“My good fellow,” says my friend—it was my kind old Uncle Major

Pendennis, indeed—“I have lived long enough about town never to ask

myself questions of that sort. In the world people drop you and take

you up every day. You know Lady Cheddar by sight? I have known her

husband for forty years: I have stayed with them in the country, for

weeks at a time. She knows me as well as she knows King Charles at

Charing Cross, and a doosid deal better, and yet for a whole season she

will drop me—pass me by, as if there was no such person in the world.

Well, sir, what do I do? I never see her. I give you my word I am never

conscious of her existence; and if I meet her at dinner, I’m no more

aware of her than the fellows in the play are of Banquo. What’s the end

of it? She comes round—only last Toosday she came round—and said Lord

Cheddar wanted me to go down to Wiltshire. I asked after the family

(you know Henry Churningham is engaged to Miss Rennet?—a doosid good

match for the Cheddars). We shook hands and are as good friends as

ever. I don’t suppose she’ll cry when I die, you know,” said the worthy

old gentleman with a grin. “Nor shall I go into very deep mourning if

anything happens to her. You were quite right to say to Newcome that

you did not know whether you were free or not, and would look at your

engagements when you got home, and give him an answer. A fellow of that

rank _has_ no right to give himself airs. But they will, sir. Some of

those bankers are as high and mighty as the oldest families. They marry

noblemen’s daughters, by Jove, and think nothing is too good for ’em.

But I should go, if I were you, Arthur. I dined there a couple of

months ago; and the bankeress said something about you: that you and

her nephew were much together, that you were sad wild dogs, I

think—something of that sort. ‘Gad, ma’am,’ says I, ‘boys will be

boys.’ ‘And they grow to be men!’ says she, nodding her head. Queer

little woman, devilish pompous. Dinner confoundedly long, stoopid,

scientific.”

The old gentleman was on this day inclined to be talkative and

confidential, and I set down some more remarks which he made concerning

my friends. “Your Indian Colonel,” says he, “seems a worthy man.” The

Major quite forgot having been in India himself, unless he was in

company with some very great personage. “He don’t seem to know much of

the world, and we are not very intimate. Fitzroy Square is a dev’lish

long way off for a fellow to go for a dinner, and _entre nous_, the

dinner is rather queer and the company still more so. It’s right for

you who are a literary man to see all sorts of people; but I’m

different, you know, so Newcome and I are not very thick together. They

say he wanted to marry your friend to Lady Anne’s daughter, an

exceedingly fine girl; one of the prettiest girls come out this season.

I hear the young men say so. And that shows how monstrous ignorant of

the world Colonel Newcome is. His son could no more get that girl than

he could marry one of the royal princesses. Mark my words, they intend

Miss Newcome for Lord Kew. Those banker fellows are wild after grand

marriages. Kew will sow his wild oats, and they’ll marry her to him; or

if not to him, to some man of high rank. His father Walham was a weak

young man; but his grandmother, old Lady Kew, is a monstrous clever old

woman, too severe with her children, one of whom ran away and married a

poor devil without a shilling. Nothing could show a more deplorable

ignorance of the world than poor Newcome supposing his son could make

such a match as that with his cousin. Is it true that he is going to

make his son an artist? I don’t know what the dooce the world is coming

to. An artist! By gad, in my time a fellow would as soon have thought

of making his son a hairdresser, or a pastrycook, by gad.” And the

worthy Major gives his nephew two fingers, and trots off to the next

club in St. James’s Street, of which he is a member.

The virtuous hostess of Bryanstone Square was quite civil and

good-humoured when Mr. Pendennis appeared at her house; and my surprise

was not inconsiderable when I found the whole party from Saint Pancras

there assembled—Mr. Binnie; the Colonel and his son; Mrs. Mackenzie,

looking uncommonly handsome and perfectly well-dressed; and Miss Rosey,

in pink crape, with pearly shoulders and blushing cheeks, and beautiful

fair ringlets—as fresh and comely a sight as it was possible to

witness. Scarcely had we made our bows, and shaken our hands, and

imparted our observations about the fineness of the weather, when,

behold! as we look from the drawing-room windows into the cheerful

square of Bryanstone, a great family coach arrives, driven by a family

coachman in a family wig, and we recognise Lady Anne Newcome’s

carriage, and see her ladyship, her mother, her daughter, and her

husband, Sir Brian, descend from the vehicle. “It is quite a family

party,” whispers the happy Mrs. Newcome to the happy writer conversing

with her in the niche of the window. “Knowing your intimacy with our

brother, Colonel Newcome, we thought it would please him to meet you

here. Will you be so kind as to take Miss Newcome to dinner?”

Everybody was bent upon being happy and gracious. It was “My dear

brother, how do you do?” from Sir Brian. “My dear Colonel, how glad we

are to see you! how well you look!” from Lady Anne. Miss Newcome ran up

to him with both hands out, and put her beautiful face so close to his

that I thought, upon my conscience, she was going to kiss him. And Lady

Kew, advancing in the frankest manner, with a smile, I must own, rather

awful, playing round her many wrinkles, round her ladyship’s hooked

nose, and displaying her ladyship’s teeth (a new and exceedingly

handsome set), held out her hand to Colonel Newcome, and said briskly,

“Colonel, it is an age since we met.” She turns to Clive with equal

graciousness and good-humour, and says, “Mr. Clive, let me shake hands

with you; I have heard all sorts of good of you, that you have been

painting the most beautiful things, that you are going to be quite

famous.” Nothing can exceed the grace and kindness of Lady Anne Newcome

towards Mrs. Mackenzie: the pretty widow blushes with pleasure at this

greeting; and now Lady Anne must be introduced to Mrs. Mackenzie’s

charming daughter, and whispers in the delighted mother’s ear, “She is

lovely!” Rosey comes up looking rosy indeed, and executes a pretty

curtsey with a great deal of blushing grace.

Ethel has been so happy to see her dear uncle, that as yet she has had

no eyes for any one else, until Clive advancing, those bright eyes

become brighter still with surprise and pleasure as she beholds him.

For being absent with his family in Italy now, and not likely to see

this biography for many many months, I may say that he is a much

handsomer fellow than our designer has represented; and if that wayward

artist should take this very scene for the purpose of illustration, he

is requested to bear in mind that the hero of this story will wish to

have justice done to his person. There exists in Mr. Newcome’s

possession a charming little pencil-drawing of Clive at this age, and

which Colonel Newcome took with him when he went—whither he is about to

go in a very few pages—and brought back with him to this country. A

florid apparel becomes some men, as simple raiment suits others, and

Clive in his youth was of the ornamental class of mankind—a customer to

tailors, a wearer of handsome rings, shirt-studs, mustachios, long

hair, and the like; nor could he help, in his costume or his nature,

being picturesque and generous and splendid. He was always greatly

delighted with that Scotch man-at-arms in Quentin Durward, who twists

off an inch or two of his gold chain to treat a friend and pay for a

bottle. He would give a comrade a ring or a fine jewelled pin, if he

had no money. Silver dressing-cases and brocade morning-gowns were in

him a sort of propriety at this season of his youth. It was a pleasure

to persons of colder temperament to sun themselves in the warmth of his

bright looks and generous humour. His laughter cheered one like wine. I

do not know that he was very witty; but he was pleasant. He was prone

to blush: the history of a generous trait moistened his eyes instantly.

He was instinctively fond of children, and of the other sex from one

year old to eighty. Coming from the Derby once—a merry party—and

stopped on the road from Epsom in a lock of carriages, during which the

people in the carriage ahead saluted us with many vituperative

epithets, and seized the heads of our leaders,—Clive in a twinkling

jumped off the box, and the next minute we saw him engaged with a

half-dozen of the enemy: his hat gone, his fair hair flying off his

face, his blue eyes flashing with fire, his lips and nostrils quivering

wrath, his right and left hand hitting out, _que c’étoit un plaisir à

voir_. His father sat back in the carriage, looking with delight and

wonder—indeed it was a great sight. Policeman X separated the warriors.

Clive ascended the box again with a dreadful wound in the coat, which

was gashed from the waist to the shoulder. I hardly ever saw the elder

Newcome in such a state of triumph. The postboys quite stared at the

gratuity he gave them, and wished they might drive his lordship to the

Oaks.

All the time we have been making this sketch Ethel is standing, looking

at Clive; and the blushing youth casts down his eyes before hers. Her

face assumes a look of arch humour. She passes a slim hand over the

prettiest lips and a chin with the most lovely of dimples, thereby

indicating her admiration of Mr. Clive’s mustachios and imperial. They

are of a warm yellowish chestnut colour, and have not yet known the

razor. He wears a low cravat; a shirt-front of the finest lawn, with

ruby buttons. His hair, of a lighter colour, waves almost to his “manly

shoulders broad.” “Upon my word; my dear Colonel,” says Lady Kew, after

looking at him, and nodding her head shrewdly, “I think we were right.”

“No doubt right in everything your ladyship does, but in what

particularly?” asks the Colonel.

“Right to keep him out of the way. Ethel has been disposed of these ten

years. Did not Anne tell you? How foolish of her! But all mothers like

to have young men dying for their daughters. Your son is really the

handsomest boy in London. Who is that conceited-looking young man in

the window? Mr. Pen—what? has your son really been very wicked? I was

told he was a sad scapegrace.”

“I never knew him do, and I don’t believe he ever thought, anything

that was untrue, or unkind, or ungenerous,” says the Colonel. “If any

one has belied my boy to you, and I think I know who his enemy has

been——”

“The young lady is very pretty,” remarks Lady Kew, stopping the

Colonel’s further outbreak. “How very young her mother looks! Ethel, my

dear! Colonel Newcome must present us to Mrs. Mackenzie and Miss

Mackenzie;” and Ethel, giving a nod to Clive, with whom she has talked

for a minute or two, again puts her hand in her uncle’s, and walks

towards Mrs. Mackenzie and her daughter.

And now let the artist, if he has succeeded in drawing Clive to his

liking, cut a fresh pencil, and give us a likeness of Ethel. She is

seventeen years old; rather taller than the majority of women; of a

countenance somewhat grave and haughty, but on occasion brightening

with humour or beaming with kindliness and affection. Too quick to

detect affectation or insincerity in others, too impatient of dulness

or pomposity, she is more sarcastic now than she became when after

years of suffering had softened her nature. Truth looks out of her

bright eyes, and rises up armed, and flashes scorn or denial, perhaps

too readily, when she encounters flattery, or meanness, or imposture.

After her first appearance in the world, if the truth must be told,

this young lady was popular neither with many men, nor with most women.

The innocent dancing youth who pressed round her, attracted by her

beauty, were rather afraid, after a while, of engaging her. This one

felt dimly that she despised him; another, that his simpering

commonplaces (delights of how many well-bred maidens!) only occasioned

Miss Newcome’s laughter. Young Lord Croesus, whom all maidens and

matrons were eager to secure, was astounded to find that he was utterly

indifferent to her, and that she would refuse him twice or thrice in an

evening, and dance as many times with poor Tom Spring, who was his

father’s ninth son, and only at home till he could get a ship and go to

sea again. The young women were frightened at her sarcasm. She seemed

to know what _fadaises_ they whispered to their partners as they paused

in the waltzes; and Fanny, who was luring Lord Croesus towards her with

her blue eyes, dropped them guiltily to the floor when Ethel’s turned

towards her; and Cecilia sang more out of time than usual; and Clara,

who was holding Freddy, and Charley, and Tommy round her enchanted by

her bright conversation and witty mischief, became dumb and disturbed

when Ethel passed her with her cold face; and old Lady Hookham, who was

playing off her little Minnie now at young Jack Gorget of the Guards,

now at the eager and simple Bob Bateson of the Coldstreams, would slink

off when Ethel made her appearance on the ground, whose presence seemed

to frighten away the fish and the angler. No wonder that the other

Mayfair nymphs were afraid of this severe Diana, whose looks were so

cold and whose arrows were so keen.

But those who had no cause to heed Diana’s shot or coldness might

admire her beauty; nor could the famous Parisian marble, which Clive

said she resembled, be more perfect in form than this young lady. Her

hair and eyebrows were jet black (these latter may have been too thick

according to some physiognomists, giving rather a stern expression to

the eyes, and hence causing those guilty ones to tremble who came under

her lash), but her complexion was as dazzlingly fair and her cheeks as

red as Miss Rosey’s own, who had a right to those beauties, being a

blonde by nature. In Miss Ethel’s black hair there was a slight natural

ripple, as when a fresh breeze blows over the _melan hudor_—a ripple

such as Roman ladies nineteen hundred years ago, and our own beauties a

short time since, endeavoured to imitate by art, paper, and I believe

crumpling-irons. Her eyes were grey; her mouth rather large; her teeth

as regular and bright as Lady Kew’s own; her voice low and sweet; and

her smile, when it lighted up her face and eyes, as beautiful as spring

sunshine; also they could lighten and flash often, and sometimes,

though rarely, rain. As for her figure—but as this tall slender form is

concealed in a simple white muslin robe (of the sort which I believe is

called _demie toilette_), in which her fair arms are enveloped, and

which is confined at her slim waist by an azure ribbon, and descends to

her feet—let us make a respectful bow to that fair image of Youth,

Health, and Modesty, and fancy it as pretty as we will. Miss Ethel made

a very stately curtsey to Mrs. Mackenzie, surveying that widow calmly,

so that the elder lady looked up and fluttered; but towards Rosey she

held out her hand, and smiled with the utmost kindness, and the smile

was returned by the other; and the blushes with which Miss Mackenzie

was always ready at this time, became her very much. As for Mrs.

Mackenzie—the very largest curve that shall not be a caricature, and

actually disfigure the widow’s countenance—a smile so wide and steady,

so exceedingly rident, indeed, as almost to be ridiculous, may be drawn

upon her buxom face, if the artist chooses to attempt it as it appeared

during the whole of this summer evening, before dinner came (when

people ordinarily look very grave), when she was introduced to the

company: when she was made known to our friends Julia and Maria,—the

darling child, lovely little dears! how like their papa and mamma!—when

Sir Brian Newcome gave her his arm downstairs to the dining-room; when

anybody spoke to her; when John offered her meat, or the gentleman in

the white waistcoat, wine; when she accepted or when she refused these

refreshments; when Mr. Newcome told her a dreadfully stupid story; when

the Colonel called cheerily from his end of the table, “My dear Mrs.

Mackenzie, you don’t take any wine to-day; may I not have the honour of

drinking a glass of champagne with you?” when the new boy from the

country upset some sauce upon her shoulder: when Mrs. Newcome made the

sign for departure; and I have no doubt in the drawing-room, when the

ladies retired thither. “Mrs. Mack is perfectly awful,” Clive told me

afterwards, “since that dinner in Bryanstone Square. Lady Kew and Lady

Anne are never out of her mouth; she has had white muslin dresses made

just like Ethel’s for herself and her daughter. She has bought a

Peerage, and knows the pedigree of the whole Kew family. She won’t go

out in a cab now without the boy on the box; and in the plate for the

cards which she has established in the drawing-room, you know, Lady

Kew’s pasteboard always _will_ come up to the top, though I poke it

down whenever I go into the room. As for poor Lady Trotter, the

governess of St. Kitt’s, you know, and the Bishop of Tobago, they are

quite bowled out: Mrs. Mack has not mentioned them for a week.”

During the dinner it seemed to me that the lovely young lady by whom I

sate cast many glances towards Mrs. Mackenzie, which did not betoken

particular pleasure. Miss Ethel asked me several questions regarding

Clive, and also respecting Miss Mackenzie: perhaps her questions were

rather downright and imperious, and she patronised me in a manner that

would not have given all gentlemen pleasure. I was Clive’s friend, his

schoolfellow? had I seen him a great deal? know him very well—very well

indeed? Was it true that he had been very thoughtless? very wild? Who

told her so? That was not her question (with a blush). It was not true,

and I ought to know? He was not spoiled? He was very good-natured,

generous, told the truth? He loved his profession very much, and had

great talent? Indeed she was very glad. Why do they sneer at his

profession? It seemed to her quite as good as her father’s and

brother’s. Were artists not very dissipated? Not more so, nor often so

much as other young men? Was Mr. Binnie rich, and was he going to leave

all his money to his niece? How long have you known them? Is Miss

Mackenzie as good-natured as she looks? Not very clever, I suppose.

Mrs. Mackenzie looks very—No, thank you, no more. Grandmamma (she is

very deaf, and cannot hear) scolded me for reading the book you wrote,

and took the book away. I afterwards got it, and read it all. I don’t

think there was any harm in it. Why do you give such bad characters of

women? Don’t you know any good ones? Yes, two as good as any in the

world. They are unselfish: they are pious; they are always doing good;

they live in the country? Why don’t you put them into a book? Why don’t

you put my uncle into a book? He is so good, that nobody could make him

good enough. Before I came out, I heard a young lady—(Lady Clavering’s

daughter, Miss Amory) sing a song of yours. I have never spoken to an

author before. I saw Mr. Lyon at Lady Popinjoy’s, and heard him speak.

He said it was very hot, and he looked so, I am sure. Who is the

greatest author now alive? You will tell me when you come upstairs

after dinner;—and the young lady sails away, following the matrons, who

rise and ascend to the drawing-room. Miss Newcome has been watching the

behaviour of the author by whom she sate; curious to know what such a

person’s habits are; whether he speaks and acts like other people; and

in what respect authors are different from persons “in society.”

When we had sufficiently enjoyed claret and politics below-stairs, the

gentlemen went to the drawing-room to partake of coffee and the ladies’

delightful conversation. We had heard previously the tinkling of the

piano above, and the well-known sound of a couple of Miss Rosey’s five

songs. The two young ladies were engaged over an album at a side-table,

when the males of the party arrived. The book contained a number of

Clive’s drawings made in the time of his very early youth for the

amusement of his little cousins. Miss Ethel seemed to be very much

pleased with these performances, which Miss Mackenzie likewise examined

with great good-nature and satisfaction. So she did the views of Rome,

Naples, Marble Hill in the county of Sussex, etc., in the same

collection: so she did the Berlin cockatoo and spaniel which Mrs.

Newcome was working in idle moments: so she did the “Books of Beauty,”

“Flowers of Loveliness,” and so forth. She thought the prints very

sweet and pretty: she thought the poetry very pretty and sweet. Which

did she like best, Mr. Niminy’s “Lines to a bunch of violets,” or Miss

Piminy’s “Stanzas to a wreath of roses”? Miss Mackenzie was quite

puzzled to say which of these masterpieces she preferred; she found

them alike so pretty. She appealed, as in most cases, to mamma. “How,

my darling love, can I pretend to know?” mamma says. “I have been a

soldier’s wife, battling about the world. I have not had your

advantages. I had no drawing-masters, nor music-masters as you have.

You, dearest child, must instruct me in these things.” This poses

Rosey: who prefers to have her opinions dealt out to her like her

frocks, bonnets, handkerchiefs, her shoes and gloves, and the order

thereof; the lumps of sugar for her tea, the proper quantity of

raspberry jam for breakfast; who trusts for all supplies corporeal and

spiritual to her mother. For her own part, Rosey is pleased with

everything in nature. Does she love music? Oh, yes. Bellini and

Donizetti? Oh, yes. Dancing? They had no dancing at grandmamma’s, but

she adores dancing, and Mr. Clive dances very well indeed. (A smile

from Miss Ethel at this admission.) Does she like the country? Oh, she

is so happy in the country! London? London is delightful, and so is the

seaside. She does not really know which she likes best, London or the

country, for mamma is not near her to decide, being engaged listening

to Sir Brian, who is laying down the law to her, and smiling, smiling

with all her might. In fact, Mr. Newcome says to Mr. Pendennis in his

droll, humorous way, “That woman grins like a Cheshire cat.” Who was

the naturalist who first discovered that peculiarity of the cats in

Cheshire?

In regard to Miss Mackenzie’s opinions, then, it is not easy to

discover that they are decided, or profound, or original; but it seems

pretty clear that she has a good temper, and a happy contented

disposition. And the smile which her pretty countenance wears shows off

to great advantage the two dimples on her pink cheeks. Her teeth are

even and white, her hair of a beautiful colour, and no snow can be

whiter than her fair round neck and polished shoulders. She talks very

kindly and good-naturedly with Julia and Maria (Mrs. Hobson’s precious

ones) until she is bewildered by the statements which those young

ladies make regarding astronomy, botany, and chemistry, all of which

they are studying. “My dears, I don’t know a single word about any of

these abstruse subjects: I wish I did,” she says. And Ethel Newcome

laughs. She too is ignorant upon all these subjects. “I am glad there

is some one else,” says Rosey, with naivete, “who is as ignorant as I

am.” And the younger children, with a solemn air, say they will ask

mamma leave to teach her. So everybody, somehow, great or small, seems

to protect her; and the humble, simple, gentle little thing wins a

certain degree of goodwill from the world, which is touched by her

humility and her pretty sweet looks. The servants in Fitzroy Square

waited upon her much more kindly than upon her smiling bustling mother.

Uncle James is especially fond of his little Rosey. Her presence in his

study never discomposes him; whereas his sister fatigues him with the

exceeding activity of her gratitude, and her energy in pleasing. As I

was going away, I thought I heard Sir Brian Newcome say, “It” (but what

“it” was, of course I cannot conjecture)—“it will do very well. The

mother seems a superior woman.”

CHAPTER XXV.

Is passed in a Public-house

I had no more conversation with Miss Newcome that night, who had

forgotten her curiosity about the habits of authors. When she had ended

her talk with Miss Mackenzie, she devoted the rest of the evening to

her uncle, Colonel Newcome; and concluded by saying, “And now you will

come and ride with me to-morrow, uncle, won’t you?” which the Colonel

faithfully promised to do. And she shook hands with Clive very kindly:

and with Rosey very frankly, but as I thought with rather a patronising

air: and she made a very stately bow to Mrs. Mackenzie, and so departed

with her father and mother. Lady Kew had gone away earlier. Mrs.

Mackenzie informed us afterwards that the Countess had gone to sleep

after her dinner. If it was at Mrs. Mack’s story about the Governor’s

ball at Tobago, and the quarrel for precedence between the Lord

Bishop’s lady, Mrs. Rotchet, and the Chief Justice’s wife, Lady

Barwise, I should not be at all surprised.

A handsome fly carried off the ladies to Fitzroy Square, and the two

worthy Indian gentlemen in their company; Clive and I walking, with the

usual Havannah to light us home. And Clive remarked that he supposed

there had been some difference between his father and the bankers: for

they had not met for ever so many months before, and the Colonel always

had looked very gloomy when his brothers were mentioned. “And I can’t

help thinking,” says the astute youth, “that they fancied I was in love

with Ethel (I know the Colonel would have liked me to make up to her),

and that may have occasioned the row. Now, I suppose, they think I am

engaged to Rosey. What the deuce are they in such a hurry to marry me

for?”

Clive’s companion remarked, “that marriage was a laudable institution:

and an honest attachment an excellent conservator of youthful morals.”

On which Clive replied, “Why don’t you marry yourself?”

This it was justly suggested was no argument, but a merely personal

allusion foreign to the question, which was, that marriage was

laudable, etc.

Mr. Clive laughed. “Rosey is as good a little creature as can be,” he

said. “She is never out of temper, though I fancy Mrs. Mackenzie tries

her. I don’t think she is very wise: but she is uncommonly pretty, and

her beauty grows on you. As for Ethel, anything so high and mighty I

have never seen since I saw the French giantess. Going to Court, and

about to parties every night where a parcel of young fools flatter her,

has perfectly spoiled her. By Jove, how handsome she is! How she turns

with her long neck, and looks at you from under those black eyebrows!

If I painted her hair, I think I should paint it almost blue, and then

glaze over with lake. It _is_ blue. And how finely her head is joined

on to her shoulders!”—And he waves in the air an imaginary line with

his cigar. “She would do for Judith, wouldn’t she? Or how grand she

would look as Herodias’s daughter sweeping down a stair—in a great

dress of cloth-of-gold like Paul Veronese—holding a charger before her

with white arms, you know—with the muscles accented like that glorious

Diana at Paris—a savage smile on her face and a ghastly solemn gory

head on the dish. I see the picture, sir, I see the picture!” and he

fell to curling his mustachios just like his brave old father.

I could not help laughing at the resemblance, and mentioning it to my

friend. He broke, as was his wont, into a fond eulogium of his sire,

wished he could be like him—worked himself up into another state of

excitement, in which he averred “that if his father wanted him to

marry, he would marry that instant. And why not Rosey? She is a dear

little thing. Or why not that splendid Miss Sherrick? What ahead!—a

regular Titian! I was looking at the difference of their colour at

Uncle Honeyman’s that day of the _déjeuner_. The shadows in Rosey’s

face, sir, are all pearly-tinted. You ought to paint her in milk, sir!”

cries the enthusiast. “Have you ever remarked the grey round her eyes,

and the sort of purple bloom of her cheek? Rubens could have done the

colour: but I don’t somehow like to think of a young lady and that

sensuous old Peter Paul in company. I look at her like a little

wild-flower in a field—like a little child at play, sir. Pretty little

tender nursling! If I see her passing in the street, I feel as if I

would like some fellow to be rude to her, that I might have the

pleasure of knocking him down. She is like a little songbird, sir,—a

tremulous, fluttering little linnet that you would take into your hand,

_pavidam quaerentem matrem_, and smooth its little plumes, and let it

perch on your finger and sing. The Sherrick creates quite a different

sentiment—the Sherrick is splendid, stately, sleepy——”

“Stupid,” hints Clive’s companion.

“Stupid! Why not? Some women ought to be stupid. What you call dulness

I call repose. Give me a calm woman, a slow woman,—a lazy, majestic

woman. Show me a gracious virgin bearing a lily: not a leering giggler

frisking a rattle. A lively woman would be the death of me. Look at

Mrs. Mack, perpetually nodding, winking, grinning, throwing out signals

which you are to be at the trouble to answer! I thought her delightful

for three days; I declare I was in love with her—that is, as much as I

can be after—but never mind that, I feel I shall never be really in

love again. Why shouldn’t the Sherrick be stupid, I say? About great

beauty there should always reign a silence. As you look at the great

stars, the great ocean, any great scene of nature: you hush, sir. You

laugh at a pantomime, but you are still in a temple. When I saw the

great Venus of the Louvre, I thought—Wert thou alive, O goddess, thou

shouldst never open those lovely lips but to speak lowly, slowly: thou

shouldst never descend from that pedestal but to walk stately to some

near couch, and assume another attitude of beautiful calm. To be

beautiful is enough. If a woman can do that well: who shall demand more

from her? You don’t want a rose to sing. And I think wit is out of

place where there’s great beauty; as I wouldn’t have a Queen to cut

jokes on her throne. I say, Pendennis,”—here broke off the enthusiastic

youth,—“have you got another cigar? Shall we go into Finch’s, and have

a game at billiards? Just one—it’s quite early yet. Or shall we go in

the Haunt? It’s Wednesday night, you know, when all the boys go.” We

tap at a door in an old, old street in Soho: an old maid with a kind,

comical face opens the door, and nods friendly, and says, “How do, sir?

ain’t seen you this ever so long. How do, Mr. Noocom?” “Who’s here?”

“Most everybody’s here.” We pass by a little snug bar, in which a trim

elderly lady is seated by a great fire, on which boils an enormous

kettle; while two gentlemen are attacking a cold saddle of mutton and

West India pickles: hard by Mrs. Nokes the landlady’s elbow—with mutual

bows—we recognise Hickson, the sculptor, and Morgan, the intrepid Irish

chieftain, chief of the reporters of the _Morning Press_ newspaper. We

pass through a passage into a back room, and are received with a roar

of welcome from a crowd of men, almost invisible in the smoke.

“I am right glad to see thee, boy!” cries a cheery voice (that will

never troll a chorus more). “We spake anon of thy misfortune, gentle

youth! and that thy warriors of Assaye have charged the Academy in

vain. Mayhap thou frightenedst the courtly school with barbarous

visages of grisly war.—Pendennis, thou dost wear a thirsty look!

Resplendent swell! untwine thy choker white, and I will either stand a

glass of grog, or thou shalt pay the like for me, my lad, and tell us

of the fashionable world.” Thus spake the brave old Tom Sarjent,—also

one of the Press, one of the old boys: a good old scholar with a good

old library of books, who had taken his seat any time these forty years

by the chimney-fire in this old Haunt: where painters, sculptors, men

of letters, actors, used to congregate, passing pleasant hours in rough

kindly communion, and many a day seeing the sunrise lighting the rosy

street ere they parted, and Betsy put the useless lamp out and closed

the hospitable gates of the Haunt.

The time is not very long since, though to-day is so changed. As we

think of it, the kind familiar faces rise up, and we hear the pleasant

voices and singing. There are they met, the honest hearty companions.

In the days when the Haunt was a haunt, stage-coaches were not yet

quite over. Casinos were not invented: clubs were rather rare luxuries:

there were sanded floors, triangular sawdust-boxes, pipes, and tavern

parlours. Young Smith and Brown, from the Temple, did not go from

chambers to dine at the Polyanthus, or the Megatherium, off potage à la

Bisque, turbot au gratin, cotelettes a la What-do-you-call-’em, and a

pint of St. Emilion; but ordered their beefsteak and pint of port from

the “plump head-waiter at the Cock;” did not disdain the pit of the

theatre; and for a supper a homely refection at the tavern. How

delightful are the suppers in Charles Lamb to read of even now!—the

cards—the punch—the candles to be snuffed—the social oysters—the modest

cheer! Whoever snuffs a candle now? What man has a domestic supper

whose dinner-hour is eight o’clock? Those little meetings, in the

memory of many of us yet, are gone quite away into the past.

Five-and-twenty years ago is a hundred years off—so much has our social

life changed in those five lustres. James Boswell himself, were he to

revisit London, would scarce venture to enter a tavern. He would find

scarce a respectable companion to enter its doors with him. It is an

institution as extinct as a hackney-coach. Many a grown man who peruses

this historic page has never seen such a vehicle, and only heard of

rum-punch as a drink which his ancestors used to tipple.

Cheery old Tom Sarjent is surrounded at the Haunt by a dozen of kind

boon companions. They toil all day at their avocations of art, or

letters, or law, and here meet for a harmless night’s recreation and

converse. They talk of literature, or politics, or pictures, or plays;

socially banter one another over their cheap cups: sing brave old songs

sometimes when they are especially jolly kindly ballads in praise of

love and wine; famous maritime ditties in honour of Old England. I

fancy I hear Jack Brent’s noble voice rolling out the sad, generous

_refrain_ of “The Deserter,” “Then for that reason and for a season we

will be merry before we go,” or Michael Percy’s clear tenor carolling

the Irish chorus of “What’s that to any one, whether or no!” or Mark

Wilder shouting his bottle-song of “Garryowen na gloria.” These songs

were regarded with affection by the brave old frequenters of the Haunt.

A gentleman’s property in a song was considered sacred. It was

respectfully asked for: it was heard with the more pleasure for being

old. Honest Tom Sarjent! how the times have changed since we saw thee!

I believe the present chief of the reporters of the newspaper (which

responsible office Tom filled) goes to Parliament in his brougham, and

dines with the Ministers of the Crown.

Around Tom are seated grave Royal Academicians, rising gay Associates;

writers of other journals besides the _Pall Mall Gazette;_ a barrister

maybe, whose name will be famous some day: a hewer of marble perhaps: a

surgeon whose patients have not come yet; and one or two men about town

who like this queer assembly better than haunts much more splendid.

Captain Shandon has been here, and his jokes are preserved in the

tradition of the place. Owlet, the philosopher, came once and tried, as

his wont is, to lecture; but his metaphysics were beaten down by a

storm of banter. Slatter, who gave himself such airs because he wrote

in the —— _Review_, tried to air himself at the Haunt, but was choked

by the smoke, and silenced by the unanimous pooh-poohing of the

assembly. Dick Walker, who rebelled secretly at Sarjent’s authority,

once thought to give himself consequence by bringing a young lord from

the Blue Posts, but he was so unmercifully “chaffed” by Tom, that even

the young lord laughed at him. His lordship has been heard to say he

had been taken to a monsus queeah place, queeah set of folks, in a tap

somewhere, though he went away quite delighted with Tom’s affability,

but he never came again. He could not find the place, probably. You

might pass the Haunt in the daytime, and not know it in the least. “I

believe,” said Charley Ormond (A.R.A. he was then)—“I believe in the

day there’s no such place at all: and when Betsy turns the gas off at

the door-lamp as we go away, the whole thing vanishes: the door, the

house, the bar, the Haunt, Betsy, the beer-boy, Mrs. Nokes and all.” It

has vanished: it is to be found no more: neither by night nor by

day—unless the ghosts of good fellows still haunt it.

As the genial talk and glass go round, and after Clive and his friend

have modestly answered the various queries put to them by good old Tom

Sarjent, the acknowledged Praeses of the assembly and Sachem of this

venerable wigwam, the door opens and another well-known figure is

recognised with shouts as it emerges through the smoke. “Bayham, all

hail!” says Tom. “Frederick, I am right glad to see thee!”

Bayham says he is disturbed in spirit, and calls for a pint of beer to

console him.

“Hast thou flown far, thou restless bird of night?” asks Father Tom,

who loves speaking in blank verses.

“I have come from Cursitor Street,” says Bayham, in a low groan. “I

have just been to see a poor devil in quod there. Is that you,

Pendennis? You know the man—Charles Honeyman.”

“What!” cries Clive, starting up.

“O my prophetic soul, my uncle!” growls Bayham. “I did not see the

young one; but ’tis true.”

The reader is aware that more than the three years have elapsed, of

which time the preceding pages contain the harmless chronicle; and

while Thomas Newcome’s leave has been running out and Clive’s

mustachios growing, the fate of other persons connected with our story

has also had its development, and their fortune has experienced its

natural progress, its increase or decay. Our tale, such as it has

hitherto been arranged, has passed leisurely in scenes wherein the

present tense is perforce adopted; the writer acting as chorus to the

drama, and occasionally explaining, by hints or more open statements,

what has occurred during the intervals of the acts; and how it happens

that the performers are in such or such a posture. In the modern

theatre, as the play-going critic knows, the explanatory personage is

usually of quite a third-rate order. He is the two walking-gentlemen

friends of Sir Harry Courtly, who welcome the young baronet to London,

and discourse about the niggardliness of Harry’s old uncle, the Nabob;

and the depth of Courtly’s passion for Lady Annabel the _première

amoureuse_. He is the confidant in white linen to the heroine in white

satin. He is “Tom, you rascal,” the valet or tiger, more or less

impudent and acute—that well-known menial in top-boots and a livery

frock with red cuffs and collar, whom Sir Harry always retains in his

service, addresses with scurrilous familiarity, and pays so

irregularly: or he is Lucetta, Lady Annabel’s waiting-maid, who carries

the _billets-doux_ and peeps into them; knows all about the family

affairs; pops the lover under the sofa; and sings a comic song between

the scenes. Our business now is to enter into Charles Honeyman’s

privacy, to peer into the secrets of that reverend gentleman, and to

tell what has happened to him during the past months, in which he has

made fitful though graceful appearances on our scene.

While his nephew’s whiskers have been budding, and his brother-in-law

has been spending his money and leave, Mr. Honeyman’s hopes have been

withering, his sermons growing stale, his once blooming popularity

drooping and running to seed. Many causes have contributed to bring him

to his present melancholy strait. When you go to Lady Whittlesea’s

Chapel now, it is by no means crowded. Gaps are in the pews: there is

not the least difficulty in getting a snug place near the pulpit,

whence the preacher can look over his pocket-handkerchief and see Lord

Dozeley no more: his lordship has long gone to sleep elsewhere and a

host of the fashionable faithful have migrated too. The incumbent can

no more cast his fine eyes upon the French bonnets of the female

aristocracy and see some of the loveliest faces in Mayfair regarding

his with expressions of admiration. Actual dowdy tradesmen of the

neighbourhood are seated with their families in the aisles: Ridley and

his wife and son have one of the very best seats. To be sure Ridley

looks like a nobleman, with his large waistcoat, bald head, and gilt

book: J. J. has a fine head; but Mrs. Ridley! cook and housekeeper is

written on her round face. The music is by no means of its former good

quality. That rebellious and ill-conditioned basso Bellew has seceded,

and seduced the four best singing boys, who now perform glees at the

Cave of Harmony. Honeyman has a right to speak of persecution, and to

compare himself to a hermit in so far that he preaches in a desert.

Once, like another hermit, St. Hierome, he used to be visited by lions.

None such come to him now. Such lions as frequent the clergy are gone

off to lick the feet of other ecclesiastics. They are weary of poor

Honeyman’s old sermons.

Rivals have sprung up in the course of these three years—have sprung up

round about Honeyman and carried his flock into their folds. We know

how such simple animals will leap one after another, and that it is the

sheepish way. Perhaps a new pastor has come to the church of St.

Jacob’s hard by—bold, resolute, bright, clear, a scholar and no pedant:

his manly voice is thrilling in their ears, he speaks of life and

conduct, of practice as well as faith; and crowds of the most polite

and most intelligent, and best informed, and best dressed, and most

selfish people in the world come and hear him twice at least. There are

so many well-informed and well-dressed etc. etc. people in the world

that the succession of them keeps St. Jacob’s full for a year or more.

Then, it may be, a bawling quack, who has neither knowledge, nor

scholarship, nor charity, but who frightens the public with

denunciations and rouses them with the energy of his wrath, succeeds in

bringing them together for a while till they tire of his din and

curses. Meanwhile the good quiet old churches round about ring their

accustomed bell: open their Sabbath gates: receive their tranquil

congregations and sober priest, who has been busy all the week, at

schools and sick-beds, with watchful teaching, gentle counsel, and

silent alms.

Though we saw Honeyman but seldom, for his company was not altogether

amusing, and his affectation, when one became acquainted with it, very

tiresome to witness, Fred Bayham, from his garret at Mrs. Ridley’s,

kept constant watch over the curate, and told us of his proceedings

from time to time. When we heard the melancholy news first announced,

of course the intelligence damped the gaiety of Clive and his

companion; and F. B., who conducted all the affairs of life with great

gravity, telling Tom Sarjent that he had news of importance for our

private ear, Tom with still more gravity than F. B.’s, said, “Go, my

children, you had best discuss this topic in a separate room, apart

from the din and fun of a convivial assembly;” and ringing the bell he

bade Betsy bring him another glass of rum-and-water, and one for Mr.

Desborough, to be charged to him.

We adjourned to another parlour then, where gas was lighted up: and F.

B. over a pint of beer narrated poor Honeyman’s mishap. “Saving your

presence, Clive,” said Bayham, “and with every regard for the youthful

bloom of your young heart’s affections, your uncle Charles Honeyman,

sir, is a bad lot. I have known him these twenty years, when I was at

his father’s as a private tutor. Old Miss Honeyman is one of those

cards which we call trumps—so was old Honeyman a trump; but Charles and

his sister——”

I stamped on F. B.’s foot under the table. He seemed to have forgotten

that he was about to speak of Clive’s mother.

“Hem! of your poor mother, I—hem—I may say _vidi tantum_. I scarcely

knew her. She married very young: as I was when she left Borhambury.

But Charles exhibited his character at a very early age—and it was not

a charming one—no, by no means a model of virtue. He always had a

genius for running into debt. He borrowed from every one of the

pupils—I don’t know how he spent it except in hardbake and

alycompaine—and even from old Nosey’s groom,—pardon me, we used to call

your grandfather by that playful epithet (boys will be boys, you

know),—even from the doctor’s groom he took money, and I recollect

thrashing Charles Honeyman for that disgraceful action.

“At college, without any particular show, he was always in debt and

difficulties. Take warning by him, dear youth! By him and by me, if you

like. See me—me, F. Bayham, descended from the ancient kings that long

the Tuscan sceptre swayed, dodge down a street to get out of sight of a

boot-shop, and my colossal frame tremble if a chap puts his hand on my

shoulder, as you did, Pendennis, the other day in the Strand, when I

thought a straw might have knocked me down! I have had my errors,

Clive. I know ’em. I’ll take another pint of beer, if you please.

Betsy, has Mrs. Nokes any cold meat in the bar? and an accustomed

pickle? Ha! Give her my compliments, and say F. B. is hungry. I resume

my tale. Faults F. B. has, and knows it. Humbug he may have been

sometimes; but I’m not such a complete humbug as Honeyman.”

Clive did not know how to look at this character of his relative, but

Clive’s companion burst into a fit of laughter, at which F. B. nodded

gravely, and resumed his narrative. “I don’t know how much money he has

had from your governor, but this I can say, the half of it would make

F. B. a happy man. I don’t know out of how much the reverend party has

nobbled his poor old sister at Brighton. He has mortgaged his chapel to

Sherrick, I suppose you know, who is master of it, and could turn him

out any day. I don’t think Sherrick is a bad fellow. I think he’s a

good fellow; I have known him do many a good turn to a chap in

misfortune. He wants to get into society: what more natural? That was

why you were asked to meet him the other day, and why he asked you to

dinner. I hope you had a good one. I wish he’d ask me.

“Then Moss has got his bills, and Moss’s brother-in-law in Cursitor

Street has taken possession of his revered person. He’s very welcome.

One Jew has the chapel, another Hebrew has the clergyman. It’s

singular, ain’t it? Sherrick might turn Lady Whittlesea into a

synagogue and have the Chief Rabbi into the pulpit, where my uncle the

Bishop has given out the text.

“The shares of that concern ain’t at a premium. I have had immense fun

with Sherrick about it. I like the Hebrew, sir. He maddens with rage

when F. B. goes and asks him whether any more pews are let overhead.

Honeyman begged and borrowed in order to buy out the last man. I

remember when the speculation was famous, when all the boxes (I mean

the pews) were taken for the season, and you couldn’t get a place, come

ever so early. Then Honeyman was spoilt, and gave his sermons over and

over again. People got sick of seeing the old humbug cry, the old

crocodile! Then we tried the musical dodge. F. B. came forward, sir,

there. That _was_ a coup: I did it, sir. Bellew wouldn’t have sung for

any man but me—and for two-and-twenty months I kept him as sober as

Father Mathew. Then Honeyman didn’t pay him: there was a row in the

sacred building, and Bellew retired. Then Sherrick must meddle in it.

And having heard a chap out Hampstead way who Sherrick thought would

do, Honeyman was forced to engage him, regardless of expense. You

recollect the fellow, sir? The Reverend Simeon Rawkins, the lowest of

the Low Church, sir—a red-haired dumpy man, who gasped at his _h’s_ and

spoke with a Lancashire twang—he’d no more do for Mayfair than Grimaldi

for Macbeth. He and Honeyman used to fight like cat and dog in the

vestry: and he drove away a third part of the congregation. He was an

honest man and an able man too, though not a sound Churchman” (F. B.

said this with a very edifying gravity): “I told Sherrick this the very

day I heard him. And if he had spoken to me on the subject I might have

saved him a pretty penny—a precious deal more than the paltry sum which

he and I had a quarrel about at that time—a matter of business, sir—a

pecuniary difference about a small three months’ thing which caused a

temporary estrangement between us. As for Honeyman, he used to cry

about it. Your uncle is great in the lachrymatory line, Clive Newcome.

He used to go with tears in his eyes to Sherrick, and implore him not

to have Rawkins, but he would. And I must say for poor Charles that the

failure of Lady Whittlesea’s has not been altogether Charles’s fault;

and that Sherrick has kicked down that property.

“Well, then, sir, poor Charles thought to make it all right by marrying

Mrs. Brumby;—and she was very fond of him and the thing was all but

done, in spite of her sons, who were in a rage as you may fancy. But

Charley, sir, has such a propensity for humbug that he will tell lies

when there is no earthly good in lying. He represented his chapel at

twelve hundred a year, his private means as so-and-so; and when he came

to book up with Briggs the lawyer, Mrs. Brumby’s brother, it was found

that he lied and prevaricated so, that the widow in actual disgust

would have nothing more to do with him. She was a good woman of

business, and managed the hat-shop for nine years, whilst poor Brumby

was at Dr. Tokelys. A first-rate shop it was, too. I introduced Charles

to it. My uncle the Bishop had his shovels there: and they used for a

considerable period to cover _this_ humble roof with tiles,” said F.

B., tapping his capacious forehead; “I am sure he might have had

Brumby,” he added, in his melancholy tones, “but for those unlucky

lies. She didn’t want money. She had plenty. She longed to get into

society, and was bent on marrying a gentleman.

“But what I can’t pardon in Honeyman is the way in which he has done

poor old Ridley and his wife. I took him there, you know, thinking they

would send their bills in once a month: that he was doing a good

business: in fact, that I had put ’em into a good thing. And the fellow

has told me a score of times that he and the Ridleys were all right.

But he has not only not paid his lodgings, but he has had money of

them: he has given dinners: he has made Ridley pay for wine. He has

kept paying lodgers out of the house, and he tells me all this with a

burst of tears, when he sent for me to Lazarus’s to-night, and I went

to him, sir, because he was in distress—went into the lion’s den, sir!”

says F. B., looking round nobly. “I don’t know how much he owes them:

because of course you know the sum he mentions ain’t the right one. He

never does tell the truth—does Charles. But think of the pluck of those

good Ridleys never saying a single word to F. B. about the debt! ‘We

are poor, but we have saved some money and can lie out of it. And we

think Mr. Honeyman will pay us,’ says Mrs. Ridley to me this very

evening. And she thrilled my heart-strings, sir; and I took her in my

arms, and kissed the old woman,” says Bayham; “and I rather astonished

little Miss Cann, and young J. J., who came in with a picture under his

arm. But she said she had kissed Master Frederick long before J. J. was

born—and so she had: that good and faithful servant—and my emotion in

embracing her was manly, sir, manly.”

Here old Betsy came in to say that the supper was a-waitin’ for Mr.

Bayham and it was a-getting’ very late; and we left F. B. to his meal;

and bidding adieu to Mrs. Nokes, Clive and I went each to our

habitation.

CHAPTER XXVI.

In which Colonel Newcome’s Horses are sold

At an hour early the next morning I was not surprised to see Colonel

Newcome at my chambers, to whom Clive had communicated Bayham’s

important news of the night before. The Colonel’s object, as any one

who knew him need scarcely be told, was to rescue his brother-in-law;

and being ignorant of lawyers, sheriffs’-officers, and their

proceedings, he bethought him that he would apply to Lamb Court for

information, and in so far showed some prudence, for at least I knew

more of the world and its ways than my simple client, and was enabled

to make better terms for the unfortunate prisoner, or rather for

Colonel Newcome, who was the real sufferer, than Honeyman’s creditors

might otherwise have been disposed to give.

I thought it would be more prudent that our good Samaritan should not

see the victim of rogues whom he was about to succour; and left him to

entertain himself with Mr. Warrington in Lamb Court, while I sped to

the lock-up house, where the Mayfair pet was confined. A sickly smile

played over his countenance as he beheld me when I was ushered to his

private room. The reverent gentleman was not shaved; he had partaken of

breakfast. I saw a glass which had once contained brandy on the dirty

tray whereon his meal was placed: a greasy novel from a Chancery Lane

library lay on the table: but he was at present occupied in writing one

or more of those great long letters, those laborious, ornate, eloquent

statements, those documents so profusely underlined, in which the

_machinations of villains_ are laid bare with italic fervour; the

coldness, to use no _harsher_ phrase, of friends on whom reliance

_might have been placed;_ the outrageous conduct of Solomons; the

astonishing failure of Smith to pay a sum of money on which he had

counted as _on the Bank of England;_ finally, the _infallible

certainty_ of repaying (with what heartfelt thanks need not be said)

the loan of so many pounds _next Saturday week at farthest_. All this,

which some readers in the course of their experience have read no doubt

in many handwritings, was duly set forth by poor Honeyman. There was a

wafer in a wine-glass on the table, and the bearer no doubt below to

carry the missive. They always sent these letters by a messenger, who

is introduced in the postscript; he is always sitting in the hall when

you get the letter, and is “a young man waiting for an answer, please.”

No one can suppose that Honeyman laid a complete statement of his

affairs before the negotiator who was charged to look into them. No

debtor does confess all his debts, but breaks them gradually to his man

of business, factor or benefactor, leading him on from surprise to

surprise; and when he is in possession of the tailor’s little account,

introducing him to the bootmaker. Honeyman’s schedule I felt perfectly

certain was not correct. The detainees against him were trifling. “Moss

of Wardour Street, one hundred and twenty—I believe I have paid him

thousands in this very transaction,” ejaculates Honeyman. “A heartless

West End tradesman hearing of my misfortune—all these people a linked

together, my dear Pendennis, and rush like vultures upon their

prey!—Waddilove, the tailor, has another writ out for ninety-eight

pounds; a man whom I have made by my recommendations! Tobbins, the

bootmaker, his neighbour in Jermyn Street, forty-one pounds more, and

that is all—I give you my word, all. In a few months, when my pew-rents

will be coming in, I should have settled with those cormorants;

otherwise, my total and irretrievable ruin, and the disgrace and

humiliation of a prison attends me. I know it; I can bear it; I have

been wretchedly weak, Pendennis: I can say mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,

and I can—bear—my—penalty.” In his finest moments he was never more

pathetic. He turned his head away, and concealed it in a handkerchief

not so white as those which veiled his emotions at Lady Whittlesea’s.

How by degrees this slippery penitent was induced to make other

confessions; how we got an idea of Mrs. Ridley’s account from him, of

his dealings with Mr. Sherrick, need not be mentioned here. The

conclusion to which Colonel Newcome’s ambassador came was, that to help

such a man would be quite useless; and that the Fleet Prison would be a

most wholesome retreat for this most reckless divine. Ere the day was

out, Messrs. Waddilove and Tobbins had conferred with their neighbour

in St. James’s, Mr. Brace; and there came a detainer from that

haberdasher for gloves, cravats, and pocket-handkerchiefs, that might

have done credit to the most dandified young Guardsman. Mr. Warrington

was on Mr. Pendennis’s side, and urged that the law should take its

course. “Why help a man,” said he, “who will not help himself? Let the

law sponge out the fellow’s debts; set him going again with twenty

pounds when he quits the prison, and get him a chaplaincy in the Isle

of Man.”

I saw by the Colonel’s grave kind face that these hard opinions did not

suit him. “At all events, sir, promise us,” we said, “that you will pay

nothing yourself—that you won’t see Honeyman’s creditors, and let

people, who know the world better, deal with him.” “Know the world,

young man!” cries Newcome; “I should think if I don’t know the world at

my age, I never shall.” And if he had lived to be as old as Jahaleel, a

boy could still have cheated him.

“I do not scruple to tell you,” he said, after a pause during which a

plenty of smoke was delivered from the council of three, “that I have—a

fund—which I had set aside for mere purposes of pleasure, I give you my

word, and a part of which I shall think it my duty to devote to poor

Honeyman’s distresses. The fund is not large. The money was intended,

in fact:—however, there it is. If Pendennis will go round to these

tradesmen, and make some composition with them, as their prices have

been no doubt enormously exaggerated, I see no harm. Besides the

tradesfolk, there is good Mrs. Ridley and Mr. Sherrick—we must see

them; and, if we can, set this luckless Charles again on his legs. We

have read of other prodigals who were kindly treated; and we may have

debts of our own to forgive, boys.”

Into Mr. Sherrick’s account we had no need to enter. That gentleman had

acted with perfect fairness by Honeyman. He laughingly said to us, “You

don’t imagine I would lend that chap a shilling without security? I

will give him fifty or a hundred. Here’s one of his notes, with

What-do-you-call-’ems—that rum fellow Bayham’s name as drawer. A nice

pair, ain’t they? Pooh! _I_ shall never touch ’em. I lent some money on

the shop overhead,” says Sherrick, pointing to the ceiling (we were in

his counting-house in the cellar of Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel), “because

I thought it was a good speculation. And so it was at first. The people

liked Honeyman. All the nobs came to hear him. Now the speculation

ain’t so good. He’s used up. A chap can’t be expected to last for ever.

When I first engaged Mademoiselle Bravura at my theatre, you couldn’t

get a place for three weeks together. The next year she didn’t draw

twenty pounds a week. So it was with Pottle and the regular drama

humbug. At first it was all very well. Good business, good houses, our

immortal bard, and that sort of game. They engaged the tigers and the

French riding people over the way; and there was Pottle bellowing away

in my place to the orchestra and the orders. It’s all a speculation.

I’ve speculated in about pretty much everything that’s going: in

theatres, in joint-stock jobs, in building-ground, in bills, in gas and

insurance companies, and in this chapel. Poor old Honeyman! I won’t

hurt him. About that other chap I put in to do the first business—that

red-haired chap, Rawkins—I think I was wrong. I think he injured the

property. But I don’t know everything, you know. I wasn’t bred to know

about parsons—quite the reverse. I thought, when I heard Rawkins at

Hampstead, he was just the thing. I used to go about, sir, just as I

did to the provinces, when I had the theatre—Camberwell, Islington,

Kennington, Clapton, all about, and hear the young chaps. Have a glass

of sherry; and here’s better luck to Honeyman. As for that Colonel,

he’s a trump, sir! I never see such a man. I have to deal with such a

precious lot of rogues, in the City and out of it, among the swells and

all, you know, that to see such a fellow refreshes me; and I’d do

anything for him. You’ve made a good thing of that _Pall Mall Gazette!_

I tried papers too; but mine didn’t do. I don’t know why. I tried a

Tory one, moderate Liberal, and out-and-out uncompromising Radical. I

say, what d’ye think of a religious paper, the _Catechism_, or some

such name? Would Honeyman do as editor? I’m afraid it’s all up with the

poor cove at the chapel.” And I parted with Mr. Sherrick, not a little

edified by his talk, and greatly relieved as to Honeyman’s fate. The

tradesmen of Honeyman’s body were appeased; and as for Mr. Moss, when

he found that the curate had no effects, and must go before the

Insolvent Court, unless Moss chose to take the composition which we

were empowered to offer him, he too was brought to hear reason, and

parted with the stamped paper on which was poor Honeyman’s signature.

Our negotiation had like to have come to an end by Clive’s untimely

indignation, who offered at one stage of the proceedings to pitch young

Moss out of window; but nothing came of this most ungentlemanlike

behaviour on Noocob’s part, further than remonstrance and delay in the

proceedings; and Honeyman preached a lovely sermon at Lady Whittlesea’s

the very next Sunday. He had made himself much liked in the

sponging-house, and Mr. Lazarus said, “if he hadn’t a got out time

enough, I’d a let him out for Sunday, and sent one of my men with him

to show him the way ome, you know; for when a gentleman behaves as a

gentleman to me, I behave as a gentleman to him.”

Mrs. Ridley’s account, and it was a long one, was paid without a single

question, or the deduction of a farthing; but the Colonel rather

sickened of Honeyman’s expressions of rapturous gratitude, and received

his professions of mingled contrition and delight very coolly. “My

boy,” says the father to Clive, “you see to what straits debt brings a

man, to tamper with truth to have to cheat the poor. Think of flying

before a washerwoman, or humbling yourself to a tailor, or eating a

poor man’s children’s bread!” Clive blushed, I thought, and looked

rather confused.

“Oh, father,” says he, “I—I’m afraid I owe some money too—not much; but

about forty pound, five-and-twenty for cigars, and fifteen I borrowed

of Pendennis, and—and I’ve been devilish annoyed about it all this

time.”

“You stupid boy,” says the father “I knew about the cigars bill, and

paid it last week. Anything I have is yours, you know. As long as there

is a guinea, there is half for you. See that every shilling we owe is

paid before—before a week is over. And go down and ask Binnie if I can

see him in his study. I want to have some conversation with him.” When

Clive was gone away, he said to me in a very sweet voice, “In God’s

name, keep my boy out of debt when I am gone, Arthur. I shall return to

India very soon.”

“Very soon, sir! You have another year’s leave,” said I.

“Yes, but no allowances, you know; and this affair of Honeyman’s has

pretty nearly emptied the little purse I had set aside for European

expenses. They have been very much heavier than I expected. As it is, I

overdrew my account at my brother’s, and have been obliged to draw

money from my agents in Calcutta. A year sooner or later (unless two of

our senior officers had died, when I should have got my promotion and

full colonel’s pay with it, and proposed to remain in this country)—a

year sooner or later, what does it matter? Clive will go away and work

at his art, and see the great schools of painting while I am absent. I

thought at one time how pleasant it would be to accompany him. But

_l’homme propose_, Pendennis. I fancy now a lad is not the better for

being always tied to his parent’s apron-string. You young fellows are

too clever for me. I haven’t learned your ideas or read your books. I

feel myself very often an old damper in your company. I will go back,

sir, where I have some friends, where I am somebody still. I know an

honest face or two, white and brown, that will lighten up in the old

regiment when they see Tom Newcome again. God bless you, Arthur. You

young fellows in this country have such cold ways that we old ones

hardly know how to like you at first. James Binnie and I, when we first

came home, used to talk you over, and think you laughed at us. But you

didn’t, I know. God Almighty bless you, and send you a good wife, and

make a good man of you. I have bought a watch, which I would like you

to wear in remembrance of me and my boy, to whom you were so kind when

you were boys together in the old Grey Friars.” I took his hand, and

uttered some incoherent words of affection and respect. Did not Thomas

Newcome merit both from all who knew him?

His resolution being taken, our good Colonel began to make silent but

effectual preparations for his coming departure. He was pleased during

these last days of his stay to give me even more of his confidence than

I had previously enjoyed, and was kind enough to say that he regarded

me almost as a son of his own, and hoped I would act as elder brother

and guardian to Clive. Ah! who is to guard the guardian? The younger

brother had many nobler qualities than belonged to the elder. The world

had not hardened Clive, nor even succeeded in spoiling him. I perceive

I am diverging from his history into that of another person, and will

return to the subject proper of the book.

Colonel Newcome expressed himself as being particularly touched and

pleased with his friend Binnie’s conduct, now that the Colonel’s

departure was determined. “James is one of the most generous of men,

Pendennis, and I am proud to be put under an obligation to him, and to

tell it too. I hired this house, as you are aware, of our speculative

friend Mr. Sherrick, and am answerable for the payment of the rent till

the expiry of the lease. James has taken the matter off my hands

entirely. The place is greatly too large for him, but he says that he

likes it, and intends to stay, and that his sister and niece shall be

his housekeepers. Clive” (here, perhaps, the speaker’s voice drops a

little)—“Clive will be the son of the house still, honest James says,

and God bless him. James is richer than I thought by near a lakh of

rupees—and here is a hint for you, Master Arthur. Mr. Binnie has

declared to me in confidence that if his niece, Miss Rosey, shall marry

a person of whom he approves, he will leave her a considerable part of

his fortune.”

The Colonel’s confidant here said that his own arrangements were made

in another quarter, to which statement the Colonel replied knowingly,

“I thought so. A little bird has whispered to me the name of a certain

Miss A. I knew her grandfather, an accommodating old gentleman, and I

borrowed some money from him when I was a subaltern at Calcutta. I tell

you in strict confidence, my dear young friend, that I hope and trust a

certain young gentleman of your acquaintance may be induced to think

how good and pretty and sweet-tempered a girl Miss Mackenzie is, and

that she may be brought to like him. If you young men would marry in

good time good and virtuous women—as I am sure—ahem!—Miss Amory is—half

the temptations of your youth would be avoided. You would neither be

dissolute, has many of you seem to me, or cold and selfish, which are

worse vices still. And my prayer is, that my Clive may cast anchor

early out of the reach of temptation, and mate with some such kind girl

as Binnie’s niece. When I first came home I formed other plans for him

which could not be brought to a successful issue; and knowing his

ardent disposition, and having kept an eye on the young rogue’s

conduct, I tremble lest some mischance with a woman should befall him,

and long to have him out of danger.”

So the kind scheme of the two elders was, that their young ones should

marry and be happy ever after, like the Prince and Princess of the

Fairy Tale: and dear Mrs. Mackenzie (have I said that at the

commencement of her visit to her brother she made almost open love to

the Colonel?), dear Mrs. Mack was content to forgo her own chances so

that her darling Rosey might be happy. We used to laugh and say, that

as soon as Clive’s father was gone, Josey would be sent for to join

Rosey. But little Josey being under her grandmother’s sole influence

took a most gratifying and serious turn; wrote letters, in which she

questioned the morality of operas, Towers of London, and waxworks; and,

before a year was out, married Elder Bogie, of Mr. M’Craw’s church.

Presently was to be read in the _Morning Post_ an advertisement of the

sale of three horses (the description and pedigree following), “the

property of an officer returning to India. Apply to the groom, at the

stables, 150 Fitzroy Square.”

The Court of Directors invited Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome to an

entertainment given to Major-General Sir Ralph Spurrier, K.C.B.,

appointed Commander-in-Chief at Madras. Clive was asked to this dinner

too, “and the governor’s health was drunk, sir,” Clive said, “after

dinner, and the dear old fellow made such a good speech, in returning

thanks!”

He, Clive, and I made a pilgrimage to Grey Friars, and had the Green to

ourselves, it being the Bartlemytide vacation, and the boys all away.

One of the good old Poor Brothers whom we both recollected accompanied

us round the place; and we sate for a while in Captain Scarsdale’s

little room (he had been a Peninsular officer, who had sold out, and

was fain in his old age to retire into this calm retreat). And we

talked, as old schoolmates and lovers talk, about subjects interesting

to schoolmates and lovers only.

One by one the Colonel took leave of his friends, young and old; ran

down to Newcome, and gave Mrs. Mason a parting benediction; slept a

night at Tom Smith’s, and passed a day with Jack Brown; went to all the

boys’ and girls’ schools where his little _protégés_ were, so as to be

able to take the very last and most authentic account of the young

folks to their parents in India; spent a week at Marble Hill, and shot

partridges there, but for which entertainment, Clive said, the place

would have been intolerable; and thence proceeded to Brighton to pass a

little time with good Miss Honeyman. As for Sir Brian’s family, when

Parliament broke up, of course, they did not stay in town. Barnes, of

course, had part of a moor in Scotland, whither his uncle and cousin

did not follow him. The rest went abroad. Sir Brian wanted the waters

of Aix-la-Chapelle. The brothers parted very good friends; Lady Anne,

and all the young people, heartily wished him farewell. I believe Sir

Brian even accompanied the Colonel downstairs from the drawing-room, in

Park Lane, and actually came out and saw his brother into his cab (just

as he would accompany old Lady Bagges when she came to look at her

account at the bank, from the parlour to her carriage). But as for

Ethel, she was not going to be put off with this sort of parting and

the next morning a cab dashed up to Fitzroy Square, and a veiled lady

came out thence, and was closeted with Colonel Newcome for five

minutes, and when he led her back to the carriage there were tears in

his eyes.

Mrs. Mackenzie joked about the transaction (having watched it from the

dining-room windows), and asked the Colonel who his sweetheart was?

Newcome replied very sternly, that he hoped no one would ever speak

lightly of that young lady, whom he loved as his own daughter; and I

thought Rosey looked vexed at the praises thus bestowed. This was the

day before we all went down to Brighton. Miss Honeyman’s lodgings were

taken for Mr. Binnie and his ladies. Clive and her dearest Colonel had

apartments next door. Charles Honeyman came down and preached one of

his very best sermons. Fred Bayham was there, and looked particularly

grand and noble on the pier and the cliff. I am inclined to think he

had had some explanation with Thomas Newcome, which had placed F. B. in

a state of at least temporary prosperity. Whom did he not benefit whom

he knew, and what eye that saw him did not bless him? F. B. was greatly

affected at Charles’s sermon, of which our party of course could see

the allusions. Tears actually rolled down his brown cheeks; for Fred

was a man very easily moved, and, as it were, a softened sinner. Little

Rosey and her mother sobbed audibly, greatly to the surprise of stout

old Miss Honeyman, who had no idea of such watery exhibitions, and to

the discomfiture of poor Newcome, who was annoyed to have his praises

even hinted in that sacred edifice. Good Mr. James Binnie came for once

to church; and, however variously their feelings might be exhibited or,

repressed, I think there was not one of the little circle there

assembled who did not bring to the place a humble prayer and a gentle

heart. It was the last Sabbath-bell our dear friend was to hear for

many a day on his native shore. The great sea washed the beach as we

came out, blue with the reflection of the skies, and its innumerable

waves crested with sunshine. I see the good man and his boy yet

clinging to him, as they pace together by the shore.

The Colonel was very much pleased by a visit from Mr. Ridley and the

communication which he made (my Lord Todmorden has a mansion and park

in Sussex, whence Mr. Ridley came to pay his duty to Colonel Newcome).

He said he “never could forget the kindness with which the Colonel have

a treated him. His lordship have taken a young man, which Mr. Ridley

had brought him up under his own eye, and can answer for him, Mr. R.

says, with impunity; and which he is to be his lordship’s own man for

the future. And his lordship have appointed me his steward, and having,

as he always hev been, been most liberal in point of sellary. And me

and Mrs. Ridley was thinking, sir, most respectfully, with regard to

our son, Mr. John James Ridley—as good and honest a young man, which I

am proud to say it, that if Mr. Clive goes abroad we should be most

proud and happy if John James went with him. And the money which you

have paid us so handsome, Colonel, he shall have it; which it was the

excellent ideer of Miss Cann; and my lord have ordered a pictur of John

James in the most libral manner, and have asked my son to dinner, sir,

at his lordship’s own table, which I have faithfully served him

five-and-thirty years.” Ridley’s voice fairly broke down at this part

of his speech, which evidently was a studied composition, and he

uttered no more of it, for the Colonel cordially shook him by the hand,

and Clive jumped up clapping his, and saying that it was the greatest

wish of his heart that J. J. and he should be companions in France and

Italy. “But I did not like to ask my dear old father,” he said, “who

has had so many calls on his purse, and besides, I knew that J. J. was

too independent to come as my follower.”

The Colonel’s berth has been duly secured ere now. This time he makes

the overland journey; and his passage is to Alexandria, taken in one of

the noble ships of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. His kit is as

simple as a subaltern’s; I believe, but for Clive’s friendly

compulsion, he would have carried back no other than the old uniform

which has served him for so many years. Clive and his father travelled

to Southampton together by themselves. F. B. and I took the Southampton

coach: we had asked leave to see the last of him, and say a “God bless

you” to our dear old friend. So the day came when the vessel was to

sail. We saw his cabin, and witnessed all the bustle and stir on board

the good ship on a day of departure. Our thoughts, however, were fixed

but on one person—the case, no doubt, with hundreds more on such a day.

There was many a group of friends closing wistfully together on the

sunny deck, and saying the last words of blessing and farewell. The

bustle of the ship passes dimly round about them; the hurrying noise of

crew and officers running on their duty; the tramp and song of the men

at the capstan-bars; the bells ringing, as the hour for departure comes

nearer and nearer, as mother and son, father and daughter, husband and

wife, hold hands yet for a little while. We saw Clive and his father

talking together by the wheel. Then they went below; and a passenger,

her husband, asked me to give my arm to an almost fainting lady, and to

lead her off the ship. Bayham followed us, carrying their two children

in his arms, as the husband turned away and walked aft. The last bell

was ringing, and they were crying, “Now for the shore.” The whole ship

had begun to throb ere this, and its great wheels to beat the water,

and the chimneys had flung out their black signals for sailing. We were

as yet close on the dock, and we saw Clive coming up from below,

looking very pale; the plank was drawn after him as he stepped on land.

Then, with three great cheers from the dock, and from the crew in the

bows, and from the passengers on the quarter-deck, the noble ship

strikes the first stroke of her destined race, and swims away towards

the ocean. “There he is, there he is,” shouts Fred Bayham, waving his

hat. “God bless him, God bless him!” I scarce perceived at the ship’s

side, beckoning an adieu, our dear old friend, when the lady, whose

husband had bidden me to lead her away from the ship, fainted in my

arms. Poor soul! Her, too, has fate stricken. Ah, pangs of hearts torn

asunder, passionate regrets, cruel, cruel partings! Shall you not end

one day, ere many years; when the tears shall be wiped from all eyes,

and there shall be neither sorrow nor pain?

CHAPTER XXVII.

Youth and Sunshine

Although Thomas Newcome was gone back to India in search of more money,

finding that he could not live upon his income at home, he was

nevertheless rather a wealthy man; and at the moment of his departure

from Europe had two lakhs of rupees invested in various Indian

securities. “A thousand a year,” he thought, “more, added to the

interest accruing from my two lakhs, will enable us to live very

comfortably at home. I can give Clive ten thousand pounds when he

marries, and five hundred a year out of my allowances. If he gets a

wife with some money, they may have every enjoyment of life; and as for

his pictures, he can paint just as few or as many of those as he

pleases.” Newcome did not seem seriously to believe that his son would

live by painting pictures, but considered Clive as a young prince who

chose to amuse himself with painting. The Muse of Painting is a lady

whose social station is not altogether recognised with us as yet. The

polite world permits a gentleman to amuse himself with her; but to take

her for better or for worse! forsake all other chances and cleave unto

her! to assume her name! Many a respectable person would be as much

shocked at the notion, as if his son had married an opera-dancer.

Newcome left a hundred a year in England, of which the principal sum

was to be transferred to his boy as soon as he came of age. He endowed

Clive further with a considerable annual sum, which his London bankers

would pay: “And if these are not enough,” says he kindly, “you must

draw upon my agents, Messrs. Frank and Merryweather at Calcutta, who

will receive your signature just as if it was mine.” Before going away,

he introduced Clive to F. and M.’s corresponding London house, Jolly

and Baines, Fog Court—leading out of Leadenhall—Mr. Jolly, a myth as

regarded the firm, now married to Lady Julia Jolly—a Park in

Kent—evangelical interest—great at Exeter Hall meetings—knew Clive’s

grandmother—that is, Mrs. Newcome, a most admirable woman. Baines

represents a house in the Regent’s Park, with an emigrative tendency

towards Belgravia—musical daughters—Herr Moscheles, Benedick,

Ella,—Osborne, constantly at dinner-sonatas in P flat (op. 936),

composed and dedicated to Miss Euphemia Baines, by her most obliged,

most obedient servant, Ferdinando Blitz. Baines hopes that his young

friend will come constantly to York Terrace, where the most girls will

be happy to see him; and mentions at home a singular whim of Colonel

Newcome’s, who can give his son twelve or fifteen hundred a year, and

makes an artist of him. Euphemia and Flora adore artists; they feel

quite interested about this young man. “He was scribbling caricatures

all the time I was talking with his father in my parlour,” says Mr.

Baines, and produces a sketch of an orange-woman near the Bank, who had

struck Clive’s eyes, and been transferred to the blotting-paper in Fog

Court. “_He_ needn’t do anything,” said good-natured Mr. Baines. “I

guess all the pictures he’ll paint won’t sell for much.”

“Is he fond of music, papa?” asks Miss. “What a pity he had not come to

our last evening; and now the season is over!”

“And Mr. Newcome is going out of town. He came to me, to-day for

circular notes—says he’s going through Switzerland and into Italy—lives

in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square. Queer place, ain’t it? Put his

name down in your book, and ask him to dinner next season.”

Before Clive went away, he had an apparatus of easels,

sketching-stools, umbrellas, and painting-boxes, the most elaborate and

beautiful that Messrs. Soap and Isaac could supply. It made J. J.’s

eyes glisten to see those lovely gimcracks of art; those smooth

mill-boards, those slab-tinted sketching-blocks, and glistening rows of

colour-tubes lying in their boxes, which seemed to cry, “Come, squeeze

me.” If painting-boxes made painters, if sketching-stools would but

enable one to sketch, surely I would hasten this very instant to

Messrs. Soap and Isaac! but, alas! these pretty toys no more make

artists than cowls make monks.

As a proof that Clive did intend to practise his profession, and to

live by it too, at this time he took four sporting sketches to a

printseller in the Haymarket, and disposed of them at the rate of seven

shillings and sixpence per sketch. His exultation at receiving a

sovereign and half a sovereign from Mr. Jones was boundless. “I can do

half a dozen of these things easily in a morning,” he says. “Two

guineas a day is twelve guineas—say ten guineas a week, for I won’t

work on Sundays, and may take a holiday in the week besides. Ten

guineas a week is five hundred a year. That is pretty nearly as much

money as I shall want, and I need not draw the dear old governor’s

allowance at all.” He wrote an ardent letter, full of happiness and

affection, to the kind father, which he shall find a month after he has

arrived in India, and read to his friends in Calcutta and Barrackpore.

Clive invited many of his artist friends to a grand feast in honour of

the thirty shillings. The King’s Arms, Kensington, was the hotel

selected (tavern beloved of artists for many score years!). Gandish was

there, and the Gandishites, and some chosen spirits from the Life

Academy, Clipstone Street, and J. J. was vice-president, with Fred

Bayham by his side, to make the speeches and carve the mutton; and I

promise you many a merry song was sung, and many a health drunk in

flowing bumpers; and as jolly a party was assembled as any London

contained that day. The _beau monde_ had quitted it; the Park was empty

as we crossed it; and the leaves of Kensington Gardens had begun to

fall, dying after the fatigues of a London season. We sang all the way

home through Knightsbridge and by the Park railings, and the Covent

Garden carters halting at the Half-way House were astonished at our

choruses. There is no half-way house now; no merry chorus at midnight.

Then Clive and J. J. took the steamboat to Antwerp; and those who love

pictures may imagine how the two young men rejoiced in one of the most

picturesque cities of the world; where they went back straightway into

the sixteenth century; where the inn at which they stayed (delightful

old Grand Laboureur, thine ancient walls are levelled! thy comfortable

hospitalities exist no more!) seemed such a hostelry as that where

Quentin Durward first saw his sweetheart; where knights of Velasquez or

burgomasters of Rubens seemed to look from the windows of the

tall-gabled houses and the quaint porches; where the Bourse still

stood, the Bourse of three hundred years ago, and you had but to supply

figures with beards and ruffs, and rapiers and trunk-hose, to make the

picture complete; where to be awakened by the carillon of the bells was

to waken to the most delightful sense of life and happiness; where

nuns, actual nuns, walked the streets, and every figure in the Place de

Meir, and every devotee at church, kneeling and draped in black, or

entering the confessional (actually the confessional!), was a

delightful subject for the new sketchbook. Had Clive drawn as much

everywhere as at Antwerp, Messrs. Soap and Isaac might have made a

little income by supplying him with materials.

After Antwerp, Clive’s correspondent gets a letter dated from the Hotel

de Suede at Brussels, which contains an elaborate eulogy of the cookery

and comfort of that hotel, where the wines, according to the writer’s

opinion, are unmatched almost in Europe. And this is followed by a

description of Waterloo, and a sketch of Hougoumont, in which J. J. is

represented running away in the character of a French grenadier, Clive

pursuing him in the lifeguard’s habit, and mounted on a thundering

charger.

Next follows a letter from Bonn. Verses about Drachenfels of a not very

superior style of versification; an account of Crichton, an old Grey

Friars man, who has become a student at the university; of a commerz, a

drunken bout, and a students’ duel at Bonn. “And whom should I find

here,” says Mr. Clive, “but Aunt Anne, Ethel, Miss Quigley, and the

little ones, the whole detachment under the command of Kuhn? Uncle

Brian is staying at Aix. He is recovered from his attack. And, upon my

conscience, I think my pretty cousin looks prettier every day.

“When they are not in London,” Clive goes on to write, “or I sometimes

think when Barnes or old Lady Kew are not looking over them, they are

quite different. You know how cold they have latterly seemed to us, and

how their conduct annoyed my dear old father. Nothing can be kinder

than their behaviour since we have met. It was on the little hill at

Godesberg: J. J. and I were mounting to the ruin, followed by the

beggars who waylay you, and have taken the place of the other robbers

who used to live there, when there came a procession of donkeys down

the steep, and I heard a little voice cry, ‘Hullo! it’s Clive! hooray,

Clive!’ and an ass came pattering down the declivity, with a little

pair of white trousers at an immensely wide angle over the donkey’s

back, and behold there was little Alfred grinning with all his might.

“He turned his beast and was for galloping up the hill again, I suppose

to inform his relations; but the donkey refused with many kicks, one of

which sent Alfred plunging amongst the stones, and we were rubbing him

down just as the rest of the party came upon us. Miss Quigley looked

very grim on an old white pony; my aunt was on a black horse that might

have turned grey, he is so old. Then come two donkeysful of children,

with Kuhn as supercargo; then Ethel on donkey-back, too, with a bunch

of wildflowers in her hand, a great straw hat with a crimson ribbon, a

white muslin jacket, you know, bound at the waist with a ribbon of the

first, and a dark skirt, with a shawl round her feet which Kuhn had

arranged. As she stopped, the donkey fell to cropping greens in the

hedge; the trees there chequered her white dress and face with shadow.

Her eyes, hair, and forehead were in shadow too—but the light was all

upon her right cheek: upon her shoulder down to her arm, which was of a

warmer white, and on the bunch of flowers which she held, blue, yellow,

and red poppies, and so forth.

“J. J. says, ‘I think the birds began to sing louder when she came.’ We

have both agreed that she is the handsomest woman in England. It’s not

her form merely, which is certainly as yet too thin and a little

angular—it is her colour. I do not care for woman or picture without

colour. O, ye carnations! O, ye _lilia mista rosis!_ O such black hair

and solemn eyebrows! It seems to me the roses and carnations have

bloomed again since we saw them last in London, when they were drooping

from the exposure to night air, candle-light, and heated ballrooms.

“Here I was in the midst of a regiment of donkeys, bearing a crowd of

relations; J. J. standing modestly in the background—beggars completing

the group, and Kuhn ruling over them with voice and gesture, oaths and

whip. Throw in the Rhine in the distance flashing by the Seven

Mountains—but mind and make Ethel the principal figure: if you make her

like, she certainly _will_ be—and other lights will be only minor

fires. You may paint her form, but you can’t paint her colour; that is

what beats us in nature. A line must come right; you can force that

into its place, but you can’t compel the circumambient air. There is no

yellow I know of will make sunshine, and no blue that is a bit like

sky. And so with pictures: I think you only get signs of colour, and

formulas to stand for it. That brick-dust which we agree to receive as

representing a blush, look at it—can you say it is in the least like

the blush which flickers and varies as it sweeps over the down of the

cheek—as you see sunshine playing over a meadow? Look into it and see

what a variety of delicate blooms there are! a multitude of flowerets

twining into one tint! We may break our colour-pots and strive after

the line alone: that is palpable and we can grasp it—the other is

impossible and beyond us.” Which sentiment I here set down, not on

account of its worth (and I think it is contradicted—as well as

asserted—in more than one of the letters I subsequently had from Mr.

Clive, but it may serve to show the ardent and impulsive disposition of

this youth), by whom all beauties of art and nature, animate or

inanimate (the former especially), were welcomed with a gusto and

delight whereof colder temperaments are incapable. The view of a fine

landscape, a fine picture, a handsome woman, would make this harmless

young sensualist tipsy with pleasure. He seemed to derive an actual

hilarity and intoxication as his eye drank in these sights; and, though

it was his maxim that all dinners were good, and he could eat bread and

cheese and drink small beer with perfect good-humour, I believe that he

found a certain pleasure in a bottle of claret, which most men’s

systems were incapable of feeling.

This springtime of youth is the season of letter-writing. A lad in high

health and spirits, the blood running briskly in his young veins, and

the world, and life, and nature bright and welcome to him, looks out,

perforce, for some companion to whom he may impart his sense of the

pleasure which he enjoys, and which were not complete unless a friend

were by to share it. I was the person most convenient for the young

fellow’s purpose; he was pleased to confer upon me the title of friend

_en titre_, and confidant in particular; to endow the confidant in

question with a number of virtues and excellences which existed very

likely only in the lad’s imagination; to lament that the confidant had

no sister whom he, Clive, might marry out of hand; and to make me a

thousand simple protests of affection and admiration, which are noted

here as signs of the young man’s character, by no means as proofs of

the goodness of mine. The books given to the present biographer by “his

affectionate friend, Clive Newcome,” still bear on the titlepages the

marks of that boyish hand and youthful fervour. He had a copy of Walter

Lorraine bound and gilt with such splendour as made the author blush

for his performance, which has since been seen at the bookstalls at a

price suited to the very humblest purses. He fired up and fought a

newspaper critic (whom Clive met at the Haunt one night) who had dared

to write an article in which that work was slighted; and if, in the

course of nature, his friendship has outlived that rapturous period,

the kindness of the two old friends, I hope, is not the less because it

is no longer romantic, and the days of white vellum and gilt edges have

passed away. From the abundance of the letters which the affectionate

young fellow now wrote, the ensuing portion of his youthful history is

compiled. It may serve to recall passages of their early days to such

of his seniors as occasionally turn over the leaves of a novel; and in

the story of his faults, indiscretions, passions, and actions, young

readers may be reminded of their own.

Now that the old Countess, and perhaps Barnes, were away, the barrier

between Clive and this family seemed to be withdrawn. The young folks

who loved him were free to see him as often as he would come. They were

going to Baden: would he come too? Baden was on the road to

Switzerland, he might journey to Strasbourg, Basle, and so on. Clive

was glad enough to go with his cousins, and travel in the orbit of such

a lovely girl as Ethel Newcome. J. J. performed the second part always

when Clive was present: and so they all travelled to Coblentz, Mayence,

and Frankfort together, making the journey which everybody knows, and

sketching the mountains and castles we all of us have sketched. Ethel’s

beauty made all the passengers on all the steamers look round and

admire. Clive was proud of being in the suite of such a lovely person.

The family travelled with a pair of those carriages which used to

thunder along the Continental roads a dozen years since, and from

interior, box, and rumble discharge a dozen English people at hotel

gates.

The journey is all sunshine and pleasure and novelty: the circular

notes with which Mr. Baines of Fog Court has supplied Clive Newcome,

Esquire, enabled that young gentleman to travel with great ease and

comfort. He has not yet ventured upon engaging a _valet de chambre_, it

being agreed between him and J. J. that two travelling artists have no

right to such an aristocratic appendage; but he has bought a snug

little britzska at Frankfort (the youth has very polite tastes, is

already a connoisseur in wine, and has no scruple in ordering the best

at the hotels), and the britzska travels in company with Lady Anne’s

caravan, either in its wake so as to be out of reach of the dust, or

more frequently ahead of that enormous vehicle and its tender, in which

come the children and the governess of Lady Anne Newcome, guarded by a

huge and melancholy London footman, who beholds Rhine and Neckar,

valley and mountain, village and ruin, with a like dismal composure.

Little Alfred and little Egbert are by no means sorry to escape from

Miss Quigley and the tender, and for a stage ride or two in Clive’s

britzska. The little girls cry sometimes to be admitted to that

privilege. I dare say Ethel would like very well to quit her place in

the caravan, where she sits, circumvented by mamma’s dogs, and books,

bags, dressing-boxes, and gimcrack cases, without which apparatus some

English ladies of condition cannot travel; but Miss Ethel is grown up,

she is out, and has been presented at Court, and is a person of too

great dignity now to sit anywhere but in the place of state in the

chariot corner. I like to think, for my part, of the gallant young

fellow taking his pleasure and enjoying his holiday, and few sights are

more pleasant than to watch a happy, manly English youth, free-handed

and generous-hearted, content and good-humour shining in his honest

face, pleased and pleasing, eager, active, and thankful for services,

and exercising bravely his noble youthful privilege to be happy and to

enjoy. Sing, cheery spirit, whilst the spring lasts; bloom whilst the

sun shines, kindly flowers of youth! You shall be none the worse

to-morrow for having been happy to-day, if the day brings no action to

shame it. As for J. J., he too had his share of enjoyment; the charming

scenes around him did not escape his bright eye, he absorbed pleasure

in his silent way, he was up with the sunrise always, and at work with

his eyes and his heart if not with his hands. A beautiful object too is

such a one to contemplate, a pure virgin soul, a creature gentle,

pious, and full of love, endowed with sweet gifts, humble and timid;

but for truth’s and justice’s sake inflexible, thankful to God and man,

fond, patient, and faithful. Clive was still his hero as ever, his

patron, his splendid young prince and chieftain. Who was so brave, who

was so handsome, generous, witty as Clive? To hear Clive sing, as the

lad would whilst they were seated at their work, or driving along on

this happy journey, through fair landscapes in the sunshine, gave J. J.

the keenest pleasure; his wit was a little slow, but he would laugh

with his eyes at Clive’s sallies, or ponder over them and explode with

laughter presently, giving a new source of amusement to these merry

travellers, and little Alfred would laugh at J. J.’s laughing; and so,

with a hundred harmless jokes to enliven, and the ever-changing,

ever-charming smiles of nature to cheer and accompany it, the happy

day’s journey would come to an end.

So they travelled by the accustomed route to the prettiest town of all

places where Pleasure has set up her tents; and where the gay, the

melancholy, the idle or occupied, grave or haughty, come for amusement,

or business, or relaxation; where London beauties, having danced and

flirted all the season, may dance and flirt a little more; where

well-dressed rogues from all quarters of the world assemble; where I

have seen severe London lawyers, forgetting their wigs and the Temple,

trying their luck against fortune and M. Bénazet; where wistful

schemers conspire and prick cards down, and deeply meditate the

infallible coup; and try it, and lose it, and borrow a hundred francs

to go home; where even virtuous British ladies venture their little

stakes, and draw up their winnings with trembling rakes, by the side of

ladies who are not virtuous at all, no, not even by name; where young

prodigals break the bank sometimes, and carry plunder out of a place

which Hercules himself could scarcely compel; where you meet wonderful

countesses and princesses, whose husbands are almost always absent on

their vast estates—in Italy, Spain, Piedmont—who knows where their

lordships’ possessions are?—while trains of suitors surround those

wandering Penelopes their noble wives; Russian Boyars, Spanish Grandees

of the Order of the Fleece, Counts of France, and Princes Polish and

Italian innumerable, who perfume the gilded halls with their

tobacco-smoke, and swear in all languages against the black and the

red. The famous English monosyllable by which things, persons, luck,

even eyes, are devoted to the infernal gods, we may be sure is not

wanting in that Babel. Where does one not hear it? “D—— the luck,” says

Lord Kew, as the croupier sweeps off his lordship’s rouleaux. “D—— the

luck,” says Brown the bagman, who has been backing his lordship with

five-franc pieces. “Ah, body of Bacchus!” says Count Felice, whom we

all remember a courier. “Ah, sacré coup,” cries M. le Vicomte de

Florac, as his last louis parts company from him—each cursing in his

native tongue. Oh, sweet chorus!

That Lord Kew should be at Baden is no wonder. If you heard of him at

the Finish, or at Buckingham Palace ball, or in a watch-house, or at

the Third Cataract, or at a Newmarket meeting, you would not be

surprised. He goes everywhere; does everything with all his might;

knows everybody. Last week he won who knows how many thousand louis

from the bank (it appears Brown has chosen one of the unlucky days to

back his lordship). He will eat his supper as gaily after a great

victory as after a signal defeat; and we know that to win with

magnanimity requires much more constancy than to lose. His sleep will

not be disturbed by one event or the other. He will play skittles all

the morning with perfect contentment, romp with children in the

forenoon (he is the friend of half the children in the place), or he

will cheerfully leave the green table and all the risk and excitement

there, to take a hand at sixpenny whist with General Fogey, or to give

the six Miss Fogeys a turn each in the ballroom. From H.R.H. the Prince

Royal of ——, who is the greatest guest at Baden, down to Brown the

bagman, who does not consider himself the smallest, Lord Kew is hail

fellow with everybody, and has a kind word from and for all.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

In which Clive begins to see the World

In the company assembled at Baden, Clive found one or two old

acquaintances; among them his friend of Paris, M. de Florac, not in

quite so brilliant a condition as when Newcome had last met him on the

Boulevard. Florac owned that Fortune had been very unkind to him at

Baden; and, indeed, she had not only emptied his purse, but his

portmanteaus, jewel-box, and linen-closet—the contents of all of which

had ranged themselves on the red and black against Monsieur Bénazet’s

crown-pieces: whatever side they took was, however, the unlucky one.

“This campaign has been my Moscow, _mon cher_,” Florac owned to Clive.

“I am conquered by Bénazet; I have lost in almost every combat. I have

lost my treasure, my baggage, my ammunition of war, everything but my

honour, which, _au reste_, Mons. Bénazet will not accept as a stake; if

he would, there are plenty here, believe me, who would set it on the

trente-et-quarante. Sometimes I have had a mind to go home; my mother,

who is an angel all forgiveness, would receive her prodigal, and kill

the fatted veal for me. But what will you? He annoys me—the domestic

veal. Besides, my brother the Abbé, though the best of Christians, is a

Jew upon certain matters; a Bénazet who will not _troquer_ absolution

except against repentance; and I have not for a sou of repentance in my

pocket! I have been sorry, yes—but it was because odd came up in place

of even, or the reverse. The accursed _après_ has chased me like a

remorse, and when black has come up I have wished myself converted to

red. Otherwise I have no repentance—I am _joueur_—nature has made me

so, as she made my brother _dévot_. The Archbishop of Strasbourg is of

our parents; I saw his grandeur when I went lately to Strasbourg, on my

last pilgrimage to the Mont de Piété. I owned to him that I would pawn

his cross and ring to go play: the good prelate laughed, and said his

chaplain should keep an eye on them. Will you dine with me? The

landlord of my hotel was the intendant of our cousin, the Duc d’Ivry,

and will give me credit to the day of judgment. I do not abuse his

noble confidence. My dear! there are covers of silver put upon my table

every day with which I could retrieve my fortune, did I listen to the

suggestions of Satanas; but I say to him, _Vade retro_. Come and dine

with me—Duluc’s kitchen is very good.”

These easy confessions were uttered by a gentleman who was nearly forty

years of age, and who had indeed played the part of a young man in

Paris and the great European world so long, that he knew or chose to

perform no other. He did not want for abilities; had the best temper in

the world; was well bred and gentlemanlike always; and was gay even

after Moscow. His courage was known, and his character for bravery and

another kind of gallantry probably exaggerated by his bad reputation.

Had his mother not been alive, perhaps he would have believed in the

virtue of no woman. But this one he worshipped, and spoke with

tenderness and enthusiasm of her constant love and patience and

goodness. “See her miniature!” he said, “I never separate myself from

it—oh, never! It saved my life in an affair about—about a woman who was

not worth the powder which poor Jules and I burned for her. His ball

struck me here, upon the waistcoat, bruising my rib and sending me to

my bed, which I never should have left alive but for this picture. Oh,

she is an angel, my mother! I am sure that Heaven has nothing to deny

that saint, and that her tears wash out my sins.”

Clive smiled. “I think Madame de Florac must weep a good deal,” he

said.

“_Enormément_, my friend! My faith! I do not deny it! I give her cause,

night and evening. I am possessed by demons! This little Affenthaler

wine of this country has a little smack which is most agreeable. The

passions tear me, my young friend! Play is fatal, but play is not so

fatal as woman. Pass me the écrévisses, they are most succulent. Take

warning by me, and avoid both. I saw you _rôder_ round the green

tables, and marked your eyes as they glistened over the heaps of gold,

and looked at some of our beauties of Baden. Beware of such sirens,

young man! and take me for your Mentor; avoiding what I have done—that

understands itself. You have not played as yet? Do not do so; above all

avoid a martingale, if you do. Play ought not to be an affair of

calculation, but of inspiration. I have calculated infallibly, and what

has been the effect? Gousset empty, tiroirs empty, nécessaire parted

for Strasbourg! Where is my fur pelisse, Frédéric?”

“Parbleu, vous le savez bien, Monsieur le Vicomte,” says Frédéric, the

domestic, who was waiting on Clive and his friend.

“A pelisse lined with true sable, and, worth three thousand francs,

that I won of a little Russian at billiards. That pelisse at Strasbourg

(where the infamous worms of the Mount of Piety are actually gnawing

her). Two hundred francs and this _reconnaissance_, which Frédéric

receive, are all that now represent the pelisse. How many chemises have

I, Frédéric?”

“Eh, parbleu, Monsieur le Vicomte sait bien que nous avons toujours

vingt-quatre chemises,” says Frédéric, grumbling.

Monsieur le Vicomte springs up shrieking from the dinner-table.

“Twenty-four shirts,” says he, “and I have been a week without a louis

in my pocket! _Bélître! Nigaud!_” He flings open one drawer after

another, but there are no signs of that—superfluity of linen of which

the domestic spoke, whose countenance now changes from a grim frown to

a grim smile.

“Ah, my faithful Frédéric, I pardon thee! Mr. Newcome will understand

my harmless _supercherie_. Frédéric was in my company of the Guard, and

remains with me since. He is Caleb Balderstone and I am Ravenswood.

Yes, I am Edgard. Let us have coffee and a cigar, Balderstone.”

“Plait-il, Monsieur le Vicomte?” says the French Caleb.

“Thou comprehendest not English. Thou readest not Valtare Scott, thou!”

cries the master. “I was recounting to Monsieur Newcome thy history and

my misfortunes. Go seek coffee for us, _Nigaud_.” And as the two

gentlemen partake of that exhilarating liquor, the elder confides gaily

to his guest the reason why he prefers taking coffee at the hotel to

the coffee at the great Café of the Redoute, with a _duris urgéns in

rebus égestāss!_ pronounced in the true French manner.

Clive was greatly amused by the gaiety of the Viscount after his

misfortunes and his Moscow; and thought that one of Mr. Baines’s

circular notes might not be ill laid out in succouring this hero. It

may have been to this end that Florac’s confessions tended; though, to

do him justice, the incorrigible young fellow would confide his

adventures to any one who would listen; and the exact state of his

wardrobe, and the story of his pawned pelisse, dressing-case, rings and

watches, were known to all Baden.

“You tell me to marry and range myself,” said Clive (to whom the

Viscount was expatiating upon the charms of the _superbe_ young

_Anglaise_ with whom he had seen Clive walking on the promenade). “Why

do you not marry and range yourself too?”

“Eh, my dear! I am married already. You do not know it? I am married

since the Revolution of July. Yes. We were poor in those days, as poor

we remain. My cousins the Duc d’Ivry’s sons and his grandson were still

alive. Seeing no other resource and pursued by the Arabs, I espoused

the Vicomtesse de Florac. I gave her my name, you comprehend, in

exchange for her own odious one. She was Miss Higg. Do you know the

family Higg of Manchesterre in the comte of Lancastre? She was then a

person of a ripe age. The Vicomtesse is now—ah! it is fifteen years

since, and she dies not. Our union was not happy, my friend—Madame Paul

de Florac is of the reformed religion—not of the Anglican Church, you

understand—but a dissident I know not of what sort. We inhabited the

Hôtel de Florac for a while after our union, which was all of

convenience, you understand. She filled her salon with ministers to

make you die. She assaulted my poor father in his garden-chair, whence

he could not escape her. She told my sainted mother that she was an

idolatress—she who only idolatrises her children! She called us other

poor Catholics who follow the rites of our fathers, _des Romishes;_ and

Rome, Babylon; and the Holy Father—a scarlet—eh! a scarlet abomination.

She outraged my mother, that angel; essayed to convert the antechamber

and the office; put little books in the Abbé’s bedroom. Eh, my friend!

what a good king was Charles IX., and his mother what a wise sovereign!

I lament that Madame de Florac should have escaped the St. Barthelemi,

when no doubt she was spared on account of her tender age. We have been

separated for many years; her income was greatly exaggerated. Beyond

the payment of my debts I owe her nothing. I wish I could say as much

of all the rest of the world. Shall we take a turn of promenade?

_Mauvais sujet!_ I see you are longing to be at the green table.”

Clive was not longing to be at the green table: but his companion was

never easy at it or away from it. Next to winning, losing, M. de Florac

said, was the best sport—next to losing, looking on. So he and Clive

went down to the Redoute, where Lord Kew was playing with a crowd of

awestruck amateurs and breathless punters admiring his valour and

fortune; and Clive, saying that he knew nothing about the game, took

out five Napoleons from his purse, and besought Florac to invest them

in the most profitable manner at roulette. The other made some faint

attempts at a scruple: but the money was speedily laid on the table,

where it increased and multiplied amazingly too; so that in a quarter

of an hour Florac brought quite a handful of gold pieces to his

principal. Then Clive, I dare say blushing as he made the proposal,

offered half the handful of Napoleons to M. de Florac, to be repaid

when he thought fit. And fortune must have been very favourable to the

husband of Miss Higg that night; for in the course of an hour he

insisted on paying back Clive’s loan; and two days afterwards appeared

with his shirt-studs (of course with his shirts also), released from

captivity, his watch, rings, and chains, on the parade; and was

observed to wear his celebrated fur pelisse as he drove back in a

britzska from Strasbourg. “As for myself,” wrote Clive, “I put back

into my purse the five Napoleons with which I had begun; and laid down

the whole mass of winnings on the table, where it was doubled and then

quadrupled, and then swept up by the croupiers, greatly to my ease of

mind. And then Lord Kew asked me to supper and we had a merry night.”

This was Mr. Clive’s first and last appearance as a gambler. J. J.

looked very grave when he heard of these transactions. Clive’s French

friend did not please his English companion at all, nor the friends of

Clive’s French friend, the Russians, the Spaniards, the Italians, of

sounding titles and glittering decorations, and the ladies who belonged

to their society. He saw by chance Ethel, escorted by her cousin Lord

Kew, passing through a crowd of this company one day. There was not one

woman there who was not the heroine of some discreditable story. It was

the Comtesse Calypso who had been jilted by the Duc Ulysse. It was the

Marquise Ariane to whom the Prince Thésée had behaved so shamefully,

and who had taken to Bacchus as a consolation. It was Madame Médée, who

had absolutely killed her old father by her conduct regarding Jason:

she had done everything for Jason: she had got him the _toison d’or_

from the Queen Mother, and now had to meet him every day with his

little blonde bride on his arm! J. J. compared Ethel, moving in the

midst of these folks, to the Lady amidst the rout of Comus. There they

were the Fauns and Satyrs: there they were, the merry Pagans: drinking

and dancing, dicing and sporting; laughing out jests that never should

be spoken; whispering rendezvous to be written in midnight calendars;

jeering at honest people who passed under their palace windows—jolly

rebels and repealers of the law. Ah, if Mrs. Brown, whose children are

gone to bed at the hotel, knew but the history of that calm

dignified-looking gentleman who sits under her, and over whose patient

back she frantically advances and withdraws her two-franc piece, whilst

his own columns of louis d’or are offering battle to fortune—how she

would shrink away from the shoulder which she pushes! That man so calm

and well bred, with a string of orders on his breast, so well dressed,

with such white hands, has stabbed trusting hearts; severed family

ties; written lying vows; signed false oaths; torn up pitilessly tender

appeals for redress, and tossed away into the fire supplications

blistered with tears; packed cards and cogged dice; or used pistol or

sword as calmly and dexterously as he now ranges his battalions of gold

pieces.

Ridley shrank away from such lawless people with the delicacy belonging

to his timid and retiring nature, but it must be owned that Mr. Clive

was by no means so squeamish. He did not know, in the first place, the

mystery of their iniquities; and his sunny kindly spirit, undimmed by

any of the cares which clouded it subsequently, was disposed to shine

upon all people alike. The world was welcome to him: the day a

pleasure: all nature a gay feast: scarce any dispositions discordant

with his own (for pretension only made him laugh, and hypocrisy he will

never be able to understand if he lives to be a hundred years old): the

night brought him a long sleep, and the morning a glad waking. To those

privileges of youth what enjoyments of age are comparable? what

achievements of ambition? what rewards of money and fame? Clive’s happy

friendly nature shone out of his face; and almost all who beheld it

felt kindly towards him. As those guileless virgins of romance and

ballad, who walk smiling through dark forests charming off dragons and

confronting lions, the young man as yet went through the world

harmless; no giant waylaid him as yet; no robbing ogre fed on him: and

(greatest danger of all for one of his ardent nature) no winning

enchantress or artful siren coaxed him to her cave, or lured him into

her waters—haunts into which we know so many young simpletons are

drawn, where their silly bones are picked and their tender flesh

devoured.

The time was short which Clive spent at Baden, for it has been said the

winter was approaching, and the destination of our young artists was

Rome; but he may have passed some score of days here, to which he and

another person in that pretty watering-place possibly looked back

afterwards, as not the unhappiest period of their lives. Among Colonel

Newcome’s papers to which the family biographer has had subsequent

access, there are a couple of letters from Clive, dated Baden, at this

time, and full of happiness, gaiety, and affection. Letter No. 1 says,

“Ethel is the prettiest girl here. At the assemblies all the princes,

counts, dukes, Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, are dying to dance with

her. She sends her dearest love to her uncle.” By the side of the words

“prettiest girl,” was written in a frank female hand the monosyllable

“_Stuff;_” and as a note to the expression “dearest love,” with a star

to mark the text and the note, are squeezed, in the same feminine

characters, at the bottom of Clive’s page, the words, “_That I do. E.

N._”

In letter No. 2, the first two pages are closely written in Clive’s

handwriting, describing his pursuits and studies, and giving amusing

details of the life at Baden, and the company whom he met

there—narrating his _rencontre_ with their Paris friend, M. de Florac,

and the arrival of the Duchesse d’Ivry, Florac’s cousin, whose titles

the Vicomte will probably inherit. Not a word about Florac’s gambling

propensities are mentioned in the letter; but Clive honestly confesses

that he has staked five Napoleons, doubled them, quadrupled them, won

ever so much, lost it all back again, and come away from the table with

his original five pounds in his pocket—proposing never to play any

more. “Ethel,” he concluded, “is looking over my shoulder. She thinks

me such a delightful creature that she is never easy without me. She

bids me to say that I am the best of sons and cousins, and am, in a

word, a darling du—” The rest of this important word is not given, but

_goose_ is added in the female hand. In the faded ink, on the yellow

paper that may have crossed and recrossed oceans, that has lain locked

in chests for years, and buried under piles of family archives, while

your friends have been dying and your head has grown white—who has not

disinterred mementos like these—from which the past smiles at you so

sadly, shimmering out of Hades an instant but to sink back again into

the cold shades, perhaps with a faint, faint sound as of a remembered

tone—a ghostly echo of a once familiar laughter? I was looking of late

at a wall in the Naples Museum, whereon a boy of Herculaneum eighteen

hundred years ago had scratched with a nail the figure of a soldier. I

could fancy the child turning round and smiling on me after having done

his etching. Which of us that is thirty years old has not had his

Pompeii? Deep under ashes lies the Life of Youth,—the careless Sport,

the Pleasure and Passion, the darling Joy. You open an old letter-box

and look at your own childish scrawls, or your mother’s letters to you

when you were at school; and excavate your heart. Oh me, for the day

when the whole city shall be bare and the chambers unroofed—and every

cranny visible to the Light above, from the Forum to the Lupanar!

Ethel takes up the pen. “My dear uncle,” she says, “while Clive is

sketching out of window, let me write you a line or two on his paper,

though _I know you like to hear no one speak_ but him. I wish I could

draw him for you as he stands yonder, looking the picture of good

health, good spirits, and good humour. Everybody likes him. He is quite

unaffected; always gay; always pleased. He draws more and more

beautifully every day; and his affection for young Mr. Ridley, who is

really a most excellent and astonishing young man, and actually a

better artist than Clive himself, is most romantic, and does your son

the greatest credit. You will order Clive not to sell his pictures,

won’t you? I know it is not wrong, but your son might look higher than

to be an artist. It is a rise for Mr. Ridley, but a fall for him. An

artist, an organist, a pianist, all these are very good people, but you

know not _de notre monde_, and Clive ought to belong to it.

“We met him at Bonn on our way to a great family gathering here; where,

I must tell you, we are assembled for what I call the Congress of

Baden! The chief of the house of Kew is here, and what time he does not

devote to skittles, to smoking cigars, to the _jeu_ in the evenings, to

Madame d’Ivry, to Madame de Cruchecassée, and the foreign people (of

whom there are a host here of the worst kind, as usual), he graciously

bestows on me. Lord and Lady Dorking are here, with their meek little

daughter, Clara Pulleyn; and Barnes is coming. Uncle Hobson has

returned to Lombard Street to relieve guard. I think you will hear

before very long of Lady Clara Newcome. Grandmamma, who was to have

presided at the Congress of Baden, and still, you know, reigns over the

house of Kew, has been stopped at Kissingen with an attack of

rheumatism; I pity poor Aunt Julia, who can never leave her. Here are

all our news. I declare I have filled the whole page; men write closer

than we do. I wear the dear brooch you gave me, often and often; I

think of you always, dear, kind uncle, as your affectionate Ethel.”

Besides roulette and trente-et-quarante, a number of amusing games are

played at Baden, which are not performed, so to speak, _sur table_.

These little diversions and _jeux de société_ can go on anywhere; in an

alley in the park; in a picnic to this old schloss, or that pretty

hunting-lodge; at a tea-table in a lodging-house or hotel; in a ball at

the Redoute; in the play-rooms behind the backs of the gamblers, whose

eyes are only cast upon rakes and rouleaux, and red and black; or on

the broad walk in front of the conversation rooms, where thousands of

people are drinking and chattering, lounging and smoking, whilst the

Austrian brass band, in the little music pavilion, plays the most

delightful mazurkas and waltzes. Here the widow plays her black suit

and sets her bright eyes against the rich bachelor, elderly or young as

may be. Here the artful practitioner, who has dealt in a thousand such

games, engages the young simpleton with more money than wit; and

knowing his weakness and her skill, we may safely take the odds, and

back rouge et couleur to win. Here mamma, not having money, perhaps,

but metal more attractive, stakes her virgin daughter against Count

Fettacker’s forests and meadows; or Lord Lackland plays his coronet, of

which the jewels have long since been in pawn, against Miss Bags’

three-per-cents. And so two or three funny little games were going on

at Baden amongst our immediate acquaintance; besides that vulgar sport

round the green table, at which the mob, with whom we have little to

do, was elbowing each other. A hint of these domestic prolusions has

been given to the reader in the foregoing extract from Miss Ethel

Newcome’s letter: likewise some passions have been in play, of which a

modest young English maiden could not be aware. Do not, however, let us

be too prematurely proud of our virtue. That tariff of British virtue

is wonderfully organised. Heaven help the society which made its laws!

Gnats are shut out of its ports, or not admitted without scrutiny and

repugnance, whilst herds of camels are let in. The law professes to

exclude some goods (or bads shall we call them?)—well, some articles of

baggage, which are yet smuggled openly under the eyes of winking

officers, and worn every day without shame. Shame! What is shame?

Virtue is very often shameful according to the English social

constitution, and shame honourable. Truth, if yours happens to differ

from your neighbour’s, provokes your friend’s coldness, your mother’s

tears, the world’s persecution. Love is not to be dealt in, save under

restrictions which kill its sweet, healthy, free commerce. Sin in man

is so light, that scarce the fine of a penny is imposed; while for

woman it is so heavy that no repentance can wash it out. Ah! yes; all

stories are old. You proud matrons in your Mayfair markets, have you

never seen a virgin sold, or sold one? Have you never heard of a poor

wayfarer fallen among robbers, and not a Pharisee to help him? of a

poor woman fallen more sadly yet, abject in repentance and tears, and a

crowd to stone her? I pace this broad Baden walk as the sunset is

gilding the hills round about, as the orchestra blows its merry tunes,

as the happy children laugh and sport in the alleys, as the lamps of

the gambling-palace are lighted up, as the throngs of pleasure-hunters

stroll, and smoke, and flirt, and hum: and wonder sometimes, is it the

sinners who are the most sinful? Is it poor Prodigal yonder amongst the

bad company, calling black and red and tossing the champagne; or

brother Straitlace that grudges his repentance? Is it downcast Hagar

that slinks away with poor little Ishmael in her hand; or bitter old

virtuous Sarah, who scowls at her from my demure Lord Abraham’s arm?

One day of the previous May, when of course everybody went to visit the

Water-colour Exhibitions, Ethel Newcome was taken to see the pictures

by her grandmother, that rigorous old Lady Kew, who still proposed to

reign over all her family. The girl had high spirit, and very likely

hot words had passed between the elder and the younger lady; such as I

am given to understand will be uttered in the most polite families.

They came to a piece by Mr. Hunt, representing one of those figures

which he knows how to paint with such consummate truth and pathos—a

friendless young girl cowering in a doorway, evidently without home or

shelter. The exquisite fidelity of the details, and the plaintive

beauty of the expression of the child, attracted old Lady Kew’s

admiration, who was an excellent judge of works of art; and she stood

for some time looking at the drawing, with Ethel by her side. Nothing,

in truth, could be more simple or pathetic; Ethel laughed, and her

grandmother looking up from her stick on which she hobbled about, saw a

very sarcastic expression in the girl’s eyes.

“You have no taste for pictures, only for painters, I suppose,” said

Lady Kew.

“I was not looking at the picture,” said Ethel, still with a smile,

“but at the little green ticket in the corner.”

“Sold,” said Lady Kew. “Of course it is sold; all Mr. Hunt’s pictures

are sold. There is not one of them here on which you won’t see the

green ticket. He is a most admirable artist. I don’t know whether his

comedy or tragedy are the most excellent.”

“I think, grandmamma,” Ethel said, “we young ladies in the world, when

we are exhibiting, ought to have little green tickets pinned on our

backs, with ‘Sold’ written on them; it would prevent trouble and any

future haggling, you know. Then at the end of the season the owner

would come to carry us home.”

Grandmamma only said, “Ethel, you are a fool,” and hobbled on to Mr.

Cattermole’s picture hard by. “What splendid colour; what a romantic

gloom; what a flowing pencil and dexterous hand!” Lady Kew could

delight in pictures, applaud good poetry, and squeeze out a tear over a

good novel too. That afternoon, young Dawkins, the rising water-colour

artist, who used to come daily to the gallery and stand delighted

before his own piece, was aghast to perceive that there was no green

ticket in the corner of his frame, and he pointed out the deficiency to

the keeper of the pictures. His landscape, however, was sold and paid

for, so no great mischief occurred. On that same evening, when the

Newcome family assembled at dinner in Park Lane, Ethel appeared with a

bright green ticket pinned in the front of her white muslin frock, and

when asked what this queer fancy meant, she made Lady Kew a curtsey,

looking her full in the face, and turning round to her father, said, “I

am a _tableau-vivant_, papa. I am Number 46 in the Exhibition of the

Gallery of Painters in Water-colours.”

“My love, what do you mean?” says mamma; and Lady Kew, jumping up on

her crooked stick with immense agility, tore the card out of Ethel’s

bosom, and very likely would have boxed her ears, but that her parents

were present and Lord Kew announced.