Ethel talked about pictures the whole evening, and would talk of

nothing else. Grandmamma went away furious. “She told Barnes, and when

everybody was gone there was a pretty row in the building,” said Madam

Ethel, with an arch look, when she narrated the story. “Barnes was

ready to kill me and eat me; but I never was afraid of Barnes.” And the

biographer gathers from this little anecdote, narrated to him, never

mind by whom, at a long subsequent period, that there had been great

disputes in Sir Brian Newcome’s establishment, fierce drawing-room

battles, whereof certain pictures of a certain painter might have

furnished the cause, and in which Miss Newcome had the whole of the

family forces against her. That such battles take place in other

domestic establishments, who shall say or shall not say? Who, when he

goes out to dinner, and is received by a bland host with a gay shake of

the hand, and a pretty hostess with a gracious smile of welcome, dares

to think that Mr. Johnson upstairs, half an hour before, was swearing

out of his dressing-room at Mrs. Johnson, for having ordered a turbot

instead of a salmon, or that Mrs. Johnson now talking to Lady Jones so

nicely about their mutual darling children, was crying her eyes out as

her maid was fastening her gown, as the carriages were actually driving

up? The servants know these things, but not we in the dining-room. Hark

with what a respectful tone Johnson begs the clergyman present to say

grace!

Whatever these family quarrels may have been, let bygones be bygones,

and let us be perfectly sure, that to whatever purpose Miss Ethel

Newcome, for good or for evil, might make her mind up, she had quite

spirit enough to hold her own. She chose to be Countess of Kew because

she chose to be Countess of Kew; had she set her heart on marrying Mr.

Kuhn, she would have had her way, and made the family adopt it, and

called him dear Fritz, as by his godfathers and godmothers, in his

baptism, Mr. Kuhn was called. Clive was but a fancy, if he had even

been so much as that, not a passion, and she fancied a pretty

four-pronged coronet still more.

So that the diatribe wherein we lately indulged, about the selling of

virgins, by no means applies to Lady Anne Newcome, who signed the

address to Mrs. Stowe, the other day, along with thousands more virtuous

British matrons; but should the reader haply say, “Is thy fable, O

Poet, narrated concerning Tancred Pulleyn, Earl of Dorking, and

Sigismunda, his wife?” the reluctant moralist is obliged to own that

the cap _does_ fit those noble personages, of whose lofty society you

will, however, see but little.

For though I would like to go into an Indian Brahmin’s house, and see

the punkahs, and the purdahs and tattys, and the pretty brown maidens

with great eyes, and great nose-rings, and painted foreheads, and slim

waists cased in Cashmir shawls, Kincob scarfs, curly slippers, gilt

trousers, precious anklets and bangles; and have the mystery of Eastern

existence revealed to me (as who would not who has read the Arabian

Nights in his youth?), yet I would not choose the moment when the

Brahmin of the house was dead, his women howling, his priests doctoring

his child of a widow, now frightening her with sermons, now drugging

her with bang, so as to push her on his funeral pile at last, and into

the arms of that carcase, stupefied, but obedient and decorous. And

though I like to walk, even in fancy, in an earl’s house, splendid,

well ordered, where there are feasts and fine pictures and fair ladies

and endless books and good company; yet there are times when the visit

is not pleasant; and when the parents in that fine house are getting

ready their daughter for sale, and frightening away her tears with

threats, and stupefying her grief with narcotics, praying her and

imploring her, and dramming her and coaxing her, and blessing her, and

cursing her perhaps, till they have brought her into such a state as

shall fit the poor young thing for that deadly couch upon which they

are about to thrust her. When my lord and lady are so engaged I prefer

not to call at their mansion, Number 1000 in Grosvenor Square, but to

partake of a dinner of herbs rather than of that stalled ox which their

cook is roasting whole. There are some people who are not so squeamish.

The family comes, of course; the Most Reverend the Lord Arch-Brahmin of

Benares will attend the ceremony; there will be flowers and lights and

white favours; and quite a string of carriages up to the pagoda; and

such a breakfast afterwards; and music in the street and little parish

boys hurrahing; and no end of speeches within and tears shed (no

doubt), and His Grace the Arch-Brahmin will make a highly appropriate

speech, just with a faint scent of incense about it as such a speech

ought to have; and the young person will slip away unperceived, and

take off her veils, wreaths, orange-flowers, bangles and finery, and

will put on a plain dress more suited for the occasion, and the

house-door will open—and there comes the SUTTEE in company of the body:

yonder the pile is waiting on four wheels with four horses, the crowd

hurrahs and the deed is done.

This ceremony amongst us is so stale and common that to be sure there

is no need to describe its rites, and as women sell themselves for what

you call an establishment every day; to the applause of themselves,

their parents, and the world, why on earth should a man ape at

originality and pretend to pity them? Never mind about the lies at the

altar, the blasphemy against the godlike name of love, the sordid

surrender, the smiling dishonour. What the deuce does a _mariage de

convenance_ mean but all this, and are not such sober Hymeneal torches

more satisfactory often than the most brilliant love matches that ever

flamed and burnt out? Of course. Let us not weep when everybody else is

laughing: let us pity the agonised duchess when her daughter, Lady

Atalanta, runs away with the doctor—of course, that’s respectable; let

us pity Lady Iphigenia’s father when that venerable chief is obliged to

offer up his darling child; but it is over _her_ part of the business

that a decorous painter would throw the veil now. Her ladyship’s

sacrifice is performed, and the less said about it the better.

Such was the case regarding an affair which appeared in due subsequence

in the newspapers not long afterwards under the fascinating title of

“Marriage in High Life,” and which was in truth the occasion of the

little family Congress of Baden which we are now chronicling. We all

know—everybody at least who has the slightest acquaintance with the

army list—that, at the commencement of their life, my Lord Kew, my Lord

Viscount Rooster, the Earl of Dorking’s eldest son, and the Honourable

Charles Belsize, familiarly called Jack Belsize, were subaltern

officers in one of His Majesty’s regiments of cuirassier guards. They

heard the chimes at midnight like other young men, they enjoyed their

fun and frolics as gentlemen of spirit will do; sowing their wild oats

plentifully, and scattering them with boyish profusion. Lord Kew’s luck

had blessed him with more sacks of oats than fell to the lot of his

noble young companions. Lord Dorking’s house is known to have been long

impoverished; an excellent informant, Major Pendennis, has entertained

me with many edifying accounts of the exploits of Lord Rooster’s

grandfather “with the wild Prince and Poins,” of his feats in the

hunting-field, over the bottle, over the dice-box. He played two nights

and two days at a sitting with Charles Fox, when they both lost sums

awful to reckon. He played often with Lord Steyne, and came away, as

all men did, dreadful sufferers from those midnight encounters. His

descendants incurred the penalties of the progenitor’s imprudence, and

Chanticlere, though one of the finest castles in England, is splendid

but for a month in the year. The estate is mortgaged up to the very

castle windows. “Dorking cannot cut a stick or kill a buck in his own

park,” the good old Major used to tell with tragic accents, “he lives

by his cabbages, grapes, and pineapples, and the fees which people give

for seeing the place and gardens, which are still the show of the

county, and among the most splendid in the island. When Dorking is at

Chanticlere, Ballard, who married his sister, lends him the plate and

sends three men with it. Four cooks inside, and four maids and six

footmen on the roof, with a butler driving, come down from London in a

trap, and wait the month. And as the last carriage of the company

drives away, the servants’ coach is packed, and they all bowl back to

town again. It’s pitiable, sir, pitiable.”

In Lord Kew’s youth, the names of himself and his two noble friends

appeared on innumerable slips of stamped paper, conveying pecuniary

assurances of a promissory nature; all of which promises, my Lord Kew

singly and most honourably discharged. Neither of his two

companions-in-arms had the means of meeting these engagements. Ballard,

Rooster’s uncle, was said to make his lordship some allowance. As for

Jack Belsize: how he lived; how he laughed; how he dressed himself so

well, and looked so fat and handsome; how he got a shilling to pay for

a cab or a cigar; what ravens fed him; was a wonder to all. The young

men claimed kinsmanship with one another, which those who are learned

in the peerage may unravel.

When Lord Dorking’s eldest daughter married the Honourable and

Venerable Dennis Gallowglass, Archdeacon of Bullintubber (and at

present Viscount Gallowglass and Killbrogue, and Lord Bishop of

Ballyshannon), great festivities took place at Chanticlere, whither the

relatives of the high contracting parties were invited. Among them came

poor Jack Belsize, and hence the tears which are dropping at Baden at

this present period of our history. Clara Pulleyn was then a pretty

little maiden of sixteen, and Jack a handsome guardsman of six or seven

and twenty. As she had been especially warned against Jack as a wicked

young rogue, whose _antécédents_ were wofully against him; as she was

never allowed to sit near him at dinner, or to walk with him, or to

play at billiards with him, or to waltz with him; as she was scolded if

he spoke a word to her, or if he picked up her glove, or touched her

hand in a round game, or caught him when they were playing at

blindman’s-buff; as they neither of them had a penny in the world, and

were both very good-looking, of course Clara was always catching Jack

at blindman’s-buff; constantly lighting upon him in the shrubberies or

corridors, etc. etc. etc. She fell in love (she was not the first) with

Jack’s broad chest and thin waist; she thought his whiskers as indeed

they were, the handsomest pair in all His Majesty’s Brigade of

Cuirassiers.

We know not what tears were shed in the vast and silent halls of

Chanticlere, when the company were gone, and the four cooks, and four

maids, six footmen, and temporary butler had driven back in their

private trap to the metropolis, which is not forty miles distant from

that splendid castle. How can we tell? The guests departed, the

lodge-gates shut; all is mystery:—darkness with one pair of wax candles

blinking dismally in a solitary chamber; all the rest dreary vistas of

brown hollands, rolled Turkey carpets, gaunt ancestors on the walls

scowling out of the twilight blank. The imagination is at liberty to

depict his lordship, with one candle, over his dreadful endless tapes

and papers; her ladyship with the other, and an old, old novel, wherein

perhaps, Mrs. Radcliffe describes a castle as dreary as her own; and

poor little Clara sighing and crying in the midst of these funereal

splendours, as lonely and heart-sick as Oriana in her moated

grange:—poor little Clara!

Lord Kew’s drag took the young men to London; his lordship driving, and

the servants sitting inside. Jack sat behind with the two grooms, and

tooted on a cornet-a-piston in the most melancholy manner. He partook

of no refreshment on the road. His silence at his clubs was remarked:

smoking, billiards, military duties, and this and that, roused him a

little, and presently Jack was alive again. But then came the season,

Lady Clara Pulleyn’s first season in London, and Jack was more alive

than ever. There was no ball he did not go to; no opera (that is to

say, no opera of _certain_ operas) which he did not frequent. It was

easy to see by his face, two minutes after entering a room, whether the

person he sought was there or absent; not difficult for those who were

in the secret to watch in another pair of eyes the bright kindling

signals which answered Jack’s fiery glances. Ah! how beautiful he

looked on his charger on the birthday, all in a blaze of scarlet, and

bullion, and steel. O Jack! tear her out of yon carriage, from the side

of yonder livid, feathered, painted, bony dowager! place her behind you

on the black charger; cut down the policeman, and away with you! The

carriage rolls in through St. James’s Park; Jack sits alone with his

sword dropped to the ground, or only _atra cura_ on the crupper behind

him; and Snip, the tailor, in the crowd, thinks it is for fear of him

Jack’s head droops. Lady Clara Pulleyn is presented by her mother, the

Countess of Dorking; and Jack is arrested that night as he is going out

of White’s to meet her at the Opera.

Jack’s little exploits are known in the Insolvent Court, where he made

his appearances as Charles Belsize, commonly called the Honourable

Charles Belsize, whose dealings were smartly chronicled by the

indignant moralists of the press of those days. The _Scourge_ flogged

him heartily. The _Whip_ (of which the accomplished editor was himself

in Whitecross Street prison) was especially virtuous regarding him; and

the _Penny Voice of Freedom_ gave him an awful dressing. I am not here

to scourge sinners; I am true to my party; it is the other side this

humble pen attacks; let us keep to the virtuous and respectable, for as

for poor sinners they get the whipping-post every day. One person was

faithful to poor Jack through all his blunders and follies and

extravagance and misfortunes, and that was the pretty young girl of

Chanticlere, round whose young affections his luxuriant whiskers had

curled. And the world may cry out at Lord Kew for sending his brougham

to the Queen’s Bench prison, and giving a great feast at Grignon’s to

Jack on the day of his liberation, but I for one will not quarrel with

his lordship. He and many other sinners had a jolly night. They said

Kew made a fine speech, in hearing and acknowledging which Jack Belsize

wept copiously. Barnes Newcome was in a rage at Jack’s manumission, and

sincerely hoped Mr. Commissioner would give him a couple of years

longer; and cursed and swore with a great liberality on hearing of his

liberty.

That this poor prodigal should marry Clara Pulleyn, and by way of a

dowry lay his schedule at her feet, was out of the question. His noble

father, Lord Highgate, was furious against him; his eldest brother

would not see him; he had given up all hopes of winning his darling

prize long ago, and one day there came to him a great packet bearing

the seal of Chanticlere, containing a wretched little letter signed C.

P., and a dozen sheets of Jack’s own clumsy writing, delivered who

knows how, in what crush-rooms, quadrilles, bouquets, balls, and in

which were scrawled Jack’s love and passion and ardour. How many a time

had he looked into the dictionary at White’s, to see whether eternal

was spelt with an e, and adore with one a or two! There they were, the

incoherent utterances of his brave longing heart; and those two

wretched, wretched lines signed C., begging that C.’s little letters

might too be returned or destroyed. To do him justice, he burnt them

loyally every one along with his own waste paper. He kept not one

single little token which she had given him or let him take. The rose,

the glove, the little handkerchief which she had dropped to him, how he

cried over them! The ringlet of golden hair—he burnt them all, all in

his own fire in the prison, save a little, little bit of the hair,

which might be any one’s, which was the colour of his sister’s. Kew saw

the deed done; perhaps he hurried away when Jack came to the very last

part of the sacrifice, and flung the hair into the fire, where he would

have liked to fling his heart and his life too.

So Clara was free, and the year when Jack came out of prison and went

abroad, she passed the season in London dancing about night after

night, and everybody said she was well out of that silly affair with

Jack Belsize. It was then that Barnes Newcome, Esq., a partner of the

wealthy banking firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcome, son and heir of

Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome, Bart., and M. P., descended in right

line from Bryan de Newcomyn, slain at Hastings, and barber-surgeon to

Edward the Confessor, etc. etc., cast the eyes of regard on the Lady

Clara Pulleyn, who was a little pale and languid certainly, but had

blue eyes, a delicate skin, and a pretty person, and knowing her

previous history as well as you who have just perused it, deigned to

entertain matrimonial intentions towards her ladyship.

Not one of the members of these most respectable families, excepting

poor little Clara perhaps, poor little fish (as if she had any call but

to do her duty, or to ask _à quelle sauce elle serait mangée_),

protested against this little affair of traffic; Lady Dorking had a

brood of little chickens to succeed Clara. There was little Hennie, who

was sixteen, and Biddy, who was fourteen, and Adelaide, and who knows

how many more? How could she refuse a young man, not very agreeable it

is true, nor particularly amiable, nor of good birth, at least on his

father’s side, but otherwise eligible, and heir to so many thousands a

year? The Newcomes, on their side, think it a desirable match. Barnes,

it must be confessed, is growing rather selfish, and has some bachelor

ways which a wife will reform. Lady Kew is strongly for the match. With

her own family interest, Lord Steyne and Lord Kew, her nephews, and

Barnes’s own father-in-law, Lord Dorking, in the Peers, why shall not

the Newcomes sit there too, and resume the old seat which all the world

knows they had in the time of Richard III.? Barnes and his father had

got up quite a belief about a Newcome killed at Bosworth, along with

King Richard, and hated Henry VII. as an enemy of their noble race. So

all the parties were pretty well agreed. Lady Anne wrote rather a

pretty little poem about welcoming the white Fawn to the Newcome

bowers, and “Clara” was made to rhyme with “fairer,” and “timid does

and antlered deer to dot the glades of Chanticlere,” quite in a

picturesque way. Lady Kew pronounced that the poem was very pretty

indeed.

The year after Jack Belsize made his foreign tour he returned to London

for the season. Lady Clara did not happen to be there; her health was a

little delicate, and her kind parents took her abroad; so all things

went on very smoothly and comfortably indeed.

Yes, but when things were so quiet and comfortable, when the ladies of

the two families had met at the Congress of Baden, and liked each other

so much, when Barnes and his papa the Baronet, recovered from his

illness, were actually on their journey from Aix-la-Chapelle, and Lady

Kew in motion from Kissingen to the Congress of Baden, why on earth

should Jack Belsize, haggard, wild, having been winning great sums, it

was said, at Hombourg, forsake his luck there, and run over frantically

to Baden? He wore a great thick beard, a great slouched hat—he looked

like nothing more or less than a painter or an Italian brigand.

Unsuspecting Clive, remembering the jolly dinner which Jack had

procured for him at the Guards’ mess in St. James’s, whither Jack

himself came from the Horse Guards—simple Clive, seeing Jack enter the

town, hailed him cordially, and invited him to dinner, and Jack

accepted, and Clive told him all the news he had of the place; how Kew

was there, and Lady Anne Newcome, and Ethel; and Barnes was coming. “I

am not very fond of him either,” says Clive, smiling, when Belsize

mentioned his name. So Barnes was coming to marry that pretty little

Lady Clara Pulleyn. The knowing youth! I dare say he was rather pleased

with his knowledge of the fashionable world, and the idea that Jack

Belsize would think he, too, was somebody.

Jack drank an immense quantity of champagne, and the dinner over, as

they could hear the band playing from Clive’s open windows in the snug

clean little Hôtel de France, Jack proposed they should go on the

promenade. M. de Florac was of the party; he had been exceedingly

jocular when Lord Kew’s name was mentioned, and said, “Ce petit Kiou!

M. le Duc d’Ivry, mon oncle, l’honore d’une amitié toute particulière.”

These three gentlemen walked out; the promenade was crowded, the was

band playing “Home, sweet Home” very sweetly, and the very first

persons they met on the walk were the Lords of Kew and Dorking, on the

arm of which latter venerable peer his daughter Lady Clara was hanging.

Jack Belsize, in a velvet coat, with a sombrero slouched over his face,

with a beard reaching to his waist, was, no doubt, not recognised at

first by the noble lord of Dorking, for he was greeting the other two

gentlemen with his usual politeness and affability; when, of a sudden,

Lady Clara looking up, gave a little shriek and fell down lifeless on

the gravel walk. Then the old earl recognised Mr. Belsize, and Clive

heard him say, “You villain, how dare you come here?”

Belsize had flung himself down to lift up Clara, calling her

frantically by her name, when old Dorking sprang to seize him.

“Hands off, my lord,” said the other, shaking the old man from his

back. “Confound you, Jack, hold your tongue,” roars out Kew. Clive runs

for a chair, and a dozen were forthcoming. Florac skips back with a

glass of water. Belsize runs towards the awakening girl: and the

father, for an instant losing all patience and self-command, trembling

in every limb, lifts his stick, and says again, “Leave her, you

ruffian.” “Lady Clara has fainted again, sir,” says Captain Belsize. “I

am staying at the Hôtel de France. If you touch me, old man” (this in a

very low voice), “by Heaven I shall kill you. I wish you good morning;”

and taking a last long look at the lifeless girl, he lifts his hat and

walks away. Lord Dorking mechanically takes his hat off, and stands

stupidly gazing after him. He beckoned Clive to follow him, and a crowd

of the frequenters of the place are by this time closed round the

fainting young lady.

Here was a pretty incident in the Congress of Baden!

CHAPTER XXIX.

In which Barnes comes a-wooing

Ethel had all along known that her holiday was to be a short one, and

that, her papa and Barnes arrived, there was to be no more laughing and

fun and sketching and walking with Clive; so she took the sunshine

while it lasted, determined to bear with a stout heart the bad weather.

Sir Brian Newcome and his eldest born arrived at Baden on the very

night of Jack Belsize’s performance upon the promenade; of course it

was necessary to inform the young bridegroom of the facts. His

acquaintances of the public, who by this time know his temper, and are

acquainted with his language, can imagine the explosions of the one and

the vehemence of the other; it was a perfect _feu d’artifice_ of oaths

which he sent up. Mr. Newcome only fired off these volleys of curses

when he was in a passion, but then he was in a passion very frequently.

As for Lady Clara’s little accident, he was disposed to treat that very

lightly. “Poor dear Clara, of course, of course,” he said, “she’s been

accustomed to fainting fits; no wonder she was agitated on the sight of

that villain, after his infernal treatment of her. If I had been there”

(a volley of oaths comes here along the whole line) “I should have

strangled the scoundrel; I should have murdered him.”

“Mercy, Barnes!” cries Lady Anne.

“It was a mercy Barnes was not there,” says Ethel, gravely; “a fight

between him and Captain Belsize would have been awful indeed.”

“I am afraid of no man, Ethel,” says Barnes fiercely, with another

oath.

“Hit one of your own size, Barnes,” says Miss Ethel (who had a number

of school-phrases from her little brothers, and used them on occasions

skilfully). “Hit Captain Belsize, he has no friends.”

As Jack Belsize from his height and strength was fitted to be not only

an officer but actually a private in his former gallant regiment, and

brother Barnes was but a puny young gentleman, the idea of a personal

conflict between them was rather ridiculous. Some notion of this sort

may have passed through Sir Brian’s mind, for the Baronet said with his

usual solemnity, “It is the cause, Ethel, it is the cause, my dear,

which gives strength; in such a cause as Barnes’s, with a beautiful

young creature to protect from a villain, any man would be strong, any

man would be strong.” “Since his last attack,” Barnes used to say, “my

poor old governor is exceedingly shaky, very groggy about the head;”

which was the fact. Barnes was already master at Newcome and the bank,

and awaiting with perfect composure the event which was to place the

blood-red hand of the Newcome baronetcy on his own brougham.

Casting his eyes about the room, a heap of drawings, the work of a

well-known hand which he hated, met his eye. There were a half-dozen

sketches of Baden; Ethel on horseback again; the children and the dogs

just in the old way. “D—— him, is he here?” screams out Barnes. “Is

that young pothouse villain here? and hasn’t Kew knocked his head off?

Is Clive Newcome here, sir,” he cries out to his father. “The Colonel’s

son. I have no doubt they met by——”

“By what, Barnes?” says Ethel.

“Clive is here, is he?” says the Baronet; “making caricatures, hey? You

did not mention him in your letters, Lady Anne.”

Sir Brian was evidently very much touched by his last attack.

Ethel blushed; it was a curious fact, but there had been no mention of

Clive in the ladies’ letters to Sir Brian.

“My dear, we met him by the merest chance, at Bonn, travelling with a

friend of his; and he speaks a little German, and was very useful to

us, and took one of the boys in his britzska the whole way.”

“Boys always crowd in a carriage,” says Sir Brian. “Kick your shins;

always in the way. I remember, when we used to come in the carriage

from Clapham, when we were boys, I used to kick my brother Tom’s shins.

Poor Tom, he was a devilish wild fellow in those days. You don’t

recollect Tom, my Lady Anne?”

Further anecdotes from Sir Brian are interrupted by Lord Kew’s arrival.

“How dydo, Kew!” cries Barnes. “How’s Clara?” and Lord Kew walking up

with great respect to shake hands with Sir Brian, says, “I am glad to

see you looking so well, sir,” and scarcely takes any notice of Barnes.

That Mr. Barnes Newcome was an individual not universally beloved, is a

point of history of which there can be no doubt.

“You have not told me how Clara is, my good fellow,” continues Barnes.

“I have heard all about her meeting with that villain, Jack Belsize.”

“Don’t call names, my good fellow,” says Lord Kew. “It strikes me you

don’t know Belsize well enough to call him by nicknames or by other

names. Lady Clara Pulleyn, I believe, is very unwell indeed.”

“Confound the fellow! How dared he to come here?” cries Barnes, backing

from this little rebuff.

“Dare is another ugly word. I would advise you not to use it to the

fellow himself.”

“What do you mean?” says Barnes, looking very serious in an instant.

“Easy, my good friend. Not so very loud. It appears, Ethel, that poor

Jack—_I_ know him pretty well, you see, Barnes, and may call him by

what names I like—had been dining to-day with cousin Clive; he and M.

de Florac; and that they went with Jack to the promenade, not in the

least aware of Mr. Jack Belsize’s private affairs, or of the shindy

that was going to happen.”

“By Jove, he shall answer for it,” cries out Barnes in a loud voice.

“I dare say he will, if you ask him,” says the other drily; “but not

before ladies. He’d be afraid of frightening them. Poor Jack was always

as gentle as a lamb before women. I had some talk with the Frenchman

just now,” continued Lord Kew gaily, as if wishing to pass over this

side of the subject. “Mi Lord Kiou,” says he, “we have made your friend

Jac to hear reason. He is a little _fou_, your friend Jack. He drank

champagne at dinner like an ogre. How is the _charmante_ Miss Clara?

Florac, you see, calls her Miss Clara, Barnes; the world calls her Lady

Clara. You call her Clara. You happy dog, you.”

“I don’t see why that infernal young cub of a Clive is always meddling

in our affairs,” cries out Barnes, whose rage was perpetually being

whipped into new outcries. “Why has he been about this house? Why is he

here?”

“It is very well for you that he was, Barnes,” Lord Kew said. “The

young fellow showed great temper and spirit. There has been a famous

row, but don’t be alarmed, it is all over. It is all over, everybody

may go to bed and sleep comfortably. Barnes need not get up in the

morning to punch Jack Belsize’s head. I’m sorry for your

disappointment, you Fenchurch Street fire-eater. Come away. It will be

but proper, you know, for a bridegroom elect to go and ask news of _la

charmante_ Miss Clara.”

“As we went out of the house,” Lord Kew told Clive, “I said to Barnes

that every word I had uttered upstairs with regard to the

reconciliation was a lie. That Jack Belsize was determined to have his

blood, and was walking under the lime-trees by which we had to pass

with a thundering big stick. You should have seen the state the fellow

was in, sir. The sweet youth started back, and turned as yellow as a

cream cheese. Then he made a pretext to go into his room, and said it

was for his pocket-handkerchief, but I know it was for a pistol; for he

dropped his hand from my arm into his pocket, every time I said ‘Here’s

Jack,’ as we walked down the avenue to Lord Dorking’s apartment.”

A great deal of animated business had been transacted during the two

hours subsequent to poor Lady Clara’s mishap. Clive and Belsize had

returned to the former’s quarters, while gentle J. J. was utilising the

last rays of the sun to tint a sketch which he had made during the

morning. He fled to his own apartment on the arrival of the

fierce-looking stranger, whose glaring eyes, pallid looks, shaggy

beard, clutched hands, and incessant gasps and mutterings as he strode

up and down, might well scare a peaceable person. Very terrible must

Jack have looked as he trampled those boards in the growing twilight,

anon stopping to drink another tumbler of champagne, then groaning

expressions of inarticulate wrath, and again sinking down on Clive’s

bed with a dropping head and breaking voice, crying, “Poor little

thing, poor little devil.”

“If the old man sends me a message, you will stand by me, won’t you,

Newcome? He was a fierce old fellow in his time, and I have seen him

shoot straight enough at Chanticlere. I suppose you know what the

affair is about?”

“I never heard of it before, but I think I understand,” says Clive,

gravely.

“I can’t ask Kew, he is one of the family; he is going to marry Miss

Newcome. It is no use asking him.”

All Clive’s blood tingled at the idea that any man was going to marry

Miss Newcome. He knew it before—a fortnight since, and it was nothing

to him to hear it. He was glad that the growing darkness prevented his

face from being seen. “I am of the family, too,” said Clive, “and

Barnes Newcome and I had the same grandfather.”

“Oh, yes, old boy—old banker, the weaver, what was he? I forgot,” says

poor Jack, kicking on Clive’s bed, “in that family the Newcomes don’t

count. I beg your pardon,” groans poor Jack.

They lapse into silence, during which Jack’s cigar glimmers from the

twilight corner where Clive’s bed is; whilst Clive wafts his fragrance

out of the window where he sits, and whence he has a view of Lady Anne

Newcome’s windows to the right, over the bridge across the little

rushing river, at the Hotel de Hollande hard by. The lights twinkle in

the booths under the pretty lime avenues. The hum of distant voices is

heard; the gambling-palace is all in a blaze; it is an assembly night,

and from the doors of the conversation rooms, as they open and close,

escape gusts of harmony. Behind on the little hill the darkling woods

lie calm, the edges of the fir-trees cut sharp against the sky, which

is clear with a crescent moon and the lambent lights of the starry

hosts of heaven. Clive does not see pine-robed hills and shining stars,

nor think of pleasure in its palace yonder, nor of pain writhing on his

own bed within a few feet of him, where poor Belsize was groaning. His

eyes are fixed upon a window whence comes the red light of a lamp,

across which shadows float now and again. So every light in every booth

yonder has a scheme of its own: every star above shines by itself; and

each individual heart of ours goes on brightening with its own hopes,

burning with its own desires, and quivering with its own pain.

The reverie is interrupted by the waiter, who announces M. le Vicomte

de Florac, and a third cigar is added to the other two smoky lights.

Belsize is glad to see Florac, whom he has known in a thousand haunts.

“He will do my business for me. He has been out half a dozen times,”

thinks Jack. It would relieve the poor fellow’s boiling blood that some

one would let a little out. He lays his affair before Florac; he

expects a message from Lord Dorking.

“Comment donc?” cries Florac; “il y avait donc quelque chose! Cette

pauvre petite Miss! Vous voulez tuer le père, après avoir délaissé la

fille? Cherchez d’autres témoins, Monsieur. Le Vicomte de Florac ne se

fait pas complice de telles lâchetés.”

“By Heaven,” says Jack, sitting up on the bed, with his eyes glaring,

“I have a great mind, Florac, to wring your infernal little neck, and

to fling you out of the window. Is all the world going to turn against

me? I am half mad as it is. If any man dares to think anything wrong

regarding that little angel, or to fancy that she is not as pure, and

as good, and as gentle, and as innocent, by Heaven, as any angel

there,—if any man thinks I’d be the villain to hurt her, I should just

like to see him,” says Jack. “By the Lord, sir, just bring him to me.

Just tell the waiter to send him upstairs. Hurt her! I hurt her! Oh!

I’m a fool! a fool! a d——d fool! Who’s that?”

“It’s Kew,” says a voice out of the darkness from behind cigar No. 4,

and Clive now, having a party assembled, scrapes a match and lights his

candles.

“I heard your last words, Jack,” Lord Kew says bluntly, “and you never

spoke more truth in your life. Why did you come here? What right had

you to stab that poor little heart over again, and frighten Lady Clara

with your confounded hairy face? You promised me you would never see

her. You gave your word of honour you wouldn’t, when I gave you the

money to go abroad. Hang the money, I don’t mind that; it was on your

promise that you would prowl about her no more. The Dorkings left

London before you came there; they gave you your innings. They have

behaved kindly and fairly enough to that poor girl. How was she to

marry such a bankrupt beggar as you are? What you have done is a shame,

Charley Belsize. I tell you it is unmanly and cowardly.”

“Pst,” says Florac, “numero deux, voilà le mot lâche.”

“Don’t bite your thumb at me,” Kew went on. “I know you could thrash

me, if that’s what you mean by shaking your fists; so could most men. I

tell you again—you have done a bad deed; you have broken your word of

honour, and you knocked down Clara Pulleyn to-day as cruelly as if you

had done it with your hand.”

With this rush upon him, and fiery assault of Kew, Belsize was quite

bewildered. The huge man flung up his great arms, and let them drop at

his side as a gladiator that surrenders, and asks for pity. He sank

down once more on the iron bed.

“I don’t know,” says he, rolling and rolling round, in one of his great

hands, one of the brass knobs of the bed by which he was seated. “I

don’t know, Frank,” says he, “what the world is coming to, or me

either; here is twice in one night I have been called a coward by you,

and by that little what-d’-you-call-’m. I beg your pardon, Florac. I

don’t know whether it is very brave in you to hit a chap when he is

down: hit again, I have no friends. I have acted like a blackguard, I

own that; I did break my promise; you had that safe enough, Frank, my

boy; but I did not think it would hurt her to see me,” says he, with a

dreadful sob in his voice. “By—I would have given ten years of my life

to look at her. I was going mad without her. I tried every place,

everything; went to Ems, to Wiesbaden, to Hombourg, and played like

hell. It used to excite me once, and now I don’t care for it. I won no

end of money,—no end for a poor beggar like me, that is; but I couldn’t

keep away. I couldn’t, and if she had been at the North Pole, by

Heavens I would have followed her.”

“And so just to look at her, just to give your confounded stupid eyes

two minutes’ pleasure, you must bring about all this pain, you great

baby,” cries Kew, who was very soft-hearted, and in truth quite torn

himself by the sight of poor Jack’s agony.

“Get me to see her for five minutes, Kew,” cries the other, griping his

comrade’s hand in his; “but for five minutes.”

“For shame,” cries Lord Kew, shaking away his hand, “be a man, Jack,

and have no more of this puling. It’s not a baby, that must have its

toy, and cries because it can’t get it. Spare the poor girl this pain,

for her own sake, and balk yourself of the pleasure of bullying and

making her unhappy.”

Belsize started up with looks that were by no means pleasant. “There’s

enough of this chaff I have been called names, and blackguarded quite

sufficiently for one sitting. I shall act as I please. I choose to take

my own way, and if any gentleman stops me he has full warning.” And he

fell to tugging his mustachios, which were of a dark tawny hue, and

looked as warlike as he had ever done on any field-day.

“I take the warning!” said Lord Kew. “And if I know the way you are

going, as I think I do, I will do my best to stop you, madman as you

are! You can hardly propose to follow her to her own doorway and pose

yourself before your mistress as the murderer of her father, like

Rodrigue in the French play. If Rooster were here it would be his

business to defend his sister; In his absence I will take the duty on

myself, and I say to you, Charles Belsize, in the presence of these

gentlemen, that any man who iusults this young lady, who persecutes her

with his presence, knowing it can but pain her, who persists in

following her when he has given his word of honour to avoid her, that

such a man is——”

“What, my Lord Kew?” cries Belsize, whose chest began to heave.

“You know what,” answers the other. “You know what a man is who insults

a poor woman, and breaks his word of honour. Consider the word said,

and act upon it as you think fit.”

“I owe you four thousand pounds, Kew,” says Belsize, “and I have got

four thousand on the bills, besides four hundred when I came out of

that place.”

“You insult me the more,” cries Kew, flashing out, “by alluding to the

money. If you will leave this place to-morrow, well and good; if not,

you will please to give me a meeting. Mr. Newcome will you be so kind

as to act as my friend? We are connexions, you know, and this gentleman

chooses to insult a lady who is about to become one of our family.”

“C’est bien, milord. Ma foi! c’est d’agir en vrai gentilhomme,” says

Florac, delighted. “Touchez-là, mon petit Kiou. Tu as du cœur. Godam!

you are a brave! A brave fellow!” and the Viscount reached out his hand

cordially to Lord Kew.

His purpose was evidently pacific. From Kew he turned to the great

guardsman, and taking him by the coat began to apostrophise him. “And

you, mon gros,” says he, “is there no way of calming this hot blood

without a saignée? Have you a penny to the world? Can you hope to carry

off your Chiméne, O Rodrigue, and live by robbing afterwards on the

great way? Suppose you kill ze Fazér, you kill Kiou, you kill Roostere,

your Chiméne will have a pretty moon of honey.”

“What the devil do you mean about your Chiméne and your Rodrigue? Do

you mean, Viscount——?” says Belsize, “Jack Belsize once more, and he

dashed his hand across his eyes. Kew has riled me, and he drove me half

wild. I ain’t much of a Frenchman, but I know enough of what you said,

to say it’s true, by Jove, and that Frank Kew’s a trump. That’s what

you mean. Give us your hand, Frank. God bless you, old boy; don’t be

too hard upon me, you know I’m d——d miserable, that I am. Hullo! What’s

this?” Jack’s pathetic speech was interrupted at this instant, for the

Vicomte de Florac in his enthusiasm rushed into his arms, and jumped up

towards his face and proceeded to kiss Jack. A roar of immense

laughter, as he shook the little Viscount off, cleared the air and

ended this quarrel.

Everybody joined in this chorus, the Frenchman with the rest, who said,

“he loved to laugh meme when he did not know why.” And now came the

moment of the evening, when Clive, according to Lord Kew’s saying,

behaved so well and prevented Barnes from incurring a great danger. In

truth, what Mr. Clive did or said amounted exactly to nothing. What

moments can we not all remember in our lives when it would have been so

much wittier and wiser to say and do nothing?

Florac, a very sober drinker like most of his nation, was blessed with

a very fine appetite, which, as he said, renewed itself thrice a day at

least. He now proposed supper, and poor Jack was for supper too, and

especially more drink, champagne and seltzer-water; “bring champagne

and seltzer-water, there is nothing like it.” Clive could not object to

this entertainment, which was ordered forthwith, and the four young men

sat down to share it.

Whilst Florac was partaking of his favourite écrévisses, giving not

only his palate but his hands, his beard, his mustachios and cheeks a

full enjoyment of the sauce which he found so delicious, he chose to

revert now and again to the occurrences which had just passed, and

which had better perhaps have been forgotten, and gaily rallied Belsize

upon his warlike humour. “If ze petit pretendu was here, what would you

have done wiz him, Jac? You would croquer im, like zis ecrevisse, hein?

You would mache his bones, hein?”

Jack, who had forgotten to put the seltzer-water into his champagne,

writhed at the idea of having Barnes Newcome before him, and swore,

could he but see Barnes, he would take the little villain’s life.

And but for Clive, Jack might actually have beheld his enemy. Young

Clive after the meal went to the window with his eternal cigar, and of

course began to look at That Other window. Here, as he looked, a

carriage had at the moment driven up. He saw two servants descend, then

two gentlemen, and then he heard a well-known voice swearing at the

couriers. To his credit be it said, he checked the exclamation which

was on his lips, and when he came back to the table did not announce to

Kew or his right-hand neighbour Belsize, that his uncle and Barnes had

arrived. Belsize, by this time, had had quite too much wine: when the

viscount went away, poor Jack’s head was nodding; he had been awake all

the night before; sleepless for how many nights previous. He scarce

took any notice of the Frenchman’s departure.

Lord Kew remained. He was for taking Jack to walk, and for reasoning

with him further, and for entering more at large than perhaps he chose

to do before the two others upon this family dispute. Clive took a

moment to whisper to Lord Kew, “My uncle and Barnes are arrived, don’t

let Belsize go out; for goodness’ sake let us get him to bed.”

And lest the poor fellow should take a fancy to visit his mistress by

moonlight, when he was safe in his room Lord Kew softly turned the key

in Mr. Jack’s door.

CHAPTER XXX.

A Retreat

As Clive lay awake revolving the strange incidents of the day, and

speculating upon the tragedy in which he had been suddenly called to

take a certain part, a sure presentiment told him that his own happy

holiday was come to an end, and that the clouds and storm which he had

always somehow foreboded, were about to break and obscure this brief

pleasant period of sunshine. He rose at a very early hour, flung his

windows open, looked out no doubt towards those other windows in the

neighbouring hotel, where he may have fancied he saw a curtain

stirring, drawn by a hand that every hour now he longed more to press.

He turned back into his chamber with a sort of groan, and surveyed some

of the relics of the last night’s little feast, which still remained on

the table. There were the champagne-flasks which poor Jack Belsize had

emptied, the tall seltzer-water bottle, from which the gases had issued

and mingled with the hot air of the previous night’s talk; glasses with

dregs of liquor, ashes of cigars, or their black stumps, strewing the

cloth; the dead men, the burst guns of yesterday’s battle. Early as it

was, his neighbour J. J had been up before him. Clive could hear him

singing as was his wont when the pencil went well, and the colours

arranged themselves to his satisfaction over his peaceful and happy

work.

He pulled his own drawing-table to the window, set out his board and

colour-box, filled a great glass from the seltzer-water bottle, drank

some of the vapid liquor, and plunged his brushes in the rest, with

which he began to paint. The work all went wrong. There was no song for

him over his labour; he dashed brush and board aside after a while,

opened his drawers, pulled out his portmanteaus from under the bed, and

fell to packing mechanically. J. J. heard the noise from the next room,

and came in smiling, with a great painting-brush in his mouth.

“Have the bills in, J. J.,” says Clive. “Leave your cards on your

friends, old boy; say good-bye to that pretty little strawberry-girl

whose picture you have been doing; polish it off to-day, and dry the

little thing’s tears. I read P.P.C. in the stars last night, and my

familiar spirit came to me in a vision, and said, ‘Clive, son of

Thomas, put thy travelling-boots on.’”

Lest any premature moralist should prepare to cry fie against the good,

pure-minded little J. J., I hereby state that his strawberry-girl was a

little village maiden of seven years old, whose sweet little picture a

bishop purchased at the next year’s Exhibition.

“Are you going already?” cries J. J., removing the bit out of his

mouth. “I thought you had arranged parties for a week to come, and that

the princesses and the duchesses had positively forbidden the departure

of your lordship!”

“We have dallied at Capua long enough,” says Clive; “and the legions

have the route for Rome. So wills Hannibal, the son of Hasdrubal.”

“The son of Hasdrubal is quite right,” his companion answered; “the

sooner we march the better. I have always said it; I will get all the

accounts in. Hannibal has been living like a voluptuous Carthaginian

prince. One, two, three champagne-bottles! There will be a deuce of a

bill to pay.”

“Ah! there _will_ be a deuce of a bill to pay,” says Clive, with a

groan whereof J. J. knew the portent; for the young men had the

confidence of youth one in another. Clive was accustomed to pour out

his full heart to any crony who was near him; and indeed had he spoken

never a word, his growing attachment to his cousin was not hard to see.

A hundred times, and with the glowing language and feelings of youth,

with the fire of his twenty years, with the ardour of a painter, he had

spoken of her and described her. Her magnanimous simplicity, her

courage and lofty scorn, her kindness towards her little family, her

form, her glorious colour of rich carnation and dazzling white, her

queenly grace when quiescent and in motion, had constantly formed the

subjects of this young gentleman’s ardent eulogies. As he looked at a

great picture or statue, as the Venus of Milo, calm and deep,

unfathomably beautiful as the sea from which she sprung; as he looked

at the rushing Aurora of the Rospigliosi, or the Assumption of Titian,

more bright and glorious than sunshine, or that divine Madonna and

divine Infant, of Dresden, whose sweet faces must have shone upon

Raphael out of heaven; his heart sang hymns, as it were, before these

gracious altars; and, somewhat as he worshipped these masterpieces of

his art, he admired the beauty of Ethel.

J. J. felt these things exquisitely after his manner, and enjoyed

honest Clive’s mode of celebration and rapturous fioriture of song; but

Ridley’s natural note was much gentler, and he sang his hymns in

plaintive minors. Ethel was all that was bright and beautiful but—but

she was engaged to Lord Kew. The shrewd kind confidant used gently to

hint the sad fact to the impetuous hero of this piece. The impetuous

hero knew this quite well. As he was sitting over his painting-board he

would break forth frequently, after his manner, in which laughter and

sentiment were mingled, and roar out with all the force of his healthy

young lungs—

“But her heart it is another’s, she never—can—be—mine;”

and then hero and confidant would laugh each at his drawing-table. Miss

Ethel went between the two gentlemen by the name of Alice Grey.

Very likely, Night, the Grey Mentor, had given Clive Newcome the

benefit of his sad counsel. Poor Belsize’s agony, and the wretchedness

of the young lady who shared in the desperate passion, may have set our

young man a-thinking; and Lord Kew’s frankness and courage, and honour,

whereof Clive had been a witness during the night, touched his heart

with a generous admiration, and manned him for a trial which he felt

was indeed severe. He thought of the dear old father ploughing the seas

on the way to his duty, and was determined, by Heaven’s help, to do his

own. Only three weeks since, when strolling careless about Bonn he had

lighted upon Ethel and the laughing group of little cousins, he was a

boy as they were, thinking but of the enjoyment of the day and the

sunshine, as careless as those children. And now the thoughts and

passions which had sprung up in a week or two, had given him an

experience such as years do not always furnish; and our friend was to

show, not only that he could feel love in his heart, but that he could

give proof of courage, and self-denial, and honour.

“Do you remember, J. J.,” says he, as boots and breeches went plunging

into the portmanteau, and with immense energy, he pummels down one upon

the other, “do you remember” (a dig into the snowy bosom of a dress

cambric shirt) “my dear old father’s only campaign story of his running

away” (a frightful blow into the ribs of a waistcoat), “running away at

Asseer-Ghur?”

“Asseer-What?” says J. J. wondering.

“The siege of Asseer-Ghur!” says Clive, “fought in the eventful year

1803: Lieutenant Newcome, who has very neat legs, let me tell you,

which also he has imparted to his descendants, had put on a new pair of

leather breeches, for he likes to go handsomely dressed into action.

His horse was shot, the enemy were upon him, and the governor had to

choose between death and retreat. I have heard his brother-officers say

that my dear old father was the bravest man they ever knew, the coolest

hand, sir. What do you think it was Lieutenant Newcome’s duty to do

under these circumstances? To remain alone as he was, his troop having

turned about, and to be cut down by the Mahratta horsemen—to perish or

to run, sir?”

“I know which I should have done,” says Ridley.

“Exactly. Lieutenant Newcome adopted that course. His bran-new leather

breeches were exceedingly tight, and greatly incommoded the rapidity of

his retreating movement, but he ran away, sir, and afterwards begot

your obedient servant. That is the history of the battle of

Asseer-Ghur.”

“And now for the moral,” says J. J., not a little amused.

“J. J., old boy, this is my battle of Asseer-Ghur. I am off. Dip into

the money-bag: pay the people: be generous, J. J., but not too

prodigal. The chambermaid is ugly, yet let her not want for a crown to

console her at our departure. The waiters have been brisk and servile;

reward the slaves for their labours. Forget not the humble boots, so

shall he bless us when we depart. For artists are gentlemen, though

Ethel does not think so. De—No—God bless her, God bless her,” groans

out Clive, cramming his two fists into his eyes. If Ridley admired him

before, he thought none the worse of him now. And if any generous young

fellow in life reads the Fable, which may possibly concern him, let him

take a senior’s counsel and remember that there are perils in our

battle, God help us, from which the bravest had best run away.

Early as the morning yet was, Clive had a visitor, and the door opened

to let in Lord Kew’s honest face. Ridley retreated before it into his

own den; the appearance of earls scared the modest painter, though he

was proud and pleased that his Clive should have their company. Lord

Kew indeed lived in more splendid apartments on the first floor of the

hotel, Clive and his friend occupying a couple of spacious chambers on

the second story. “You are an early bird,” says Kew. “I got up myself

in a panic before daylight almost; Jack was making a deuce of a row in

his room, and fit to blow the door out. I have been coaxing him for

this hour; I wish we had thought of giving him a dose of laudanum last

night; if it finished him, poor old boy, it would do him no harm.” And

then, laughing, he gave Clive an account of his interview with Barnes

on the previous night. “You seem to be packing up to go, too,” says

Lord Kew, with a momentary glance of humour darting from his keen eyes.

“The weather is breaking up here, and if you are going to cross the St.

Gothard, as the Newcomes told me, the sooner the better. It’s bitter

cold over the mountains in October.”

“Very cold,” says Clive, biting his nails.

“Post or Vett.?” asks my lord.

“I bought a carriage at Frankfort,” says Clive, in an offhand manner.

“Hulloh!” cries the other, who was perfectly kind, and entirely frank

and pleasant, and showed no difference in his conversation with men of

any degree, except perhaps that to his inferiors in station he was a

little more polite than to his equals; but who would as soon have

thought of a young artist leaving Baden in a carriage of his own as of

his riding away on a dragon.

“I only gave twenty pounds for the carriage; it’s a little light thing,

we are two, a couple of horses carry us and our traps, you know, and we

can stop where we like. I don’t depend upon my profession,” Clive

added, with a blush. “I made three guineas once, and that is the only

money I ever gained in my life.”

“Of course, my dear fellow, have not I been to your father’s house? At

that pretty ball, and seen no end of fine people there? We are young

swells. I know that very well. We only paint for pleasure.”

“We are artists, and we intend to paint for money, my lord,” says

Clive. “Will your lordship give me an order?”

“My lordship serves me right,” the other said. “I think, Newcome, as

you are going, I think you might do some folks here a good turn, though

the service is rather a disagreeable one. Jack Belsize is not fit to be

left alone. I can’t go away from here just now for reasons of state. Do

be a good fellow and take him with you. Put the Alps between him and

this confounded business, and if I can serve you in any way I shall be

delighted, if you will furnish me with the occasion. Jack does not know

yet that our amiable Barnes is here. I know how fond you are of him. I

have heard the story—glass of claret and all. We all love Barnes. How

that poor Lady Clara can have accepted him the Lord knows. We are

fearfully and wonderfully made, especially women.”

“Good heavens,” Clive broke out, “can it be possible that a young

creature can have been brought to like such a selfish, insolent coxcomb

as that, such a cocktail as Barnes Newcome? You know very well, Lord

Kew, what his life is. There was a poor girl whom he brought out of a

Newcome factory when he was a boy himself, and might have had a heart

one would have thought, whom he ill-treated, whom he deserted, and

flung out of doors without a penny, upon some pretence of her

infidelity towards him; who came and actually sat down on the steps of

Park Lane with a child on each side of her, and not their cries and

their hunger, but the fear of his own shame and a dread of a

police-court, forced him to give her a maintenance. I never see the

fellow but I loathe him, and long to kick him out of window and this

man is to marry a noble young lady because forsooth he is a partner in

a bank, and heir to seven or eight thousand a year. Oh, it is a shame,

it is a shame! It makes me sick when I think of the lot which the poor

thing is to endure.”

“It is not a nice story,” said Lord Kew, rolling a cigarette; “Barnes

is not a nice man. I give you that in. You have not heard it talked

about in the family, have you?”

“Good heavens! you don’t suppose that I would speak to Ethel, to Miss

Newcome, about such a foul subject as that?” cries Clive. “I never

mentioned it to my own father. He would have turned Barnes out of his

doors if he had known it.”

“It was the talk about town, I know,” Kew said dryly. “Everything is

told in those confounded clubs. I told you I give up Barnes. I like him

no more than you do. He may have treated the woman ill, I suspect he

has not an angelical temper: but in this matter he has not been so bad,

so very bad as it would seem. The first step is wrong, of course—those

factory towns—that sort of thing, you know—well, well, the commencement

of the business is a sad one. But he is not the only sinner in London.

He has declared on his honour to me when the matter was talked about,

and he was coming on for election at Bays’s, and was as nearly as any

man I ever knew in my life,—he declared on his word that he only parted

from poor Mrs. Delacy, (Mrs. Delacy, the devil used to call herself)

because he found that she had served him—as such women will serve men.

He offered to send his children to school in Yorkshire—rather a cheap

school—but she would not part with them. She made a scandal in order to

get good terms, and she succeeded. He was anxious to break the

connexion: he owned it had hung like a millstone round his neck and

caused him a great deal of remorse—annoyance you may call it. He was

immensely cut up about it. I remember, when that fellow was hanged for

murdering a woman, Barnes said he did not wonder at his having done it.

Young men make those connexions in their early lives and rue them all

their days after. He was heartily sorry, that we may take for granted.

He wished to lead a proper life. My grandmother managed this business

with the Dorkings. Lady Kew still pulls stroke oar in our boat, you

know, and the old woman will not give up her place. They know

everything, the elders do. He is a clever fellow. He is witty in his

way. When he likes he can make himself quite agreeable to some people.

There has been no sort of force. You don’t suppose young ladies are

confined in dungeons and subject to tortures, do you? But there is a

brood of Pulleyns at Chanticlere, and old Dorking has nothing to give

them. His daughter accepted Barnes of her own free will, he knowing

perfectly well of that previous affair with Jack. The poor devil bursts

into the place yesterday and the girl drops down in a faint. She will

see Belsize this very day if he likes. I took a note from Lady Dorking

to him at five o’clock this morning. If he fancies that there is any

constraint put upon Lady Clara’s actions she will tell him with her own

lips that she has acted of her own free will. She will marry the

husband she has chosen and do her duty by him. You are quite a young un

who boil and froth up with indignation at the idea that a girl hardly

off with an old love should take on with a new——”

“I am not indignant with her,” says Clive, “for breaking with Belsize,

but for marrying Barnes.”

“You hate him, and you know he is your enemy; and, indeed, young

fellow, he does not compliment you in talking about you. A pretty young

scapegrace he has made you out to be, and very likely thinks you to be.

It depends on the colours in which a fellow is painted. Our friends and

our enemies draw us,—and I often think both pictures are like,”

continued the easy world-philosopher. “You hate Barnes, and cannot see

any good in him. He sees none in you. There have been tremendous

shindies in Park Lane _à propos_ of your worship, and of a subject

which I don’t care to mention,” said Lord Kew, with some dignity; “and

what is the upshot of all this malevolence? I like you; I like your

father, I think he is a noble old boy; there are those who represented

him as a sordid schemer. Give Mr. Barnes the benefit of common charity

at any rate; and let others like him, if you do not.

“And as for this romance of love,” the young nobleman went on, kindling

as he spoke, and forgetting the slang and colloquialisms with which we

garnish all our conversation—“this fine picture of Jenny and Jessamy

falling in love at first sight, billing and cooing in an arbour, and

retiring to a cottage afterwards to go on cooing and billing—Psha! what

folly is this! It is good for romances, and for misses to sigh about;

but any man who walks through the world with his eyes open, knows how

senseless is all this rubbish. I don’t say that a young man and woman

are not to meet, and to fall in love that instant, and to marry that

day year, and love each other till they are a hundred; that is the

supreme lot—but that is the lot which the gods only grant to Baucis and

Philemon, and a very, very few besides. As for the rest, they must

compromise; make themselves as comfortable as they can, and take the

good and the bad together. And as for Jenny and Jessamy, by Jove! look

round among your friends, count up the love matches, and see what has

been the end of most of them! Love in a cottage! Who is to pay the

landlord for the cottage? Who is to pay for Jenny’s tea and cream, and

Jessamy’s mutton-chops? If he has cold mutton, he will quarrel with

her. If there is nothing in the cupboard, a pretty meal they make. No,

you cry out against people in our world making money marriages. Why,

kings and queens marry on the same understanding. My butcher has saved

a stockingful of money, and marries his daughter to a young salesman;

Mr. and Mrs. Salesman prosper in life, and get an alderman’s daughter

for their son. My attorney looks out amongst his clients for an

eligible husband for Miss Deeds; sends his son to the bar, into

Parliament, where he cuts a figure and becomes attorney-general, makes

a fortune, has a house in Belgrave Square, and marries Miss Deeds of

the second generation to a peer. Do not accuse us of being more sordid

than our neighbours. We do but as the world does; and a girl in our

society accepts the best _parti_ which offers itself, just as Miss

Chummey, when entreated by two young gentlemen of the order of

costermongers, inclines to the one who rides from market on a moke,

rather than to the gentleman who sells his greens from a handbasket.”

This tirade, which his lordship delivered with considerable spirit, was

intended no doubt to carry a moral for Clive’s private hearing; and

which, to do him justice, the youth was not slow to comprehend. The

point was, “Young man, if certain persons of rank choose to receive you

very kindly, who have but a comely face, good manners, and three or

four hundred pounds a year, do not presume upon their good-nature, or

indulge in certain ambitious hopes which your vanity may induce you to

form. Sail down the stream with the brass-pots, Master Earthen-pot, but

beware of coming too near! You are a nice young man, but there are

prizes which are some too good for you, and are meant for your betters.

And you might as well ask the prime minister for the next vacant garter

as expect to wear on your breast such a star as Ethel Newcome.”

Before Clive made his accustomed visit to his friends at the hotel

opposite, the last great potentiary had arrived who was to take part in

the family Congress of Baden. In place of Ethel’s flushing cheeks and

bright eyes, Clive found, on entering Lady Anne Newcome’s sitting-room,

the parchment-covered features and the well-known hooked beak of the

old Countess of Kew. To support the glances from beneath the bushy

black eyebrows on each side of that promontory was no pleasant matter.

The whole family cowered under Lady Kew’s eyes and nose, and she ruled

by force of them. It was only Ethel whom these awful features did not

utterly subdue and dismay.

Besides Lady Kew, Clive had the pleasure of finding his lordship, her

grandson, Lady Anne and children of various sizes, and Mr. Barnes; not

one of whom was the person whom Clive desired to behold.

The queer glance in Kew’s eye directed towards Clive, who was himself

not by any means deficient in perception, informed him that there had

just been a conversation in which his own name had figured. Having been

abusing Clive extravagantly as he did whenever he mentioned his

cousin’s name, Barnes must needs hang his head when the young fellow

came in. His hand was yet on the chamber-door, and Barnes was calling

his miscreant and scoundrel within; so no wonder Barnes had a hangdog

look. But as for Lady Kew, that veteran diplomatist allowed no signs of

discomfiture, or any other emotion, to display themselves on her

ancient countenance. Her bushy eyebrows were groves of mystery, her

unfathomable eyes were wells of gloom.

She gratified Clive by a momentary loan of two knuckly old fingers,

which he was at liberty to hold or to drop; and then he went on to

enjoy the felicity of shaking hands with Mr. Barnes, who, observing and

enjoying his confusion over Lady Kew’s reception, determined to try

Clive in the same way, and he gave Clive at the same time a

supercilious “How de dah,” which the other would have liked to drive

down his throat. A constant desire to throttle Mr. Barnes—to beat him

on the nose—to send him flying out of window, was a sentiment with

which this singular young man inspired many persons whom he accosted. A

biographer ought to be impartial, yet I own, in a modified degree, to

have partaken of this sentiment. He looked very much younger than his

actual time of life, and was not of commanding stature; but patronised

his equals, nay, let us say, his betters, so insufferably, that a

common wish for his suppression existed amongst many persons in

society.

Clive told me of this little circumstance, and I am sorry to say of his

own subsequent ill behaviour. “We were standing apart from the ladies,”

so Clive narrated, “when Barnes and I had our little passage-of-arms.

He had tried the finger business upon me before, and I had before told

him, either to shake hands or to leave it alone. You know the way in

which the impudent little beggar stands astride, and sticks his little

feet out. I brought my heel well down on his confounded little

varnished toe, and gave it a scrunch which made Mr. Barnes shriek out

one of his loudest oaths.”

“D—— clumsy ——!” screamed out Barnes.

Clive said, in a low voice, “I thought you only swore at women,

Barnes.”

“It is you that say things before women, Clive,” cries his cousin,

looking very furious.

Mr. Clive lost all patience. “In what company, Barnes, would you like

me to say, that I think you are a snob? Will you have it on the Parade?

Come out and I will speak to you.”

“Barnes can’t go out on the Parade,” cries Lord Kew, bursting out

laughing: “there’s another gentleman there wanting him.” And two of the

three young men enjoyed this joke exceedingly. I doubt whether Barnes

Newcome Newcome, Esq., of Newcome, was one of the persons amused.

“What wickedness are you three boys laughing at?” cries Lady Anne,

perfectly innocent and good-natured; “no good, I will be bound. Come

here, Clive.” Our young friend, it must be premised, had no sooner

received the thrust of Lady Kew’s two fingers on entering, than it had

been intimated to him that his interview with that gracious lady was at

an end. For she had instantly called her daughter to her, with whom her

ladyship fell a-whispering; and then it was that Clive retreated from

Lady Kew’s hand, to fall into Barnes’s.

“Clive trod on Barnes’s toe,” cries out cheery Lord Kew, “and has hurt

Barnes’s favourite corn, so that he cannot go out, and is actually

obliged to keep the room. That’s what we were laughing at.”

“Hem!” growled Lady Kew. She knew to what her grandson alluded. Lord

Kew had represented Jack Belsize, and his thundering big stick, in the

most terrific colours to the family council. The joke was too good a

one not to serve twice.

Lady Anne, in her whispered conversation with the old Countess, had

possibly deprecated her mother’s anger towards poor Clive, for when he

came up to the two ladies, the younger took his hand with great

kindness, and said, “My dear Clive, we are very sorry you are going.

You were of the greatest use to us on the journey. I am sure you have

been uncommonly good-natured and obliging, and we shall all miss you

very much.” Her gentleness smote the generous young fellow, and an

emotion of gratitude towards her for being so compassionate to him in

his misery, caused his cheeks to blush and his eyes perhaps to moisten.

“Thank you, dear aunt,” says he, “you have been very good and kind to

me. It is I that shall feel lonely; but—but it is quite time that I

should go to my work.”

“Quite time!” said the severe possessor of the eagle beak. “Baden is a

bad place for young men. They make acquaintances here of which very

little good can come. They frequent the gambling-tables, and live with

the most disreputable French Viscounts. We have heard of your

goings-on, sir. It is a great pity that Colonel Newcome did not take

you with him to India.”

“My dear mamma,” cries Lady Anne, “I am sure Clive has been a very good

boy indeed.” The old lady’s morality put a stop to Clive’s pathetic

mood, and he replied with a great deal of spirit, “Dear Lady Anne, you

have been always very good, and kindness is nothing surprising from

you; but Lady Kew’s advice, which I should not have ventured to ask, is

an unexpected favour; my father knows the extent of the gambling

transactions to which your ladyship was pleased to allude, and

introduced me to the gentleman whose acquaintance you don’t seem to

think eligible.”

“My good young man, I think it is time you were off,” Lady Kew said,

this time with great good-humour; she liked Clive’s spirit, and as long

as he interfered with none of her plans, was quite disposed to be

friendly with him. “Go to Rome, go to Florence, go wherever you like,

and study very hard, and make very good pictures, and come back again,

and we shall all be very glad to see you. You have very great

talents—these sketches are really capital.”

“Is not he very clever, mamma?” said kind Lady Anne, eagerly. Clive

felt the pathetic mood coming on again, and an immense desire to hug

Lady Anne in his arms, and to kiss her. How grateful are we—how touched

a frank and generous heart is for a kind word extended to us in our

pain! The pressure of a tender hand nerves a man for an operation, and

cheers him for the dreadful interview with the surgeon.

That cool old operator, who had taken Mr. Clive’s case in hand, now

produced her shining knife, and executed the first cut with perfect

neatness and precision. “We are come here, as I suppose you know, Mr.

Newcome, upon family matters, and I frankly tell you that I think, for

your own sake, you would be much better away. I wrote my daughter a

great scolding when I heard that you were in this place.”

“But it was by the merest chance, mamma, indeed it was,” cries Lady

Anne.

“Of course, by the merest chance, and by the merest chance I heard of

it too. A little bird came and told me at Kissingen. You have no more

sense, Anne, than a goose. I have told you so a hundred times. Lady

Anne requested you to stay, and I, my good young friend, request you to

go away.”

“I needed no request,” said Clive. “My going, Lady Kew, is my own act.

I was going without requiring any guide to show me to the door.”

“No doubt you were, and my arrival is the signal for Mr. Newcome’s _bon

jour_. I am Bogey, and I frighten everybody away. By the scene which

you witnessed yesterday, my good young friend, and all that painful

_esclandre_ on the promenade, you must see how absurd, and dangerous,

and wicked—yes, wicked it is for parents to allow intimacies to spring

up between young people, which can only lead to disgrace and

unhappiness. Lady Dorking was another good-natured goose. I had not

arrived yesterday ten minutes, when my maid came running in to tell me

of what had occurred on the promenade; and, tired as I was, I went that

instant to Jane Dorking and passed the evening with her, and that poor

little creature to whom Captain Belsize behaved so cruelly. She does

not care a fig for him—not one fig. Her childish inclination is passed

away these two years, whilst Mr. Jack was performing his feats in

prison; and if the wretch flatters himself that it was on his account

she was agitated yesterday, he is perfectly mistaken, and you may tell

him Lady Kew said so. She is subject to fainting fits. Dr. Finck has

been attending her ever since she has been here. She fainted only last

Tuesday at the sight of a rat walking about their lodgings (they have

dreadful lodgings, the Dorkings), and no wonder she was frightened at

the sight of that great coarse tipsy wretch! She is engaged, as you

know, to your connexion, my grandson, Barnes:—in all respects a most

eligible union. The rank of life of the parties suits them to one

another. She is a good young woman, and Barnes has experienced from

persons of another sort such horrors, that he will know the blessing of

domestic virtue. It was high time he should. I say all this in perfect

frankness to you.

“Go back again and play in the garden, little brats” (this to the

innocents who came frisking in from the lawn in front of the windows).

“You have been? And Barnes sent you in here? Go up to Miss Quigley. No,

stop. Go and tell Ethel to come down; bring her down with you. Do you

understand?”

The unconscious infants toddle upstairs to their sister; and Lady Kew

blandly says, “Ethel’s engagement to my grandson, Lord Kew, has long

been settled in our family, though these things are best not talked

about until they are quite determined, you know, my dear Mr. Newcome.

When we saw you and your father in London, we heard that you too-that

you too were engaged to a young lady in your own rank of life, a

Miss—what was her name?—Miss MacPherson, Miss Mackenzie. Your aunt,

Mrs. Hobson Newcome, who I must say is a most blundering silly person,

had set about this story. It appears there is no truth in it. Do not

look surprised that I know about your affairs. I am an old witch, and

know numbers of things.”

And, indeed, how Lady Kew came to know this fact, whether her maid

corresponded with Lady Anne’s maid, what her ladyship’s means of

information were, avowed or occult, this biographer has never been able

to ascertain. Very likely Ethel, who in these last three weeks had been

made aware of that interesting circumstance, had announced it to Lady

Kew in the course of a cross-examination, and there may have been a

battle between the granddaughter and the grandmother, of which the

family chronicler of the Newcomes has had no precise knowledge. That

there were many such I know—skirmishes, sieges, and general

engagements. When we hear the guns, and see the wounded, we know there

has been a fight. Who knows had there been a battle-royal, and was Miss

Newcome having her wounds dressed upstairs?

“You will like to say good-bye to your cousin, I know,” Lady Kew

continued, with imperturbable placidity. “Ethel, my dear, here is Mr.

Clive Newcome, who has come to bid us all good-bye.” The little girls

came trotting down at this moment, each holding a skirt of their elder

sister. She looked rather pale, but her expression was haughty—almost

fierce.

Clive rose up as she entered, from the sofa by the old Countess’s side,

which place she had pointed him to take during the amputation. He rose

up and put his hair back off his face, and said very calmly, “Yes, I’m

come to say good-bye. My holidays are over, and Ridley and I are off

for Rome; good-bye, and God bless you, Ethel.”

She gave him her hand and said, “Good-bye, Clive,” but her hand did not

return his pressure, and dropped to her side, when he let it go.

Hearing the words good-bye, little Alice burst into a howl, and little

Maude, who was an impetuous little thing, stamped her little red shoes

and said, “It san’t be good-bye. Tlive san’t go.” Alice, roaring, clung

hold of Clive’s trousers. He took them up gaily, each on an arm, as he

had done a hundred times, and tossed the children on to his shoulders,

where they used to like to pull his yellow mustachios. He kissed the

little hands and faces, and a moment after was gone.

“Qu’as-tu?” says M. de Florac, meeting him going over the bridge to his

own hotel. “Qu’as-tu, mon petit Claive? Est-ce qu’on vient de

t’arracher une dent?”

“C’est ça,” says Clive, and walked into the Hôtel de France. “Hulloh!

J. J.! Ridley!” he sang out. “Order the trap out and let’s be off.” “I

thought we were not to march till to-morrow,” says J. J., divining

perhaps that some catastrophe had occurred. Indeed, Mr. Clive was going

a day sooner than he had intended. He woke at Fribourg the next

morning. It was the grand old cathedral he looked at, not Baden of the

pine-clad hills, of the pretty walks and the lime-tree avenues. Not

Baden, the prettiest booth of all Vanity Fair. The crowds and the

music, the gambling-tables and the cadaverous croupiers and chinking

gold, were far out of sight and hearing. There was one window in the

Hôtel de Hollande that he thought of, how a fair arm used to open it in

the early morning, how the muslin curtain in the morning air swayed to

and fro. He would have given how much to see it once more! Walking

about at Fribourg in the night, away from his companions, he had

thought of ordering horses, galloping back to Baden, and once again

under that window, calling Ethel, Ethel. But he came back to his room

and the quiet J. J., and to poor Jack Belsize, who had had his tooth

taken out too.

We had almost forgotten Jack, who took a back seat in Clive’s carriage,

as befits a secondary personage in this history, and Clive in truth had

almost forgotten him too. But Jack having his own cares and business,

and having rammed his own carpet-bag, brought it down without a word,

and Clive found him environed in smoke when he came down to take his

place in the little britzska. I wonder whether the window at the Hôtel

de Hollande saw him go? There are some curtains behind which no

historian, however prying, is allowed to peep.

“Tiens, le petit part,” says Florac of the cigar, who was always

sauntering. “Yes, we go,” says Clive. “There is a fourth place,

Viscount; will you come too?”

“I would love it well,” replies Florac, “but I am here in faction. My

cousin and seigneur M. le Duc d’Ivry is coming all the way from

Bagneres de Bigorre. He says he counts on me:—affaires mon cher,

affaires d’etat.”

“How pleased the duchess will be! Easy with that bag!” shouts Clive.

“How pleased the princess will be!” In truth he hardly knew what he was

saying.

“Vous croyez; vous croyez,” says M. de Florac. “As you have a fourth

place, I know who had best take it.”

“And who is that?” asked the young traveller.

Lord Kew and Barnes, Esq., of Newcome, came out of the Hotel de

Hollande at this moment. Barnes slunk back, seeing Jack Belsize’s hairy

face. Kew ran over the bridge. “Good-bye, Clive. Good-bye, Jack.”

“Good-bye, Kew.” It was a great handshake. Away goes the postillion

blowing his horn, and young Hannibal has left Capua behind him.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Madame la Duchesse

In one of Clive Newcome’s letters from Baden, the young man described

to me, with considerable humour and numerous illustrations as his wont

was, a great lady to whom he was presented at that watering-place by

his friend Lord Kew. Lord Kew had travelled in the East with Monsieur

le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry—the prince being an old friend of

his lordship’s family. He is the “Q” of Madame d’Ivry’s book of

travels, Footprints of the Gazelles, by a daughter of the Crusaders, in

which she prays so fervently for Lord Kew’s conversion. He is the “Q”

who rescued the princess from the Arabs, and performed many a feat

which lives in her glowing pages. He persists in saying that he never

rescued Madame la Princesse from any Arabs at all, except from one

beggar who was bawling out for bucksheesh, and whom Kew drove away with

a stick. They made pilgrimages to all the holy places, and a piteous

sight it was, said Lord Kew, to see the old prince in the Jerusalem

processions at Easter pacing with bare feet and a candle. Here Lord Kew

separated from the prince’s party. His name does not occur in the last

part of the Footprints; which, in truth, are filled full of strange

rhapsodies, adventures which nobody was but the princess, and mystic

disquisitions. She hesitates at nothing, like other poets of her

nation: not profoundly learned, she invents where she has not acquired:

mingles together religion and the opera; and performs Parisian

_pas-de-ballet_ before the gates of monasteries and the cells of

anchorites. She describes, as if she had herself witnessed the

catastrophe, the passage of the Red Sea: and, as if there were no doubt

of the transaction, an unhappy love-affair between Pharaoh’s eldest son

and Moses’s daughter. At Cairo, _à propos_ of Joseph’s granaries, she

enters into a furious tirade against Putiphar, whom she paints as an

old savage, suspicious and a tyrant. They generally have a copy of the

Footprints of the Gazelles at the Circulating Library at Baden, as

Madame d’Ivry constantly visits that watering-place. M. le Duc was not

pleased with the book, which was published entirely without his

concurrence, and which he described as one of the ten thousand follies

of Madame la Duchesse.

This nobleman was five-and-forty years older than his duchess. France

is the country where that sweet Christian institution of _mariages de

convenance_ (which so many folks of the family about which this story

treats are engaged in arranging) is most in vogue. There the newspapers

daily announce that M. de Foy has a bureau de confiance, where families

may arrange marriages for their sons and daughters in perfect comfort

and security. It is but a question of money on one side and the other.

Mademoiselle has so many francs of dot; Monsieur has such and such

_rentes_ or lands in possession or reversion, an _étude d’avoué_, a

shop with a certain _clientèle_ bringing him such and such an income,

which may be doubled by the judicious addition of so much capital, and

the pretty little matrimonial arrangement is concluded (the agent

touching his percentage), or broken off, and nobody unhappy, and the

world none the wiser. The consequences of the system I do not pretend

personally to know; but if the light literature of a country is a

reflex of its manners, and French novels are a picture of French life,

a pretty society must that be into the midst of which the London reader

may walk in twelve hours from this time of perusal, and from which only

twenty miles of sea separate us.

When the old Duke d’Ivry, of the ancient ancient nobility of France, an

emigrant with Artois, a warrior with Conde, an exile during the reign

of the Corsican usurper, a grand prince, a great nobleman afterwards,

though shorn of nineteen-twentieths of his wealth by the

Revolution,—when the Duke d’Ivry lost his two sons, and his son’s son

likewise died, as if fate had determined to end the direct line of that

noble house, which had furnished queens to Europe, and renowned chiefs

to the Crusaders—being of an intrepid spirit, the Duke was ill disposed

to yield to his redoubtable enemy, in spite of the cruel blows which

the latter had inflicted upon him, and when he was more than sixty

years of age, three months before the July Revolution broke out, a

young lady of a sufficient nobility, a virgin of sixteen, was brought

out of the convent of the Sacré Cœur at Paris, and married with immense

splendour and ceremony to this princely widower. The most august names

signed the book of the civil marriage. Madame la Dauphine and Madame la

Duchesse de Berri complimented the young bride with royal favours. Her

portrait by Dubufe was in the Exhibition next year, a charming young

duchess indeed, with black eyes, and black ringlets, pearls on her

neck, and diamonds in her hair, as beautiful as a princess of a fairy

tale. M. d’Ivry, whose early life may have been rather oragious, was

yet a gentleman perfectly well conserved. Resolute against fate his

enemy (one would fancy fate was of an aristocratic turn, and took

especial delight in combats with princely houses; the Atridae, the

Borbonidae, the Ivrys,—the Browns and Joneses being of no account), the

prince seemed to be determined not only to secure a progeny, but to

defy age. At sixty he was still young, or seemed to be so. His hair was

as black as the princess’s own, his teeth as white. If you saw him on

the Boulevard de Gand, sunning among the youthful exquisites there, or

riding _au Bois_, with a grace worthy of old Franconi himself, you

would take him for one of the young men, of whom indeed up to his

marriage he retained a number of the graceful follies and amusements,

though his manners had a dignity acquired in old days of Versailles and

the Trianon, which the moderns cannot hope to imitate. He was as

assiduous behind the scenes of the opera as any journalist, or any

young dandy of twenty years. He “ranged himself,” as the French phrase

is, shortly before his marriage, just like any other young bachelor:

took leave of Phryne and Aspasie in the coulisses, and proposed to

devote himself henceforth to his charming young wife.

The affreux catastrophe of July arrived. The ancient Bourbons were once

more on the road to exile (save one wily old remnant of the race, who

rode grinning over the barricades, and distributing poignees de main to

the stout fists that had pummelled his family out of France). M. le Duc

d’Ivry, who lost his place at court, his appointments which helped his

income very much, and his peerage would no more acknowledge the usurper

of Neuilly, than him of Elba. The ex-peer retired to his _terres_. He

barricaded his house in Paris against all supporters of the citizen

king; his nearest kinsman, M. de Florac, among the rest, who for his

part cheerfully took his oath of fidelity, and his seat in Louis

Philippe’s house of peers, having indeed been accustomed to swear to

all dynasties for some years past.

In due time Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry gave birth to a child, a

daughter, whom her noble father received with but small pleasure. What

the Duke desired, was an heir to his name, a Prince of Moncontour, to

fill the place of the sons and grandsons gone before him, to join their

ancestors in the tomb. No more children, however, blessed the old

Duke’s union. Madame d’Ivry went the round of all the watering-places:

pilgrimages were tried: vows and gifts to all saints supposed to be

favourable to the d’Ivry family, or to families in general:—but the

saints turned a deaf ear; they were inexorable since the true religion

and the elder Bourbons were banished from France.

Living by themselves in their ancient castles, or their dreary mansion

of the Faubourg St. Germain, I suppose the Duke and Duchess grew tried

of one another, as persons who enter into a _mariage de convenance_

sometimes, nay, as those who light a flaming love-match, and run away

with one another, will be found to do. A lady of one-and-twenty, and a

gentleman of sixty-six, alone in a great castle, have not unfrequently

a third guest at their table, who comes without a card, and whom they

cannot shut out, though they keep their doors closed ever so. His name

is Ennui, and many a long hour and weary night must such folks pass in

the unbidden society of this Old Man of the Sea; this daily guest at

the board; this watchful attendant at the fireside; this assiduous

companion who _will_ walk out with you; this sleepless restless

bedfellow.

At first, M. d’Ivry, that well-conserved nobleman who never would allow

that he was not young, exhibited no sign of doubt regarding his own

youth except an extreme jealousy and avoidance of all other young

fellows. Very likely Madame la Duchesse may have thought men in general

dyed their hair, wore stays, and had the rheumatism. Coming out of the

convent of the Sacré Cœur, how was the innocent young lady to know

better? You see, in these _mariages de convenance_, though a coronet

may be convenient to a beautiful young creature, and a beautiful young

creature may be convenient to an old gentleman, there are articles

which the marriage-monger cannot make to convene at all: tempers over

which M. de Foy and his like have no control; and tastes which cannot

be put into the marriage settlements. So this couple were unhappy, and

the Duke and Duchess quarrelled with one another like the most vulgar

pair who ever fought across a table.

In this unhappy state of home affairs, madame took to literature,

monsieur to politics. She discovered that she was a great unappreciated

soul, and when a woman finds that treasure in her bosom of course she

sets her own price on the article. Did you ever see the first poems of

Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry, Les Cris de l’Ame? She used to read them to

her very intimate friends, in white, with her hair a good deal down her

back. They had some success. Dubufe having painted her as a Duchess,

Scheffer depicted her as a Muse. That was in the third year of her

marriage, when she rebelled against the Duke her husband, insisted on

opening her saloons to art and literature, and, a fervent devotee

still, proposed to unite genius and religion. Poets had interviews with

her. Musicians came and twanged guitars to her.

Her husband, entering her room, would fall over the sabre and spurs of

Count Almaviva from the boulevard, or Don Basilio with his great

sombrero and shoe-buckles. The old gentleman was breathless and

bewildered in following her through all her vagaries. He was of old

France, she of new. What did he know of the Ecole Romantique, and these

_jeunes gens_ with their Marie Tudors and Tours de Nesle, and

sanguineous histories of queens who sewed their lovers into sacks,

emperors who had interviews with robber captains in Charlemagne’s tomb,

Buridans and Hernanis, and stuff? Monsieur le Vicomte de Chateaubriand

was a man of genius as a writer, certainly immortal; and M. de

Lamartine was a young man extremely _bien pensant_, but, _ma foi_, give

him _Crébillon fils_, or a bonne farce of M. Vade to make laugh; for

the great sentiments, for the beautiful style, give him M. de Lormian

(although Bonapartist) or the Abbé de Lille. And for the new school!

bah! these little Dumass, and Hugos, and Mussets, what is all that? “M.

de Lormian shall be immortal, monsieur,” he would say, “when all these

_freluquets_ are forgotten.” After his marriage he frequented the

coulisses of the opera no more; but he was a pretty constant attendant

at the Théatre Français, where you might hear him snoring over the

_chefs-d’œuvres_ of French tragedy.

For some little time after 1830, the Duchesse was as great a Carlist as

her husband could wish; and they conspired together very comfortably at

first. Of an adventurous turn, eager for excitement of all kinds,

nothing would have better pleased the Duchesse than to follow MADAME in

her adventurous courses in La Vendee, disguised as a boy above all. She

was persuaded to stay at home, however, and aid the good cause at

Paris; while Monsieur le Duc went off to Brittany to offer his old

sword to the mother of his king. But MADAME was discovered up the

chimney at Rennes, and all sorts of things were discovered afterwards.

The world said that our silly little Duchess of Paris was partly the

cause of the discovery. Spies were put upon her, and to some people she

would tell anything. M. le Duc, on paying his annual visit to august

exiles at Goritz, was very badly received: Madame la Dauphine gave him

a sermon. He had an awful quarrel with Madame la Duchesse on returning

to Paris. He provoked Monsieur le Comte Tiercelin, le beau Tiercelin,

an officer of ordonnance of the Duke of Orleans, into a duel, _à

propos_ of a cup of coffee in a salon; he actually wounded the beau

Tiercelin—he sixty-five years of age! his nephew, M. de Florac, was

loud in praise of his kinsman’s bravery.

That pretty figure and complexion which still appear so captivating in

M. Dubufe’s portrait of Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry, have long existed—it

must be owned only in paint. “_Je la préfère à l’huile_,” the Vicomte

de Florac said of his cousin. “She should get her blushes from Monsieur

Dubufe—those of her present furnishers are not near so natural.”

Sometimes the Duchess appeared with these postiches roses, sometimes of

a mortal paleness. Sometimes she looked plump, on other occasions

wofully thin. “When she goes into the world,” said the same chronicler,

“ma cousine surrounds herself with _jupons_—c’est pour défendre sa

vertu: when she is in a devotional mood, she gives up rouge, roast

meat, and crinoline, and _fait maigre absolument_.” To spite the Duke

her husband, she took up with the Vicomte de Florac, and to please

herself she cast him away. She took his brother, the Abbé de Florac,

for a director, and presently parted from him. “Mon frère, ce saint

homme ne parle jamais de Madame la Duchesse, maintenant,” said the

Vicomte. “She must have confessed to him des choses affreuses—oh,

oui!—affreuses ma parole d’honneur!”

The Duke d’Ivry being archiroyaliste, Madame la Duchesse must make

herself ultra-Philippiste. “Oh, oui! tout ce qu’il y a de plus Madame

Adélaide au monde!” cried Florac. “She raffoles of M. le Régent. She

used to keep a fast of the day of the supplice of Philippe Egalité,

Saint and Martyr. I say used, for to make to enrage her husband, and to

recall the Abbé my brother, did she not advise herself to consult M. le

Pasteur Grigou, and to attend the preach at his Temple? When this sheep

had brought her shepherd back, she dismissed the Pasteur Grigou. Then

she tired of M. l’Abbé again, and my brother is come out from her,

shaking his good head. Ah! she must have put things into it which

astonished the good Abbé! You know he has since taken the Dominican

robe? My word of honour! I believe it was terror of her that drove him

into a convent. You shall see him at Rome, Clive. Give him news of his

elder, and tell him this gross prodigal is repenting amongst the swine.

My word of honour! I desire but the death of Madame la Vicomtesse de

Florac, to marry and range myself!

“After being Royalist, Philippist, Catholic, Huguenot, Madame d’Ivry

must take to Pantheism, to bearded philosophers who believe in nothing,

not even in clean linen, eclecticism, republicanism, what know I? All

her changes have been chronicled by books of her composition. Les

Démons, poem Catholic; Charles IX. is the hero and the demons are shot

for the most part at the catastrophe of St. Bartholomew. My good

mother, all good Catholic as she is, was startled by the boldness of

this doctrine. Then there came Une Dragonnade, par Mme. la Duchesse

d’Ivry, which is all on your side. That was of the time of the Pastor

Grigou, that one. The last was Les Dieux déchus, poème en 20 chants,

par Mme. la D—— d’I. Guard yourself well from this Muse! If she takes a

fancy to you she will never leave you alone. If you see her often, she

will fancy you are in love with her, and tell her husband. She always

tells my uncle—afterwards—after she has quarrelled with you and grown

tired of you! Eh, being in London once, she had the idea to make

herself a _Quakre;_ wore the costume, consulted a minister of that

culte, and quarrelled with him as of rule. It appears the Quakers do

not beat themselves, otherwise my poor uncle must have paid of his

person.

“The turn of the philosophers then came, the chemists, the natural

historians, what know I? She made a laboratory in her hotel, and

rehearsed poisons like Madame de Brinvilliers—she spent hours in the

Jardin des Plantes. Since she has grown _affreusement maigre_ and wears

mounting robes, she has taken more than ever to the idea that she

resembles Mary Queen of Scots. She wears a little frill and a little

cap. Every man she loves, she says, has come to misfortune. She calls

her lodgings Lochleven. Eh! I pity the landlord of Lochleven! She calls

ce gros Blackball, vous savez, that pillar of estaminets, that prince

of mauvais-ton, her Bothwell; little Mijaud, the poor little pianist,

she named her Rizzio; young Lord Greenhorn who was here with governor,

a Monsieur of Oxfort, she christened her Darnley, and the Minister

Anglican, her John Knox! The poor man was quite enchanted! Beware of

this haggard siren, my little Clive!—mistrust her dangerous song! Her

cave is _jonchée_ with the bones of her victims. Be you not one!”

Far from causing Clive to avoid Madame la Duchesse, these cautions very

likely would have made him only the more eager to make her

acquaintance, but that a much nobler attraction drew him elsewhere. At

first, being introduced to Madame d’Ivry’s salon, he was pleased and

flattered, and behaved himself there merrily and agreeably enough. He

had not studied Horace Vernet for nothing; he drew a fine picture of

Kew rescuing her from the Arabs, with a plenty of sabres, pistols,

burnouses, and dromedaries. He made a pretty sketch of her little girl

Antoinette, and a wonderful likeness of Miss O’Grady, the little girl’s

governess, the mother’s dame de compagnie;—Miss O’Grady, with the

richest Milesian brogue, who had been engaged to give Antoinette the

pure English accent. But the French lady’s great eyes and painted

smiles would not bear comparison with Ethel’s natural brightness and

beauty. Clive, who had been appointed painter in ordinary to the Queen

of Scots, neglected his business, and went over to the English faction;

so did one or two more of the Princess’s followers, leaving her Majesty

by no means well pleased at their desertion.

There had been many quarrels between M. d’Ivry and his next-of-kin.

Political differences, private differences—a long story. The Duke, who

had been wild himself, could not pardon the Vicomte de Florac for being

wild. Efforts at reconciliation had been made which ended

unsuccessfully. The Vicomte de Florac had been allowed for a brief

space to be intimate with the chief of his family, and then had been

dismissed for being too intimate. Right or wrong, the Duke was jealous

of all young men who approached the Duchesse. “He is suspicious,”

Madame de Florac indignantly said, “because he remembers: and he thinks

other men are like himself.” The Vicomte discreetly said, “My cousin

has paid me the compliment to be jealous of me,” and acquiesced in his

banishment with a shrug.

During the emigration the old Lord Kew had been very kind to exiles, M.

d’Ivry amongst the number; and that nobleman was anxious to return to

all Lord Kew’s family when they came to France the hospitality which he

had received himself in England. He still remembered or professed to

remember Lady Kew’s beauty. How many women are there, awful of aspect,

at present, of whom the same pleasing legend is not narrated! It must

be true, for do not they themselves confess it? I know of few things

more remarkable or suggestive of philosophic contemplation than those

physical changes.

When the old Duke and the old Countess met together and talked

confidentially, their conversation bloomed into a jargon wonderful to

hear. Old scandals woke up, old naughtinesses rose out of their graves,

and danced, and smirked, and gibbered again, like those wicked nuns

whom Bertram and Robert le Diable evoke from their sepulchres whilst

the bassoon performs a diabolical incantation. The Brighton Pavilion

was tenanted; Ranelagh and the Pantheon swarmed with dancers and masks;

Perdita was found again, and walked a minuet with the Prince of Wales.

Mrs. Clarke and the Duke of York danced together—a pretty dance. The

old Duke wore a _jabot_ and _ailes-de-pigeon_, the old Countess a hoop,

and a cushion on her head. If haply the young folks came in, the elders

modified their recollections, and Lady Kew brought honest old King

George and good old ugly Queen Charlotte to the rescue. Her ladyship

was sister of the Marquis of Steyne: and in some respects resembled

that lamented nobleman. Their family had relations in France (Lady Kew

had always a pied-a-terre at Paris, a bitter little scandal-shop, where

_les bien-pensants_ assembled and retailed the most awful stories

against the reigning dynasty). It was she who handed over le petit

Kiou, when quite a boy, to Monsieur and Madame d’Ivry, to be _lancé_

into Parisian society. He was treated as a son of the family by the

Duke, one of whose many Christian names, his lordship, Francis George

Xavier, Earl of Kew and Viscount Walham, bears. If Lady Kew hated any

one (and she could hate very considerably) she hated her

daughter-in-law, Walham’s widow, and the Methodists who surrounded her.

Kew remain among a pack of psalm-singing old women and parsons with his

mother! Fi donc! Frank was Lady Kew’s boy; she would form him, marry

him, leave him her money if he married to her liking, and show him

life. And so she showed it to him.

Have you taken your children to the National Gallery in London, and

shown them the “Marriage a la Mode?” Was the artist exceeding the

privilege of his calling in painting the catastrophe in which those

guilty people all suffer? If this fable were not true, if many and many

of your young men of pleasure had not acted it, and rued the moral, I

would tear the page. You know that in our Nursery Tales there is

commonly a good fairy to counsel, and a bad one to mislead the young

prince. You perhaps feel that in your own life there is a Good

Principle imploring you to come into its kind bosom, and a Bad Passion

which tempts you into its arms. Be of easy minds good-natured people!

Let us disdain surprises and _coups-de-théâtre_ for once; and tell

those good souls who are interested about him, that there is a Good

Spirit coming to the rescue of our young Lord Kew.

Surrounded by her court and royal attendants, La Reine Marie used

graciously to attend the play-table, where luck occasionally declared

itself for and against her Majesty. Her appearance used to create not a

little excitement in the Saloon of Roulette, the game which she

patronised, it being more “fertile of emotions” than the slower

trente-et-quarante. She dreamed of numbers, had favourite incantations

by which to conjure them: noted the figures made by peels of peaches

and so forth, the numbers of houses, on hackney-coaches—was

superstitious _comme toutes les rimes poétiques_. She commonly brought

a beautiful agate bonbonniere full of gold pieces, when she played. It

was wonderful to see her grimaces: to watch her behaviour: her appeals

to heaven, her delight and despair. Madame la Baronne de la

Cruchecassée played on one side of her, Madame la Comtesse de

Schlangenbad on the other. When she had lost all her money her Majesty

would condescend to borrow—not from those ladies:—knowing the royal

peculiarity, they never had any money; they always lost; they swiftly

pocketed their winnings and never left a mass on the table, or quitted

it, as courtiers will, when they saw luck was going against their

sovereign. The officers of her household were Count Punter, a

Hanoverian, the Cavaliere Spada, Captain Blackball of a mysterious

English regiment, which might be any one of the hundred and twenty in

the Army List, and other noblemen and gentlemen, Greeks, Russians, and

Spaniards. Mr. and Mrs. Jones (of England), who had made the princess’s

acquaintance at Bagneres (where her lord still remained in the gout)

and perseveringly followed her all the way to Baden, were dazzled by

the splendour of the company in which they found themselves. Miss Jones

wrote such letters to her dearest friend Miss Thompson, Cambridge

Square, London, as caused that young person to crever with envy. Bob

Jones, who had grown a pair of mustachios since he left home, began to

think slightingly of poor little Fanny Thompson, now he had got into

“the best Continental society.” Might not he quarter a countess’s coat

on his brougham along with the Jones arms, or, more slap-up still, have

the two shields painted on the panels with the coronet over? “Do you

know the princess calls herself the Queen of Scots, and she calls me

Julian Avenel?” says Jones delighted, to Clive, who wrote me about the

transmogrification of our schoolfellow, an attorney’s son, whom I

recollected a snivelling little boy at Grey Friars. “I say, Newcome,

the princess is going to establish an order,” cried Bob in ecstasy.

Every one of her aides-de-camp had a bunch of orders at his button,

excepting, of course, poor Jones.

Like all persons who beheld her, when Miss Newcome and her party made

their appearance at Baden, Monsieur de Florac was enraptured with her

beauty. “I speak of it constantly before the Duchesse. I know it

pleases her,” so the Vicomte said. “You should have seen her looks when

your friend M. Jones praised Miss Newcome! She ground her teeth with

fury. Tiens ce petit sournois de Kiou! He always spoke of her as a mere

sac d’argent that he was about to marry—an ingot of the cité—une fille

de Lord Maire. Have all English bankers such pearls of daughters? If

the Vicomtesse de Florac had but quitted the earth, dont elle fait

l’ornement—I would present myself to the charmante meess and ride a

steeple-chase with Kiou!” That he should win it the Viscount never

doubted.

When Lady Anne Newcome first appeared in the ballroom at Baden, Madame

la Duchesse d’Ivry begged the Earl of Kew (_notre filleul_, she called

him) to present her to his aunt miladi and her charming daughter. “My

_filleul_ had not prepared me for so much grace,” she said, turning a

look towards Lord Kew, which caused his lordship some embarrassment.

Her kindness and graciousness were extreme. Her caresses and

compliments never ceased all the evening. She told the mother and the

daughter too that she had never seen any one so lovely as Ethel.

Whenever she saw Lady Anne’s children in the walks she ran to them (so

that Captain Blackball and Count Punter, A.D.C., were amazed at her

tenderness), she _étouffé’d_ them with kisses. What lilies and roses!

What lovely little creatures! What companions for her own Antoinette.

“This is your governess, Miss Quigli; mademoiselle, you must let me

present you to Miss O’Gredi, your compatriot, and I hope your children

will be always together.” The Irish Protestant governess scowled at the

Irish Catholic—there was a Boyne Water between them.

Little Antoinette; a lonely little girl, was glad to find any

companions. “Mamma kisses me on the promenade,” she told them in her

artless way. “She never kisses me at home!” One day when Lord Kew with

Florac and Clive were playing with the children, Antoinette said,

“Pourquoi ne venez-vous plus chez nous, M. de Kew? And why does mamma

say you are a _lâche?_ She said so yesterday to ces messieurs. And why

does mamma say thou art only a vaurien, mon cousin? Thou art always

very good for me. I love thee better than all those messieurs. Ma tante

Florac a été bonne pour moi à Paris aussi—Ah! qu’elle a été bonne!”

“C’est que les anges aiment bien les petits chérubins, and my mother is

an angel, seest thou,” cries Florac, kissing her.

“Thy mother is not dead,” said little Antoinette, “then why dost thou

cry, my cousin?” And the three spectators were touched by this little

scene and speech.

Lady Anne Newcome received the caresses and compliments of Madame la

Duchesse with marked coldness on the part of one commonly so very

good-natured. Ethel’s instinct told her that there was something wrong

in this woman, and she shrank from her with haughty reserve. The girl’s

conduct was not likely to please the French lady, but she never relaxed

in her smiles and her compliments, her caresses, and her professions of

admiration. She was present when Clara Pulleyn fell; and, prodigal of

_câlineries_ and consolation, and shawls and scent-bottles, to the

unhappy young lady, she would accompany her home. She inquired

perpetually after the health of _cette pauvre petite Miss Clara_. Oh,

how she railed against _ces Anglaises_ and their prudery! Can you fancy

her and her circle, the tea-table set in the twilight that evening, the

court assembled, Madame de la Cruchecassée and Madame de Schlangenbad;

and their whiskered humble servants, Baron Punter and Count Spada, and

Marquis Iago, and Prince Iachimo, and worthy Captain Blackball? Can you

fancy a moonlight conclave, and ghouls feasting on the fresh corpse of

a reputation:—the gibes and sarcasms, the laughing and the gnashing of

teeth? How they tear the dainty limbs, and relish the tender morsels!

“The air of this place is not good for you, believe me, my little Kew;

it is dangerous. Have pressing affairs in England; let your château

burn down; or your intendant run away, and pursue him. Partez, mon

petit Kiou; partez, or evil will come of it.” Such was the advice which

a friend of Lord Kew gave the young nobleman.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Barnes’s Courtship

Ethel had made various attempts to become intimate with her future

sister-in-law; had walked, and ridden, and talked with Lady Clara

before Barnes’s arrival. She had come away not very much impressed with

respect for Lady Clara’s mental powers; indeed, we have said that Miss

Ethel was rather more prone to attack women than to admire them, and

was a little hard upon the fashionable young persons of her

acquaintance and sex. In after life, care and thought subdued her

pride, and she learned to look at society more good-naturedly; but at

this time, and for some years after, she was impatient of commonplace

people, and did not choose to conceal her scorn. Lady Clara was very

much afraid of her. Those timid little thoughts, which would come out,

and frisk and gambol with pretty graceful antics, and advance

confidingly at the sound of Jack Belsize’s jolly voice, and nibble

crumbs out of his hand, shrank away before Ethel, severe nymph with the

bright eyes, and hid themselves under the thickets and in the shade.

Who has not overheard a simple couple of girls, or of lovers possibly,

pouring out their little hearts, laughing at their own little jokes,

prattling and prattling away unceasingly, until mamma appears with her

awful didactic countenance, or the governess with her dry moralities,

and the colloquy straightway ceases, the laughter stops, the chirp of

the harmless little birds is hushed. Lady Clara being of a timid

nature, stood in as much awe of Ethel as of her father and mother;

whereas her next sister, a brisk young creature of seventeen, who was

of the order of romps or tomboys, was by no means afraid of Miss

Newcome, and indeed a much greater favourite with her than her placid

elder sister.

Young ladies may have been crossed in love, and have had their

sufferings, their frantic moments of grief and tears, their wakeful

nights, and so forth; but it is only in very sentimental novels that

people occupy themselves perpetually with that passion: and, I believe,

what are called broken hearts are very rare articles indeed. Tom is

jilted—is for a while in a dreadful state—bores all his male

acquaintance with his groans and his frenzy—rallies from the

complaint—eats his dinner very kindly—takes an interest in the next

turf event, and is found at Newmarket, as usual, bawling out the odds

which he will give or take. Miss has her paroxysm and recovery—Madame

Crinoline’s new importations from Paris interest the young creature—she

deigns to consider whether pink or blue will become her most—she

conspires with her maid to make the spring morning dresses answer for

the autumn—she resumes her books, piano, and music (giving up certain

songs perhaps that she used to sing)—she waltzes with the Captain—gets

a colour—waltzes longer, better, and ten times quicker than Lucy, who

is dancing with the Major—replies in an animated manner to the

Captain’s delightful remarks—takes a little supper—and looks quite

kindly at him before she pulls up the carriage windows.

Clive may not like his cousin Barnes Newcome, and many other men share

in that antipathy, but all ladies do not. It is a fact that Barnes,

when he likes, can make himself a very pleasant fellow. He is

dreadfully satirical, that is certain; but many persons are amused by

those dreadful satirical young men: and to hear fun made of our

neighbours, even of some of our friends, does not make us very angry.

Barnes is one of the very best waltzers in all society, that is the

truth; whereas it must be confessed Some One Else was very heavy and

slow, his great foot always crushing you, and he always begging your

pardon. Barnes whirls a partner round a room ages after she is ready to

faint. What wicked fun he makes of other people when he stops! He is

not handsome, but in his face there is something odd-looking and

distinguished. It is certain he has beautiful small feet and hands.

He comes every day from the City, drops in, in his quiet unobtrusive

way, and drinks tea at five o’clock; always brings a budget of the

funniest stories with him, makes mamma laugh, Clara laugh, Henrietta,

who is in the schoolroom still, die of laughing. Papa has the highest

opinion of Mr. Newcome as a man of business: if he had had such a

friend in early life his affairs would not be where they now are, poor

dear kind papa! Do they want to go anywhere, is not Mr. Newcome always

ready? Did he not procure that delightful room for them to witness the

Lord Mayor’s show; and make Clara die of laughing at those odd City

people at the Mansion House ball? He is at every party, and never tired

though he gets up so early: he waltzes with nobody else: he is always

there to put Lady Clara in the carriage: at the drawing-room he looked

quite handsome in his uniform of the Newcome Hussars, bottle-green and

silver lace: he speaks Politics so _exceedingly_ well with papa and

gentlemen after dinner: he is a sound conservative, full of practical

good sense and information, with no dangerous new-fangled ideas, such

as young men have. When poor dear Sir Brian Newcome’s health gives way

quite, Mr. Newcome will go into Parliament, and then he will resume the

old barony which has been in abeyance in the family since the reign of

Richard the Third. They had fallen quite, quite low. Mr. Newcome’s

grandfather came to London with a satchel on his back, like

Whittington. Isn’t it romantic?

This process has been going on for months. It is not in one day that

poor Lady Clara has been made to forget the past, and to lay aside her

mourning. Day after day, very likely, the undeniable faults and many

peccadilloes of—of that other person, have been exposed to her. People

around the young lady may desire to spare her feelings, but can have no

interest in screening Poor Jack from condign reprobation. A wild

prodigal—a disgrace to his order—a son of old Highgate’s leading such a

life, and making such a scandal! Lord Dorking believes Mr. Belsize to

be an abandoned monster and fiend in human shape; gathers and relates

all the stories that ever have been told to the young man’s

disadvantage, and of these be sure there are enough, and speaks of him

with transports of indignation. At the end of months of unwearied

courtship, Mr. Barnes Newcome is honestly accepted, and Lady Clara is

waiting for him at Baden, not unhappy to receive him; when walking on

the promenade with her father, the ghost of her dead love suddenly

rises before her, and the young lady faints to the ground.

When Barnes Newcome thinks fit he can be perfectly placable in his

demeanour and delicate in his conduct. What he said upon this painful

subject was delivered with the greatest propriety. He did not for one

moment consider that Lady Clara’s agitation arose from any present

feeling in Mr. Belsize’s favour, but that she was naturally moved by

the remembrance of the past, and the sudden appearance which recalled

it. “And but that a lady’s name should never be made the subject of

dispute between men,” Newcome said to Lord Dorking, with great dignity,

“and that Captain Belsize has opportunely quitted the place, I should

certainly have chastised him. He and another adventurer, against whom I

have had to warn my own family, have quitted Baden this afternoon. I am

glad that both are gone, Captain Belsize especially; for my temper, my

lord, is hot, and I do not think I should have commanded it.”

Lord Kew, when the elder lord informed him of this admirable speech of

Barnes Newcome’s, upon whose character, prudence, and dignity the Earl

of Dorking pronounced a fervent eulogium, shook his head gravely, and

said, “Yes, Barnes was a dead shot, and a most determined fellow:” and

did not burst out laughing until he and Lord Dorking had parted. Then

to be sure he took his fill of laughter, he told the story to Ethel, he

complimented Barnes on his heroic self-denial; the joke of the

thundering big stick was nothing to it. Barnes Newcome laughed too; he

had plenty of humour, Barnes. “I think you might have whopped Jack when

he came out from his interview with the Dorkings,” Kew said: “the poor

devil was so bewildered and weak, that Alfred might have thrashed him.

At other times you would find it more difficult, Barnes my man.” Mr. B.

Newcome resumed his dignity; said a joke was a joke, and there was

quite enough of this one; which assertion we may be sure he

conscientiously made.

That meeting and parting between the old lovers passed with a great

deal of calm and propriety on both sides. Miss’s parents of course were

present when Jack at their summons waited upon them and their daughter,

and made his hang-dog bow. My Lord Dorking said (poor Jack in the

anguish of his heart had poured out the story to Clive Newcome

afterwards), “Mr. Belsize, I have to apologise for words which I used

in my heat yesterday, and which I recall and regret, as I am sure you

do that there should have been any occasion for them.”

Mr. Belsize looking at the carpet said he was very sorry.

Lady Dorking here remarked, that as Captain Belsize was now at Baden,

he might wish to hear from Lady Clara Pulleyn’s own lips that the

engagement into which she had entered was formed by herself, certainly

with the consent and advice of her family. “Is it not so, my dear?”

Lady Clara said, “Yes, mamma,” with a low curtsey.

“We have now to wish you good-bye, Charles Belsize,” said my lord, with

some feeling. “As your relative, and your father’s old friend, I wish

you well. I hope your future course in life may not be so unfortunate

as the past year. I request that we may part friends. Good-bye,

Charles. Clara, shake hands with Captain Belsize. My Lady Dorking, you

will please to give Charles your hand. You have known him since he was

a child; and—and—we are sorry to be obliged to part in this way.” In

this wise Mr. Jack Belsize’s tooth was finally extracted; and for the

moment we wish him and his brother-patient a good journey.