“Why weren’t you here a month sooner, and you might have seen the

marriage? It was a very pretty thing. Everybody was there. Clara, and

so did Barnes really, looked quite handsome.”

“It must have been beautiful,” continued Clive; “quite a touching

sight, I am sure. Poor Charles Belsize could not be present because his

brother was dead; and——”

“And what else, pray, Mr. Newcome!” cries Miss, in great wrath, her

pink nostrils beginning to quiver. “I did not think, really, that when

we met after so many months, I was to be insulted; yes, insulted, by

the mention of that name.”

“I most humbly ask pardon,” said Clive, with a grave bow. “Heaven

forbid that I should wound your sensibility, Ethel! It is, as you say,

my first appearance in society. I talk about things or persons that I

should not mention. I should talk about buttons, should I? which you

were good enough to tell me was the proper subject of conversation.

Mayn’t I even speak of connexions of the family? Mr. Belsize, through

this marriage, has the honour of being connected with you; and even I,

in a remote degree, may boast of a sort of an ever—so—distant

cousinship with him. What an honour for me!”

“Pray, what is the meaning of all this?” cries Miss Ethel, surprised,

and perhaps alarmed. Indeed, Clive scarcely knew. He had been chafing

all the while he talked with her; smothering anger as he saw the young

men round about her; revolting against himself for the very humility of

his obedience, and angry at the eagerness and delight with which he had

come at her call.

“The meaning is, Ethel”—he broke out, seizing the opportunity—“that

when a man comes a thousand miles to see you, and shake your hand, you

should give it him a little more cordially than you choose to do to me;

that when a kinsman knocks at your door, time after time, you should

try and admit him; and that when you meet him you should treat him like

an old friend: not as you treated me when my Lady Kew vouchsafed to give

me admittance; not as you treat these fools that are fribbling round

about you,” cries Mr. Clive, in a great rage, folding his arms, and

glaring round on a number of the most innocent young swells; and he

continued looking as if he would like to knock a dozen of their heads

together. “Am I keeping Miss Newcome’s admirers from her?”

“That is not for me to say,” she said, quite gently. He was; but to see

him angry did not displease Miss Newcome.

“That young man who came for you just now,” Clive went on—“that Sir

John——”

“Are you angry with me because I sent him away?” said Ethel, putting

out a hand. “Hark! there is the music. Take me in and waltz with me.

Don’t you know it is not _my_ door at which you knocked?” she said,

looking up into his face as simply and kindly as of old. She whirled

round the dancing-room with him in triumph, the other beauties

dwindling before her: she looked more and more beautiful with each

rapid move of the waltz, her colour heightening and her eyes seeming to

brighten. Not till the music stopped did she sink down on a seat,

panting, and smiling radiant—as many many hundred years ago I remember

to have seen Taglioni after a conquering _pas seul_. She nodded a

“thank you” to Clive. It seemed that there was a perfect

reconciliation. Lady Kew came in just at the end of the dance, scowling

when she beheld Ethel’s partner; but in reply to her remonstrances,

Ethel shrugged her fair shoulders, with a look which seemed to say _je

le veux_, gave an arm to her grandmother, an walked off, saucily

protecting her.

Clive’s friend had been looking on observingly and curiously as the

scene between them had taken place, and at the dance with which the

reconciliation had been celebrated. I must tell you that this arch

young creature had formed the object of my observation for some months

past, and that I watched her as I have watched a beautiful panther at

the Zoological Gardens, so bright of eye, so sleek of coat, so slim in

form, so sweet and agile in her spring.

A more brilliant young coquette than Miss Newcome, in her second

season, these eyes never looked upon, that is the truth. In her first

year, being engaged to Lord Kew, she was perhaps a little more reserved

and quiet. Besides, her mother went out with her that first season, to

whom Miss Newcome except for a little occasional flightiness, was

invariably obedient and ready to come to call. But when Lady Kew

appeared as her duenna, the girl’s delight seemed to be to plague the

old lady, and she would dance with the very youngest sons merey to put

grandmamma in a passion. In this way poor young Cubley (who has two

hundred a year of allowance, besides eighty, and an annual rise of five

in the Treasury) actually thought that Ethel was in love with him, and

consulted with the young men in his room in Downing Street, whether two

hundred and eighty a year, with five pound more next year, would be

enough for them to keep house on? Young Tandy of the Temple, Lord

Skibbereen’s younger son, who sate in the House for some time on the

Irish Catholic side, was also deeply smitten, and many a night in our

walks home from the parties at the other end of the town, would

entertain me with his admiration and passion for her.

“If you have such a passion for her, why not propose?” it was asked of

Mr. Tandy.

“Propose! propose to a Russian Archduchess,” cries young Tandy. “She’s

beautiful, she’s delightful, she’s witty. I have never seen anything

like her eyes; they send me wild—wild,” says Tandy—(slapping his

waistcoat under Temple Bar)—“but a more audacious little flirt never

existed since the days of Cleopatra.”

With this opinion likewise in my mind, I had been looking on during

Clive’s proceedings with Miss Ethel—not, I say, without admiration of

the young lady who was leading him such a dance. The waltz over, I

congratulated him on his own performance. His Continental practice had

greatly improved him. “And as for your partner, it is delightful to see

her,” I went on. “I always like to be by when Miss Newcome dances. I

had sooner see her than anybody since Taglioni. Look at her now, with

her neck up, and her little foot out, just as she is preparing to

start! Happy Lord Bustington!”

“You are angry with her because she cut you,” growls Clive. “You know

you said she cut you, or forgot you; and your vanity’s wounded, that is

why you are so satirical.”

“How can Miss Newcome remember all the men who are presented to her?”

says the other. “Last year she talked to me because she wanted to know

about you. This year she doesn’t talk: because I suppose she doesn’t

want to know about you any more.”

“Hang it. Do—on’t, Pen,” cries Clive, as a schoolboy cries out to

another not to hit him.

“She does not pretend to observe: and is in full conversation with the

amiable Bustington. Delicious interchange of noble thoughts! But she is

observing us talking, and knows that we are talking about her. If ever

you marry her, Clive, which is absurd, I shall lose you for a friend.

You will infallibly tell her what I think of her: and she will order

you to give me up.” Clive had gone off in a brown study, as his

interlocutor continued. “Yes, she is a flirt. She can’t help her

nature. She tries to vanquish every one who comes near her. She is a

little out of breath from waltzing, and so she pretends to be listening

to poor Bustington, who is out of breath too, but puffs out his best in

order to make himself agreeable, with what a pretty air she appears to

listen! Her eyes actually seem to brighten.”

“_What?_” says Clive, with a start.

I could not comprehend the meaning of the start: nor did I care much to

know: supposing that the young man was waking up from some lover’s

reverie: and the evening sped away, Clive not quitting the ball until

Miss Newcome and the Countess of Kew had departed. No further

communication appeared to take place between the cousins that evening.

I think it was Captain Crackthorpe who gave the young lady an arm into

her carriage; Sir John Fobsby having the happiness to conduct the old

Countess, and carrying the pink bag for the shawls, wrappers, etc., on

which her ladyship’s coronet and initials are emblazoned. Clive may

have made a movement as if to step forward, but a single finger from

Miss Newcome warned him back.

Clive and his two friends in Lamb Court had made an engagement for the

next Saturday to dine at Greenwich; but on the morning of that day

there came a note from him to say that he thought of going down to see

his aunt, Miss Honeyman, and begged to recall his promise to us.

Saturday is a holiday with gentlemen of our profession. We had invited

F. Bayham, Esquire, and promised ourselves a merry evening, and were

unwilling to baulk ourselves of the pleasure on account of the absence

of our young Roman. So we three went to London Bridge Station at an

early hour, proposing to breathe the fresh air of Greenwich Park before

dinner. And, at London Bridge, by the most singular coincidence, Lady

Kew’s carriage drove up to the Brighton entrance, and Miss Ethel and

her maid stepped out of the brougham.

When Miss Newcome and her maid entered the Brighton station, did Mr.

Clive, by another singular coincidence, happen also to be there? What

more natural and dutiful than that he should go and see his aunt, Miss

Honeyman? What more proper than that Miss Ethel should pass the

Saturday and Sunday with her sick father; and take a couple of

wholesome nights’ rest after those five weary past evenings, for each

of which we may reckon a couple of soirées and a ball? And that

relations should travel together, the young lady being protected by her

_femme-de-chambre;_ that surely, as every one must allow, was perfectly

right and proper.

That a biographer should profess to know everything which passes, even

in a confidential talk in a first-class carriage between two lovers,

seems perfectly absurd; not that grave historians do not pretend to the

same wonderful degree of knowledge—reporting meetings of the most

occult of conspirators; private interviews between monarchs and their

ministers, even the secret thoughts and motives of those personages,

which possibly the persons themselves did not know;—all for which the

present writer will pledge his known character for veracity is, that on

a certain day certain parties had a conversation, of which the upshot

was so-and-so. He guesses, of course, at a great deal of what took

place; knowing the characters, and being informed at some time of their

meeting. You do not suppose that I bribed the _femme-de-chambre_, or

that those two City gents, who sate in the same carriage with our young

friends, and could not hear a word they said, reported their talk to

me? If Clive and Ethel had had a coupe to themselves, I would yet

boldly tell what took place, but the coupe was taken by other three

young City gents who smoked the whole way.

“Well, then,” the bonnet begins close up to the hat, “tell me, sir, is

it true that you were so very much _épris_ of the Miss Freemans at

Rome; and that afterwards you were so wonderfully attentive to the

third Miss Baliol? Did you draw her portrait? You know you drew her

portrait. You painters always pretend to admire girls with auburn hair,

because Titian and Raphael painted it. Has the Fornarina red hair? Why,

we are at Croydon, I declare!”

“The Fornarina”—the hat replies to the bonnet, “if that picture at the

Borghese Palace be an original, or a likeness of her—is not a handsome

woman, with vulgar eyes and mouth, and altogether a most

mahogany-coloured person. She is so plain, in fact, I think that very

likely it is the real woman; for it is with their own fancies that men

fall in love,—or rather every woman is handsome to the lover. You know

how old Helen must have been.”

“I don’t know any such thing, or anything about her. Who was Helen?”

asks the bonnet; and indeed she did not know.

“It’s a long story, and such an old scandal now, that there is no use

in repeating it,” says Clive.

“You only talk about Helen because you wish to turn away the

conversation from Miss Freeman,” cries the young lady—“from Miss

Baliol, I mean.”

“We will talk about whichever you please. Which shall we begin to pull

to pieces?” says Clive. You see, to be in this carriage—to be actually

with _her_—to be looking into those wonderful lucid eyes—to see her

sweet mouth dimpling, and hear her sweet voice ringing with its

delicious laughter—to have that hour and a half his own, in spite of

all the world-dragons, grandmothers, _convenances_, the future—made the

young fellow so happy, filled his whole frame and spirit with a delight

so keen, that no wonder he was gay, and brisk, and lively.

“And so you knew of my goings-on?” he asked. O me! they were at Reigate

by this time; there was Gatton Park flying before them on the wings of

the wind.

“I know of a number of things,” says the bonnet, nodding with ambrosial

curls.

“And you would not answer the second letter I wrote to you?

“We were in great perplexity. One cannot be always answering young

gentlemen’s letters. I had considerable doubt about answering a note I

got from Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square,” says the lady’s chapeau.

“No, Clive, we must not write to one another,” she continued more

gravely, “or only very, very seldom. Nay, my meeting you here to-day is

by the merest chance, I am sure; for when I mentioned at Lady Fareham’s

the other evening that I was going to see papa at Brighton to-day, I

never for one moment thought of seeing you in the train. But as you are

here, it can’t be helped; and I may as well tell you that there are

obstacles.”

“What, _other_ obstacles?” Clive gasped out.

“Nonsense—you silly boy! No other obstacles but those which always have

existed, and must. When we parted—that is, when you left us at Baden,

you knew it was for the best. You had your profession to follow, and

could not go on idling about—about a family of sick people and

children. Every man has his profession, and you yours, as you would

have it. We are so nearly allied that we may—we may like each other

like brother and sister almost. I don’t know what Barnes would say if

he heard me! Wherever you and your father are, how can I ever think of

you but—but you know how? I always shall, always. There are certain

feelings we have which I hope never can change; though, if you please,

about them I intend never to speak any more. Neither you nor I can

alter our conditions, but must make the best of them. You shall be a

fine clever painter; and I,—who knows what will happen to me? I know

what is going to happen to-day; I am going to see papa and mamma, and

be as happy as I can till Monday morning.”

“I know what I wish would happen now,” said Clive,—they were going

screaming through a tunnel.

“What?” said the bonnet in the darkness: and the engine was roaring so

loudly, that he was obliged to put his head quite close to say—

“I wish the tunnel would fall in and close upon us, or that we might

travel on for ever and ever.”

Here there was a great jar of the carriage, and the lady’s-maid, and I

think Miss Ethel, gave a shriek. The lamp above was so dim that the

carriage was almost totally dark. No wonder the lady’s-maid was

frightened! but the daylight came streaming in, and all poor Clive’s

wishes of rolling and rolling on for ever were put an end to by the

implacable sun in a minute.

Ah, why was it the quick train? Suppose it had been the parliamentary

train?—even that too would have come to an end. They came and said,

“Tickets, please,” and Clive held out the three of their party—his, and

Ethel’s, and her maid’s. I think for such a ride as that he was right

to give up Greenwich. Mr. Kuhn was in waiting with a carriage for Miss

Ethel. She shook hands with Clive, returning his pressure.

“I may come and see you?” he said.

“You may come and see mamma—yes.”

“And where are you staying?”

“Bless my soul—they were staying at Miss Honeyman’s!” Clive burst into

a laugh. Why, he was going there too! Of course Aunt Honeyman had no

room for him, her house being quite full with the other Newcomes.

It was a most curious coincidence their meeting; but altogether Lady

Anne thought it was best to say nothing about the circumstance to

grandmamma. I myself am puzzled to say which would have been the better

course to pursue under the circumstances; there were so many courses

open. As they had gone so far, should they go on farther together?

Suppose they were going to the same house at Brighton, oughtn’t they to

have gone in the same carriage, with Kuhn and the maid of course?

Suppose they met by chance at the station, ought they to have travelled

in separate carriages? I ask any gentleman and father of a family, when

he was immensely smitten with his present wife, Mrs. Brown, if he had

met her travelling with her maid, in the mail, when there was a vacant

place, what would he himself have done?

CHAPTER XLII.

Injured Innocence

From Clive Newcome, Esq., to Lieut.-Col. Newcome, C.B.

“Brighton, June 12, 18—.

“My Dearest Father,—As the weather was growing very hot at Naples, and

you wished I should come to England to see Mr. Binnie, I came

accordingly, and have been here three weeks, and write to you from Aunt

Honeyman’s parlour at Brighton, where you ate your last dinner before

embarking for India. I found your splendid remittance calling in Fog

Court, and have invested a part of the sum in a good horse to ride,

upon which I take my diversion with other young dandies in the Park.

Florac is in England, but he has no need of your kindness. Only think!

he is Prince de Moncontour now, the second title of the Duc d’Ivry’s

family; and M. le Comte de Florac is Duc d’Ivry in consequence of the

demise of t’other old gentleman. I believe the late duke’s wife

shortened his life. Oh, what a woman! She caused a duel between Lord

Kew and a Frenchman, which has in its turn occasioned all sorts of evil

and division in families, as you shall hear.

“In the first place, in consequence of the duel and of incompatibility

of temper, the match between Kew and E. N. has been broken off. I met

Lord Kew at Naples with his mother and brother, nice quiet people as

you would like them. Kew’s wound and subsequent illness have altered

him a good deal. He has become much _more serious_ than he used to be;

not ludicrously so at all, but he says he thinks his past life has been

useless and even criminal, and he wishes to change it. He has sold his

horses, and sown his wild oats. He has turned quite a sober quiet

gentleman.

“At our meeting he told me of what had happened between him and Ethel,

of whom he spoke _most kindly and generously_, but avowing his opinion

that they never could have been happy in married life. And now I think

my dear old father will see that there may be another reason besides my

desire to see Mr. Binnie, which has brought me tumbling back to England

again. If need be to speak, I never shall have, I hope, any secrets

from you. I have not said much about one which has given me the deuce’s

disquiet for ten months past, because there was no good in talking

about it, or vexing you needlessly with reports of my griefs and woes.

“Well, when we were at Baden in September last, and E. and I wrote

those letters in common to you, I dare say you can fancy what my

feelings might have been towards such a beautiful young creature, who

has a hundred faults, for which I love her just as much as for the good

that is in her. I became dreadfully smitten indeed, and knowing that

she was engaged to Lord Kew, I did as you told me you did once when the

enemy was too strong for you—_I ran away_. I had a bad time of it for

two or three months. At Rome, however, I began to take matters more

easily, my naturally fine appetite returned, and at the end of the

season I found myself uncommonly happy in the society of the Miss

Baliols and the Miss Freemans; but when Kew told me at Naples of what

had happened, there was straightway a _fresh eruption_ in my heart, and

I was fool enough to come almost without sleep to London in order to

catch a glimpse of the bright eyes of E. N.

“She is now in this very house upstairs with one aunt, whilst the other

lets lodgings to her. I have seen her but very seldom indeed since I

came to London, where Sir Brian and Lady Anne do not pass the season,

and Ethel goes about to a dozen parties every week with old Lady Kew,

who neither loves you nor me. Hearing E. say she was coming down to her

parents at Brighton, I made so bold as to waylay her at the train

(though I didn’t tell her that I passed three hours in the

waiting-room); and we made the journey together, and she was very kind

and beautiful; and though I suppose I might just as well ask the Royal

Princess to have me, I can’t help hoping and longing and hankering

after her. And Aunt Honeyman must have found out that I am fond of her,

for the old lady has received me with a scolding. Uncle Charles seems

to be in very good condition again. I saw him in full clerical

feather—at Madame de Moncontour’s, a good-natured body who drops her

_h_’s, though Florac is not aware of their absence. Pendennis and

Warrington, I know, would send you their regards. Pen is conceited, but

much kinder in reality than he has the air of being. Fred Bayham is

doing well, and prospering in his mysterious way.

“Mr. Binnie is not looking at all well: and Mrs. Mack—well, as I know

you never attack a lady behind her lovely back, I won’t say a word of

Mrs. Mack—but she has taken possession of Uncle James, and seems to me

to weigh upon him somehow. Rosey is as pretty and good-natured as ever,

and has learned two new songs; but you see, with my sentiments in

another quarter, I feel as it were guilty and awkward in company of

Rosey and her mamma. They have become the very greatest friends with

Bryanstone Square, and Mrs. Mack is always citing Aunt Hobson as the

most superior of women, in which opinion, I daresay, Aunt Hobson

concurs.

“Good-bye, my dearest father; my sheet is full; I wish I could put my

arm in yours and pace up and down the pier with you, and tell you more

and more. But you know enough now, and that I am your affectionate son

always, C. N.”

In fact, when Mr. Clive appeared at Steyne Gardens stepping out of the

fly, and handing Miss Ethel thence, Miss Honeyman of course was very

glad to see her nephew, and saluted him with a little embrace to show

her sense of pleasure at his visit. But the next day, being Sunday,

when Clive, with a most engaging smile on his countenance, walked over

to breakfast from his hotel, Miss Honeyman would scarcely speak to him

during the meal, looked out at him very haughtily from under her Sunday

cap, and received his stories about Italy with “Oh! ah! indeed!” in a

very unkind manner. And when breakfast was over, and she had done

washing her china, she fluttered up to Clive with such an agitation

of plumage, redness of craw, and anger of manner, as a maternal hen

shows if she has reason to think you menace her chickens. She fluttered

up to Clive, I say, and cried out, “Not in _this_ house, Clive,—not in

this house, I beg you to understand _that!_”

Clive, looking amazed, said, “Certainly not, ma’am; I never did do it

in the house, as I know you don’t like it. I was going into the

Square.” The young man meaning that he was about to smoke, and

conjecturing that his aunt’s anger applied to that practice.

“_You_ know very well what I mean, sir! Don’t try to turn _me_ off in

that highty-tighty way. My dinner to-day is at half-past one. You can

dine or not as you like,” and the old lady flounced out of the room.

Poor Clive stood rolling his cigar in sad perplexity of spirit, until

Mrs. Honeyman’s servant Hannah entered, who, for her part, grinned and

looked particularly sly. “In the name of goodness, Hannah, what is the

row about?” cries Mr. Clive. “What is my aunt scolding at? What are you

grinning at, you old Cheshire cat?”

“Git long, Master Clive,” says Hannah, patting the cloth.

“Get along! why get along, and where am I to get along to?”

“Did ’ee do ut really now, Master Clive?” cries Mrs. Honeyman’s

attendant, grinning with the utmost good-humour. “Well, she be as

pretty a young lady as ever I saw; and as I told my missis, ‘Miss

Martha,’ says I, ‘there’s a pair on ’em.’ Though missis was mortal

angry to be sure. She never could bear it.”

“Bear _what?_ you old goose!” cries Clive, who by these playful names

had been wont to designate Hannah these twenty years past.

“A young gentleman and a young lady a kissing of each other in the

railway coach,” says Hannah, jerking up with her finger to the ceiling,

as much as to say, “There she is! Lar, she be a pretty young creature,

that she be! and so I told Miss Martha.” Thus differently had the news

which had come to them on the previous night affected the old lady and

her maid.

The news was, that Miss Newcome’s maid (a giddy thing from the county,

who had not even learned as yet to hold her tongue) had announced with

giggling delight to Lady Anne’s maid, who was taking tea with Mrs.

Hicks, that Mr. Clive had given Miss Ethel a kiss in the tunnel, and

she supposed it was a match. This intelligence Hannah Hicks took to her

mistress, of whose angry behaviour to Clive the next morning you may

now understand the cause.

Clive did not know whether to laugh or to be in a rage. He swore that

he was as innocent of all intention of kissing Miss Ethel as of

embracing Queen Elizabeth. He was shocked to think of his cousin,

walking above, fancy-free in maiden meditation, whilst this

conversation regarding her was carried on below. How could he face her,

or her mother, or even her maid, now he had cognisance of this naughty

calumny? “Of course Hannah had contradicted it?” “Of course I have a

done no such indeed,” replied Master Clive’s old friend; “of course I

have set ’em down a bit; for when little Trimmer said it, and she

supposed it was all settled between you, seeing how it had been a going

on in foreign parts last year, Mrs. Pincott says, ‘Hold your silly

tongue, Trimmer,’ she says; ‘Miss Ethel marry a painter, indeed,

Trimmer!’ says she, ‘while she has refused to be a Countess,’ she says;

‘and can be a Marchioness any day, and will be a Marchioness. Marry a

painter, indeed!’ Mrs. Pincott says; ‘Trimmer, I’m surprised at your

impidence.’ So, my dear, I got angry at that,” Clive’s champion

continued, “and says I, if my young master ain’t good enough for any

young lady in this world, says I, I’d like you to show her to me: and

if his dear father, the Colonel, says I, ain’t as good as your old

gentleman upstairs, says I, who has gruel and dines upon doctor’s

stuff, the Mrs. Pincott, says I, my name isn’t what it is, says I.

Those were my very words, Master Clive, my dear; and then Mrs. Pincott

says, Mrs. Hicks, she says, you don’t understand society, she says; you

don’t understand society, he! he!” and the country lady, with

considerable humour, gave an imitation of the town lady’s manner.

At this juncture Miss Honeyman re-entered the parlour, arrayed in her

Sunday bonnet, her stiff and spotless collar, her Cashmere shawl, and

Agra brooch, and carrying her Bible and Prayer-Book each stitched in

its neat cover of brown silk. “Don’t stay chattering here, you idle

woman,” she cried to her attendant with extreme asperity. “And you,

sir, if you wish to smoke your cigar, you had best walk down to the

cliff where the Cockneys are!” she added, glowering at Clive.

“Now I understand it all,” Clive said, trying to deprecate her anger.

“My dear good aunt, it’s a most absurd mistake; upon my honour, Miss

Ethel is as innocent as you are.”

“Innocent or not, this house is not intended for assignations, Clive!

As long as Sir Brian Newcome lodges here, you will be pleased to keep

away from it, sir; and though I don’t approve of Sunday travelling, I

think the very best thing you can do is to put yourself in the train

and go back to London.”

And now, young people, who read my moral pages, you will see how highly

imprudent it is to sit with your cousins in railway carriages; and how,

though you may not mean the slightest harm in the world, a great deal

may be attributed to you; and how, when you think you are managing your

little absurd love-affairs ever so quietly, Jeames and Betsy in the

servants’-hall are very likely talking about them, and you are putting

yourself in the power of those menials. If the perusal of these lines

has rendered one single young couple uncomfortable, surely my amiable

end is answered, and I have written not altogether in vain.

Clive was going away, innocent though he was, yet quivering under his

aunt’s reproof, and so put out of countenance that he had not even

thought of lighting the great cigar which he stuck into his foolish

mouth; when a shout of “Clive! Clive!” from half a dozen little voices

roused him, and presently as many little Newcomes came toddling down

the stairs, and this one clung round his knees, and that at the skirts

of his coat, and another took his hand and said, he must come and walk

with them on the beach.

So away went Clive to walk with his cousins, and then to see his old

friend Miss Cann, with whom and the elder children he walked to church,

and issuing thence greeted Lady Anne and Ethel (who had also attended

the service) in the most natural way in the world.

While engaged in talking with these, Miss Honeyman came out of the

sacred edifice, crisp and stately in the famous Agra brooch and

Cashmere shawls. The good-natured Lady Anne had a smile and a kind word

for her as for everybody. Clive went up to his maternal aunt to offer

his arm. “You must give him up to us for dinner, Miss Honeyman, if you

please to be so very kind. He was so good-natured in escorting Ethel

down,” Lady Anne said.

“Hm! my lady,” says Miss Honeyman, perking her head up in her collar.

Clive did not know whether to laugh or not, but a fine blush

illuminated his countenance. As for Ethel, she was and looked perfectly

unconscious. So, rustling in her stiff black silk, Martha Honeyman

walked with her nephew silent by the shore of the much-sounding sea.

The idea of courtship, of osculatory processes, of marrying and giving

in marriage, made this elderly virgin chafe and fume, she never having,

at any period of her life, indulged in any such ideas or practices, and

being angry against them, as childless wives will sometimes be angry

and testy against matrons with their prattle about their nurseries.

Now, Miss Cann was a different sort of spinster, and loved a bit of

sentiment with all her heart, from which I am led to conclude—but, pray,

is this the history of Miss Cann or of the Newcomes?

All these Newcomes then entered into Miss Honeyman’s house, where a

number of little knives and forks were laid for them. Ethel was cold

and thoughtful; Lady Anne was perfectly good-natured as her wont was.

Sir Brian came in on the arm of his valet presently, wearing that look

of extra neatness which invalids have, who have just been shaved and

combed, and made ready by their attendants to receive company. He was

voluble: though there was a perceptible change in his voice: he talked

chiefly of matters which had occurred forty years ago, and especially

of Clive’s own father, when he was a boy, in a manner which interested

the young man and Ethel. “He threw me down in a chaise—sad chap—always

reading Orme’s History of India—wanted marry Frenchwoman. He wondered

Mrs. Newcome didn’t leave Tom anything—’pon my word, quite s’prise.”

The events of to-day, the House of Commons, the City, had little

interest for him. All the children went up and shook him by the hand,

with awe in their looks, and he patted their yellow heads vacantly and

kindly. He asked Clive (several times) where he had been? and said he

himself had had a slight ’tack—vay slight—was getting well ev’y

day—strong as a horse—go back to Parliament d’rectly. And then he

became a little peevish with Parker, his man, about his broth. The man

retired, and came back presently, with profound bows and gravity, to

tell Sir Brian dinner was ready, and he went away quite briskly at this

news, giving a couple of fingers to Clive before he disappeared into

the upper apartments. Good-natured Lady Anne was as easy about this as

about the other events of this world. In later days, with what a

strange feeling we remember that last sight we have of the old friend;

that nod of farewell, and shake of the hand, that last look of the face

and figure as the door closes on him, or the coach drives away! So the

roast mutton was ready, and all the children dined very heartily.

The infantile meal had not been long concluded, when servants announced

“the Marquis of Farintosh;” and that nobleman made his appearance to

pay his respects to Miss Newcome and Lady Anne. He brought the very

last news of the very last party in London, where “Really, upon my

honour, now, it was quite a stupid party, because Miss Newcome wasn’t

there. It was now, really.”

Miss Newcome remarked, “If he said so upon his honour, of course she

was satisfied.”

“As you weren’t there,” the young nobleman continued, “the Miss

Rackstraws came out quite strong; really they did now, upon my honour.

It was quite a quiet thing. Lady Merriborough hadn’t even got a new

gown on. Lady Anne, you shirk London society this year, and we miss

you: we expected you to give us two or three things this season; we did

now, really. I said to Tufthunt, only yesterday, Why has not Lady Anne

Newcome given anything? You know Tufthunt? They say he’s a clever

fellow, and that—but he’s a low little beast, and I hate him.”

Lady Anne said, “Sir Brian’s bad state of health prevented her from

going out this season, or receiving at home.”

“It don’t prevent your mother from going out, though,” continued my

lord. “Upon my honour, I think unless she got two or three things every

night, I think she’d die. Lady Kew’s like one of those horses, you

know, that unless they go they drop.”

“Thank you for my mother,” said Lady Anne.

“She is, upon my honour. Last night I know she was at ever so many

places. She dined at the Bloxams’, for I was there. Then she said she

was going to sit with old Mrs. Crackthorpe, who has broke her

collar-bone (that Crackthorpe in the Life Guards, her grandson, is a

brute, and I hope she won’t leave him a shillin’); and then she came on

to Lady Hawkstone’s, where I heard her say she had been at the—at the

Flowerdales’, too. People begin to go to those Flowerdales’. Hanged—if

I know where they won’t go next. Cotton-spinner, wasn’t he?”

“So were we, my lord,” says Miss Newcome.

“Oh, yes, I forgot! But you’re of an old family—very old family.”

“We can’t help it,” said Miss Ethel, archly. Indeed, she thought she

was.

“Do you believe in the barber-surgeon?” asked Clive. And my lord looked

at him with a noble curiosity, as much as to say, “Who the deuce was

the barber-surgeon? and who the devil are you?”

“Why should we disown our family?” Miss Ethel said, simply. “In those

early days I suppose people did—did all sorts of things, and it was not

considered at all out of the way to be surgeon to William the

Conqueror.”

“Edward the Confessor,” interposed Clive. “And it must be true, because

I have seen a picture of the barber-surgeon, a friend of mine,

M’Collop, did the picture, and I dare say it is for sale still”

Lady Anne said “she should be delighted to see it.” Lord Farintosh

remembered that the M’Collop had the moor next to his in Argyleshire,

but did not choose to commit himself with the stranger, and preferred

looking at his own handsome face and admiring it in the glass until the

last speaker had concluded his remarks.

As Clive did not offer any further conversation, but went back to a

table, where he began to draw the barber-surgeon, Lord Farintosh

resumed the delightful talk. “What infernal bad glasses these are in

these Brighton lodging-houses! They make a man look quite green, really

they do—and there’s nothing green in me, is there, Lady Anne?”

“But you look very unwell, Lord Farintosh; indeed you do,” Miss Newcome

said, gravely. “I think late hours, and smoking, and going to that

horrid Platt’s, where I dare say you go——”

“Go? Don’t I? But don’t call it horrid; really, now, don’t call it

horrid!” cried the noble Marquis.

“Well—something has made you look far from well. You know how very well

Lord Farintosh used to look, mamma—and to see him now, in only his

second season—oh, it is melancholy!”

“God bless my soul, Miss Newcome! what do you mean? I think I look

pretty well,” and the noble youth passed his hand through his hair. “It

is a hard life, I know; that tearin’ about night after night, and

sittin’ up till ever so much o’clock; and then all these races, you

know, comin’ one after another—it’s enough to knock up any fellow. I’ll

tell you what I’ll do, Miss Newcome. I’ll go down to Codlington, to my

mother; I will, upon my honour, and lie quiet all July, and then I’ll

go to Scotland—and you shall see whether I don’t look better next

season.”

“Do, Lord Farintosh!” said Ethel, greatly amused, as much, perhaps, at

the young Marquis as at her cousin Clive, who sat whilst the other was

speaking, fuming with rage, at his table.

“What are you doing, Clive?” she asks.

“I was trying to draw; Lord knows who—Lord Newcome, who was killed at

the battle of Bosworth,” said the artist, and the girl ran to look at

the picture.

“Why, you have made him like Punch!” cries the young lady.

“It’s a shame caricaturing one’s own flesh and blood, isn’t it?” asked

Clive, gravely.

“What a droll, funny picture!” exclaims Lady Anne. “Isn’t it capital,

Lord Farintosh?”

“I dare say—I confess I don’t understand that sort of thing,” says his

lordship. “Don’t, upon my honour. There’s Odo Carton, always making

those caricatures—_I_ don’t understand ’em. You’ll come up to town

to-morrow, won’t you? And you’re goin’ to Lady Hm’s, and to Hm and

Hm’s, ain’t you?” (The names of these aristocratic places of resort

were quite inaudible.) “You mustn’t let Miss Blackcap have it all her

own way, you know, that you mustn’t.”

“She won’t have it all her own way,” says Miss Ethel. “Lord Farintosh,

will you do me a favour? Lady Innishowan is your aunt?”

“Of course she is my aunt.”

“Will you be so very good as to get a card for her party on Tuesday,

for my cousin, Mr. Clive Newcome? Clive, please be introduced to the

Marquis of Farintosh.”

The young Marquis perfectly well recollected those mustachios and their

wearer on a former night, though he had not thought fit to make any

sign of recognition. “Anything you wish, Miss Newcome,” he said;

“delighted, I’m sure;” and turning to Clive—In the army, I suppose?”

“I am an artist,” says Clive, turning very red.

“Oh, really, I didn’t know!” cries the nobleman; and my lord bursting

out laughing presently as he was engaged in conversation with Miss

Ethel on the balcony, Clive thought, very likely with justice, “He is

making fun of my mustachios. Confound him! I should like to pitch him

over into the street.” But this was only a kind wish on Mr. Newcome’s

part; not followed out by any immediate fulfilment.

As the Marquis of Farintosh seemed inclined to prolong his visit, and

his company was exceedingly disagreeable to Clive, the latter took his

departure for an afternoon walk, consoled to think that he should have

Ethel to himself at the evening’s dinner, when Lady Anne would be

occupied about Sir Brian, and would be sure to be putting the children

to bed, and, in a word, would give him a quarter of an hour of

delightful _tête-à-tête_ with the beautiful Ethel.

Clive’s disgust was considerable when he came to dinner at length, and

found Lord Farintosh, likewise invited, and sprawling in the

drawing-room. His hopes of a _tête-à-tête_ were over. Ethel and Lady

Anne and my lord talked, as all people will, about their mutual

acquaintance: what parties were coming off, who was going to marry

whom, and so forth. And as the persons about whom they conversed were

in their own station of life, and belonged to the fashionable world, of

which Clive had but a slight knowledge, he chose to fancy that his

cousin was giving herself airs, and to feel sulky and uneasy during

their dialogue.

Miss Newcome had faults of her own, and was worldly enough as perhaps

the reader has begun to perceive; but in this instance no harm, sure,

was to be attributed to her. If two gossips in Aunt Honeyman’s parlour

had talked over the affairs of Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown, Clive would not

have been angry; but a young man of spirit not unfrequently mistakes

his vanity for independence: and it is certain that nothing is more

offensive to us of the middle class than to hear the names of great

folks constantly introduced into conversation.

So Clive was silent and ate no dinner, to the alarm of Martha, who had

put him to bed many a time, and always had a maternal eye over him.

When he actually refused currant and raspberry tart, and custard, the

_chef d’œuvre_ of Miss Honeyman, for which she had seen him absolutely

cry in his childhood, the good Martha was alarmed.

“Law, Master Clive!” she said, “do ’ee eat some. Missis made it, you

know she did;” and she insisted on bringing back the tart to him.

Lady Anne and Ethel laughed at this eagerness on the worthy old woman’s

part. “Do ’ee eat some, Clive,” says Ethel, imitating honest Mrs.

Hicks, who had left the room.

“It’s doosid good,” remarked Lord Farintosh.

“Then do ’ee eat some more,” said Miss Newcome: on which the young

nobleman, holding out his plate, observed with much affability, that

the cook of the lodgings was really a stunner for tarts.

“The cook! dear me, it’s not the _cook!_” cries Miss Ethel. “Don’t you

remember the princess in the Arabian Nights, who was such a stunner for

tarts, Lord Farintosh?”

Lord Farintosh couldn’t say that he did.

“Well, I thought not; but there was a princess in Arabia or China, or

somewhere, who made such delicious tarts and custards that nobody’s

could compare with them; and there is an old lady in Brighton who has

the same wonderful talent. She is the mistress of this house.”

“And she is my aunt, at your lordship’s service,” said Mr. Clive, with

great dignity.

“Upon my honour! _did_ you make ’em, Lady Anne?” asked my lord.

“The Queen of Hearts made tarts!” cried out Miss Newcome, rather

eagerly, and blushing somewhat.

“My good old aunt, Miss Honeyman, made this one,” Clive would go on to

say.

“Mr. Honeyman’s sister, the preacher, you know, where we go on Sunday,”

Miss Ethel interposed.

“The Honeyman pedigree is not a matter of very great importance,” Lady

Anne remarked gently. “Kuhn, will you have the goodness to take away

these things? When did you hear of Colonel Newcome, Clive?”

An air of deep bewilderment and perplexity had spread over Lord

Farintosh’s fine countenance whilst this talk about pastry had been

going on. The Arabian Princess, the Queen of Hearts making tarts, Miss

Honeyman? Who the deuce were all these? Such may have been his

lordship’s doubts and queries. Whatever his cogitations were he did not

give utterance to them, but remained in silence for some time, as did

the rest of the little party. Clive tried to think he had asserted his

independence by showing that he was not ashamed of his old aunt; but

the doubt may be whether there was any necessity for presenting her in

this company, and whether Mr. Clive had not much better have left the

tart question alone.

Ethel evidently thought so: for she talked and rattled in the most

lively manner with Lord Farintosh for the rest of the evening, and

scarcely chose to say a word to her cousin. Lady Anne was absent with

Sir Brian and her children for the most part of the time: and thus

Clive had the pleasure of listening to Miss Newcome uttering all sorts

of odd little paradoxes, firing the while sly shots at Mr. Clive, and,

indeed, making fun of his friends, exhibiting herself in not the most

agreeable light. Her talk only served the more to bewilder Lord

Farintosh, who did not understand a tithe of her allusions: for Heaven,

which had endowed the young Marquis with personal charms, a large

estate, an ancient title and the pride belonging to it, had not

supplied his lordship with a great quantity of brains, or a very

feeling heart.

Lady Anne came back from the upper regions presently, with rather a

grave face, and saying that Sir Brian was not so well this evening,

upon which the young men rose to depart. My lord said he had “a most

delightful dinner and a most delightful tart, ’pon his honour,” and was

the only one of the little company who laughed at his own remark. Miss

Ethel’s eyes flashed scorn at Mr. Clive when that unfortunate subject

was introduced again.

My lord was going back to London to-morrow. Was Miss Newcome going

back? Wouldn’t he like to go back in the train with her!—another

unlucky observation. Lady Anne said, “it would depend on the state of

Sir Brian’s health the next morning whether Ethel would return; and

both of you gentlemen are too young to be her escort,” added the kind

lady. Then she shook hands with Clive, as thinking she had said

something too severe for him.

Farintosh in the meantime was taking leave of Miss Newcome. “Pray,

pray,” said his lordship, “don’t throw me over at Lady Innishowan’s.

You know I hate balls and never go to ’em, except when you go. I hate

dancing, I do, ’pon my honour.”

“Thank you,” said Miss Newcome, with a curtsey.

“Except with one person—only one person, upon my honour. I’ll remember

and get the invitation for your friend. And if you would but try that

mare, I give you my honour I bred her at Codlington. She’s a beauty to

look at, and as quiet as a lamb.”

“I don’t want a horse like a lamb,” replied the young lady.

“Well—she’ll go like blazes now: and over timber she’s splendid now.

She is, upon my honour.”

“When I come to London perhaps you may trot her out,” said Miss Ethel,

giving him her hand and a fine smile.

Clive came up biting his lips. “I suppose you don’t condescend to ride

Bhurtpore any more now?” he said.

“Poor old Bhurtpore! The children ride him now,” said Miss Ethel—giving

Clive at the same time a dangerous look of her eyes, as though to see

if her shot had hit. Then she added, “No—he has not been brought up to

town this year: he is at Newcome, and I like him very much.” Perhaps

she thought the shot had struck too deep.

But if Clive was hurt he did not show his wound. “You have had him

these four years—yes, it’s four years since my father broke him for

you. And you still continue to like him? What a miracle of constancy!

You use him sometimes in the country—when you have no better horse—what

a compliment to Bhurtpore!”

“Nonsense!” Miss Ethel here made Clive a sign in her most imperious

manner to stay a moment when Lord Farintosh had departed.

But he did not choose to obey this order. “Good night,” he said.

“Before I go I must shake hands with my aunt downstairs.” And he was

gone, following close upon Lord Farintosh, who I dare say thought, “Why

the deuce can’t he shake hands with his aunt up here?” and when Clive

entered Miss Honeyman’s back-parlour, making a bow to the young

nobleman, my lord went away more perplexed than ever: and the next day

told friends at White’s what uncommonly queer people those Newcomes

were. “I give you my honour there was a fellow at Lady Anne’s whom they

call Clive, who is a painter by trade—his uncle is a preacher—his

father is a horse-dealer, and his aunt lets lodgings and cooks the

dinner.”

CHAPTER XLIII.

Returns to some Old Friends

The haggard youth burst into my chambers, in the Temple, on the very

next morning, and confided to me the story which has been just here

narrated. When he had concluded it, with many ejaculations regarding

the heroine of the tale, “I saw her, sir,” he added, “walking with the

children and Miss Cann as I drove round in the fly to the station—and

didn’t even bow to her.”

“Why did you go round by the cliff?” asked Clive’s friend.

“That is not the way from the Steyne Arms to the railroad.”

“Hang it,” says Clive, turning very red, “I wanted to pass just under

her windows, and if I saw her, not to see her: and that’s what I did.”

“Why did she walk on the cliff?” mused Clive’s friend, “at that early

hour? Not to meet Lord Farintosh, I should think, he never gets up

before twelve. It must have been to see you. Didn’t you tell her you

were going away in the morning?”

“I tell you what she does with me,” continues Mr. Clive. “Sometimes she

seems to like me, and then she leaves me. Sometimes she is quite

kind—kind she always is—I mean, you know, Pen—_you_ know what I mean;

and then up comes the old Countess, or a young Marquis, or some fellow

with a handle to his name, and she whistles me off till the next

convenient opportunity.”

“Women are like that, my ingenuous youth,” says Clive’s counsellor.

“_I_ won’t stand it. _I_ won’t be made a fool of!” he continues. “She

seems to expect everybody to bow to her, and moves through the world

with her imperious airs. Oh, how confoundedly handsome she is with

them! I tell you what. I feel inclined to tumble down and feel one of

her pretty little feet on my neck and say, There! Trample my life out.

Make a slave of me. Let me get a silver collar and mark ‘Ethel’ on it,

and go through the world with my badge.”

“And a blue ribbon for a footman to hold you by; and a muzzle to wear

in the dog-days. Bow! wow!” says Mr. Pendennis.

(At this noise Mr. Warrington puts his head in from the neighbouring

bedchamber, and shows a beard just lathered for shaving. “We are

talking sentiment! Go back till you are wanted!” says Mr. Pendennis.

Exit he of the soap-suds.)

“Don’t make fun of a fellow,” Clive continues, laughing ruefully. “You

see I must talk about it to somebody. I shall die if I don’t.

Sometimes, sir, I rise up in my might and I defy her lightning. The

sarcastic dodge is the best: I have borrowed that from you Pen, old

boy. That puzzles her: that would beat her if I could but go on with

it. But there comes a tone of her sweet voice, a look out of those

killing grey eyes, and all my frame is in a thrill and a tremble. When

she was engaged to Lord Kew I did battle with the confounded

passion—and I ran away from it like an honest man, and the gods

rewarded me with ease of mind after a while. But now the thing rages

worse than ever. Last night, I give you my honour, I heard every one of

the confounded hours toll, except the last, when I was dreaming of my

father, and the chambermaid woke me with a hot water jug.”

“Did she scald you? What a cruel chambermaid! I see you have shaven the

mustachios off.”

“Farintosh asked me whether I was going in the army,” said Clive, “and

she laughed. I thought I had best dock them. Oh, I would like to cut my

head off as well as my hair!”

“Have you ever asked her to marry you?” asked Clive’s friend.

“I have seen her but five times since my return from abroad,” the lad

went on; “there has been always somebody by. Who am I? a painter with

five hundred a year for an allowance. Isn’t she used to walk up on

velvet and dine upon silver; and hasn’t she got marquises and barons,

and all sorts of swells, in her train? I daren’t ask her——”

Here his friend hummed Montrose’s lines—“He either fears his fate too

much, or his desert is small, who dares not put it to the touch, and

win or lose it all.”

“I own I dare not ask her. If she were to refuse me, I know I should

never ask again. This isn’t the moment, when all Swelldom is at her

feet, for me to come forward and say, ‘Maiden, I have watched thee

daily, and I think thou lovest me well.’ I read that ballad to her at

Baden, sir. I drew a picture of the Lord of Burleigh wooing the maiden,

and asked what she would have done?”

“Oh, you _did?_ I thought, when we were at Baden, we were so modest

that we did not even whisper our condition?”

“A fellow can’t help letting it be seen and hinting it,” says Clive,

with another blush. “They can read it in our looks fast enough; and

what is going on in our minds, hang them! I recollect she said, in her

grave, cool way, that after all the Lord and Lady of Burleigh did not

seem to have made a very good marriage, and that the lady would have

been much happier in marrying one of her own degree.”

“That was a very prudent saying for a young lady of eighteen,” remarks

Clive’s friend.

“Yes; but it was not an unkind one. Say Ethel thought—thought what was

the case; and being engaged herself, and knowing how friends of mine

had provided a very pretty little partner for me—she is a dear, good

little girl, little Rosey; and twice as good, Pen, when her mother is

away—knowing this and that, I say, suppose Ethel wanted to give me a

hint to keep quiet, was she not right in the counsel she gave me? She

is not fit to be a poor man’s wife. Fancy Ethel Newcome going into the

kitchen and making pies like Aunt Honeyman!”

“The Circassian beauties don’t sell under so many thousand purses,”

remarked Mr. Pendennis. “If there’s a beauty in a well-regulated

Georgian family, they fatten her; they feed her with the best _Racahout

des Arabes_. They give her silk robes, and perfumed baths; have her

taught to play on the dulcimer and dance and sing; and when she is

quite perfect, send her down to Constantinople for the Sultan’s

inspection. The rest of the family think never of grumbling, but eat

coarse meat, bathe in the river, wear old clothes, and praise Allah for

their sister’s elevation. Bah! Do you suppose the Turkish system

doesn’t obtain all over the world? My poor Clive, this article in the

Mayfair Market is beyond your worship’s price. Some things in this

world are made for our betters, young man. Let Dives say grace for his

dinner, and the dogs and Lazarus be thankful for the crumbs. Here comes

Warrington, shaven and smart as if he was going out a-courting.”

Thus it will be seen, that in his communication with certain friends

who approached nearer to his own time of life, Clive was much more

eloquent and rhapsodical than in the letter which he wrote to his

father, regarding his passion for Miss Ethel. He celebrated her with

pencil and pen. He was for ever drawing the outline of her head, the

solemn eyebrow, the nose (that wondrous little nose), descending from

the straight forehead, the short upper lip, and chin sweeping in a full

curve to the neck, etc. etc. A frequenter of his studio might see a

whole gallery of Ethels there represented: when Mrs. Mackenzie visited

that place, and remarked one face and figure repeated on a hundred

canvases and papers, grey, white, and brown, I believe she was told

that the original was a famous Roman model, from whom Clive had studied

a great deal during his residence in Italy; on which Mrs. Mack gave it

as her opinion that Clive was a sad wicked young fellow. The widow

thought rather the better of him for being a sad wicked young fellow;

and as for Miss Rosey, she, was of course of mamma’s way of thinking.

Rosey went through the world constantly smiling at whatever occurred.

She was good-humoured through the dreariest long evenings at the most

stupid parties; sate good-humouredly for hours at Shoolbred’s whilst

mamma was making purchases; heard good-humouredly those old old stories

of her mother’s day after day; bore an hour’s joking or an hour’s

scolding with equal good-humour; and whatever had been the occurrences

of her simple day, whether there was sunshine or cloudy weather, or

flashes of lightning and bursts of rain, I fancy Miss Mackenzie slept

after them quite undisturbedly, and was sure to greet the morrow’s dawn

with a smile.

Had Clive become more knowing in his travels, had Love or Experience

opened his eyes, that they looked so differently now upon objects which

before used well enough to please them? It is a fact that, until he

went abroad, he thought widow Mackenzie a dashing, lively, agreeable

woman: he used to receive her stories about Cheltenham, the colonies,

the balls at Government House, the observations which the bishop made,

and the peculiar attention of the Chief Justice to Mrs. Major M’Shane,

with the Major’s uneasy behaviour—all these to hear at one time did

Clive not ungraciously incline. “Our friend, Mrs. Mack,” the good old

Colonel used to say, “is a clever woman of the world, and has seen a

great deal of company.” That story of Sir Thomas Sadman dropping a

pocket-handkerchief in his court at Colombo, which the Queen’s Advocate

O’Goggarty picked up, and on which Laura MacS. was embroidered, whilst

the Major was absolutely in the witness-box giving evidence against a

native servant who had stolen one of his cocked-hats—that story always

made good Thomas Newcome laugh, and Clive used to enjoy it too, and the

widow’s mischievous fun in narrating it; and now, behold, one day when

Mrs. Mackenzie recounted the anecdote in her best manner to Messrs.

Pendennis and Warrington, and Frederick Bayham, who had been invited to

meet Mr. Clive in Fitzroy Square—when Mr. Binnie chuckled, when Rosey,

as in duty bound, looked discomposed and said, “Law, mamma!”—not one

sign of good-humour, not one ghost of a smile, made its apparition on

Clive’s dreary face. He painted imaginary portraits with a strawberry

stalk; he looked into his water-glass as though he would plunge and

drown there; and Bayham had to remind him that the claret jug was

anxious to have another embrace from its constant friend, F. B. When

Mrs. Mack went away distributing smiles, Clive groaned out, “Good

heavens! how that story does bore me!” and lapsed into his former

moodiness, not giving so much as a glance to Rosey, whose sweet face

looked at him kindly for a moment, as she followed in the wake of her

mamma.

“The mother’s the woman for my money,” I heard F. B. whisper to

Warrington. “Splendid figure-head, sir—magnificent build, sir, from

bows to stern—I like ’em of that sort. Thank you, Mr. Binnie, I _will_

take a back-hander, as Clive don’t seem to drink. The youth, sir, has

grown melancholy with his travels; I’m inclined to think some noble

Roman has stolen the young man’s heart. Why did you not send us over a

picture of the charmer, Clive? Young Ridley, Mr. Binnie, you will be

happy to hear, is bidding fair to take a distinguished place in the

world of arts. His picture has been greatly admired; and my good friend

Mrs. Ridley tells me that Lord Todmorden has sent him over an order to

paint him a couple of pictures at a hundred guineas apiece.”

“I should think so. J. J.’s pictures will be worth five times a hundred

guineas ere five years are over,” says Clive.

“In that case it wouldn’t be a bad speculation for our friend

Sherrick,” remarked F. B., “to purchase a few of the young man’s works.

I would, only I haven’t the capital to spare. Mine has been vested in

an Odessa venture, sir, in a large amount of wild oats, which up to the

present moment make me no return. But it will always be a consolation

to me to think that I have been the means—the humble means—of

furthering that deserving young man’s prospects in life.”

“You, F. B.! and how?” we asked.

“By certain humble contributions of mine to the press,” answered

Bayham, majestically. “Mr. Warrington, the claret happens to stand with

you; and exercise does it good, sir. Yes, the articles, trifling as

they may appear, have attracted notice,” continued F. B., sipping his

wine with great gusto. “They are noticed, Pendennis, give me leave to

say, by parties who don’t value so much the literary or even the

political part of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, though both, I am told by

those who read them, are conducted with considerable—consummate

ability. John Ridley sent a hundred pounds over to his father, the

other day, who funded it in his son’s name. And Ridley told the story

to Lord Todmorden, when the venerable nobleman congratulated him on

having such a child. I wish F. B. had one of the same sort, sir.” In

which sweet prayer we all of us joined with a laugh.

One of us had told Mrs. Mackenzie (let the criminal blush to own that

quizzing his fellow-creatures used at one time to form part of his

youthful amusement) that F. B. was the son of a gentleman of most

ancient family and vast landed possessions, and as Bayham was

particularly attentive to the widow, and grandiloquent in his remarks,

she was greatly pleased by his politeness, and pronounced him a most

_distingué_ man—reminding her, indeed, of General Hopkirk, who

commanded in Canada. And she bade Rosey sing for Mr. Bayham, who was in

a rapture at the young lady’s performances, and said no wonder such an

accomplished daughter came from such a mother, though how such a mother

could have a daughter of such an age he, F. B., was at a loss to

understand. Oh, sir! Mrs. Mackenzie was charmed and overcome at this

novel compliment. Meanwhile the little artless Rosey warbled on her

pretty ditties.

“It _is_ a wonder,” growled out Mr. Warrington, “that that sweet girl

can belong to such a woman. I don’t understand much about women, but

that one appears to me to be—hum!”

“What, George?” asked Warrington’s friend.

“Well, an ogling, leering, scheming, artful old campaigner,” grumbled

the misogynist. “As for the little girl, I should like to have her to

sing to me all night long. Depend upon it she would make a much better

wife for Clive than that fashionable cousin of his he is hankering

after. I heard him bellowing about her the other day in chambers, as I

was dressing. What the deuce does the boy want with a wife at all?” And

Rosey’s song being by this time finished, Warrington went up with a

blushing face and absolutely paid a compliment to Miss Mackenzie—an

almost unheard-of effort on George’s part.

“I wonder whether it is every young fellow’s lot,” quoth George, as we

trudged home together, “to pawn his heart away to some girl that’s not

worth the winning? Psha! it’s all mad rubbish this sentiment. The women

ought not to be allowed to interfere with us: married if a man must be,

a suitable wife should be portioned out to him, and there an end of it.

Why doesn’t the young man marry this girl, and get back to his business

and paint his pictures? Because his father wishes it—and the old Nabob

yonder, who seems a kindly-disposed, easy-going, old heathen

philosopher. Here’s a pretty little girl: money I suppose in

sufficiency—everything satisfactory, except, I grant you, the

campaigner. The lad might daub his canvases, christen a child a year,

and be as happy as any young donkey that browses on this common of

ours—but he must go and heehaw after a zebra forsooth! a _lusus naturæ_

is she! I never spoke to a woman of fashion, thank my stars—I don’t

know the nature of the beast; and since I went to our race-balls, as a

boy, scarcely ever saw one; as I don’t frequent operas and parties in

London like you young flunkeys of the aristocracy. I heard you talking

about this one; I couldn’t help it, as my door was open and the young

one was shouting like a madman. What! does he choose to hang on on

sufferance and hope to be taken, provided Miss can get no better? Do

you mean to say that is the genteel custom, and that women in your

confounded society do such things every day? Rather than have such a

creature I would take a savage woman, who should nurse my dusky brood;

and rather than have a daughter brought up to the trade I would bring

her down from the woods and sell her in Virginia.” With which burst of

indignation our friend’s anger ended for that night.

Though Mr. Clive had the felicity to meet his cousin Ethel at a party

or two in the ensuing weeks of the season, every time he perused the

features of Lady Kew’s brass knocker in Queen Street, no result came of

the visit. At one of their meetings in the world Ethel fairly told him

that her grandmother would not receive him. “You know, Clive, I can’t

help myself: nor would it be proper to make you signs out of the

window. But you must call for all that: grandmamma may become more

good-humoured: or if you don’t come she may suspect I told you not to

come: and to battle with her day after day is no pleasure, sir, I

assure you. Here is Lord Farintosh coming to take me to dance. You must

not speak to me all the evening, mind that, sir,” and away goes the

young lady in a waltz with the Marquis.

On the same evening—as he was biting his nails, or cursing his fate, or

wishing to invite Lord Farintosh into the neighbouring garden of

Berkeley Square, whence the policeman might carry to the station-house

the corpse of the survivor,—Lady Kew would bow to him with perfect

graciousness; on other nights her ladyship would pass and no more

recognise him than the servant who opened the door.

If she was not to see him at her grandmother’s house, and was not

particularly unhappy at his exclusion, why did Miss Newcome encourage

Mr. Clive so that he should try and see _her?_ If Clive could not get

into the little house in Queen Street, why was Lord Farintosh’s

enormous cab-horse looking daily into the first-floor windows of that

street? Why were little quiet dinners made for him, before the opera,

before going to the play, upon a half-dozen occasions, when some of the

old old Kew port was brought out of the cellar, where cobwebs had

gathered round it ere Farintosh was born? The dining-room was so tiny

that not more than five people could sit at the little round table:

that is, not more than Lady Kew and her granddaughter, Miss Crochet,

the late vicar’s daughter, at Kewbury, one of the Miss Toadins, and

Captain Walleye, or Tommy Henchman, Farintosh’s kinsman, and admirer,

who were of no consequence, or old Fred Tiddler, whose wife was an

invalid, and who was always ready at a moment’s notice? Crackthorpe

once went to one of these dinners, but that young soldier being a frank

and high-spirited youth, abused the entertainment and declined more of

them. “I tell you what I was wanted for,” the Captain told his mess and

Clive at the Regent’s Park barracks afterwards, “I was expected to go

as Farintosh’s Groom of the Stole, don’t you know, to stand, or if I

could sit, in the back seat of the box, whilst his Royal Highness made

talk with the Beauty; to go out and fetch the carriage, and walk

downstairs with that d—— crooked old dowager, that looks as if she

usually rode on a broomstick, by Jove, or else with that bony old

painted sheep-faced companion, who’s raddled like an old bell-wether. I

think, Newcome, you seem rather hit by the Belle Cousine—so was I last

season; so were ever so many of the fellows. By Jove, sir! there’s

nothing I know more comfortable or inspiritin’ than a younger son’s

position, when a marquis cuts in with fifteen thousand a year! We fancy

we’ve been making running, and suddenly we find ourselves nowhere. Miss

Mary, or Miss Lucy, or Miss Ethel, saving your presence, will no more

look at us, than my dog will look at a bit of bread, when I offer her

this cutlet. Will you—old woman! no, you old slut, that you won’t!” (to

Mag, an Isle of Skye terrier, who, in fact, prefers the cutlet, having

snuffed disdainfully at the bread)—“that you won’t, no more than any of

your sex. Why, do you suppose, if Jack’s eldest brother had been

dead—Barebones Belsize they used to call him (I don’t believe he was a

bad fellow, though he was fond of psalm-singing)—do you suppose that

Lady Clara would have looked at that cock-tail Barney Newcome? Beg your

pardon, if he’s your cousin—but a more odious little snob I never saw.”

“I give you up Barnes,” said Clive, laughing; “anybody may shy at him

and I shan’t interfere.”

“I understand, but at nobody else of the family. Well, what I mean is,

that that old woman is enough to spoil any young girl she takes in

hand. She dries ’em up, and poisons ’em, sir; and I was never more glad

than when I heard that Kew had got out of her old clutches. Frank is a

fellow that will always be led by some woman or another; and I’m only

glad it should be a good one. They say his mother’s serious, and that;

but why shouldn’t she bet?” continues honest Crackthorpe, puffing his

cigar with great energy. “They say the old dowager doesn’t believe in

God nor devil: but that she’s in such a funk to be left in the dark

that she howls, and raises the doose’s own delight if her candle goes

out. Toppleton slept next room to her at Groningham, and heard her;

didn’t you, Top?”

“Heard her howling like an old cat on the tiles,” says

Toppleton,—“thought she was at first. My man told me that she used to

fling all sorts of things—boot-jacks and things, give you my honour—at

her maid, and that the woman was all over black and blue.”

“Capital head that is Newcome has done of Jack Belsize!” says

Crackthorpe, from out of his cigar.

“And Kew’s too—famous likeness! I say, Newcome, if you have ’em printed

the whole brigade’ll subscribe. Make your fortune, see if you won’t,”

cries Toppleton.

“He’s such a heavy swell, he don’t want to make his fortune,”

ejaculates Butts.

“Butts, old boy, he’ll paint you for nothing, and send you to the

Exhibition, where some widow will fall in love with you, and you shall

be put as frontispiece for the ‘Book of Beauty,’ by Jove,” cries

another military satirist—to whom Butts:

“You hold your tongue, you old Saracen’s Head; they’re going to have

you done on the bear’s-grease pots. I say, I suppose Jack’s all right

now. When did he write to you last, Cracky?”

“He wrote from Palermo—a most jolly letter from him and Kew. He hasn’t

touched a card for nine months; is going to give up play. So is Frank,

too, grown quite a good boy. So will you, too, Butts, you old

miscreant, repent of your sins, pay your debts, and do something

handsome for that poor deluded milliner in Albany Street. Jack says

Kew’s mother has written over to Lord Highgate a beautiful letter—and

the old boy’s relenting, and they’ll come together again—Jack’s eldest

son now, you know. Bore for Lady Susan only having girls.”

“Not a bore for Jack, though,” cries another. And what a good fellow

Jack was; and what a trump Kew is; how famously he stuck by him: went

to see him in prison and paid him out! and what good fellows we all

are, in general, became the subject of the conversation, the latter

part of which took place in the smoking-room of the Regent’s Park

Barracks, then occupied by that regiment of Life Guards of which Lord

Kew and Mr. Belsize had been members. Both were still fondly remembered

by their companions; and it was because Belsize had spoken very warmly

of Clive’s friendliness to him that Jack’s friend the gallant

Crackthorpe had been interested in our hero, and found an opportunity

of making his acquaintance.

With these frank and pleasant young men Clive soon formed a

considerable intimacy: and if any of his older and peaceful friends

chanced to take their afternoon airing in the Park, and survey the

horsemen there, we might have the pleasure of beholding Mr. Newcome in

Rotten Row, riding side by side with other dandies who had mustachios

blonde or jet, who wore flowers in their buttons (themselves being

flowers of spring), who rode magnificent thoroughbred horses, scarcely

touching their stirrups with the tips of their varnished boots, and who

kissed the most beautiful primrose-coloured kid gloves to lovely ladies

passing them in the Ride. Clive drew portraits of half the officers of

the Life Guards Green; and was appointed painter in ordinary to that

distinguished corps. His likeness of the Colonel would make you die

with laughing: his picture of the Surgeon was voted a masterpiece. He

drew the men in the saddle, in the stable, in their flannel dresses,

sweeping their flashing swords about, receiving lancers, repelling

infantry,—nay, cutting—a sheep in two, as some of the warriors are

known to be able to do at one stroke. Detachments of Life Guardsmen

made their appearance in Charlotte Street, which was not very distant

from their barracks; the most splendid cabs were seen prancing before

his door; and curly-whiskered youths, of aristocratic appearance,

smoking cigars out of his painting-room window. How many times did

Clive’s next-door neighbour, little Mr. Finch, the miniature-painter,

run to peep through his parlour blinds, hoping that a sitter was

coming, and “a carriage-party” driving up! What wrath Mr. Scowler,

A.R.A., was in, because a young hop-o’-my-thumb dandy, who wore gold

chains and his collars turned down, should spoil the trade and draw

portraits for nothing! Why did none of the young men come to Scowler?

Scowler was obliged to own that Mr. Newcome had considerable talent,

and a good knack at catching a likeness. He could not paint a bit, to

be sure, but his heads in black-and-white were really tolerable; his

sketches of horses very vigorous and lifelike. Mr. Gandish said if

Clive would come for three or four years into his academy he could make

something of him. Mr. Smee shook his head, and said he was afraid, that

kind of loose, desultory study, that keeping of aristocratic company,

was anything but favourable to a young artist—Smee, who would walk five

miles to attend an evening party of ever so little a great man!

CHAPTER XLIV.

In which Mr. Charles Honeyman appears in an Amiable Light

Mr. Frederick Bayham waited at Fitzroy Square while Clive was yet

talking with his friends there, and favoured that gentleman with his

company home to the usual smoky refreshment. Clive always rejoiced in

F. B.’s society, whether he was in a sportive mood, or, as now, in a

solemn and didactic vein. F. B. had been more than ordinarily majestic

all the evening. “I dare say you find me a good deal altered, Clive,”

he remarked; “I am a good deal altered. Since that good Samaritan, your

kind father, had compassion on a poor fellow fallen among thieves

(though I don’t say, mind you, he was much better than his company), F.

B. has mended some of his ways. I am trying a course of industry, sir.

Powers, perhaps naturally great, have been neglected over the wine-cup

and the die. I am beginning to feel my way; and my chiefs yonder, who

have just walked home with their cigars in their mouths, and without as

much as saying, F. B., my boy, shall we go to the Haunt and have a cool

lobster and a glass of table-beer,—which they certainly do not consider

themselves to be,—I say, sir, the Politician and the Literary Critic”

(there was a most sarcastic emphasis laid on these phrases,

characterising Messrs. Warrington and Pendennis) “may find that there

is a humble contributor to the _Pall Mall Gazette_, whose name, may be,

the amateur shall one day reckon even higher than their own. Mr.

Warrington I do not say so much—he is an able man, sir, an able

man;—but there is that about your exceedin self-satisfied friend, Mr.

Arthur Pendennis, which—well, well—let time show. You did not—get

the—hem—paper at Rome and Naples, I suppose?”

“Forbidden by the Inquisition,” says Clive, delighted; “and at Naples

the king furious against it.”

“I _don’t wonder_ they don’t like it at Rome, sir. There’s serious

matter in it which may set the prelates of a certain Church rather in a

tremor. You haven’t read—the—ahem—the Pulpit Pencillings in the _P. M.

G.?_ Slight sketches, mental and corporeal, of our chief divines now in

London—and signed Latimer?”

“I don’t do much in that way,” said Clive.

“So much the worse for you, my young friend. Not that I mean to judge

any other fellow harshly—I mean any other fellow sinner harshly—or that

I mean that those Pulpit Pencillings would be likely to do you any

great good. But, such as they are, they have been productive of

benefit.—Thank you, Mary, and my dear, the tap is uncommonly good, and

I drink to your future husband’s good health.—A glass of good sound

beer refreshes after all that claret. Well, sir, to return to the

Pencillings, pardon my vanity in saying, that though Mr. Pendennis

laughs at them, they have been of essential service to the paper. They

give it a character, they rally round it the respectable classes. They

create correspondence. I have received many interesting letters,

chiefly from females, about the Pencillings. Some complain that their

favourite preachers are slighted; others applaud because the clergymen

they sit under are supported by F. B. _I_ am Laud Latimer, sir,—though

I have heard the letters attributed to the Rev. Mr. Bunker, and to a

Member of Parliament eminent in the religious world.”

“So you are the famous Laud Latimer?” cries Clive, who had, in fact,

seen letters signed by those right reverend names in our paper.

“Famous is hardly the word. One who scoffs at everything—I need not say

I allude to Mr. Arthur Pendennis—would have had the letters signed—the

Beadle, of the Parish. He calls me the Venerable Beadle sometimes—it

being, I grieve to say, his way to deride grave subjects. You wouldn’t

suppose now, my young Clive, that the same hand which pens the Art

criticisms, occasionally, when His Highness Pendennis is lazy, takes a

minor theatre, or turns the sportive epigram, or the ephemeral

paragraph, should adopt a grave theme on a Sunday, and chronicle the

sermons of British divines? For eighteen consecutive Sunday evenings,

Clive, in Mrs. Ridley’s front parlour, which I now occupy, vice Miss

Cann promoted, I have written the Pencillings—scarcely allowing a drop

of refreshment, except under extreme exhaustion, to pass my lips.

Pendennis laughs at the Pencillings. He wants to stop them; and says

they bore the public.—I don’t want to _think_ a man is jealous, who was

himself the cause of my engagement at the _P. M. G._,—perhaps my powers

were not developed then.”

“Pen thinks he writes better now than when he began,” remarked Clive;

“I have heard him say so.”

“His opinion of his own writings is high, whatever their date. Mine,

sir, are only just coming into notice. They begin to know F. B., sir,

in the sacred edifices of his metropolitan city. I saw the Bishop of

London looking at me last Sunday week, and am sure his chaplain

whispered him, ‘It’s Mr. Bayham, my lord, nephew of your lordship’s

right reverend brother, the Lord Bishop of Bullocksmithy.’ And last

Sunday being at church—at Saint Mungo the Martyr’s, Rev. Sawders—by

Wednesday I got in a female hand—Mrs. Sawders’s, no doubt—the biography

of the Incumbent of St. Mungo; an account of his early virtues; a copy

of his poems; and a hint that he was the gentleman destined for the

vacant Deanery.

“Ridley is not the only man I have helped in this world,” F. B.

continued. “Perhaps I should blush to own it—I _do_ blush: but I feel

the ties of early acquaintance, and I own that I have puffed your

uncle, Charles Honeyman, most tremendously. It was partly for the sake

of the Ridleys and the tick he owes ’em: partly for old times’ sake.

Sir, are you aware that things are greatly changed with Charles

Honeyman, and that the poor F. B. has very likely made his fortune?”

“I am delighted to hear it,” cried Clive; “and how, F. B., have you

wrought this miracle?”

“By common sense and enterprise, lad—by a knowledge of the world and a

benevolent disposition. You’ll see Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel bears a

very different aspect now. That miscreant Sherrick owns that he owes me

a turn, and has sent me a few dozen of wine—without any stamped paper

on my part in return—as an acknowledgment of my service. It chanced,

sir, soon after your departure for Italy, that going to his private

residence respecting a little bill to which a heedless friend had put

his hand, Sherrick invited me to partake of tea in the bosom of his

family. I was thirsty—having walked in from Jack Straw’s Castle at

Hampstead, where poor Kitely and I had been taking a chop—and accepted

the proffered entertainment. The ladies of the family gave us music

after the domestic muffin—and then, sir, a great idea occurred to me.

You know how magnificently Miss Sherrick and the mother sing? Thy sang

Mozart, sir. Why, I asked of Sherrick, should those ladies who sing

Mozart to a piano, not sing Handel to an organ?

“‘Dash it, you don’t mean a hurdy-gurdy?’”

“‘Sherrick,’ says I, ‘you are no better than a heathen ignoramus. I

mean why shouldn’t they sing Handel’s Church Music, and Church Music in

general in Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel? Behind the screen up in the

organ-loft what’s to prevent ’em? By Jingo! Your singing-boys have gone

to the Cave of Harmony; you and your choir have split—why should not

these ladies lead it?’ He caught at the idea. You never heard the

chants more finely given—and they would be better still if the

congregation would but hold their confounded tongues. It was an

excellent though a harmless dodge, sir: and drew immensely, to speak

profanely. They dress the part, sir, to admiration—a sort of nunlike

costume they come in: Mrs. Sherrick has the soul of an artist still—by

Jove, sir, when they have once smelt the lamps, the love of the trade

never leaves ’em. The ladies actually practised by moonlight in the

Chapel, and came over to Honeyman’s to an oyster afterwards. The thing

took, sir. People began to take box-seats, I mean, again:—and Charles

Honeyman, easy in his mind through your noble father’s generosity,

perhaps inspirited by returning good fortune, has been preaching more

eloquently than ever. He took some lessons of Husler, of the Haymarket,

sir. His sermons are old, I believe; but so to speak, he has got them

up with new scenery, dresses, and effects, sir. They have flowers, sir,

about the buildin’—pious ladies are supposed to provide ’em, but,

_entre nous_, Sherrick contracts for them with Nathan, or some one in

Covent Garden. And—don’t tell this now, upon your honour!”

“Tell what, F. B.?” asks Clive.

“I got up a persecution against your uncle for Popish practices:

summoned a meetin’ at the Running Footman, in Bolingbroke Street.

Billings the butterman; Sharwood, the turner and blacking-maker; and

the Honourable Phelin O’Curragh, Lord Scullabogue’s son, made speeches.

Two or three respectable families (your aunt, Mrs. What-d’-you-call-’em

Newcome, amongst the number) quitted the Chapel in disgust—I wrote an

article of controversial biography in the _P. M. G.;_ set the business

going in the daily press; and the thing was done, sir. That property is

a paying one to the Incumbent, and to Sherrick over him. Charles’s

affairs are getting all right, sir. He never had the pluck to owe much,

and if it be a sin to have wiped his slate clean, satisfied his

creditors, and made Charles easy—upon my conscience, I must confess

that F. B. has done it. I hope I may never do anything worse in this

life, Clive. It ain’t bad to see him doing the martyr, sir: Sebastian

riddled with paper pellets; Bartholomew on a cold gridiron. Here comes

the lobster. Upon my word, Mary, a finer fish I’ve seldom seen.”

Now surely this account of his uncle’s affairs and prosperity was

enough to send Clive to Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel, and it was not

because Miss Ethel had said that she and Lady Kew went there that Clive

was induced to go there too? He attended punctually on the next Sunday,

and in the incumbent’s pew, whither the pew-woman conducted him, sate

Mr. Sherrick in great gravity, with large gold pins, who handed him, at

the anthem, a large, new, gilt hymn-book.

An odour of millefleurs rustled by them as Charles Honeyman accompanied

by his ecclesiastical valet, passed the pew from the vestry, and took

his place at the desk. Formerly he used to wear a flaunting scarf over

his surplice, which was very wide and full; and Clive remembered when

as a boy he entered the sacred robing-room, how his uncle used to pat

and puff out the scarf and the sleeves of his vestment, and to arrange

the natty curl on his forehead and take his place, a fine example of

florid church decoration. Now the scarf was trimmed down to be as

narrow as your neckcloth, and hung loose and straight over the back;

the ephod was cut straight and as close and short as might be,—I

believe there was a little trimming of lace to the narrow sleeves, and

a slight arabesque of tape, or other substance, round the edge of the

surplice. As for the curl on the forehead, it was no more visible than

the Maypole in the Strand, or the Cross at Charing. Honeyman’s hair was

parted down the middle, short in front, and curling delicately round

his ears and the back of his head. He read the service in a swift

manner, and with a gentle twang. When the music began, he stood with

head on one side, and two slim fingers on the book, as composed as a

statue in a mediæval niche. It was fine to hear Sherrick, who had an

uncommonly good voice, join in the musical parts of the service. The

produce of the market-gardener decorated the church here and there; and

the impresario of the establishment, having picked up a Flemish painted

window from old Moss in Wardour Street, had placed it in his chapel.

Labels of faint green and gold, with long Gothic letters painted

thereon, meandered over the organ-loft and galleries, and strove to

give as mediæval a look to Lady Whittlesea’s as the place was capable

of assuming.

In the sermon Charles dropped the twang with the surplice, and the

priest gave way to the preacher. He preached short stirring discourses

on the subjects of the day. It happened that a noble young prince, the

hope of a nation, and heir of a royal house, had just then died by a

sudden accident. Absalom, the son of David, furnished Honeyman with a

parallel. He drew a picture of the two deaths, of the grief of kings,

of the fate that is superior to them. It was, indeed, a stirring

discourse, and caused thrills through the crowd to whom Charles

imparted it. “Famous, ain’t it?” says Sherrick, giving Clive a hand

when the rite was over. “How he’s come out, hasn’t he? Didn’t think he

had it in him.” Sherrick seemed to have become of late impressed with

the splendour of Charles’s talents, and spoke of him—was it not

disrespectful?—as a manager would of a successful tragedian. Let us

pardon Sherrick: he had been in the theatrical way. “That Irishman was

no go at all,” he whispered to Mr. Newcome, “got rid of him,—let’s see,

at Michaelmas.”

On account of Clive’s tender years, and natural levity, a little

inattention may be allowed to the youth, who certainly looked about him

very eagerly during the service. The house was filled by the ornamental

classes, the bonnets of the newest Parisian fashion. Away in a darkling

corner, under the organ, sate a squad of footmen. Surely that powdered

one in livery wore Lady Kew’s colours? So Clive looked under all the

bonnets, and presently spied old Lady Kew’s face, as grim and yellow as

her brass knocker, and by it Ethel’s beauteous countenance. He dashed

out of church when the congregation rose to depart. “Stop and see

Honeyman, won’t you?” asked Sherrick, surprised.

“Yes, yes; come back again,” said Clive, and was gone.

He kept his word, and returned presently. The young Marquis and an

elderly lady were in Lady Kew’s company. Clive had passed close under

Lady Kew’s venerable Roman nose without causing that organ to bow in

ever so slight a degree towards the ground. Ethel had recognised him

with a smile and a nod. My lord was whispering one of his noble

pleasantries in her ear. She laughed at the speech or the speaker. The

steps of a fine belozenged carriage were let down with a bang. The

Yellow One had jumped up behind it, by the side of his brother Giant

Canary. Lady Kew’s equipage had disappeared, and Mrs. Canterton’s was

stopping the way.

Clive returned to the chapel by the little door near to the Vestiarium.

All the congregation had poured out by this time. Only two ladies were

standing near the pulpit; and Sherrick, with his hands rattling his

money in his pockets, was pacing up and down the aisle.

“Capital house, Mr. Newcome, wasn’t it? I counted no less than fourteen

nobs. The Princess of Moncontour and her husband, I suppose, that chap

with the beard, who yawns so during the sermon. I’m blessed, if I

didn’t think he’d have yawned his head off. Countess of Kew, and her

daughter; Countess of Canterton, and the Honourable Miss Fetlock—no,

Lady Fetlock. A Countess’s daughter is a lady, I’m dashed if she ain’t.

Lady Glenlivat and her sons; the most noble the Marquis of Farintosh,

and Lord Enry Roy; that makes seven—no, nine—with the Prince and

Princess.—Julia, my dear, you came out like a good un to-day. Never

heard you in finer voice. Remember Mr. Clive Newcome?”

Mr. Clive made bows to the ladies, who acknowledged him by graceful

curtsies. Miss Sherrick was always looking to the vestry-door.

“How’s the old Colonel? The best feller—excuse my calling him a

feller—but he is, and a good one too. I went to see Mr. Binnie, my

other tenant. He looks a little yellow about the gills, Mr. Binnie.

Very proud woman that is who lives with him—uncommon haughty. When will

you come down and take your mutton in the Regent’s Park, Mr. Clive?

There’s some tolerable good wine down there. Our reverend gent drops in

and takes a glass, don’t he, missis?”

“We shall be most ’appy to see Mr. Newcome, I’m sure,” says the

handsome and good-natured Mrs. Sherrick. “Won’t we, Julia?”

“Oh, certainly,” says Julia, who seems rather absent. And behold, at

this moment the reverend gent enters from the vestry. Both the ladies

run towards him, holding forth their hands.

“Oh, Mr. Honeyman! What a sermon! Me and Julia cried so up in the

organ-loft; we thought you would have heard us. Didn’t we, Julia?”

“Oh, yes,” says Julia, whose hand the pastor is now pressing.

“When you described the young man, I thought of my poor boy, didn’t I,

Julia?” cries the mother, with tears streaming down her face.

“We had a loss more than ten years ago,” whispers Sherrick to Clive

gravely. “And she’s always thinking of it. Women are so.”

Clive was touched and pleased by this exhibition of kind feeling.

“You know his mother was an Absalom,” the good wife continues, pointing

to her husband. “Most respectable diamond merchants in——”

“Hold your tongue, Betsy, and leave my poor old mother alone; do now,”

says Mr. Sherrick darkly. Clive is in his uncle’s fond embrace by this

time, who rebukes him for not having called in Walpole Street.

“Now, when will you two gents come up to my shop to ’ave a family

dinner?” asks Sherrick.

“Ah, Mr. Newcome, do come,” says Julia in her deep rich voice, looking

up to him with her great black eyes. And if Clive had been a vain

fellow like some folks, who knows but he might have thought he had made

an impression on the handsome Julia?

“Thursday, now make it Thursday, if Mr. H. is disengaged. Come along,

girls, for the flies bites the ponies when they’re a-standing still and

makes ’em mad this weather. Anything you like for dinner? Cut of salmon

and cucumber? No, pickled salmon’s best this weather.”

“Whatever you give me, you know I’m thankful!” says Honeyman, in a

sweet sad voice, to the two ladies, who were standing looking at him,

the mother’s hand clasped in the daughter’s.

“Should you like that Mendelssohn for the Sunday after next? Julia

sings it splendid!”

“No, I don’t, ma.”

“You do, dear! She’s a good, good _dear_, Mr. H., that’s what she is.”

“You must not call—a—him, in that way. _Don’t_ say Mr. H., ma,” says

Julia.

“Call me what you please!” says Charles, with the most heart-rending

simplicity; and Mrs. Sherrick straightway kisses her daughter. Sherrick

meanwhile has been pointing out the improvement of the chapel to Clive

(which now has indeed a look of the Gothic Hall at Rosherville), and

has confided to him the sum for which he screwed the painted window out

of old Moss. “When he come to see it up in this place, sir, the old man

was mad, I give you my word! His son ain’t no good: says he knows you.

He’s such a screw, that chap, that he’ll overreach himself, mark my

words. At least, he’ll never die rich. Did you ever hear of _me_

screwing? No, I spend my money like a man. How those girls are a-goin’

on about their music with Honeyman! I don’t let ’em sing in the

evening, or him do duty more than once a day; and you can calc’late how

the music draws, because in the evenin’ there ain’t half the number of

people here. Rev. Mr. Journyman does the duty now—quiet Hogford

man—ill, I suppose, this morning. H. sits in his pew, where we was; and

coughs; that’s to say, I told him to cough. The women like a

consumptive parson, sir. Come, gals!”

Clive went to his uncle’s lodgings, and was received by Mr. and Mrs.

Ridley with great glee and kindness. Both of those good people had made

it a point to pay their duty to Mr. Clive immediately on his return to

England, and thank him over and over again for his kindness to John

James. Never, never would they forget his goodness, and the Colonel’s,

they were sure. A cake, a heap of biscuits, a pyramid of jams, six

frizzling mutton-chops, and four kinds of hot wine, came bustling up to

Mr. Honeyman’s room twenty minutes after Clive had entered it,—as a

token of the Ridleys’ affection for him.

Clive remarked, with a smile, the _Pall Mall Gazette_ upon a

side-table, and in the chimney-glass almost as many cards as in the

time of Honeyman’s early prosperity. That he and his uncle should be

very intimate together, was impossible, from the nature of the two men;

Clive being frank, clear-sighted, and imperious; Charles, timid, vain,

and double-faced, conscious that he was a humbug, and that most people

found him out, so that he would quiver and turn away, and be more

afraid of young Clive and his direct straightforward way, than of many

older men. Then there was the sense of the money transactions between

him and the Colonel, which made Charles Honeyman doubly uneasy. In

fine, they did not like each other; but, as he is a connection of the

most respectable Newcome family, surely he is entitled to a page or two

in these their memoirs.

Thursday came, and with it Mr. Sherrick’s entertainment, to which also

Mr. Binnie and his party had been invited to meet Colonel Newcome’s

son. Uncle James and Rosey brought Clive in their carriage; Mrs.

Mackenzie sent a headache as an apology. She chose to treat Uncle

James’s landlord with a great deal of hauteur, and to be angry with her

brother for visiting such a person. “In fact, you see how fond I must

be of dear little Rosey, Clive, that I put up with all mamma’s tantrums

for her sake,” remarks Mr. Binnie.

“Oh, uncle!” says little Rosey, and the old gentleman stopped her

remonstrances with a kiss.

“Yes,” says he, “your mother _does_ have tantrums, miss; and though you

never complain, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. You will not tell on

me” (it was “Oh, uncle!” again); “and Clive won’t, I am sure.—This

little thing, sir,” James went on, holding Rosey’s pretty little hand

and looking fondly in her pretty little face, “is her old uncle’s only

comfort in life. I wish I had had her out to India to me, and never

come back to this great dreary town of yours. But I was tempted home by

Tom Newcome; and I’m too old to go back, sir. Where the stick falls let

it lie. Rosey would have been whisked out of my house, in India, in a

month after I had her there. Some young fellow would have taken her

away from me; and now she has promised never to leave her old Uncle

James, hasn’t she?”

“No, never, uncle,” said Rosey.

“_We_ don’t want to fall in love, do we, child? We don’t want to be

breaking our hearts like some young folks, and dancing attendance at

balls night after night, and capering about in the Park to see if we

can get a glimpse of the beloved object, eh, Rosey?”

Rosey blushed. It was evident that she and Uncle James both knew of

Clive’s love affair. In fact, the front seat and back seat of the

carriage both blushed. And as for the secret, why Mrs. Mackenzie and

Mrs. Hobson had talked it a hundred times over.

“This little Rosey, sir, has promised to take care of me on this side

of Styx,” continued Uncle James; “and if she could but be left alone

and to do it without mamma—there, I won’t say a word more against

her—we should get on none the worse.”

“Uncle James, I must make a picture of you, for Rosey,” said Clive,

good-humouredly. And Rosey said, “Oh, thank you, Clive,” and held out

that pretty little hand, and looked so sweet and kind and happy, that

Clive could not but be charmed at the sight of so much innocence and

candour.

“Quasty peecoly Rosiny,” says James, in a fine Scotch Italian, “e la

piu bella, la piu cara, ragazza ma la mawdry e il diav——”

“Don’t, uncle!” cried Rosey, again; and Clive laughed at Uncle James’s

wonderful outbreak in a foreign tongue.

“Eh! I thought ye didn’t know a word of the sweet language, Rosey! It’s

just the Lenguy Toscawny in Bocky Romawny that I thought to try in

compliment to this young monkey who has seen the world.” And by this

time Saint John’s Wood was reached, and Mr. Sherrick’s handsome villa,

at the door of which the three beheld the Rev. Charles Honeyman

stepping out of a neat brougham.

The drawing-room contained several pictures of Mrs. Sherrick when she

was in the theatrical line; Smee’s portrait of her, which was never

half handsome enough—for my Betsy, Sherrick said indignantly; the print

of her in Artaxerxes, with her signature as Elizabeth Folthorpe (not in

truth a fine specimen of calligraphy) the testimonial presented to her

on the conclusion of the triumphal season of 18—, at Drury Lane, by her

ever grateful friend Adolphus Smacker, Lessee, who, of course, went to

law with her next year; and other Thespian emblems. But Clive remarked,

with not a little amusement, that the drawing-room tables were now

covered with a number of those books which he had seen at Madame de

Moncontour’s, and many French and German ecclesiastical gimcracks, such

as are familiar to numberless readers of mine. These were the Lives of

St. Botibol of Islington and St. Willibald of Bareacres, with pictures

of those confessors. Then there was the Legend of Margery Dawe, Virgin

and Martyr, with a sweet double frontispiece, representing (1) the

sainted woman selling her feather-bed for the benefit of the poor; and

(2) reclining upon straw, the leanest of invalids. There was Old Daddy

Longlegs, and how he was brought to say his Prayers; a Tale for

Children, by a Lady, with a preface dated St. Chad’s Eve, and signed

“C. H.” The Rev. Charles Honeyman’s Sermons, delivered at Lady

Whittlesea’s Chapel. Poems of Early Days, by Charles Honeyman, A.M. The

Life of good Dame Whittlesea, by do, do. Yes, Charles had come out in

the literary line; and there in a basket was a strip of Berlin work, of

the very same Gothic pattern which Madame de Moncontour was weaving;

and which you afterwards saw round the pulpit of Charles’s chapel.

Rosey was welcomed most kindly by the kind ladies; and as the gentlemen

sat over their wine after dinner in the summer evening, Clive beheld

Rosey and Julia pacing up and down the lawn, Miss Julia’s arm around

her little friend’s waist: he thought they would make a pretty little

picture.

“My girl ain’t a bad one to look at, is she?” said the pleased father.

“A fellow might look far enough, and see not prettier than them two.”

Charles sighed out that there was a German print, the “Two Leonoras,”

which put him in mind of their various styles of beauty.

“I wish I could paint them,” said Clive.

“And why not, sir?” asks his host. “Let me give you your first

commission now, Mr. Clive; I wouldn’t mind paying a good bit for a

picture of my Julia. I forget how much old Smee got for Betsy’s, the

old humbug!”

Clive said it was not the will, but the power that was deficient. He

succeeded with men, but the ladies were too much for him as yet.

“Those you’ve done up at Albany Street Barracks are famous: I’ve seen

’em,” said Mr. Sherrick; and remarking that his guest looked rather

surprised at the idea of his being in such company, Sherrick said,

“What, you think they are too great swells for me? Law bless you, I

often go there. I’ve business with several of ’em; had with Captain

Belsize, with the Earl of Kew, who’s every inch the gentleman—one of

nature’s aristocracy, and paid up like a man. The Earl and me has had

many dealings together:”

Honeyman smiled faintly, and nobody complying with Mr. Sherrick’s

boisterous entreaties to drink more, the gentlemen quitted the

dinner-table, which had been served in a style of prodigious splendour,

and went to the drawing-room for a little music.

This was all of the gravest and best kind; so grave indeed, that James

Binnie might be heard in a corner giving an accompaniment of little

snores to the singers and the piano. But Rosey was delighted with the

performance, and Sherrick remarked to Clive, “That’s a good gal, that

is; I like that gal; she ain’t jealous of Julia cutting her out in the

music, but listens as pleased as any one. She’s a sweet little pipe of

her own, too. Miss Mackenzie, if ever you like to go to the opera, send

a word either to my West End or my City office. I’ve boxes every week,

and you’re welcome to anything I can give you.”

So all agreed that the evening had been a very pleasant one; and they

of Fitzroy Square returned home talking in a most comfortable friendly

way—that is, two of them, for Uncle James fell asleep again, taking

possession of the back seat; and Clive and Rosey prattled together. He

had offered to try and take all the young ladies’ likenesses. “You know

what a failure the last was, Rosey?”—he had very nearly said “dear

Rosey.”

“Yes, but Miss Sherrick is so handsome, that you will succeed better

with her than with my round face, Mr. Newcome.”

“Mr. _What?_” cries Clive.

“Well, Clive, then,” says Rosey, in a little voice.

He sought for a little hand which was not very far away. “You know we

are like brother and sister, dear Rosey?” he said this time.

“Yes,” said she, and gave a little pressure of the hand. And then Uncle

James woke up; and it seemed as if the whole drive didn’t occupy a

minute, and they shook hands very very kindly at the door of Fitzroy

Square.

Clive made a famous likeness of Miss Sherrick, with which Mr. Sherrick

was delighted, and so was Mr. Honeyman, who happened to call upon his

nephew once or twice when the ladies happened to be sitting. Then Clive

proposed to the Rev. Charles Honeyman to take _his_ head off; and made

an excellent likeness in chalk of his uncle—that one, in fact, from

which the print was taken which you may see any day at Hogarth’s, in

the Haymarket, along with a whole regiment of British divines. Charles

became so friendly, that he was constantly coming to Charlotte Street,

once or twice a week.

Mr. and Mrs. Sherrick came to look at the drawing, were charmed with

it; and when Rosey was sitting, they came to see her portrait, which

again was not quite so successful. One Monday, the Sherricks and

Honeyman too happened to call to see the picture of Rosey, who trotted

over with her uncle to Clive’s studio, and they all had a great laugh

at a paragraph in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, evidently from F. B.’s hand,

to the following effect:—

“Conversion In High Life.—A foreign nobleman of princely rank, who has

married an English lady, and has resided among us for some time, is

likely, we hear and trust, to join the English Church. The Prince de

M-nc-nt-r has been a constant attendant at Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel, of

which the Rev. C. Honeyman is the eloquent incumbent; and it is said

this sound and talented divine has been the means of awakening the

prince to a sense of the erroneous doctrines in which he has been bred.

His ancestors were Protestant, and fought by the side of Henry IV. at

_Ivry_. In Louis XIV.’s time, they adopted the religion of that

persecuting monarch. We sincerely trust that the present heir of the

house of Ivry will see fit to return to the creed which his forefathers

so unfortunately abjured.”

The ladies received this news with perfect gravity; and Charles uttered

a meek wish that it might prove true. As they went away, they offered

more hospitalities to Clive and Mr. Binnie and his niece. They liked

the music: would they not come and hear it again?

When they had departed with Mr. Honeyman, Clive could not help saying

to Uncle James, “Why are those people always coming here; praising me;

and asking me to dinner? Do you know, I can’t help thinking that they

rather want me as a pretender for Miss Sherrick?”

Binnie burst into a loud guffaw, and cried out, “O vanitas vanitawtum!”

Rosa laughed too.

“I don’t think it any joke at all,” said Clive.

“Why, you stupid lad, don’t you see it is Charles Honeyman the girl’s

in love with?” cried Uncle James. “Rosey saw it in the very first

instant we entered their drawing-room three weeks ago.”

“Indeed, and how?” asked Clive.

“By—by the way she looked at him,” said little Rosey.

CHAPTER XLV.

A Stag of Ten

The London season was very nearly come to an end, and Lord Farintosh

had danced I don’t know how many times with Miss Newcome, had drunk

several bottles of the old Kew port, had been seen at numerous

breakfasts, operas, races, and public places by the young lady’s side,

and had not as yet made any such proposal as Lady Kew expected for her

granddaughter. Clive going to see his military friends in the Regent’s

Park once, and finish Captain Butts’s portrait in barracks, heard two

or three young men talking, and one say to another, “I bet you three to

two Farintosh don’t marry her, and I bet you even that he don’t ask

her.” Then as he entered Mr. Butts’s room, where these gentlemen were

conversing, there was a silence and an awkwardness. The young fellows

were making an “event” out of Ethel’s marriage, and sporting their

money freely on it.

To have an old countess hunting a young marquis so resolutely that all

the world should be able to look on and speculate whether her game

would be run down by that staunch toothless old pursuer—that is an

amusing sport, isn’t it? and affords plenty of fun and satisfaction to

those who follow the hunt. But for a heroine of a story, be she ever so

clever, handsome, and sarcastic, I don’t think for my part, at this

present stage of the tale, Miss Ethel Newcome occupies a very dignified

position. To break her heart in silence for Tomkins who is in love with

another; to suffer no end of poverty, starvation, capture by ruffians,

ill-treatment by a bullying husband, loss of beauty by the small-pox,

death even at the end of the volume; all these mishaps a young heroine

must endure (and has endured in romances over and over again), without

losing the least dignity, or suffering any diminution of the

sentimental reader’s esteem. But a girl of great beauty, high temper,

and strong natural intellect, who submits to be dragged hither and

thither in an old grandmother’s leash, and in pursuit of a husband who

will run away from the couple, such a person, I say, is in a very

awkward position as a heroine; and I declare if I had another ready to

my hand (and unless there were extenuating circumstances) Ethel should

be deposed at this very sentence.

But a novelist must go on with his heroine, as a man with his wife, for

better or worse, and to the end. For how many years have the Spaniards

borne with their gracious queen, not because she was faultless, but

because she was there? So Chambers and grandees cried, God save her.

Alabarderos turned out: drums beat, cannons fired, and people saluted

Isabella Segunda, who was no better than the humblest washerwoman of

her subjects. Are we much better than our neighbours? Do we never yield

to our peculiar temptation, our pride, or our avarice or our vanity, or

what not? Ethel is very wrong certainly. But recollect, she is very

young. She is in other people’s hands. She has been bred up and

governed by a very worldly family, and taught their traditions. We

would hardly, for instance, the staunchest Protestant in England would

hardly be angry with poor Isabella Segunda for being a Catholic. So if

Ethel worships at a certain image which a great number of good folks in

England bow to, let us not be too angry with her idolatry, and bear

with our queen a little before we make our pronunciamiento.

No, Miss Newcome, yours is not a dignified position in life, however

you may argue that hundreds of people in the world are doing like you.

O me! what a confession it is, in the very outset of life and blushing

brightness of youth’s morning, to own that the aim with which a young

girl sets out, and the object of her existence, is to marry a rich man;

that she was endowed with beauty so that she might buy wealth, and a

title with it; that as sure as she has a soul to be saved, her business

here on earth is to try and get a rich husband. That is the career for

which many a woman is bred and trained. A young man begins the world

with some aspirations at least; he will try to be good and follow the

truth; he will strive to win honours for himself, and never do a base

action; he will pass nights over his books, and forgo ease and pleasure

so that he may achieve a name. Many a poor wretch who is worn-out now

and old, and bankrupt of fame and money too, has commenced life at any

rate with noble views and generous schemes, from which weakness,

idleness, passion, or overpowering hostile fortune have turned him

away. But a girl of the world, _bon Dieu!_ the doctrine with which she

begins is that she is to have a wealthy husband: the article of faith

in her catechism is, “I believe in elder sons, and a house in town, and

a house in the country!” They are mercenary as they step fresh and

blooming into the world out of the nursery. They have been schooled

there to keep their bright eyes to look only on the prince and the

duke, Croesus and Dives. By long cramping and careful process, their

little natural hearts have been squeezed up, like the feet of their

fashionable little sisters in China. As you see a pauper’s child, with

an awful premature knowledge of the pawnshop, able to haggle at market

with her wretched halfpence, and battle bargains at hucksters’ stalls,

you shall find a young beauty, who was a child in the schoolroom a year

since, as wise and knowing as the old practitioners on that exchange;

as economical of her smiles, as dexterous in keeping back or producing

her beautiful wares; as skilful in setting one bidder against another;

as keen as the smartest merchant in Vanity Fair.

If the young gentlemen of the Life Guards Green who were talking about

Miss Newcome and her suitors, were silent when Clive appeared amongst

them, it was because they were aware not only of his relationship to

the young lady, but his unhappy condition regarding her. Certain men

there are who never tell their love, but let concealment, like a worm

in the bud, feed on their damask cheeks; others again must be not

always thinking, but talking, about the darling object. So it was not

very long before Captain Crackthorpe was taken into Clive’s confidence,

and through Crackthorpe very likely the whole mess became acquainted

with his passion. These young fellows, who had been early introduced

into the world, gave Clive small hopes of success, putting to him, in

their downright phraseology, the point of which he was already aware,

that Miss Newcome was intended for his superiors, and that he had best

not make his mind uneasy by sighing for those beautiful grapes which

were beyond his reach.

But the good-natured Crackthorpe, who had a pity for the young

painter’s condition, helped him so far (and gained Clive’s warmest

thanks for his good offices), by asking admission for Clive to

entertain evening parties of the _beau-monde_, where he had the

gratification of meeting his charmer. Ethel was surprised and pleased,

and Lady Kew surprised and angry, at meeting Clive Newcome at these

fashionable houses; the girl herself was touched very likely at his

pertinacity in following her. As there was no actual feud between them,

she could not refuse now and again to dance with her cousin; and thus

he picked up such small crumbs of consolation as a youth in his state

can get; lived upon six words vouchsafed to him in a quadrille, or

brought home a glance of the eyes which she had presented to him in a

waltz, or the remembrance of a squeeze of the hand on parting or

meeting. How eager he was to get a card to this party or that! how

attentive to the givers of such entertainments! Some friends of his

accused him of being a tuft-hunter and flatterer of the aristocracy, on

account of his politeness to certain people; the truth was, he wanted

to go wherever Miss Ethel was; and the ball was blank to him which she

did not attend.