes may glance over this

page, may those who come after you so regard you! O generous boy, who

read in it, may you have such a friend to trust and cherish in youth,

and in future days fondly and proudly to remember!

Some four or five weeks after the quasi-reconciliation between Clive

and his kinsman, the chief part of Sir Brian Newcome’s family were

assembled at the breakfast-table together, where the meal was taken in

common, and at the early hour of eight (unless the senator was kept too

late in the House of Commons overnight); and Lady Anne and her nursery

were now returned to London again, little Alfred being perfectly set up

by a month of Brighton air. It was a Thursday morning; on which day of

the week, it has been said, the _Newcome Independent_ and the _Newcome

Sentinel_ both made their appearance upon the Baronet’s table. The

household from above and from below; the maids and footmen from the

basement; the nurses, children, and governesses from the attics; all

poured into the room at the sound of a certain bell.

I do not sneer at the purpose for which, at that chiming eight-o’clock

bell, the household is called together. The urns are hissing, the plate

is shining; the father of the house, standing up, reads from a gilt

book for three or four minutes in a measured cadence. The members of

the family are around the table in an attitude of decent reverence; the

younger children whisper responses at their mother’s knees; the

governess worships a little apart; the maids and the large footmen are

in a cluster before their chairs, the upper servants performing their

devotion on the other side of the sideboard; the nurse whisks about the

unconscious last-born, and tosses it up and down during the ceremony. I

do not sneer at that—at the act at which all these people are

assembled—it is at the rest of the day I marvel; at the rest of the

day, and what it brings. At the very instant when the voice has ceased

speaking and the gilded book is shut, the world begins again, and for

the next twenty-three hours and fifty-seven minutes all that household

is given up to it. The servile squad rises up and marches away to its

basement, whence, should it happen to be a gala-day, those tall

gentlemen at present attired in Oxford mixture will issue forth with

flour plastered on their heads, yellow coats, pink breeches, sky-blue

waistcoats, silver lace, buckles in their shoes, black silk bags on

their backs, and I don’t know what insane emblems of servility and

absurd bedizenments of folly. Their very manner of speaking to what we

call their masters and mistresses will be a like monstrous masquerade.

You know no more of that race which inhabits the basement floor, than

of the men and brethren of Timbuctoo, to whom some among us send

missionaries. If you met some of your servants in the streets (I

respectfully suppose for a moment that the reader is a person of high

fashion and a great establishment), you would not know their faces. You

might sleep under the same roof for half a century and know nothing

about them. If they were ill, you would not visit them, though you

would send them an apothecary and of course order that they lacked for

nothing. You are not unkind, you are not worse than your neighbours.

Nay, perhaps, if you did go into the kitchen, or to take the tea in the

servants’-hall, you would do little good, and only bore the folks

assembled there. But so it is. With those fellow-Christians who have

been just saying Amen to your prayers, you have scarcely the community

of Charity. They come, you don’t know whence; they think and talk, you

don’t know what; they die, and you don’t care, or _vice versâ_. They

answer the bell for prayers as they answer the bell for coals: for

exactly three minutes in the day you all kneel together on one

carpet—and, the desires and petitions of the servants and masters over,

the rite called family worship is ended.

Exeunt servants, save those two who warm the newspaper, administer the

muffins, and serve out the tea. Sir Brian reads his letters, and chumps

his dry toast. Ethel whispers to her mother, she thinks Eliza is

looking very ill. Lady Anne asks, which is Eliza? Is it the woman that

was ill before they left town? If she is ill, Mrs. Trotter had better

send her away. Mrs. Trotter is only a great deal too good-natured. She

is always keeping people who are ill. Then her ladyship begins to read

the _Morning Post_, and glances over the names of the persons who were

present at Baroness Bosco’s ball, and Mrs. Toddle Tompkyns’s _soirée

dansante_ in Belgrave Square.

“Everybody was there,” says Barnes, looking over from his paper.

“But who is Mrs. Toddle Tompkyns?” asks mamma. “Who ever heard of a

Mrs. Toddle Tompkyns? What do people mean by going to such a person?”

“Lady Popinjoy asked the people,” Barnes says gravely. “The thing was

really doosed well done. The woman looked frightened; but she’s pretty,

and I am told the daughter will have a great lot of money.”

“Is she pretty, and did you dance with her?” asks Ethel.

“Me dance!” says Mr. Barnes. We are speaking of a time before casinos

were, and when the British youth were by no means so active in dancing

practice as at this present period. Barnes resumed the reading of his

county paper, but presently laid it down, with an execration so brisk

and loud, that his mother gave a little outcry, and even his father

looked up from his letters to ask the meaning of an oath so unexpected

and ungenteel.

“My uncle, the Colonel of sepoys, and his amiable son have been paying

a visit to Newcome—that’s the news which I have the pleasure to

announce to you,” says Mr. Barnes.

“You are always sneering about our uncle,” breaks in Ethel, with

impetuous voice, “and saying unkind things about Clive. Our uncle is a

dear, good, kind man, and I love him. He came to Brighton to see us,

and went out every day for hours and hours with Alfred; and Clive, too,

drew pictures for him. And he is good, and kind, and generous, and

honest as his father. And Barnes is always speaking ill of him behind

his back.”

“And his aunt lets very nice lodgings, and is altogether a most

desirable acquaintance,” says Mr. Barnes. “What a shame it is that we

have not cultivated that branch of the family!”

“My dear fellow,” cries Sir Brian, “I have no doubt Miss Honeyman is a

most respectable person. Nothing is so ungenerous as to rebuke a

gentleman or a lady on account of their poverty, and I coincide with

Ethel in thinking that you speak of your uncle and his son in terms

which, to say the least, are disrespectful.”

“Miss Honeyman is a dear little old woman,” breaks in Ethel. “Was not

she kind to Alfred, mamma, and did not she make him nice jelly? And a

Doctor of Divinity—you know Clive’s grandfather was a Doctor of

Divinity, mamma, there’s a picture of him in a wig—is just as good as a

banker, you know he is.”

“Did you bring some of Miss Honeyman’s lodging-house cards with you,

Ethel?” says her brother, “and had we not better hang up one or two in

Lombard Street; hers and our other relation’s, Mrs. Mason?”

“My darling love, who is Mrs. Mason?” asks Lady Anne.

“Another member of the family, ma’am. She was cousin——”

“She was no such thing, sir,” roars Sir Brian.

“She was relative and housemaid of my grandfather during his first

marriage. She acted, I believe, as dry nurse to the distinguished

Colonel of sepoys, my uncle. She has retired into private life in her

native town of Newcome, and occupies her latter days by the management

of a mangle. The Colonel and young pothouse have gone down to spend a

few days with their elderly relative. It’s all here in the paper, by

Jove!” Mr. Barnes clenched his fist, and stamped upon the newspaper

with much energy.

“And so they should go down and see her, and so the Colonel should love

his nurse, and not forget his relations if they are old and poor,”

cries Ethel, with a flush on her face, and tears starting into her

eyes.

“Hear what the Newcome papers say about it,” shrieks out Mr. Barnes,

his voice quivering, his little eyes flashing out scorn. “It’s in both

the papers, I dare say. It will be in the _Times_ to-morrow. By —— it’s

delightful. Our paper only mentions the gratifying circumstance; here

is the paragraph. ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, C.B., a distinguished

Indian officer, and younger brother of our respected townsman and

representative Sir Brian Newcome, Bart., has been staying for the last

week at the King’s Arms, in our city. He has been visited by the

principal inhabitants and leading gentlemen of Newcome, and has come

among us, as we understand, in order to pass a few days with an elderly

relative, who has been living for many years past in great retirement

in this place.’”

“Well, I see no great harm in that paragraph,” says Sir Brian. “I wish

my brother had gone to the Roebuck, and not to the King’s Arms, as the

Roebuck is our house: but he could not be expected to know much about

the Newcome inns, as he is a _new-comer_ himself. And I think it was

very right of the people to call on him.”

“Now hear what the _Independent_ says, and see if you like that, sir,”

cries Barnes, grinning fiercely; and he began to read as follows:—

“‘Mr. _Independent_—I was born and bred a Screwcomite, and am naturally

proud of _everybody_ and _everything_ which bears the revered name of

Screwcome. I am a Briton and a man, though I have not the honour of a

vote for my native borough; if I had, you may be sure I would give it

to our _admired_ and _talented_ representative, Don Pomposo Lickspittle

Grindpauper, Poor House Agincourt, Screwcome, whose ancestors fought

with Julius Cæsar against William the Conqueror, and whose father

certainly wielded a _cloth yard shaft_ in London not fifty years ago.

“‘Don Pomposo, as you know, seldom favours the town o Screwcome with a

visit.—Our gentry are not of _ancient birth_ enough to be welcome to a

Lady Screwcome. Our manufacturers make their money by trade. Oh, fie I

how can it be supposed that such _vulgarians_ should be received among

the _aristocratic society_ of Screwcome House? Two balls in the

season, and ten dozen o gooseberry, are enough for _them_.’”

“It’s that scoundrel Parrot,” burst out Sir Brian; “because I wouldn’t

have any more wine of him—No, it’s Vidler, the apothecary. By heavens!

Lady Anne, I told you it would be so. Why didn’t you ask the Miss

Vidlers to your ball?”

“They were on the list,” cries Lady Anne, “three of them; I did

everything I could; I consulted Mr. Vidler for poor Alfred, and he

actually stopped and saw the dear child take the physic. Why were they

not asked to the ball?” cries her ladyship bewildered; “I declare to

gracious goodness I don’t know.”

“Barnes scratched their names,” cries Ethel, “out of the list, mamma.

You know you did, Barnes; you said you had gallipots enough.”

“I don’t think it is like Vidler’s writing,” said Mr. Barnes, perhaps

willing to turn the conversation. “I think it must be that villain Duff

the baker, who made the song about us at the last election;—but hear

the rest of the paragraph,” and he continued to read:—

“‘The Screwcomites are at this moment favoured with a visit from a

gentleman of the Screwcome family, who, having passed all his life

abroad, is somewhat different from his relatives, whom we all so _love

and honour!_ This distinguished gentleman, this gallant soldier, has

come among us, not merely to see our manufactures—in which Screwcome

can vie with any city in the North—but an old servant and relation of

his family, whom he is not above recognising; who nursed him in his

early days; who has been living in her native place for many years,

supported by the generous bounty of Colonel N———. The gallant officer,

accompanied by his son, a fine youth, has taken repeated drives round

our beautiful environs in one of friend Taplow’s (of the King’s Arms)

open drags, and accompanied by Mrs. ———, now an aged lady, who speaks,

with tears in her eyes, of the goodness and gratitude of her gallant

soldier!

“‘One day last week they drove to Screwcome House. Will it be believed

that, though the house is only four miles distant from our city—though

Don Pomposo’s family have inhabited it these twelve years for four or

five months every year—Mrs. M——— saw her cousin’s house for the first

time; has never set eyes upon those grandees, except in public places,

since the day when they _honoured_ the county by purchasing the estate

which they own?

“‘I have, as I repeat, no vote for the borough; but if I had, oh,

wouldn’t I show my respectful gratitude at the next election, and plump

for Pomposo! I shall keep my eye upon him, and am, Mr.

_Independent_,—Your Constant Reader, Peeping Tom.’”

“The spirit of radicalism abroad in this country,” said Sir Brian

Newcome, crushing his egg-shell desperately, “is dreadful, really

dreadful. We are on the edge of a positive volcano.” Down went the

egg-spoon into its crater. “The worst sentiments are everywhere

publicly advocated; the licentiousness of the press has reached a

pinnacle which menaces us with ruin; there is no law which these

shameless newspapers respect; no rank which is safe from their attacks;

no ancient landmark which the lava-flood of democracy does not threaten

to overwhelm and destroy.”

“When I was at Spielburg,” Barnes Newcome remarked kindly, “I saw three

long-bearded, putty-faced blaguards pacin up and down a little

courtyard, and Count Keppenheimer told me they were three damned

editors of Milanese newspapers, who had had seven years of imprisonment

already; and last year when Keppenheimer came to shoot at Newcome, I

showed him that old thief, old Batters, the proprietor of the

_Independent_, and Potts, his infernal ally, driving in a dogcart; and

I said to him, Keppenheimer, I wish we had a place where we could lock

up some of our infernal radicals of the press, or that you could take

off those two villains to Spielburg; and as we were passin, that

infernal Potts burst out laughin in my face, and cut one of my pointers

over the head with his whip. We must do something with that

_Independent_, sir.”

“We must,” says the father, solemnly, “we must put it down, Barnes, we

must put it down.”

“I think,” says Barnes, “we had best give the railway advertisements to

Batters.”

“But that makes the man of the _Sentinel_ so angry,” says the elder

persecutor of the press.

“Then let us give Tom Potts some shootin at any rate; the ruffian is

always poachin about our covers as it is. Speers should be written to,

sir, to keep a look-out upon Batters and that villain his accomplice,

and to be civil to them, and that sort of thing; and, damn it, to be

down upon them whenever he sees the opportunity.”

During the above conspiracy for bribing or crushing the independence of

a great organ of British opinion, Miss Ethel Newcome held her tongue;

but when her papa closed the conversation by announcing solemnly that

he would communicate with Speers, Ethel turning to her mother said,

“Mamma, is it true that grandpapa has a relation living at Newcome who

is old and poor?”

“My darling child, how on earth should I know?” says Lady Anne. “I

daresay Mr. Newcome had plenty of poor relations.”

“I am sure some on your side, Anne, have been good enough to visit me

at the bank,” said Sir Brian, who thought his wife’s ejaculation was a

reflection upon his family, whereas it was the statement of a simple

fact in natural history. “This person was no relation of my father’s at

all. She was remotely connected with his first wife, I believe. She

acted as servant to him, and has been most handsomely pensioned by the

Colonel.”

“Who went to her, like a kind, dear, good, brave uncle as he is,” cried

Ethel; “the very day I go to Newcome I’ll go to see her.” She caught a

look of negation in her father’s eye—“I will go—that is, if papa will

give me leave,” says Miss Ethel.

“By Gad, sir,” says Barnes, “I think it is the very best thing she

could do; and the best way of doing it, Ethel can go with one of the

boys and take Mrs. What-do-you-call’em a gown, or a tract, or that sort

of thing, and stop that infernal _Independent’s_ mouth.”

“If we had gone sooner,” said Miss Ethel, simply, “there would not have

been all this abuse of us in the paper.” To which statement her worldly

father and brother perforce agreeing, we may congratulate good old Mrs.

Mason upon the new and polite acquaintances she is about to make.

CHAPTER XV.

The Old Ladies

The above letter and conversation will show what our active Colonel’s

movements and history had been since the last chapter in which they

were recorded. He and Clive took the Liverpool mail, and travelled from

Liverpool to Newcome with a post-chaise and a pair of horses, which

landed them at the King’s Arms. The Colonel delighted in

post-chaising—the rapid transit through the country amused him and

cheered his spirits. Besides, had he not Dr. Johnson’s word for it,

that a swift journey in a post-chaise was one of the greatest

enjoyments in life, and a sojourn in a comfortable inn one of its chief

pleasures? In travelling he was as happy and noisy as a boy. He talked

to the waiters, and made friends with the landlord; got all the

information which he could gather regarding the towns into which he

came; and drove about from one sight or curiosity to another with

indefatigable good-humour and interest. It was good for Clive to see

men and cities; to visit mills, manufactories, country seats,

cathedrals. He asked a hundred questions regarding all things round

about him; and any one caring to know who Thomas Newcome was, and what

his rank and business, found no difficulty in having his questions

answered by the simple and kindly traveller.

Mine host of the King’s Arms, Mr. Taplow aforesaid, knew in five

minutes who his guest was, and the errand on which he came. Was not

Colonel Newcome’s name painted on all his trunks and boxes? Was not his

servant ready to answer all questions regarding the Colonel and his

son? Newcome pretty generally introduced Clive to my landlord, when the

latter brought his guest his bottle of wine. With old-fashioned

cordiality, the Colonel would bid the landlord drink a glass of his own

liquor, and seldom failed to say to him, “This is my son, sir. We are

travelling together to see the country. Every English gentleman should

see his own country first, before he goes abroad, as we intend to do

afterwards—to make the Grand Tour. And I will thank you to tell me what

there is remarkable in your town, and what we ought to see—antiquities,

manufactures, and seats in the neighbourhood. We wish to see

everything, sir—everything. Elaborate diaries of these home tours are

still extant, in Clive’s boyish manuscript and the Colonel’s dashing

handwriting—quaint records of places visited, and alarming accounts of

inn bills paid.”

So Mr. Taplow knew in five minutes that his guest was a brother of Sir

Brian, their member; and saw the note despatched by an ostler to “Mrs.

Sarah Mason, Jubilee Row,” announcing that the Colonel had arrived, and

would be with her after his dinner. Mr. Taplow did not think fit to

tell his guest that the house Sir Brian used—the Blue house—was the

Roebuck, not the King’s Arms. Might not the gentlemen be of different

politics? Mr. Taplow’s wine knew none.

Some of the jolliest fellows in all Newcome use the Boscawen Room at

the King’s Arms as their club, and pass numberless merry evenings and

crack countless jokes there.

Duff, the baker; old Mr. Vidler, when he can get away from his medical

labours (and his hand shakes, it must be owned, very much now, and his

nose is very red); Parrot, the auctioneer; and that amusing dog, Tom

Potts, the talented reporter of the _Independent_—were pretty constant

attendants at the King’s Arms; and Colonel Newcome’s dinner was not

over before some of these gentlemen knew what dishes he had had; how he

had called for a bottle of sherry and a bottle of claret, like a

gentleman; how he had paid the postboys, and travelled with a servant

like a top-sawyer; that he was come to shake hands with an old nurse

and relative of his family. Every one of those jolly Britons thought

well of the Colonel for his affectionateness and liberality, and

contrasted it with the behaviour of the Tory Baronet—their

representative.

His arrival made a sensation in the place. The Blue Club at the Roebuck

discussed it, as well as the uncompromising Liberals at the King’s

Arms. Mr. Speers, Sir Brian’s agent, did not know how to act, and

advised Sir Brian by the next night’s mail, The Reverend Dr. Bulders,

the rector, left his card.

Meanwhile it was not gain or business, but only love and gratitude,

which brought Thomas Newcome to his father’s native town. Their dinner

over, away went the Colonel and Clive, guided by the ostler, their

previous messenger, to the humble little tenement which Thomas

Newcome’s earliest friend inhabited. The good old woman put her

spectacles into her Bible, and flung herself into her boy’s arms—her

boy who was more than fifty years old. She embraced Clive still more

eagerly and frequently than she kissed his father. She did not know her

Colonel with them whiskers. Clive was the very picture of the dear boy

as he had left her almost twoscore years ago. And as fondly as she hung

on the boy, her memory had ever clung round that early time when they

were together. The good soul told endless tales of her darling’s

childhood, his frolics and beauty. To-day was uncertain to her, but the

past was still bright and clear. As they sat prattling together over

the bright tea-table, attended by the trim little maid, whose services

the Colonel’s bounty secured for his old nurse, the kind old creature

insisted on having Clive by her side. Again and again she would think

he was actually her own boy, forgetting, in that sweet and pious

hallucination, that the bronzed face, and thinned hair, and melancholy

eyes of the veteran before her, were those of her nursling of old days.

So for near half the space of man’s allotted life he had been absent

from her, and day and night wherever he was, in sickness or health, in

sorrow or danger, her innocent love and prayers had attended the absent

darling. Not in vain, not in vain, does he live whose course is so

befriended. Let us be thankful for our race, as we think of the love

that blesses some of us. Surely it has something of Heaven in it, and

angels celestial may rejoice in it, and admire it.

Having nothing whatever to do, our Colonel’s movements are of course

exceedingly rapid, and he has the very shortest time to spend in any

single place. That evening, Saturday, and the next day, Sunday, when he

will faithfully accompany his dear old nurse to church. And what a

festival is that day for her, when she has her Colonel and that

beautiful brilliant boy of his by her side, and Mr. Hicks, the curate,

looking at him, and the venerable Dr. Bulders himself eyeing him from

the pulpit, and all the neighbours fluttering and whispering, to be

sure, who can be that fine military gentleman, and that splendid young

man sitting by old Mrs. Mason, and leading her so affectionately out of

church? That Saturday and Sunday the Colonel will pass with good old

Mason, but on Monday he must be off; on Tuesday he must be in London,

he has important business in London,—in fact, Tom Hamilton, of his

regiment, comes up for election at the Oriental on that day, and on

such an occasion could Thomas Newcome be absent? He drives away from

the King’s Arms through a row of smirking chambermaids, smiling

waiters, and thankful ostlers, accompanied to the post-chaise, of which

the obsequious Taplow shuts the door; and the Boscawen Room pronounces

him that night to be a trump; and the whole of the busy town, ere the

next day is over, has heard of his coming and departure, praised his

kindliness and generosity, and no doubt contrasted it with the

different behaviour of the Baronet, his brother, who has gone for some

time by the ignominious sobriquet of Screwcome, in the neighbourhood of

his ancestral hall.

Dear old nurse Mason will have a score of visits to make and to

receive, at all of which you may be sure that triumphal advent of the

Colonel’s will be discussed and admired. Mrs. Mason will show her

beautiful new India shawl, and her splendid Bible with the large print,

and the affectionate inscription, from Thomas Newcome to his dearest

old friend; her little maid will exhibit her new gown; the curate will

see the Bible, and Mrs. Bulders will admire the shawl; and the old

friends and humble companions of the good old lady, as they take their

Sunday walks by the pompous lodge-gates of Newcome Park, which stand

with the Baronet’s new-fangled arms over them, gilded, and filagreed,

and barred, will tell their stories, too, about the kind Colonel and

his hard brother. When did Sir Brian ever visit a poor old woman’s

cottage, or his bailiff exempt from the rent? What good action, except

a few thin blankets and beggarly coal and soup tickets, did Newcome

Park ever do for the poor? And as for the Colonel’s wealth, Lord bless

you, he’s been in India these five-and-thirty years; the Baronet’s

money is a drop in the sea to his. The Colonel is the kindest, the

best, the richest of men. These facts and opinions, doubtless, inspired

the eloquent pen of “Peeping Tom,” when he indited the sarcastic

epistle to the _Newcome Independent_, which we perused over Sir Brian

Newcome’s shoulder in the last chapter.

And you may be sure Thomas Newcome had not been many weeks in England

before good little Miss Honeyman, at Brighton, was favoured with a

visit from her dear Colonel. The envious Gawler scowling out of his

bow-window, where the fly-blown card still proclaimed that his lodgings

were unoccupied, had the mortification to behold a yellow post-chaise

drive up to Miss Honeyman’s door, and having discharged two gentlemen

from within, trot away with servant and baggage to some house of

entertainment other than Gawler’s. Whilst this wretch was cursing his

own ill fate, and execrating yet more deeply Miss Honeyman’s better

fortune, the worthy little lady was treating her Colonel to a sisterly

embrace and a solemn reception. Hannah, the faithful housekeeper, was

presented, and had a shake of the hand. The Colonel knew all about

Hannah: ere he had been in England a week, a basket containing pots of

jam of her confection, and a tongue of Hannah’s curing, had arrived for

the Colonel. That very night when his servant had lodged Colonel

Newcome’s effects at the neighbouring hotel, Hannah was in possession

of one of the Colonel’s shirts, she and her mistress having previously

conspired to make a dozen of those garments for the family benefactor.

All the presents which Newcome had ever transmitted to his

sister-in-law from India had been taken out of the cotton and lavender

in which the faithful creature kept them. It was a fine hot day in

June, but I promise you Miss Honeyman wore her blazing scarlet Cashmere

shawl; her great brooch, representing the Taj of Agra, was in her

collar; and her bracelets (she used to say, I am given to understand

they are called bangles, my dear, by the natives) decorated the sleeves

round her lean old hands, which trembled with pleasure as they received

the kind grasp of the Colonel of colonels. How busy those hands had

been that morning! What custards they had whipped!—what a triumph of

pie-crusts they had achieved! Before Colonel Newcome had been ten

minutes in the house, the celebrated veal-cutlets made their

appearance. Was not the whole house adorned in expectation of his

coming? Had not Mr. Kuhn, the affable foreign gentleman of the

first-floor lodgers, prepared a French dish? Was not Betty on the

look-out, and instructed to put the cutlets on the fire at the very

moment when the Colonel’s carriage drove up to her mistress’s door? The

good woman’s eyes twinkled, the kind old hand and voice shook, as,

holding up a bright glass of Madeira, Miss Honeyman drank the Colonel’s

health. “I promise you, my dear Colonel,” says she, nodding her head,

adorned with a bristling superstructure of lace and ribbons, “I promise

you, that I can drink your health in good _wine!_” The wine was of his

own sending, and so were the China fire-screens, and the sandalwood

workbox, and the ivory cardcase, and those magnificent pink and white

chessmen, carved like little sepoys and mandarins, with the castles on

elephants’ backs, George the Third and his queen in pink ivory, against

the Emperor of China and lady in white—the delight of Clive’s

childhood, the chief ornament of the old spinster’s sitting-room.

Miss Honeyman’s little feast was pronounced to be the perfection of

cookery; and when the meal was over, came a noise of little feet at the

parlour door, which being opened, there appeared, first, a tall nurse

with a dancing baby; second and third, two little girls with little

frocks, little trousers, long ringlets, blue eyes, and blue ribbons to

match; fourth, Master Alfred, now quite recovered from his illness, and

holding by the hand, fifth, Miss Ethel Newcome, blushing like a rose.

Hannah, grinning, acted as mistress of the ceremonies, calling out the

names of “Miss Newcomes, Master Newcomes, to see the Colonel, if you

please, ma’am,” bobbing a curtsey, and giving a knowing nod to Master

Clive, as she smoothed her new silk apron. Hannah, too, was in new

attire, all crisp and rustling, in the Colonel’s honour. Miss Ethel did

not cease blushing as she advanced towards her uncle; and the honest

campaigner started up, blushing too. Mr. Clive rose also, as little

Alfred, of whom he was a great friend, ran towards him. Clive rose,

laughed, nodded at Ethel, and ate gingerbread nuts all at the same

time. As for Colonel Thomas Newcome and his niece, they fell in love

with each other instantaneously, like Prince Camaralzaman and the

Princess of China.

I have turned away one artist: the poor creature was utterly

incompetent to depict the sublime, graceful, and pathetic personages

and events with which this history will most assuredly abound, and I

doubt whether even the designer engaged in his place can make such a

portrait of Miss Ethel Newcome as shall satisfy her friends and her own

sense of justice. That blush which we have indicated, he cannot render.

How are you to copy it with a steel point and a ball of printer’s ink?

That kindness which lights up the Colonel’s eyes; gives an expression

to the very wrinkles round about them; shines as a halo round his

face;—what artist can paint it? The painters of old, when they

portrayed sainted personages, were fain to have recourse to compasses

and gold leaf—as if celestial splendour could be represented by Dutch

metal! As our artist cannot come up to this task, the reader will be

pleased to let his fancy paint for itself the look of courtesy for a

woman, admiration for a young beauty, protection for an innocent child,

all of which are expressed upon the Colonel’s kind face, as his eyes

are set upon Ethel Newcome.

“Mamma has sent us to bid you welcome to England, uncle,” says Miss

Ethel, advancing, and never thinking for a moment of laying aside that

fine blush which she brought into the room, and which is _her_ pretty

symbol of youth, and modesty, and beauty.

He took a little slim white hand and laid it down on his brown palm,

where it looked all the whiter: he cleared the grizzled mustachio from

his mouth, and stooping down he kissed the little white hand with a

great deal of grace and dignity. There was no point of resemblance, and

yet a something in the girl’s look, voice, and movements, which caused

his heart to thrill, and an image out of the past to rise up and salute

him. The eyes which had brightened his youth (and which he saw in his

dreams and thoughts for faithful years afterwards, as though they

looked at him out of heaven) seemed to shine upon him after

five-and-thirty years. He remembered such a fair bending neck and

clustering hair, such a light foot and airy figure, such a slim hand

lying in his own—and now parted from it with a gap of ten thousand long

days between. It is an old saying, that we forget nothing; as people in

fever begin suddenly to talk the language of their infancy we are

stricken by memory sometimes, and old affections rush back on us as

vivid as in the time when they were our daily talk, when their presence

gladdened our eyes, when their accents thrilled in our ears, when with

passionate tears and grief we flung ourselves upon their hopeless

corpses. Parting is death, at least as far as life is concerned. A

passion comes to an end; it is carried off in a coffin, or weeping in a

post-chaise; it drops out of life one way or other, and the earthclods

close over it, and we see it no more. But it has been part of our

souls, and it is eternal. Does a mother not love her dead infant? a man

his lost mistress? with the fond wife nestling at his side,—yes, with

twenty children smiling round her knee. No doubt, as the old soldier

held the girl’s hand in his, the little talisman led him back to Hades,

and he saw Leonora.——

“How do you do, uncle?” say girls Nos. 2 and 3 in a pretty little

infantile chorus. He drops the talisman, he is back in common life

again—the dancing baby in the arms of the bobbing nurse babbles a

welcome. Alfred looks up for a while at his uncle in the white

trousers, and then instantly proposes that Clive should make him some

drawings; and is on his knees at the next moment. He is always climbing

on somebody or something, or winding over chairs, curling through

banisters, standing on somebody’s head, or his own head,—as his

convalescence advances, his breakages are fearful. Miss Honeyman and

Hannah will talk about his dilapidations for years after the little

chap has left them. When he is a jolly young officer in the Guards, and

comes to see them at Brighton, they will show him the blue-dragon

Chayny jar, on which he would sit, and which he cried so fearfully upon

breaking.

When this little party has gone out smiling to take its walk on the

sea-shore, the Colonel sits down and resumes the interrupted dessert.

Miss Honeyman talks of the children and their mother, and the merits of

Mr. Kuhn, and the beauty of Miss Ethel, glancing significantly towards

Clive, who has had enough of gingerbread nuts and dessert and wine, and

whose youthful nose is by this time at the window. What kind-hearted

woman, young or old, does not love match-making?

The Colonel, without lifting his eyes from the table, says “she reminds

him of—of somebody he knew once.”

“Indeed?” cries Miss Honeyman, and thinks Emma must have altered very

much after going to India, for she had fair hair, and white eyelashes,

and not a pretty foot certainly—but, my dear good lady, the Colonel is

not thinking of the late Mrs. Casey.

He has taken a fitting quantity of the Madeira, the artless greeting of

the people here, young and old, has warmed his heart, and he goes

upstairs to pay a visit to his sister-in-law, to whom he makes his most

courteous bow as becomes a lady of her rank. Ethel takes her place

quite naturally beside him during his visit. Where did he learn those

fine manners which all of us who knew him admired in him? He had a

natural simplicity, an habitual practice of kind and generous thoughts;

a pure mind, and therefore above hypocrisy and affectation—perhaps

those French people with whom he had been intimate in early life had

imparted to him some of the traditional graces of their _vieille

tour_—certainly his half-brothers had inherited none such. “What is

this that Barnes has written about his uncle, that the Colonel is

ridiculous?” Lady Anne said to her daughter that night. “Your uncle is

adorable. I have never seen a more perfect grand Seigneur. He puts me

in mind of my grandfather, though grandpapa’s grand manner was more

artificial, and his voice spoiled by snuff. See the Colonel. He smokes

round the garden, but with what perfect grace! This is the man Uncle

Hobson, and your poor dear papa, have represented to us as a species of

bear! Mr. Newcome, who has himself the ton of a waiter! The Colonel is

perfect. What can Barnes mean by ridiculing him? I wish Barnes had such

a distinguished air; but he is like his poor dear papa. _Que

voulez-vous_, my love? The Newcomes are honourable: the Newcomes are

wealthy: but distinguished—no. I never deluded myself with that notion

when I married your poor dear papa. At once I pronounce Colonel Newcome

a person to be in every way distinguished by us. On our return to

London I shall present him to all our family: poor good man! let him

see that his family have some presentable relations besides those whom

he will meet at Mrs. Newcome’s, in Bryanstone Square. You must go to

Bryanstone Square immediately we return to London. You must ask your

cousins and their governess, and we will give them a little party. Mrs.

Newcome is insupportable, but we must never forsake our relatives,

Ethel. When you come out you will have to dine there, and to go to her

ball. Every young lady in your position in the world has sacrifices to

make, and duties to her family to perform. Look at me. Why did I marry

your poor dear papa? From duty. Has your Aunt Fanny, who ran away with

Captain Canonbury, been happy? They have eleven children, and are

starving at Boulogne. Think of three of Fanny’s boys in yellow

stockings at the Bluecoat School. Your papa got them appointed. I am

sure my papa would have gone mad if he had seen that day! She came with

one of the poor wretches to Park Lane: but I could not see them. My

feelings would not allow me. When my maid,—I had a French maid then,

Louise, you remember; her conduct was _abominable:_ so was

Préville’s—when she came and said that my Lady Fanny was below with a

young gentleman, _qui portait des bas jaunes_, I could not see the

child. I begged her to come up in my room: and, absolutely that I might

not offend her, I went to bed. That wretch Louise met her at Boulogne

and told her afterwards. Good night, we must not stand chattering here

any more. Heaven bless you, my darling! Those are the Colonel’s

windows! Look, he is smoking on his balcony—that must be Clive’s room.

Clive is a good kind boy. It was very kind of him to draw so many

pictures for Alfred. Put the drawings away, Ethel. Mr. Smee saw some in

Park Lane, and said they showed remarkable genius. What a genius your

Aunt Emily had for drawing; but it was flowers! I had no genius in

particular, so mamma used to say—and Doctor Belper said, ‘My dear Lady

Walham’ (it was before my grandpapa’s death), ‘has Miss Anne a genius

for sewing buttons and making puddens?’—puddens he pronounced it.

Goodnight, my own love. Blessings, blessings, on my Ethel!”

The Colonel from his balcony saw the slim figure of the retreating

girl, and looked fondly after her: and as the smoke of his cigar

floated in the air, he formed a fine castle in it, whereof Clive was

lord, and that pretty Ethel, lady. “What a frank, generous, bright

young creature is yonder!” thought he. “How cheery and gay she is; how

good to Miss Honeyman, to whom she behaved with just the respect that

was the old lady’s due—how affectionate with her brothers and sisters!

What a sweet voice she has! What a pretty little white hand it is! When

she gave it me, it looked like a little white bird lying in mine. I

must wear gloves, by Jove I must, and my coat is old-fashioned, as

Binnie says; what a fine match might be made between that child and

Clive! She reminds me of a pair of eyes I haven’t seen these forty

years. I would like to have Clive married to her; to see him out of the

scrapes and dangers that young fellows encounter, and safe with such a

sweet girl as that. If God had so willed it, I might have been happy

myself, and could have made a woman happy. But the Fates were against

me. I should like to see Clive happy, and then say _Nunc dimittis_. I

shan’t want anything more to-night, Kean, and you can go to bed.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” says Kean, who enters, having prepared his

master’s bedchamber, and is retiring when the Colonel calls after him:

“I say, Kean, is that blue coat of mine very old?”

“Uncommon white about the seams, Colonel,” says the man.

“Is it older than other people’s coats?”—Kean is obliged gravely to

confess that the Colonel’s coat is very queer.

“Get me another coat, then—see that I don’t do anything or wear

anything unusual. I have been so long out of Europe, that I don’t know

the customs here, and am not above learning.”

Kean retires, vowing that his master is an old trump; which opinion he

had already expressed to Mr. Kuhn, Lady Hanne’s man, over a long

potation which those two gentlemen had taken together. And, as all of

us, in one way or another, are subject to this domestic criticism, from

which not the most exalted can escape, I say, lucky is the man whose

servants speak well of him.

CHAPTER XVI.

In which Mr. Sherrick lets his House in Fitzroy Square

In spite of the sneers of the _Newcome Independent_, and the Colonel’s

unlucky visit to his nurse’s native place, he still remained in high

favour in Park Lane; where the worthy gentleman paid almost daily

visits, and was received with welcome and almost affection, at least by

the ladies and the children of the house. Who was it that took the

children to Astley’s but Uncle Newcome? I saw him there in the midst of

a cluster of these little people, all children together. He laughed

delighted at Mr. Merryman’s jokes in the ring. He beheld the Battle of

Waterloo with breathless interest, and was amazed—amazed, by Jove,

sir—at the prodigious likeness of the principal actor to the Emperor

Napoleon; whose tomb he had visited on his return from India, as it

pleased him to tell his little audience who sat clustering round him:

the little girls, Sir Brian’s daughters, holding each by a finger of

his honest hands; young Masters Alfred and Edward clapping and

hurrahing by his side; while Mr. Clive and Miss Ethel sat in the back

of the box enjoying the scene, but with that decorum which belonged to

their superior age and gravity. As for Clive, he was in these matters

much older than the grizzled old warrior his father. It did one good to

hear the Colonel’s honest laughs at clown’s jokes, and to see the

tenderness and simplicity with which he watched over this happy brood

of young ones. How lavishly did he supply them with sweetmeats between

the acts! There he sat in the midst of them, and ate an orange himself

with perfect satisfaction. I wonder what sum of money Mr. Barnes

Newcome would have taken to sit for five hours with his young brothers

and sisters in a public box at the theatre and eat an orange in the

face of the audience? When little Alfred went to Harrow, you may be

sure Colonel Newcome and Clive galloped over to see the little man, and

tipped him royally. What money is better bestowed than that of a

schoolboy’s tip? How the kindness is recalled by the recipient in after

days! It blesses him that gives and him that takes. Remember how happy

such benefactions made you in your own early time, and go off on the

very first fine day and tip your nephew at school!

The Colonel’s organ of benevolence was so large, that he would have

liked to administer bounties to the young folks his nephews and nieces

in Bryanstone Square, as well as to their cousins in Park Lane; but

Mrs. Newcome was a great deal too virtuous to admit of such spoiling of

children. She took the poor gentleman to task for an attempt upon her

boys when those lads came home for their holidays, and caused them

ruefully to give back the shining gold sovereign with which their uncle

had thought to give them a treat.

“I do not quarrel with _other_ families,” says she; “I do not _allude_

to other families;” meaning, of course, that she did not allude to Park

Lane. “There may be children who are allowed to receive money from

their father’s grown-up friends. There may be children who hold out

their hands for presents, and thus become mercenary in early life. I

make no reflections with regard to _other_ households. _I_ only look,

and think, and pray for the welfare of my own beloved ones. They want

for nothing. Heaven has bounteously furnished us with every comfort,

with every elegance, with every luxury. Why need we be bounden to

others, who have been ourselves so amply provided? I should consider it

ingratitude, Colonel Newcome, want of proper spirit, to allow my boys

to accept money. Mind, I make _no allusions_. When they go to school

they receive a sovereign a-piece from their father, and a shilling a

week, which is ample pocket-money. When they are at home, I desire that

they may have rational amusements: I send them to the Polytechnic with

Professor Hickson, who kindly explains to them some of the marvels of

science and the wonders of machinery. I send them to the

picture-galleries and the British Museum. I go with them myself to the

delightful lectures at the institution in Albemarle Street. I do not

desire that they should attend theatrical exhibitions. I do not quarrel

with those who go to plays; far from it! Who am I that I should venture

to judge the conduct of others? When you wrote from India, expressing a

wish that your boy should be made acquainted with the works of

Shakspeare, I gave up my own opinion at once. Should I interpose

between a child and his father? I encouraged the boy to go to the play,

and sent him to the pit with one of our footmen.”

“And you tipped him very handsomely, my dear Maria, too,” said the

good-natured Colonel, breaking in upon her sermon; but Virtue was not

to be put off in that way.

“And why, Colonel Newcome,” Virtue exclaimed, laying a pudgy little

hand on its heart; “why did I treat Clive so? Because I stood towards

him _in loco parentis;_ because he was as a child to me, and I to him

as a mother. I indulged him more than my own. I loved him with a true

maternal tenderness. _Then_ he was happy to come to our house: _then_

perhaps Park Lane was not so often open to him as Bryanstone Square:

but I make n_o allusions. Then_ he did not go six times to another

house for once that he came to mine. He was a simple, confiding,

generous boy, was not dazzled by worldly rank or titles of splendour.

He could not find _these_ in Bryanstone Square. A merchant’s wife, a

country lawyer’s daughter—I could not be expected to have my humble

board surrounded by titled aristocracy; I would not if I could. I love

my own family too well; I am too honest, too simple,—let me own it at

once, Colonel Newcome, too _proud!_ And now, now his father has come to

England, and I have resigned him, and he meets with no titled

aristocrats at my house, and he does not come here any more.”

Tears rolled out of her little eyes as she spoke, and she covered her

round face with her pocket-handkerchief.

Had Colonel Newcome read the paper that morning, he might have seen

amongst what are called the fashionable announcements, the cause,

perhaps, why his sister-in-law had exhibited so much anger and virtue.

The _Morning Post_ stated, that yesterday Sir Brian and Lady Newcome

entertained at dinner His Excellency the Persian Ambassador and

Bucksheesh Bey; the Right Honourable Cannon Rowe, President of the

Board of Control, and Lady Louisa Rowe; the Earl of H———, the Countess

of Kew, the Earl of Kew, Sir Currey Baughton, Major-General and Mrs.

Hooker, Colonel Newcome, and Mr. Horace Fogey. Afterwards her ladyship

had an assembly, which was attended by, etc. etc.

This catalogue of illustrious names had been read by Mr. Newcome to her

spouse at breakfast, with such comments as she was in the habit of

making.

“The President of the Board of Control, the Chairman of the Court of

Directors, and Ex-Governor-General of India, and a whole regiment of

Kews. By Jove, Maria, the Colonel is in good company,” cries Mr.

Newcome, with a laugh. “That’s the sort of dinner you should have given

him. Some people to talk about India. When he dined with us he was put

between old Lady Wormely and Professor Roots. I don’t wonder at his

going to sleep after dinner. I was off myself once or twice during that

confounded long argument between Professor Roots and Dr. Windus. That

Windus is the deuce to talk.”

“Dr. Windus is a man of science, and his name is of European

celebrity!” says Maria solemnly. “Any intellectual person would prefer

such company to the titled nobodies into whose family your brother has

married.”

“There you go, Polly; you are always having a shy at Lady Anne and her

relations,” says Mr. Newcome, good-naturedly.

“A shy! How can you use such vulgar words, Mr. Newcome? What have I to

do with Sir Brian’s titled relations? I do not value nobility. I prefer

people of science—people of intellect—to all the rank in the world.”

“So you do,” says Hobson her spouse. “You have your party—Lady Anne has

her party. You take your line—Lady Anne takes her line. You are a

superior woman, my dear Polly; every one knows that. I’m a plain

country farmer, I am. As long as you are happy, I am happy too. The

people you get to dine here may talk Greek or algebra for what I care.

By Jove, my dear, I think you can hold your own with the best of them.”

“I have endeavoured by assiduity to make up for time lost, and an early

imperfect education,” says Mrs. Newcome. “You married a poor country

lawyer’s daughter. You did not seek a partner in the Peerage, Mr.

Newcome.”

“No, no. Not such a confounded flat as that,” cries Mr. Newcome,

surveying his plump partner behind her silver teapot, with eyes of

admiration.

“I had an imperfect education, but I knew its blessings, and have, I

trust, endeavoured to cultivate the humble talents which Heaven has

given me, Mr. Newcome.”

“Humble, by Jove!” exclaims the husband. “No gammon of that sort,

Polly. You know well enough that you are a superior woman. I ain’t a

superior man. I know that: one is enough in a family. I leave the

reading to you, my dear. Here comes my horses. I say, I wish you’d call

on Lady Anne to-day. Do go and see her, now that’s a good girl. I know

she is flighty, and that; and Brian’s back is up a little. But he ain’t

a bad fellow; and I wish I could see you and his wife better friends.”

On his way to the City, Mr. Newcome rode to look at the new house, No.

120 Fitzroy Square, which his brother, the Colonel, had taken in

conjunction with that Indian friend of his, Mr. Binnie. Shrewd old

cock, Mr. Binnie. Has brought home a good bit of money from India. Is

looking out for safe investments. Has been introduced to Newcome

Brothers. Mr. Newcome thinks very well of the Colonel’s friend.

The house is vast, but, it must be owned, melancholy. Not long since it

was a ladies’ school, in an unprosperous condition. The scar left by

Madame Latour’s brass plate may still be seen on the tall black door,

cheerfully ornamented in the style of the end of the last century, with

a funereal urn in the centre of the entry, and garlands, and the skulls

of rams at each corner. Madame Latour, who at one time actually kept a

large yellow coach, and drove her parlour young ladies in the Regent’s

Park, was an exile from her native country (Islington was her

birthplace, and Grigson her paternal name), and an outlaw at the suit

of Samuel Sherrick: that Mr. Sherrick whose wine-vaults undermine Lady

Whittlesea’s Chapel where the eloquent Honeyman preaches.

The house is Mr. Sherrick’s house. Some say his name is Shadrach, and

pretend to have known him as an orange-boy, afterwards as a

chorus-singer in the theatres, afterwards as secretary to a great

tragedian. I know nothing of these stories. He may or he may not be a

partner of Mr. Campion, of Shepherd’s Inn: he has a handsome villa,

Abbey Road, St. John’s Wood, entertains good company, rather loud, of

the sporting sort, rides and drives very showy horses, has boxes at the

Opera whenever he likes, and free access behind the scenes: is

handsome, dark, bright-eyed, with a quantity of jewellery, and a tuft

to his chin; sings sweetly sentimental songs after dinner. Who cares a

fig what was the religion of Mr. Sherrick’s ancestry, or what the

occupation of his youth? Mr. Honeyman, a most respectable man surely,

introduced Sherrick to the Colonel and Binnie.

Mr. Sherrick stocked their cellar with some of the wine over which

Honeyman preached such lovely sermons. It was not dear; it was not bad

when you dealt with Mr. Sherrick for wine alone. Going into his market

with ready money in your hand, as our simple friends did, you were

pretty fairly treated by Mr. Sherrick.

The house being taken, we may be certain there was fine amusement for

Clive, Mr. Binnie, and the Colonel, in frequenting the sales, in the

inspection of upholsterers’ shops, and the purchase of furniture for

the new mansion. It was like nobody else’s house. There were three

masters with four or five servants over them. Kean for the Colonel and

his son; a smart boy with boots for Mr. Binnie; Mrs. Kean to cook and

keep house, with a couple of maids under her. The Colonel, himself, was

great at making hash mutton, hot-pot, curry, and pillau. What cosy

pipes did we not smoke in the dining-room, in the drawing-room, or

where we would! What pleasant evenings did we not have with Mr. Binnie’s

books and Schiedam! Then there were the solemn state dinners, at most

of which the writer of this biography had a corner.

Clive had a tutor—Grindley of Corpus—whom we recommended to him, and

with whom the young gentleman did not fatigue his brains very much; but

his great forte decidedly lay in drawing. He sketched the horses, he

sketched the dogs; all the servants from the blear-eyed boot-boy to the

rosy-cheeked lass, Mrs. Kean’s niece, whom that virtuous housekeeper

was always calling to come downstairs. He drew his father in all

postures—asleep, on foot, on horseback; and jolly little Mr. Binnie,

with his plump legs on a chair, or jumping briskly on the back of the

cob which he rode. He should have drawn the pictures for this book, but

that he no longer condescends to make sketches. Young Ridley was his

daily friend now; and Grindley, his classics and mathematics over in

the morning, and the ride with father over, this pair of young men

would constantly attend Gandish’s Drawing Academy, where, to be sure,

Ridley passed many hours at work on his art, before his young friend

and patron could be spared from his books to his pencil.

“Oh,” says Clive, if you talk to him now about those early days, “it

was a jolly time! I do not believe there was any young fellow in London

so happy.” And there hangs up in his painting-room now, a head, painted

at one sitting, of a man rather bald, with hair touched with grey, with

a large moustache, and a sweet mouth half smiling beneath it, and

melancholy eyes; and Clive shows that portrait of their grandfather to

his children, and tells them that the whole world never saw a nobler

gentleman.

CHAPTER XVII.

A School of Art

British art either finds her peculiar nourishment in melancholy, and

loves to fix her abode in desert places; or it may be her purse is but

slenderly furnished, and she is forced to put up with accommodations

rejected by more prosperous callings. Some of the most dismal quarters

of the town are colonised by her disciples and professors. In walking

through streets which may have been gay and polite when ladies’

chairmen jostled each other on the pavement, and linkboys with their

torches lighted the beaux over the mud, who has not remarked the

artist’s invasion of those regions once devoted to fashion and gaiety?

Centre windows of drawing-rooms are enlarged so as to reach up into

bedrooms—bedrooms where Lady Betty has had her hair powdered, and where

the painter’s north-light now takes possession of the place which her

toilet-table occupied a hundred years ago. There are degrees in

decadence: after the Fashion chooses to emigrate, and retreats from

Soho or Bloomsbury, let us say, to Cavendish Square, physicians come

and occupy the vacant houses, which still have a respectable look, the

windows being cleaned, and the knockers and plates kept bright, and the

doctor’s carriage rolling round the square, almost as fine as the

countess’s, which has whisked away her ladyship to other regions. A

boarding-house mayhap succeeds the physician, who has followed after

his sick folks into the new country; and then Dick Tinto comes with his

dingy brass plate, and breaks in his north window, and sets up his

sitters’ throne. I love his honest moustache, and jaunty velvet jacket;

his queer figure, his queer vanities, and his kind heart. Why should he

not suffer his ruddy ringlets to fall over his shirt-collar? Why should

he deny himself his velvet? it is but a kind of fustian which costs him

eighteenpence a yard. He is naturally what he is, and breaks out into

costume as spontaneously as a bird sings, or a bulb bears a tulip. And

as Dick, under yonder terrific appearance of waving cloak, bristling

beard, and shadowy sombrero, is a good kindly simple creature, got up

at a very cheap rate, his life is so consistent with his dress; he

gives his genius a darkling swagger, and a romantic envelope, which,

being removed, you find, not a bravo, but a kind chirping soul; not a

moody poet avoiding mankind for the better company of his own great

thoughts, but a jolly little chap who has an aptitude for painting

brocade gowns, a bit of armour (with figures inside them), or trees and

cattle, or gondolas and buildings, or what not; an instinct for the

picturesque, which exhibits itself in his works, and outwardly on his

person; beyond this, a gentle creature loving his friends, his cups,

feasts, merrymakings, and all good things. The kindest folks alive I

have found among those scowling whiskeradoes. They open oysters with

their yataghans, toast muffins on their rapiers, and fill their Venice

glasses with half-and-half. If they have money in their lean purses, be

sure they have a friend to share it. What innocent gaiety, what jovial

suppers on threadbare cloths, and wonderful songs after; what pathos,

merriment, humour does not a man enjoy who frequents their company! Mr.

Clive Newcome, who has long since shaved his beard, who has become a

family man, and has seen the world in a thousand different phases,

avers that his life as an art-student at home and abroad was the

pleasantest part of his whole existence. It may not be more amusing in

the telling than the chronicle of a feast, or the accurate report of

two lovers’ conversation; but the biographer, having brought his hero

to the period of his life, is bound to relate it, before passing to

other occurrences which are to be narrated in their turn.

We may be sure the boy had many conversations with his affectionate

guardian as to the profession which he should follow. As regarded

mathematical and classical learning, the elder Newcome was forced to

admit, that out of every hundred boys, there were fifty as clever as

his own, and at least fifty more industrious; the army in time of peace

Colonel Newcome thought a bad trade for a young fellow so fond of ease

and pleasure as his son: his delight in the pencil was manifest to all.

Were not his school-books full of caricatures of the masters? Whilst

his tutor, Grindley, was lecturing him, did he not draw Grindley

instinctively under his very nose? A painter Clive was determined to

be, and nothing else; and Clive, being then some sixteen years of age,

began to study the art, _en règle_, under the eminent Mr. Gandish, of

Soho.

It was that well-known portrait-painter, Alfred Smee, Esq., R.A., who

recommended Gandish to Colonel Newcome, one day when the two gentlemen

met at dinner at Lady Anne Newcome’s table. Mr. Smee happened to

examine some of Clive’s drawings, which the young fellow had executed

for his cousins. Clive found no better amusement than in making

pictures for them, and would cheerfully pass evening after evening in

that diversion. He had made a thousand sketches of Ethel before a year

was over; a year, every day of which seemed to increase the attractions

of the fair young creature, develop her nymph-like form, and give her

figure fresh graces. He also of course drew Alfred and the nursery in

general, Aunt Anne and the Blenheim spaniels, and Mr. Kuhn and his

earrings, the majestic John bringing in the coal-scuttle, and all

persons or objects in that establishment with which he was familiar.

“What a genius the lad has,” the complimentary Mr. Smee averred; “what

a force and individuality there is in all his drawings! Look at his

horses! capital, by Jove, capital! and Alfred on his pony, and Miss

Ethel in her Spanish hat, with her hair flowing in the wind! I must

take this sketch, I positively must now, and show it to Landseer.” And

the courtly artist daintily enveloped the drawing in a sheet of paper,

put it away in his hat, and vowed subsequently that the great painter

had been delighted with the young man’s performance. Smee was not only

charmed with Clive’s skill as an artist, but thought his head would be

an admirable one to paint. Such a rich complexion, such fine turns in

his hair! such eyes! to see real blue eyes was so rare nowadays! And

the Colonel too, if the Colonel would but give him a few sittings, the

grey uniform of the Bengal Cavalry, the silver lace, the little bit of

red ribbon just to warm up the picture! it was seldom, Mr. Smee

declared, that an artist could get such an opportunity for colour. With

our hideous vermilion uniforms there was no chance of doing anything;

Rubens himself could scarcely manage scarlet. Look at the horseman in

Cuyp’s famous picture at the Louvre: the red was a positive blot upon

the whole picture. There was nothing like French grey and silver! All

which did not prevent Mr. Smee from painting Sir Brian in a flaring

deputy-lieutenant’s uniform, and entreating all military men whom he

met to sit to him in scarlet. Clive Newcome the Academician succeeded

in painting, of course for mere friendship’s sake, and because he liked

the subject, though he could not refuse the cheque which Colonel

Newcome sent him for the frame and picture; but no cajoleries could

induce the old campaigner to sit to any artist save one. He said he

should be ashamed to pay fifty guineas for the likeness of his homely

face; he jocularly proposed to James Binnie to have his head put on the

canvas, and Mr. Smee enthusiastically caught at the idea; but honest

James winked his droll eyes, saying his was a beauty that did not want

any paint; and when Mr. Smee took his leave after dinner in Fitzroy

Square, where this conversation was held, James Binnie hinted that the

Academician was no better than an old humbug, in which surmise he was

probably not altogether incorrect. Certain young men who frequented the

kind Colonel’s house were also somewhat of this opinion; and made

endless jokes at the painter’s expense. Smee plastered his sitters with

adulation as methodically as he covered his canvas. He waylaid

gentlemen at dinner; he inveigled unsuspecting folks into his studio,

and had their heads off their shoulders before they were aware. One

day, on our way from the Temple, through Howland Street, to the

Colonel’s house, we beheld Major-General Sir Thomas de Boots, in full

uniform, rushing from Smee’s door to his brougham. The coachman was

absent refreshing himself at a neighbouring tap: the little street-boys

cheered and hurrayed Sir Thomas, as, arrayed in gold and scarlet, he

sate in his chariot. He blushed purple when he beheld us. No artist

would have dared to imitate those purple tones: he was one of the

numerous victims of Mr. Smee.

One day, then, day to be noted with a white stone, Colonel Newcome,

with his son and Mr. Smee, R.A., walked from the Colonel’s house to

Gandish’s, which was not far removed thence; and young Clive, who was a

perfect mimic, described to his friends, and illustrated, as was his

wont, by diagrams, the interview which he had with that professor. “By

Jove, you must see Gandish, pa!” cries Clive: “Gandish is worth the

whole world. Come and be an art-student. You’ll find such jolly fellows

there! Gandish calls it hart-student, and says, ‘Hars est celare

Hartem’—by Jove he does! He treated us to a little Latin, as he brought

out a cake and a bottle of wine, you know.”

“The governor was splendid, sir. He wore gloves: you know he only puts

them on on parade days; and turned out for the occasion spick and span.

He ought to be a general officer. He looks like a field-marshal—don’t

he? You should have seen him bowing to Mrs. Gandish and the Miss

Gandishes, dressed all in their best, round the cake-tray! He takes his

glass of wine, and sweeps them all round with a bow. ‘I hope, young

ladies,’ says he, ‘you don’t often go to the students’ room. I’m afraid

the young gentlemen would leave off looking at the statues if you came

in.’ And so they would: for you never saw such guys; but the dear old

boy fancies every woman is a beauty.

“‘Mr. Smee, you are looking at my picture of “Boadishia?”’ says

Gandish. Wouldn’t he have caught it for his quantities at Grey Friars,

that’s all.

“‘Yes—ah—yes,’ says Mr. Smee, putting his hand over his eyes, and

standing before it, looking steady, you know, as if he was going to see

whereabouts he should _hit_ Boadishia.

“‘It was painted when you were a young man, four years before you were

an associate, Smee. Had some success in its time, and there’s good

pints about that picture,’ Gandish goes on. ‘But I never could get my

price for it; and here it hangs in my own room. Igh art won’t do in

this country, Colonel—it’s a melancholy fact.’

“‘High art! I should think it _is_ high art!’ whispers old Smee;

‘fourteen feet high, at least!’ And then out loud he says ‘The picture

has very fine points in it, Gandish, as you say. Foreshortening of that

arm, capital! That red drapery carried off into the right of the

picture very skilfully managed!’

“‘It’s not like portrait-painting, Smee—Igh art,’ says Gandish. ‘The

models of the hancient Britons in that pictur alone cost me thirty

pound—when I was a struggling man, and had just married my Betsey here.

You reckonise Boadishia, Colonel, with the Roman elmet, cuirass, and

javeling of the period—all studied from the hantique, sir, the glorious

hantique.’

“‘All but Boadicea,’ says father. ‘She remains always young.’ And he

began to speak the lines out of Cowper, he did—waving his stick like an

old trump—and famous they are,” cries the lad:

“When the British warrior queen,

Bleeding from the Roman rods”—

“Jolly verses! Haven’t I translated them into alcaics?” says Clive,

with a merry laugh, and resumes his history.

“‘Oh, I must have those verses in my album,’ cries one of the young

ladies. ‘Did you compose them, Colonel Newcome?’ But Gandish, you see,

is never thinking about any works but his own, and goes on, ‘Study of

my eldest daughter, exhibited 1816.’

“‘No, pa, not ’16,’ cries Miss Gandish. She don’t look like a chicken,

I can tell you.

“‘Admired,’ Gandish goes on, never heeding her,—‘I can show you what

the papers said of it at the time—_Morning Chronicle_ and

_Examiner_—spoke most ighly of it. My son as an infant ’Ercules,

stranglin the serpent over the piano. Fust conception of my picture of

“Non Hangli said Hangeli.”’

“‘For which I can guess who were the angels that sat,’ says father.

Upon my word, that old governor! He is a little too strong. But Mr.

Gandish listened no more to him than to Mr. Smee, and went on,

buttering himself all over, as I have read the Hottentots do. ‘Myself

at thirty-three years of age!’ says he, pointing to a portrait of a

gentleman in leather breeches and mahogany boots; ‘I could have been a

portrait-painter, Mr. Smee.’

“‘Indeed it was lucky for some of us you devoted yourself to high art,

Gandish,’ Mr. Smee says, and sips the wine and puts it down again,

making a face. It was not first-rate tipple, you see.

“‘Two girls,’ continues that indomitable Mr. Gandish. ‘Hidea for “Babes

in the Wood.” “View of Pæstum,” taken on the spot by myself, when

travelling with the late lamented Earl of Kew. ‘Beauty, Valour,

Commerce, and Liberty, condoling with Britannia on the death of Admiral

Viscount Nelson,’—allegorical piece drawn at a very early age after

Trafalgar. Mr. Fuseli saw that piece, sir, when I was a student of the

Academy, and said to me, ‘Young man, stick to the antique. There’s

nothing like it.’ Those were ’is very words. If you do me the favour to

walk into the Hatrium, you’ll remark my great pictures also from

English ’istry. An English historical painter, sir, should be employed

chiefly in English ’istry. That’s what I would have done. Why ain’t

there temples for us, where the people might read their history at a

glance, and without knowing how to read? Why is my ‘Alfred’ ’anging up

in this ’all? Because there is no patronage for a man who devotes

himself to Igh art. You know the anecdote, Colonel? King Alfred flying

from the Danes, took refuge in a neaterd’s ’ut. The rustic’s wife told

him to bake a cake, and the fugitive sovering set down to his ignoble

task, and forgetting it in the cares of state, let the cake burn, on

which the woman struck him. The moment chose is when she is lifting her

’and to deliver the blow. The king receives it with majesty mingled

with meekness. In the background the door of the ’ut is open, letting

in the royal officers to announce the Danes are defeated. The daylight

breaks in at the aperture, signifying the dawning of ’Ope. That story,

sir, which I found in my researches in ’istry, has since become so

popular, sir, that hundreds of artists have painted it, hundreds! I who

discovered the legend, have my picture—here!’

“‘Now, Colonel,’ says the showman, ‘let me—let me lead you through the

statue gallery. ‘Apollo,’ you see. The ‘Venus Hanadyomene,’ the

glorious Venus of the Louvre, which I saw in 1814, Colonel, in its

glory—the ‘Laocoon’—my friend Gibson’s ‘Nymth,’ you see, is the only

figure I admit among the antiques. Now up this stair to the students’

room, where I trust my young friend, Mr. Newcome, will labour

assiduously. _Ars longa est_, Mr. Newcome. _Vita_——’”

“I trembled,” Clive said, “lest my father should introduce a certain

favourite quotation, beginning ‘_ingenuas didicisse_’—but he refrained,

and we went into the room, where a score of students were assembled,

who all looked away from their drawing-boards as we entered.

“‘Here will be your place, Mr. Newcome,’ says the Professor, ‘and here

that of your young friend—what did you say was his name?’ I told him

Rigby, for my dear old governor has promised to pay for J. J. too, you

know. ‘Mr. Chivers is the senior pupil and custos of the room in the

absence of my son. Mr. Chivers, Mr. Newcome; gentlemen, Mr. Newcome, a

new pupil. My son, Charles Gandish, Mr. Newcome. Assiduity, gentlemen,

assiduity. _Ars longa. Vita brevis, et linea recta brevissima est_.

This way, Colonel, down these steps, across the courtyard, to my own

studio. There, gentlemen,’—and pulling aside a curtain, Gandish says

‘There!’”

“And what was the masterpiece behind it?” we ask of Clive, after we

have done laughing at his imitation.

“Hand round the hat, J. J.!” cries Clive. “Now, ladies and gentlemen,

pay your money. Now walk in, for the performance is ‘just a-going to

begin.’” Nor would the rogue ever tell us what Gandish’s curtained

picture was.

Not a successful painter, Mr. Gandish was an excellent master, and

regarding all artists save one perhaps a good critic. Clive and his

friend J. J. came soon after and commenced their studies under him. The

one took his humble seat at the drawing-board, a poor mean-looking lad,

with worn clothes, downcast features, and a figure almost deformed; the

other adorned by good health, good looks, and the best of tailors;

ushered into the studio with his father and Mr. Smee as his

aides-de-camp on his entry; and previously announced there with all the

eloquence of honest Gandish. “I bet he’s ’ad cake and wine,” says one

youthful student, of an epicurean and satirical turn. “I bet he might

have it every day if he liked.” In fact Gandish was always handing him

sweetmeats of compliments and cordials of approbation. He had

coat-sleeves with silk linings—he had studs in his shirt. How different

was the texture and colour of that garment, to the sleeves Bob Grimes

displayed when he took his coat off to put on his working jacket!

Horses used actually to come for him to Gandish’s door (which was

situated in a certain lofty street in Soho). The Miss G.’s would smile

at him from the parlour window as he mounted and rode splendidly off;

and those opposition beauties, the Miss Levisons, daughters of the

professor of dancing over the way, seldom failed to greet the young

gentleman with an admiring ogle from their great black eyes. Master

Clive was pronounced an ‘out-and-outer,’ a ‘swell and no mistake,’ and

complimented with scarce one dissentient voice by the simple academy at

Gandish’s. Besides, he drew very well. There could be no doubt about

that. Caricatures of the students of course were passing constantly

among them, and in revenge for one which a huge red-haired Scotch

student, Mr. Sandy M’Collop, had made of John James, Clive perpetrated

a picture of Sandy which set the whole room in a roar; and when the

Caledonian giant uttered satirical remarks against the assembled

company, averring that they were a parcel of sneaks, a set of

lick-spittles, and using epithets still more vulgar, Clive slipped off

his fine silk-sleeved coat in an instant, invited Mr. M’Collop into the

back-yard, instructed him in a science which the lad himself had

acquired at Grey Friars, and administered two black eyes to Sandy,

which prevented the young artist from seeing for some days after the

head of the ‘Laocoon’ which he was copying. The Scotchman’s superior

weight and age might have given the combat a different conclusion, had

it endured long after Clive’s brilliant opening attack with his right

and left; but Professor Gandish came out of his painting-room at the

sound of battle, and could scarcely credit his own eyes when he saw

those of poor M’Collop so darkened. To do the Scotchman justice, he

bore Clive no rancour. They became friends there, and afterwards at

Rome, whither they subsequently went to pursue their studies. The fame

of Mr. M’Collop as an artist has long since been established. His

pictures of ‘Lord Lovat in Prison,’ and ‘Hogarth painting him,’ of the

‘Blowing up of the Kirk of Field’ (painted for M’Collop of M’Collop),

of the ‘Torture of the Covenanters,’ the ‘Murder of the Regent,’ the

‘Murder of Rizzio,’ and other historical pieces, all of course from

Scotch history, have established his reputation in South as well as in

North Britain. No one would suppose from the gloomy character of his

works that Sandy M’Collop is one of the most jovial souls alive. Within

six months after their little difference, Clive and he were the

greatest of friends, and it was by the former’s suggestion that Mr.

James Binnie gave Sandy his first commission, who selected the cheerful

subject of ‘The Young Duke of Rothsay starving in Prison.’

During this period, Mr. Clive assumed the _toga virilis_, and beheld

with inexpressible satisfaction the first growth of those mustachios

which have since given him such a marked appearance. Being at

Gandish’s, and so near the dancing academy, what must he do but take

lessons in the terpsichorean art too?—making himself as popular with

the dancing folks as with the drawing folks, and the jolly king of his

company everywhere. He gave entertainments to his fellow-students in

the upper chambers in Fitzroy Square, which were devoted to his use,

inviting his father and Mr. Binnie to those parties now and then. And

songs were sung, and pipes were smoked, and many a pleasant supper

eaten. There was no stint: but no excess. No young man was ever seen to

quit those apartments the worse, as it is called, for liquor. Fred

Bayham’s uncle the Bishop could not be more decorous than F. B. as he

left the Colonel’s house, for the Colonel made that one of the

conditions of his son’s hospitality, that nothing like intoxication

should ensue from it. The good gentleman did not frequent the parties

of the juniors. He saw that his presence rather silenced the young men;

and left them to themselves, confiding in Clive’s parole, and went away

to play his honest rubber of whist at the Club. And many a time he

heard the young fellows’ steps tramping by his bedchamber door, as he

lay wakeful within, happy to think his son was happy.

CHAPTER XVIII.

New Companions

Clive used to give droll accounts of the young disciples at Gandish’s,

who were of various ages and conditions, and in whose company the young

fellow took his place with that good temper and gaiety which have

seldom deserted him in life, and have put him at ease wherever his fate

has led him. He is, in truth, as much at home in a fine drawing-room as

in a public-house parlour; and can talk as pleasantly to the polite

mistress of the mansion, as to the jolly landlady dispensing her drinks

from her bar. Not one of the Gandishites but was after a while well

inclined to the young fellow; from Mr. Chivers, the senior pupil, down

to the little imp Harry Hooker, who knew as much mischief at twelve

years old, and could draw as cleverly as many a student of

five-and-twenty; and Bob Trotter, the diminutive fag of the studio, who

ran on all the young men’s errands, and fetched them in apples,

oranges, and walnuts. Clive opened his eyes with wonder when he first

beheld these simple feasts, and the pleasure with which some of the

young men partook of them. They were addicted to polonies; they did not

disguise their love for Banbury cakes; they made bets in ginger-beer,

and gave and took the odds in that frothing liquor. There was a young

Hebrew amongst the pupils, upon whom his brother-students used

playfully to press ham sandwiches, pork sausages, and the like. This

young man (who has risen to great wealth subsequently, and was bankrupt

only three months since) actually bought cocoa-nuts, and sold them at a

profit amongst the lads. His pockets were never without pencil-cases,

French chalk, garnet brooches, for which he was willing to bargain. He

behaved very rudely to Gandish, who seemed to be afraid before him. It

was whispered that the Professor was not altogether easy in his

circumstances, and that the elder Moss had some mysterious hold over

him. Honeyman and Bayham, who once came to see Clive at the studio,

seemed each disturbed at beholding young Moss seated there (making a

copy of the Marsyas). “Pa knows both those gents,” he informed Clive

afterwards, with a wicked twinkle of his Oriental eyes. “Step in, Mr.

Newcome, any day you are passing down Wardour Street, and see if you

don’t want anything in our way.” (He pronounced the words in his own

way, saying: “Step id, _Bister_ Doocob, ady day idto Vordor Street,”

etc.) This young gentleman could get tickets for almost all the

theatres, which he gave or sold, and gave splendid accounts at

Cavendish’s of the brilliant masquerades. Clive was greatly diverted at

beholding Mr. Moss at one of these entertainments, dressed in a scarlet

coat and top-boots, and calling out, “Yoicks! Hark forward!” fitfully

to another Orientalist, his younger brother, attired like a midshipman.

Once Clive bought a half-dozen of theatre tickets from Mr. Moss, which

he distributed to the young fellows of the studio. But, when this nice

young man tried further to tempt him on the next day, “Mr. Moss,” Clive

said to him with much dignity, “I am very much obliged to you for your

offer, but when I go to the play, I prefer paying at the doors.”

Mr. Chivers used to sit in one corner of the room, occupied over a

lithographic stone. He was an uncouth and peevish young man; for ever

finding fault with the younger pupils, whose butt he was. Next in rank

and age was M’Collop, before named: and these two were at first more

than usually harsh and captious with Clive, whose prosperity offended

them, and whose dandified manners, free-and-easy ways, and evident

influence over the younger scholars, gave umbrage to these elderly

apprentices. Clive at first returned Mr. Chivers war for war,

controlment for controlment; but when he found Chivers was the son of a

helpless widow; that he maintained her by his lithographic vignettes

for the music-sellers, and by the scanty remuneration of some lessons

which he gave at a school at Highgate;—when Clive saw, or fancied he

saw, the lonely senior eyeing with hungry eyes the luncheons of cheese

and bread, and sweetstuff, which the young lads of the studio enjoyed,

I promise you Mr. Clive’s wrath against Chivers was speedily turned

into compassion and kindness, and he sought, and no doubt found, means

of feeding Chivers without offending his testy independence.

Nigh to Gandish’s was, and perhaps is, another establishment for

teaching the art of design—Barker’s, which had the additional dignity

of a life academy and costume; frequented by a class of students more

advanced than those of Gandish’s. Between these and the Barkerites

there was a constant rivalry and emulation, in and out of doors.

Gandish sent more pupils to the Royal Academy; Gandish had brought up

three medallists; and the last R.A. student sent to Rome was a

Gandishite. Barker, on the contrary, scorned and loathed Trafalgar

Square, and laughed at its art. Barker exhibited in Pall Mall and

Suffolk Street: he laughed at old Gandish and his pictures, made

mincemeat of his “Angli and Angeli,” and tore “King Alfred” and his

muffins to pieces. The young men of the respective schools used to meet

at Lundy’s coffee-house and billiard-room, and smoke there, and do

battle. Before Clive and his friend J. J. came to Gandish’s, the

Barkerites were having the best of that constant match which the two

academies were playing. Fred Bayham, who knew every coffee-house in

town, and whose initials were scored on a thousand tavern doors, was

for a while a constant visitor at Lundy’s, played pool with the young

men, and did not disdain to dip his beard into their porter-pots, when

invited to partake of their drink; treated them handsomely when he was

in cash himself; and was an honorary member of Barker’s academy. Nay,

when the guardsman was not forthcoming, who was standing for one of

Barker’s heroic pictures, Bayham bared his immense arms and brawny

shoulders, and stood as Prince Edward, with Philippa sucking the

poisoned wound. He would take his friends up to the picture in the

Exhibition, and proudly point to it. “Look at that biceps, sir, and now

look at this—that’s Barker’s masterpiece, sir, and that’s the muscle of

F. B., sir.” In no company was F. B. greater than in the society of the

artists, in whose smoky haunts and airy parlours he might often be

found. It was from F. B. that Clive heard of Mr. Chivers’ struggles and

honest industry. A great deal of shrewd advice could F. B. give on

occasion, and many a kind action and gentle office of charity was this

jolly outlaw known to do and cause to be done. His advice to Clive was

most edifying at this time of our young gentleman’s life, and he owns

that he was kept from much mischief by this queer counsellor.

A few months after Clive and J. J. had entered at Gandish’s, that

academy began to hold its own against its rival. The silent young

disciple was pronounced to be a genius. His copies were beautiful in

delicacy and finish. His designs were for exquisite grace and richness

of fancy. Mr. Gandish took to himself the credit for J. J.’s genius;

Clive ever and fondly acknowledged the benefit he got from his friend’s

taste and bright enthusiasm and sure skill. As for Clive, if he was

successful in the academy he was doubly victorious out of it. His

person was handsome, his courage high, his gaiety and frankness

delightful and winning. His money was plenty and he spent it like a

young king. He could speedily beat all the club at Lundy’s at

billiards, and give points to the redoubted F. B. himself. He sang a

famous song at their jolly supper-parties: and J. J. had no greater

delight than to listen to his fresh voice, and watch the young

conqueror at the billiard-table, where the balls seemed to obey him.

Clive was not the most docile of Mr. Gandish’s pupils. If he had not

come to the studio on horseback, several of the young students averred,

Gandish would not always have been praising him and quoting him as that

professor certainly did. It must be confessed that the young ladies

read the history of Clive’s uncle in the Book of Baronets, and that

Gandish jun., probably with an eye to business, made a design of a

picture, in which, according to that veracious volume, one of the

Newcomes was represented as going cheerfully to the stake at

Smithfield, surrounded by some very ill-favoured Dominicans, whose

arguments did not appear to make the least impression upon the martyr

of the Newcome family. Sandy M’Collop devised a counter picture,

wherein the barber-surgeon of King Edward the Confessor was drawn,

operating upon the beard of that monarch. To which piece of satire

Clive gallantly replied by a design, representing Sawney Bean M’Collop,

chief of the clan of that name, descending from his mountains into

Edinburgh, and his astonishment at beholding a pair of breeches for the

first time. These playful jokes passed constantly amongst the young men

of Gandish’s studio. There was no one there who was not caricatured in

one way or another. He whose eyes looked not very straight was depicted

with a most awful squint. The youth whom nature had endowed with

somewhat lengthy nose was drawn by the caricaturists with a prodigious

proboscis. Little Bobby Moss, the young Hebrew artist from Wardour

Street, was delineated with three hats and an old-clothes bag. Nor were

poor J. J.’s round shoulders spared, until Clive indignantly

remonstrated at the hideous hunchback pictures which the boys made of

his friend, and vowed it was a shame to make jokes at such a deformity.

Our friend, if the truth must be told regarding him, though one of the

most frank, generous, and kind-hearted persons, is of a nature somewhat

haughty and imperious, and very likely the course of life which he now

led and the society which he was compelled to keep, served to increase

some original defects in his character, and to fortify a certain

disposition to think well of himself, with which his enemies not

unjustly reproach him. He has been known very pathetically to lament

that he was withdrawn from school too early, where a couple of years’

further course of thrashings from his tyrant, old Hodge, he avers,

would have done him good. He laments that he was not sent to college,

where if a young man receives no other discipline, at least he acquires

that of meeting with his equals in society and of assuredly finding his

betters: whereas in poor Mr. Gandish’s studio of art, our young

gentleman scarcely found a comrade that was not in one way or other his

flatterer, his inferior, his honest or dishonest admirer. The influence

of his family’s rank and wealth acted more or less on all those simple

folks, who would run on his errands and vied with each other in winning

the young nabob’s favour. His very goodness of heart rendered him a

more easy prey to their flattery, and his kind and jovial disposition

led him into company from which he had been much better away. I am

afraid that artful young Moss, whose parents dealt in pictures,

furniture, gimcracks, and jewellery, victimised Clive sadly with rings

and chains, shirt-studs and flaming shirt-pins, and such vanities,

which the poor young rogue locked up in his desk generally, only

venturing to wear them when he was out of his father’s sight or of Mr.

Binnie’s, whose shrewd eyes watched him very keenly.

Mr. Clive used to leave home every day shortly after noon, when he was

supposed to betake himself to Gandish’s studio. But was the young

gentleman always at the drawing-board copying from the antique when his

father supposed him to be so devotedly engaged? I fear his place was

sometimes vacant. His friend J. J. worked every day and all day. Many a

time the steady little student remarked his patron’s absence, and no

doubt gently remonstrated with him, but when Clive did come to his work

he executed it with remarkable skill and rapidity; and Ridley was too

fond of him to say a word at home regarding the shortcomings of the

youthful scapegrace. Candid readers may sometimes have heard their

friend Jones’s mother lament that her darling was working too hard at

college: or Harry’s sisters express their anxiety lest his too rigorous

attendance in chambers (after which he will persist in sitting up all

night reading those dreary law books which cost such an immense sum of

money) should undermine dear Henry’s health; and to such acute persons

a word is sufficient to indicate young Mr. Clive Newcome’s proceedings.

Meanwhile his father, who knew no more of the world than Harry’s simple

sisters or Jones’s fond mother, never doubted that all Clive’s doings

were right, and that his boy was the best of boys.

“If that young man goes on as charmingly as he has begun,” Clive’s

cousin, Barnes Newcome, said of his kinsman, “he will be a paragon. I

saw him last night at Vauxhall in company with young Moss, whose father

does bills and keeps the bric-a-brac shop in Wardour Street. Two or

three other gentlemen, probably young old-clothes-men, who had

concluded for the day the labours of the bag, joined Mr. Newcome and

his friend, and they partook of rack-punch in an arbour. He is a

delightful youth, cousin Clive, and I feel sure he is about to be an

honour to our family.”

CHAPTER XIX.

The Colonel at Home

Our good Colonel’s house had received a coat of paint, which, like

Madame Latour’s rouge in her latter days, only served to make her

careworn face look more ghastly. The kitchens were gloomy. The stables

were gloomy. Great black passages; cracked conservatory; dilapidated

bathroom, with melancholy waters moaning and fizzing from the cistern;

the great large blank stone staircase—were all so many melancholy

features in the general countenance of the house; but the Colonel

thought it perfectly, cheerful and pleasant, and furnished it in his

rough-and-ready way. One day a cartload of chairs; the next a waggonful

of fenders, fire-irons, and glass and crockery—a quantity of supplies,

in a word, he poured into the place. There were a yellow curtain in the

back drawing-room, and green curtains in the front. The carpet was an

immense bargain, bought dirt cheap, sir, at a sale in Euston Square. He

was against the purchase of a carpet for the stairs. What was the good

of it? What did men want with stair-carpets? His own apartment

contained a wonderful assortment of lumber. Shelves which he nailed

himself, old Indian garments, camphor trunks. What did he want with

gewgaws? anything was good enough for an old soldier. But the spare

bedroom was endowed with all sorts of splendour: a bed as big as a

general’s tent, a cheval glass—whereas the Colonel shaved in a little

cracked mirror, which cost him no more than King Stephen’s breeches—and

a handsome new carpet; while the boards of the Colonel’s bedchamber

were as bare—as bare as old Miss Scragg’s shoulders, which would be so

much more comfortable were they covered up. Mr. Binnie’s bedchamber was

neat, snug, and appropriate. And Clive had a study and bedroom at the

top of the house, which he was allowed to furnish entirely according to

his own taste. How he and Ridley revelled in Wardour Street! What

delightful coloured prints of hunting, racing, and beautiful ladies,

did they not purchase, mount with their own hands, cut out for screens,

frame and glaze, and hang up on the walls. When the rooms were ready

they gave a party, inviting the Colonel and Mr. Binnie by note of hand,

two gentlemen from Lamb Court, Temple, Mr. Honeyman, and Fred Bayham.

We must have Fred Bayham. Fred Bayham frankly asked, “Is Mr. Sherrick,

with whom you have become rather intimate lately—and mind you I say

nothing, but I recommend strangers in London to be cautious about their

friends—is Mr. Sherrick coming to you, young ’un? because if he is, F.

B. must respectfully decline.”

Mr. Sherrick was not invited, and accordingly F. B. came. But Sherrick

was invited on other days, and a very queer society did our honest

Colonel gather together in that queer house, so dreary, so dingy, so

comfortless, so pleasant. He, who was one of the most hospitable men

alive, loved to have his friends around him; and it must be confessed

that the evening parties now occasionally given in Fitzroy Square were

of the oddest assemblage of people. The correct East India gentlemen

from Hanover Square: the artists, Clive’s friends, gentlemen of all

ages with all sorts of beards, in every variety of costume. Now and

again a stray schoolfellow from Grey Friars, who stared, as well he

might, at the company in which he found himself. Sometimes a few ladies

were brought to these entertainments. The immense politeness of the

good host compensated some of them for the strangeness of his company.

They had never seen such odd-looking hairy men as those young artists,

nor such wonderful women as Colonel Newcome assembled together. He was

good to all old maids and poor widows. Retired captains with large

families of daughters found in him their best friend. He sent carriages

to fetch them and bring them back from the suburbs where they dwelt.

Gandish, Mrs. Gandish, and the four Miss Gandishes in scarlet robes,

were constant attendants at the Colonel’s soirées.

“I delight, sir, in the ’ospitality of my distinguished military

friend,” Mr. Gandish would say. “The harmy has always been my

passion.—I served in the Soho Volunteers three years myself, till the

conclusion of the war, sir, till the conclusion of the war.”

It was a great sight to see Mr. Frederick Bayham engaged in the waltz

or the quadrille with some of the elderly houris at the Colonel’s

parties. F. B., like a good-natured F. B. as he was, always chose the

plainest women as partners, and entertained them with profound

compliments and sumptuous conversation. The Colonel likewise danced

quadrilles with the utmost gravity. Waltzing had been invented long

since his time: but he practised quadrilles when they first came in,

about 1817, in Calcutta. To see him leading up a little old maid, and

bowing to her when the dance was ended, and performing cavalier seul

with stately simplicity, was a sight indeed to remember. If Clive

Newcome had not such a fine sense of humour, he would have blushed for

his father’s simplicity.—As it was, the elder’s guileless goodness and

childlike trustfulness endeared him immensely to his son. “Look at the

old boy, Pendennis,” he would say, “look at him leading up that old

Miss Tidswell to the piano. Doesn’t he do it like an old duke? I lay a

wager she thinks she is going to be my mother-in-law; all the women are

in love with him, young and old. ‘Should he upbraid?’ There she goes.

‘I’ll own that he’ll prevail, and sing as sweetly as a nigh-tin-gale!’

Oh, you old warbler! Look at father’s old head bobbing up and down!

Wouldn’t he do for Sir Roger de Coverley? How do you do, Uncle

Charles?—I say, M’Collop, how gets on the Duke of What-d’ye-call-’em

starving in the castle?—Gandish says it’s very good.” The lad retires

to a group of artists. Mr. Honeyman comes up with a faint smile playing

on his features, like moonlight on the facade of Lady Whittlesea’s

Chapel.

“These parties are the most singular I have ever seen,” whispers

Honeyman. “In entering one of these assemblies, one is struck with the

immensity of London: and with the sense of one’s own insignificance.

Without, I trust, departing from my clerical character, nay, from my

very avocation as incumbent of a London chapel,—I have seen a good deal

of the world, and here is an assemblage no doubt of most respectable

persons, on scarce one of whom I ever set eyes till this evening. Where

does my good brother find such characters?”

“That,” says Mr. Honeyman’s interlocutor, “is the celebrated, though

neglected artist, Professor Gandish, whom nothing but jealousy has kept

out of the Royal Academy. Surely you have heard of the great Gandish?”

“Indeed I am ashamed to confess my ignorance, but a clergyman busy with

his duties knows little, perhaps too little, of the fine arts.”

“Gandish, sir, is one of the greatest geniuses on whom our ungrateful

country ever trampled; he exhibited his first celebrated picture of

‘Alfred in the Neatherd’s Hut’ (he says he is the first who ever

touched that subject) in 180-; but Lord Nelson’s death, and victory of

Trafalgar, occupied the public attention at that time, and Gandish’s

work went unnoticed. In the year 1816, he painted his great work of

‘Boadicea.’ You see her before you. That lady in yellow, with a light

front and a turban. Boadicea became Mrs. Gandish in that year. So late

as ’27, he brought before the world his ‘Non Angli sed Angeli.’ Two of

the angels are yonder in sea-green dresses—the Misses Gandish. The

youth in Berlin gloves was the little male angelus of that piece.”

“How came you to know all this, you strange man?” says Mr. Honeyman.

“Simply because Gandish has told me twenty times. He tells the story to

everybody, every time he sees them. He told it to-day at dinner.

Boadicea and the angels came afterwards.”

“Satire! satire! Mr. Pendennis,” says the divine, holding up a

reproving finger of lavender kid, “beware of a wicked wit!—But when a

man has that tendency, I know how difficult it is to restrain. My dear

Colonel, good evening! You have a great reception to-night. That

gentleman’s bass voice is very fine; Mr. Pendennis and I were admiring

it. ‘The Wolf’ is a song admirably adapted to show its capabilities.”

Mr. Gandish’s autobiography had occupied the whole time of the

retirement of the ladies from Colonel Newcome’s dinner-table. Mr.

Hobson Newcome had been asleep during the performance; Sir Curry

Baughton and one or two of the Colonel’s professional and military

guests, silent and puzzled. Honest Mr. Binnie, with his shrewd

good-humoured face, sipping his claret as usual, and delivering a sly

joke now and again to the gentlemen at his end of the table. Mrs.

Newcome had sat by him in sulky dignity; was it that Lady Baughton’s

diamonds offended her?—her ladyship and her daughters being attired in

great splendour for a Court ball, which they were to attend that

evening. Was she hurt because SHE was not invited to that Royal

Entertainment? As the festivities were to take place at an early hour,

the ladies bidden were obliged to quit the Colonel’s house before the

evening part commenced, from which Lady Anne declared she was quite

vexed to be obliged to run away.

Lady Anne Newcome had been as gracious on this occasion as her

sister-in-law had been out of humour. Everything pleased her in the

house. She had no idea that there were such fine houses in that quarter

of the town. She thought the dinner so very nice,—that Mr. Binnie such a

good-humoured-looking gentleman. That stout gentleman with his collars

turned down like Lord Byron, so exceedingly clever and full of

information. A celebrated artist was he? (courtly Mr. Smee had his own

opinion upon that point, but did not utter it). All those artists are

so eccentric and amusing and clever. Before dinner she insisted upon

seeing Clive’s den with its pictures and casts and pipes. “You horrid

young wicked creature, have you begun to smoke already?” she asks, as

she admires his room. She admired everything. Nothing could exceed her

satisfaction.

The sisters-in-law kissed on meeting, with that cordiality so

delightful to witness in sisters who dwell together in unity. It was,

“My dear Maria, what an age since I have seen you!” “My dear Anne, our

occupations are so engrossing, our circles are so different,” in a

languid response from the other. “Sir Brian is not coming, I suppose?

Now, Colonel,” she turns in a frisky manner towards him, and taps her

fan, “did I not tell you Sir Brian would not come?”

“He is kept at the House of Commons, my dear. Those dreadful

committees. He was quite vexed at not being able to come.”

“I know, I know, dear Anne, there are always excuses to gentlemen in

Parliament; I have received many such. Mr. Shaloo and Mr. M’Sheny, the

leaders of our party, often and often disappoint me. I _knew_ Brian

would not come. _My_ husband came down from Marble Head on purpose this

morning. Nothing would have induced us to give up our brother’s party.”

“I believe you. I did come down from Marble Head this morning, and I

was four hours in the hay-field before I came away, and in the City

till five, and I’ve been to look at a horse afterwards at Tattersall’s,

and I’m as hungry as a hunter, and as tired as a hodman,” says Mr.

Newcome, with his hands in his pockets. “How do you do, Mr. Pendennis?

Maria, you remember Mr. Pendennis—don’t you?”

“Perfectly,” replies the languid Maria. Mrs. Gandish, Colonel Topham,

Major M’Cracken, are announced, and then, in diamonds, feathers, and

splendour, Lady Baughton and Miss Baughton, who are going to the

Queen’s ball, and Sir Curry Baughton, not quite in his

deputy-lieutenant’s uniform as yet, looking very shy in a pair of blue

trousers, with a glittering stripe of silver down the seams. Clive

looks with wonder and delight at these ravishing ladies, rustling in

fresh brocades, with feathers, diamonds, and every magnificence. Aunt

Anne has not her Court dress on as yet; and Aunt Maria blushes as she

beholds the new comers, having thought fit to attire herself in a high

dress, with a Quaker-like simplicity, and a pair of gloves more than

ordinarily dingy. The pretty little foot she has, it is true, and

sticks it out from habit; but what is Mrs. Newcome’s foot compared with

that sweet little chaussure which Miss Baughton exhibits and withdraws?

The shiny white satin slipper, the pink stocking which ever and anon

peeps from the rustling folds of her robe, and timidly retires into its

covert—that foot, light as it is, crushes Mrs. Newcome.

No wonder she winces, and is angry; there are some mischievous persons

who rather like to witness that discomfiture. All Mr. Smee’s flatteries

that day failed to soothe her. She was in the state in which his

canvasses sometimes are, when he cannot paint on them.

What happened to her alone in the drawing-room, when the ladies invited

to the dinner had departed, and those convoked to the soirée began to

arrive,—what happened to her or to them I do not like to think. The

Gandishes arrived first. Boadicea and the angels. We judged from the

fact that young Mr. Gandish came blushing in to the dessert. Name after

name was announced of persons of whom Mrs. Newcome knew nothing. The

young and the old, the pretty and homely, they were all in their best

dresses, and no doubt stared at Mrs. Newcome, so obstinately plain in

her attire. When we came upstairs from dinner, we found her seated

entirely by herself, tapping her fan at the fireplace. Timid groups of

persons were round about, waiting for the irruption of the gentlemen,

until the pleasure should begin. Mr. Newcome, who came upstairs

yawning, was heard to say to his wife, “Oh, dam, let’s cut!” And they

went downstairs, and waited until their carriage had arrived, when they

quitted Fitzroy Square.

Mr. Barnes Newcome presently arrived, looking particularly smart and

lively, with a large flower in his button-hole, and leaning on the arm

of a friend. “How do you do, Pendennis?” he says, with a peculiarly

dandified air. “Did you dine here? You look as if you dined here” (and

Barnes, certainly, as if he had dined elsewhere). “I was only asked to

the cold soirée. Who did you have for dinner? You had my mamma and the

Baughtons, and my uncle and aunt, I know, for they are down below in

the library, waiting for the carriage: he is asleep, and she is as

sulky as a bear.”

“Why did Mrs. Newcome say I should find nobody I knew up here?” asks

Barnes’s companion. “On the contrary, there are lots of fellows I know.

There’s Fred Bayham, dancing like a harlequin. There’s old Gandish, who

used to be my drawing-master; and my Brighton friends, your uncle and

cousin, Barnes. What relations are they to me? must be some relations.

Fine fellow your cousin.”

“Hm,” growls Barnes. “Very fine boy,—not spirited at all,—not fond of

flattery,—not surrounded by toadies,—not fond of drink,—delightful boy!

See yonder, the young fellow is in conversation with his most intimate

friend, a little crooked fellow, with long hair. Do you know who he is?

he is the son of old Todmoreton’s butler. Upon my life it’s true.”

“And suppose it is; what the deuce do I care!” cries Lord Kew. “Who can

be more respectable than a butler? A man must be somebody’s son. When I

am a middle-aged man, I hope humbly I shall look like a butler myself.

Suppose you were to put ten of Gunter’s men into the House of Lords, do

you mean to say that they would not look as well as any average ten

peers in the house? Look at Lord Westcot; he is exactly like a butler

that’s why the country has such confidence in him. I never dine with

him but I fancy he ought to be at the sideboard. Here comes that

insufferable little old Smee. How do you do, Mr. Smee?”

Mr. Smee smiles his sweetest smile. With his rings, diamond

shirt-studs, and red velvet waistcoat, there are few more elaborate

middle-aged bucks than Alfred Smee. “How do you do, my dear lord?”

cries the bland one. “Who would ever have thought of seeing your

lordship here?”

“Why the deuce not, Mr. Smee?” asks Lord Kew, abruptly. “Is it wrong to

come here? I have been in the house only five minutes, and three people

have said the same thing to me—Mrs. Newcome, who is sitting downstairs

in a rage waiting for her carriage, the condescending Barnes, and

yourself. Why do you come here, Since? How are you, Mr. Gandish? How do

the fine arts go?”

“Your lordship’s kindness in asking for them will cheer them if

anything will,” says Mr. Gandish. “Your noble family has always

patronised them. I am proud to be reckonised by your lordship in this

house, where the distinguished father of one of my pupils entertains us

this evening. A most promising young man is young Mr. Clive—talents for

a hamateur really most remarkable.”

“Excellent, upon my word—excellent,” cries Mr. Smee. “I’m not an animal

painter myself, and perhaps don’t think much of that branch of the

profession; but it seems to me the young fellow draws horses with the

most wonderful spirit. I hope Lady Walham is very well, and that she

was satisfied with her son’s portrait. Stockholm, I think, your brother

is appointed to? I wish I might be allowed to paint the elder as well

as the younger brother, my lord.”

“I am an historical painter; but whenever Lord Kew is painted I hope

his lordship will think of the old servant of his lordship’s family,

Charles Gandish,” cries the Professor.

“I am like Susannah between the two Elders,” says Lord Kew. “Let my

innocence alone, Smee. Mr. Gandish, don’t persecute my modesty with

your addresses. I won’t be painted. I am not a fit subject for a

historical painter, Mr. Gandish.”

“Halcibiades sat to Praxiteles, and Pericles to Phridjas,” remarks

Gandish.