second season, Mr. Newcome had made so many acquaintances that he
needed few more introductions into society. He was very well known as a
good-natured handsome young man, and a very good waltzer, the only son
of an Indian officer of large wealth, who chose to devote himself to
painting, and who was supposed to entertain an unhappy fondness for his
cousin the beautiful Miss Newcome. Kind folks who heard of this little
_tendre_, and were sufficiently interested in Mr. Clive, asked him to
their houses in consequence. I dare say those people who were good to
him may have been themselves at one time unlucky in their own
love-affairs.
When the first season ended without a declaration from my lord, Lady
Kew carried off her young lady to Scotland, where it also so happened
that Lord Farintosh was going to shoot, and people made what surmises
they chose upon this coincidence. Surmises, why not? You who know the
world, know very well that if you see Mrs. So-and-so’s name in the list
of people at an entertainment, on looking down the list you will
presently be sure to come on Mr. What-d’-you-call-’em’s. If Lord and
Lady of Suchandsuch Castle, received a distinguished circle (including
Lady Dash), for Christmas or Easter, without reading farther the names
of the guests, you may venture on any wager that Captain Asterisk is
one of the company. These coincidences happen every day; and some
people are so anxious to meet other people, and so irresistible is the
magnetic sympathy, I suppose, that they will travel hundreds of miles
in the worst of weather to see their friends, and break your door open
almost, provided the friend is inside it.
I am obliged to own the fact, that for many months Lady Kew hunted
after Lord Farintosh. This rheumatic old woman went to Scotland, where,
as he was pursuing the deer, she stalked his lordship: from Scotland
she went to Paris, where he was taking lessons in dancing at the
Chaumière; from Paris to an English country-house, for Christmas, where
he was expected, but didn’t come—not being, his professor said, quite
complete in the polka, and so on. If Ethel were privy to these
manœuvres, or anything more than an unwittingly consenting party, I say
we would depose her from her place of heroine at once. But she was
acting under her grandmother’s orders, a most imperious, irresistible,
managing old woman, who exacted everybody’s obedience, and managed
everybody’s business in her family. Lady Anne Newcome being in
attendance on her sick husband, Ethel was consigned to the Countess of
Kew, her grandmother, who hinted that she should leave Ethel her
property when dead, and whilst alive expected the girl should go about
with her. She had and wrote as many letters as a Secretary of State
almost. She was accustomed to set off without taking anybody’s advice,
or announcing her departure until within an hour or two of the event.
In her train moved Ethel, against her own will, which would have led
her to stay at home with her father, but at the special wish and order
of her parents. Was such a sum as that of which Lady Kew had the
disposal (Hobson Brothers knew the amount of it quite well) to be left
out of the family? Forbid it, all ye powers! Barnes—who would have
liked the money himself, and said truly that he would live with his
grandmother anywhere she liked if he could get it,—Barnes joined most
energetically with Sir Brian and Lady Anne in ordering Ethel’s
obedience to Lady Kew. You know how difficult it is for one young woman
not to acquiesce when the family council strongly orders. In fine, I
hope there was a good excuse for the queen of this history, and that it
was her wicked domineering old prime minister who led her wrong.
Otherwise I say, we would have another dynasty. Oh, to think of a
generous nature, and the world, and nothing but the world, to occupy
it!—of a brave intellect, and the milliner’s bandboxes, and the scandal
of the coteries, and the fiddle-faddle etiquette of the Court for its
sole exercise! of the rush and hurry from entertainment to
entertainment; of the constant smiles and cares of representation; of
the prayerless rest at night, and the awaking to a godless morrow! This
was the course of life to which Fate, and not her own fault altogether,
had for awhile handed over Ethel Newcome. Let those pity her who can
feel their own weakness and misgoing; let those punish her who are
without fault themselves.
Clive did not offer to follow her to Scotland, he knew quite well that
the encouragement he had had was only of the smallest; that as a
relation she received him frankly and kindly enough; but checked him
when he would have adopted another character. But it chanced that they
met in Paris, whither he went in the Easter of the ensuing year, having
worked to some good purpose through the winter, and despatched as on a
former occasion his three or four pictures, to take their chance at the
Exhibition.
Of these it is our pleasing duty to be able to corroborate to some
extent, Mr. F. Bayham’s favourable report. Fancy sketches and
historical pieces our young man had eschewed; having convinced himself
either that he had not an epic genius, or that to draw portraits of his
friends, was a much easier task than that which he had set himself
formerly. Whilst all the world was crowding round a pair of J. J,.’s
little pictures, a couple of chalk heads were admitted into the
Exhibition (his great picture of Captain Crackthorpe on horseback, in
full uniform, I must admit was ignominiously rejected), and the friends
of the parties had the pleasure of recognising in the miniature room,
No. 1246, “Picture of an Officer,”—viz., Augustus Butts, Esq., of the
Life Guards Green; and “Portrait of the Rev. Charles Honeyman,” No.
1272. Miss Sherrick the hangers refused; Mr. Binnie, Clive had spoiled,
as usual, in the painting; the heads, however, before-named, were voted
to be faithful likenesses, and executed in a very agreeable and
spirited manner. F. Bayham’s criticism on these performances, it need
not be said, was tremendous. “Since the days of Michael Angelo you
would have thought there never had been such drawings.” In fact, F. B.,
as some other critics do, clapped his friends so boisterously on the
back, and trumpeted their merits with such prodigious energy, as to
make his friends themselves sometimes uneasy.
Mr. Clive, whose good father was writing home more and more wonderful
accounts of the Bundelcund Bank, in which he had engaged, and who was
always pressing his son to draw for more money, treated himself to
comfortable rooms at Paris, in the very same hotel where the young
Marquis of Farintosh occupied lodgings much more splendid, and where he
lived, no doubt, so as to be near the professor, who was still teaching
his lordship the polka. Indeed, it must be said that Lord Farintosh
made great progress under this artist, and that he danced very much
better in his third season than in the first and second years after he
had come upon the town. From the same instructor the Marquis learned
the latest novelties in French conversation, the choicest oaths and
phrases (for which he was famous), so that although his French grammar
was naturally defective, he was enabled to order a dinner at
Philippe’s, and to bully a waiter, or curse a hackney-coachman with
extreme volubility. A young nobleman of his rank was received with the
distinction which was his due, by the French sovereign of that period;
and at the Tuileries, and the houses of the French nobility, which he
visited, Monsieur le Marquis de Farintosh excited considerable remark,
by the use of some of the phrases which his young professor had taught
to him. People even went so far as to say that the Marquis was an
awkward and dull young man, of the very worst manners.
Whereas the young Clive Newcome—and it comforted the poor fellow’s
heart somewhat, and be sure pleased Ethel, who was looking on at his
triumphs—was voted the most charming young Englishman who had been seen
for a long time in our salons. Madame de Florac, who loved him as a son
of her own, actually went once or twice into the world in order to see
his _début_. Madame de Moncontour inhabited a part of the Hotel de
Florac, and received society there. The French people did not
understand what bad English she talked, though they comprehended Lord
Farintosh’s French blunders. “Monsieur Newcome is an artist! What a
noble career!” cries a great French lady, the wife of a Marshal to the
astonished Miss Newcome. “This young man is the cousin, of the charming
mees? You must be proud to possess such a nephew, madame!” says another
French lady to the Countess of Kew (who, you may be sure, is delighted
to have such a relative). And the French lady invites Clive to her
receptions expressly in order to make herself agreeable to the old
Comtesse. Before the cousins have been three minutes together in Madame
de Florac’s salon, she sees that Clive is in love with Ethel Newcome.
She takes the boy’s hand and says, “_J’ai votre secret, mon ami;_” and
her eyes regard him for a moment as fondly, as tenderly, as ever they
looked at his father. Oh, what tears have they shed, gentle eyes! Oh,
what faith has it kept, tender heart! If love lives through all life;
and survives through all sorrow; and remains steadfast with us through
all changes; and in all darkness of spirit burns brightly; and, if we
die, deplores us for ever, and loves still equally; and exists with the
very last gasp and throb of the faithful bosom—whence it passes with
the pure soul, beyond death; surely it shall be immortal? Though we who
remain are separated from it, is it not ours in Heaven? If we love
still those we lose, can we altogether lose those we love? Forty years
have passed away. Youth and dearest memories revisit her, and Hope
almost wakes up again out of its grave, as the constant lady holds the
young man’s hand, and looks at the son of Thomas Newcome.
CHAPTER XLVI.
The Hotel de Florac
Since the death of the Duc d’Ivry, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots,
the Comte de Florac, who is now the legitimate owner of the ducal
title, does not choose to bear it, but continues to be known in the
world by his old name. The old Count’s world is very small. His doctor,
and his director, who comes daily to play his game of piquet; his
daughter’s children, who amuse him by their laughter, and play round
his chair in the garden of his hotel; his faithful wife, and one or two
friends as old as himself, form his society. His son the Abbé is with
them but seldom. The austerity of his manners frightens his old father,
who can little comprehend the religionism of the new school. After
going to hear his son preach through Lent at Notre-Dame, where the Abbé
de Florac gathered a great congregation, the old Count came away quite
puzzled at his son’s declamations. “I do not understand your new
priests,” he says; “I knew my son had become a Cordélier; I went to
hear him, and found he was a Jacobin. Let me make my salut in quiet, my
good Léonore. My director answers for me, and plays a game at trictrac
into the bargain with me.” Our history has but little to do with this
venerable nobleman. He has his chamber looking out into the garden of
his hotel; his faithful old domestic to wait upon him; his House of
Peers to attend when he is well enough, his few acquaintances to help
him to pass the evening. The rest of the hotel he gives up to his son,
the Vicomte de Florac, and Madame la Princesse de Moncontour, his
daughter-in-law.
When Florac has told his friends of the Club why it is he has assumed a
new title—as a means of reconciliation (a reconciliation all
philosophical, my friends) with his wife nee Higg of Manchester, who
adores titles like all Anglaises, and has recently made a great
succession, everybody allows that the measure was dictated by prudence,
and there is no more laughter at his change of name. The Princess takes
the first floor of the hotel at the price paid for it by the American
General, who has returned to his original pigs at Cincinnati. Had not
Cincinnatus himself pigs on his farm, and was he not a general and
member of Congress too? The honest Princess has a bedchamber, which, to
her terror, she is obliged to open of reception-evenings, when
gentlemen and ladies play cards there. It is fitted up in the style of
Louis XVI. In her bed is an immense looking-glass, surmounted by stucco
cupids: it is an alcove which some powdered Venus, before the
Revolution, might have reposed in. Opposite that looking-glass, between
the tall windows, at some forty feet distance, is another huge mirror,
so that when the poor Princess is in bed, in her prim old curl-papers,
she sees a vista of elderly princesses twinkling away into the dark
perspective; and is so frightened that she and Betsy, her Lancashire
maid, pin up the jonquil silk curtains over the bed-mirror after the
first night; though the Princess never can get it out of her head that
her image is still there, behind the jonquil hangings, turning as she
turns, waking as she wakes, etc. The chamber is so vast and lonely that
she has a bed made for Betsy in the room. It is, of course, whisked
away into a closet on reception-evenings. A boudoir, rose-tendre, with
more cupids and nymphs by Boucher, sporting over door-panels—nymphs who
may well shock old Betsy and her old mistress—is the Pricess’s
morning-room. “Ah, mum, what would Mr. Humper at Manchester, Mr. Jowls
of Newcome” (the minister whom, in early days, Miss Higg used to sit
under) “say if they was browt into this room?” But there is no question
of Jowls and Mr. Humper, excellent dissenting divines, who preached to
Miss Higg, being brought into the Princesse de Moncontour’s boudoir.
That paragraph, respecting a conversion in high life, which F. B. in
his enthusiasm inserted in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, caused no small
excitement in the Florac family. The Florac family read the _Pall Mall
Gazette_, knowing that Clive’s friends were engaged in that periodical.
When Madame de Florac, who did not often read newspapers, happened to
cast her eye upon that poetic paragraph of F. B.’s, you may fancy, with
what a panic it filled the good and pious lady. Her son become a
Protestant! After all the grief and trouble his wildness had occasioned
to her, Paul forsake his religion! But that her husband was so ill and
aged as not to be able to bear her absence, she would have hastened to
London to rescue her son out of that perdition. She sent for her
younger son, who undertook the embassy; and the Prince and Princesse de
Moncontour, in their hotel at London, were one day surprised by the
visit of the Abbé de Florac.
As Paul was quite innocent of any intention of abandoning his religion,
the mother’s kind heart was very speedily set at rest by her envoy. Far
from Paul’s conversion to Protestantism, the Abbé wrote home the most
encouraging accounts of his sister-in-law’s precious dispositions. He
had communications with Madame de Moncontour’s Anglican director, a man
of not powerful mind, wrote M. l’Abbé, though of considerable repute
for eloquence in his Sect. The good dispositions of his sister-in-law
were improved by the French clergyman, who could be most captivating
and agreeable when a work of conversion was in hand. The visit
reconciled the family to their English relative, in whom good-nature
and many other good qualities were to be seen now that there were hopes
of reclaiming her. It was agreed that Madame de Moncontour should come
and inhabit the Hôtel de Florac at Paris: perhaps the Abbé tempted the
worthy lady by pictures of the many pleasures and advantages she would
enjoy in that capital. She was presented at her own court by the French
ambassadress of that day: and was received at the Tuileries with a
cordiality which flattered and pleased her.
Having been presented herself, Madame la Princesse in turn presented to
her august sovereign Mrs. T. Higg and Miss Higg, of Manchester, Mrs.
Samuel Higg, of Newcome; the husbands of those ladies (the Princess’s
brothers) also sporting a court-dress for the first time. Sam Higg’s
neighbour, the member for Newcome; Sir Brian Newcome, Bart., was too
ill to act as Higg’s sponsor before majesty; but Barnes Newcome was
uncommonly civil to the two Lancashire gentlemen; though their politics
were different to his, and Sam had voted against Sir Brian at his last
election. Barnes took them to dine at a club—recommended his tailor—and
sent Lady Clara Pulleyn to call on Mrs. Higg—who pronounced her to be a
pretty young woman and most haffable. The Countess of Dorking would
have been delighted to present these ladies had the Princess not
luckily been in London to do that office. The Hobson Newcomes were very
civil to the Lancashire party, and entertained them splendidly at
dinner. I believe Mrs. and Mr. Hobson themselves went to court this
year, the latter in a deputy-lieutenant’s uniform.
If Barnes Newcome was so very civil to the Higg family we may suppose
he had good reason. The Higgs were very strong in Newcome, and it was
advisable to conciliate them. They were very rich, and their account
would not be disagreeable at the bank. Madame de Moncontour’s—a large
easy private account—would be more pleasant still. And, Hobson Brothers
having entered largely into the Anglo-Continental Railway, whereof
mention has been made, it was a bright thought of Barnes to place the
Prince of Moncontour, etc. etc., on the French Direction of the
Railway; and to take the princely prodigal down to Newcome with his new
title, and reconcile him to his wife and the Higg family. Barnes we may
say invented the principality: rescued the Vicomte de Florac out of his
dirty lodgings in Leicester Square, and sent the Prince of Moncontour
back to his worthy middle-aged wife again. The disagreeable dissenting
days were over. A brilliant young curate of Doctor Bulders, who also
wore long hair, straight waistcoats, and no shirt-collars, had already
reconciled the Vicomtesse de Florac to the persuasion, whereof the
ministers are clad in that queer uniform. The landlord of their hotel
at St. James’s got his wine from Sherrick, and sent his families to
Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel. The Rev. Charles Honeyman’s eloquence and
amiability were appreciated by his new disciple—thus the historian has
traced here step by step how all these people became acquainted.
Sam Higg, whose name was very good on ’Change in Manchester and London,
joined the direction of the Anglo-Continental. A brother had died
lately, leaving his money amongst them, and his wealth had added
considerably to Madame de Florac’s means; his sister invested a portion
of her capital in the railway in her husband’s name. The shares were at
a premium, and gave a good dividend. The Prince de Moncontour took his
place with great gravity at the Paris board, whither Barnes made
frequent flying visits. The sense of capitalism sobered and dignified
Paul de Florac: at the age of five-and-forty he was actually giving up
being a young man, and was not ill pleased at having to enlarge his
waistcoats, and to show a little grey in his moustache. His errors were
forgotten: he was bien vu by the Government. He might have had the
Embassy Extraordinary to Queen Pomaré; but the health of Madame la
Princesse was delicate. He paid his wife visits every morning: appeared
at her parties and her opera box, and was seen constantly with her in
public. He gave quiet little dinners still, at which Clive was present
sometimes: and had a private door and key to his apartments, which were
separated by all the dreary length of the reception-rooms from the
mirrored chamber and jonquil couch where the Princess and Betsy
reposed. When some of his London friends visited Paris he showed us
these rooms and introduced us duly to Madame la Princesse. He was as
simple and as much at home in the midst of these splendours, as in the
dirty little lodgings in Leicester Square, where he painted his own
boots, and cooked his herring over the tongs. As for Clive, he was the
infant of the house: Madame la Princesse could not resist his kind
face; and Paul was as fond of him in his way as Paul’s mother in hers.
Would he live at the Hôtel de Florac? There was an excellent atélier in
the pavilion, with a chamber for his servant. “No! you will be most at
ease in apartments of your own. You will have here but the society of
women. I do not rise till late: and my affairs, my board, call me away
for the greater part of the day. Thou wilt but be annuyé to play
trictrac with my old father. My mother waits on him. My sister au
second is given up entirely to her children, who always have the
_pituite_. Madame la Princesse is not amusing for a young man. Come and
go when thou wilt, Clive, my garçon, my son: thy cover is laid. Wilt
thou take the portraits of all the family? Hast thou want of money? I
had at thy age and almost ever since, _mon ami;_ but now we swim in
gold, and when there is a louis in my purse, there are ten francs for
thee.” To show his mother that he did not think of the Reformed
Religion, Paul did not miss going to mass with her on Sunday. Sometimes
Madame Paul went too, between whom and her mother-in-law there could
not be any liking, but there was now great civility. They saw each
other once a day: Madame Paul always paid her visit to the Comte de
Florac: and Betsy, her maid, made the old gentleman laugh by her
briskness and talk. She brought back to her mistress the most wonderful
stories which the old man told her about his doings during the
emigration—before he married Madame la Comtesse—when he gave lessons in
dancing, parbleu! There was his fiddle still, a trophy of those old
times. He chirped, and coughed, and sang, in his cracked old voice, as
he talked about them. “Lor! bless you, mum,” says Betsy, “he must have
been a terrible old man!” He remembered the times well enough, but the
stories he sometimes told over twice or thrice in an hour. I am afraid
he had not repented sufficiently of those wicked old times: else why
did he laugh and giggle so when he recalled them? He would laugh and
giggle till he was choked with his old cough: and old S. Jean, his man,
came and beat M. le Comte on the back, and made M. le Comte take a
spoonful of his syrup.
Between two such women as Madame de Florac and Lady Kew, of course
there could be little liking or sympathy. Religion, love, duty, the
family, were the French lady’s constant occupation,—duty and the
family, perhaps, Lady Kew’s aim too,—only the notions of duty were
different in either person. Lady Kew’s idea of duty to her relatives
being to push them on in the world: Madame de Florac’s to soothe, to
pray, to attend them with constant watchfulness, to strive to mend them
with pious counsel. I don’t know that one lady was happier than the
other. Madame de Florac’s eldest son was a kindly prodigal: her second
had given his whole heart to the Church: her daughter had centred hers
on her own children, and was jealous if their grandmother laid a finger
on them. So Léonore de Florac was quite alone. It seemed as if Heaven
had turned away all her children’s hearts from her. Her daily business
in life was to nurse a selfish old man, into whose service she had been
forced in early youth, by a paternal decree which she never questioned;
giving him obedience, striving to give him respect,—everything but her
heart, which had gone out of her keeping. Many a good woman’s life is
no more cheerful; a spring of beauty, a little warmth and sunshine of
love, a bitter disappointment, followed by pangs and frantic tears,
then a long monotonous story of submission. “Not here, my daughter, is
to be your happiness,” says the priest; “whom Heaven loves it
afflicts.” And he points out to her the agonies of suffering saints of
her sex; assures her of their present beatitudes and glories; exhorts
her to bear her pains with a faith like theirs; and is empowered to
promise her a like reward.
The other matron is not less alone. Her husband and son are dead,
without a tear for either,—to weep was not in Lady Kew’s nature. Her
grandson, whom she had loved perhaps more than any human being, is
rebellious and estranged from her; her children, separated from her,
save one whose sickness and bodily infirmity the mother resents as
disgraces to herself. Her darling schemes fail somehow. She moves from
town to town, and ball to ball, and hall to castle, for ever uneasy and
always alone. She sees people scared at her coming; is received by
sufferance and fear rather than by welcome; likes perhaps the terror
which she inspires, and to enter over the breach rather than through
the hospitable gate. She will try and command wherever she goes; and
trample over dependants and society, with a grim consciousness that it
dislikes her, a rage at its cowardice, and an unbending will to
domineer. To be old, proud, lonely, and not have a friend in the
world—that is her lot in it. As the French lady may be said to resemble
the bird which the fables say feeds her young with her blood; this one,
if she has a little natural liking for her brood, goes hunting hither
and thither and robs meat for them; And so, I suppose, to make the
simile good, we must compare the Marquis of Farintosh to a lamb for the
nonce, and Miss Ethel Newcome to a young eaglet. Is it not a rare
provision of nature (or fiction of poets, who have their own natural
history) that the strong-winged bird can soar to the sun and gaze at
it, and then come down from heaven and pounce on a piece of carrion?
After she became acquainted with certain circumstances, Madame de
Florac was very interested about Ethel Newcome, and strove in her
modest way to become intimate with her. Miss Newcome and Lady Kew
attended Madame de Moncontour’s Wednesday evenings. “It is as well, my
dear, for the interests of the family that we should be particularly
civil to these people,” Lady Kew said; and accordingly she came to the
Hôtel de Florac, and was perfectly insolent to Madame la Princesse
every Thursday evening. Towards Madame de Florac, even Lady Kew could
not be rude. She was so gentle as to give no excuse for assault: Lady
Kew vouchsafed to pronounce that Madame de Florac was “très grande
dame;”—“of the sort which is almost impossible to find nowadays,” Lady
Kew said, who thought she possessed this dignity in her own person.
When Madame de Florac, blushing, asked Ethel to come and see her,
Ethel’s grandmother consented with the utmost willingness. “She is very
_dévote_, I have heard, and will try and convert you. Of course you
will hold your own about that sort of thing; and have the good sense to
keep off theology. There is no Roman Catholic _parti_ in England or
Scotland that is to be thought for a moment. You will see they will
marry young Lord Derwenwater to an Italian princess; but he is only
seventeen, and his directors never lose sight of him. Sir Bartholomew
Bawkes will have a fine property when Lord Campion dies, unless Lord
Campion leaves the money to the convent where his daughter is—and, of
the other families, who is there? I made every inquiry purposely—that
is, of course, one is anxious to know about the Catholics as about
one’s own people: and little Mr. Rood, who was one of my poor brother
Steyne’s lawyers, told me there is not one young man of that party at
this moment who can be called a desirable person. Be very civil to
Madame de Florac; she sees some of the old legitimists, and you know I
am _brouillée_ with that party of late years.”
“There is the Marquis de Montluc, who has a large fortune for France,”
said Ethel, gravely; “he has a humpback, but he is very spiritual.
Monsieur de Cadillan paid me some compliments the other night, and even
asked George Barnes what my dot was, He is a widower, and has a wig and
two daughters. Which do you think would be the greatest encumbrance,
grandmamma,—a humpback, or a wig and two daughters? I like Madame de
Florac; for the sake of the borough, I must try and like poor Madame de
Moncontour, and I will go and see them whenever you please.”
So Ethel went to see Madame de Florac. She was very kind to Madame de
Préville’s children, Madame de Florac’s grandchildren; she was gay and
gracious with Madame de Moncontour. She went again and again to the
Hotel de Florac, not caring for Lady Kew’s own circle of statesmen and
diplomatists, Russian, and Spanish, and French, whose talk about the
courts of Europe,—who was in favour at St. Petersburg, and who was in
disgrace at Schoenbrunn,—naturally did not amuse the lively young
person. The goodness of Madame de Florac’s life, the tranquil grace and
melancholy kindness with which the French lady received her, soothed
and pleased Miss Ethel. She came and reposed in Madame de Florac’s
quiet chamber, or sate in the shade in the sober old garden of her
hotel; away from all the trouble and chatter of the salons, the gossip
of the embassies, the fluttering ceremonial of the Parisian ladies’
visits in their fine toilettes, the _fadaises_ of the dancing dandies,
and the pompous mysteries of the old statesmen who frequented her
grandmother’s apartment. The world began for her at night; when she
went in the train of the old Countess from hotel to hotel, and danced
waltz after waltz with Prussian and Neapolitan secretaries, with
princes’ officers of ordonnance,—with personages even more lofty very
likely,—for the court of the Citizen King was then in its splendour;
and there must surely have been a number of nimble young royal
highnesses who would like to dance with such a beauty as Miss Newcome.
The Marquis of Farintosh had a share in these polite amusements. His
English conversation was not brilliant as yet, although his French was
eccentric; but at the court balls, whether he appeared in his uniform
of the Scotch Archers, or in his native Glenlivat tartar there
certainly was not in his own or the public estimation a handsomer young
nobleman in Paris that season. It has been said that he was greatly
improved in dancing; and, for a young man of his age, his whiskers were
really extraordinarily large and curly.
Miss Newcome, out of consideration for her grandmother’s strange
antipathy to him, did not inform Lady Kew that a young gentleman by the
name of Clive occasionally came to visit the Hôtel de Florac. At first,
with her French education, Madame de Florac never would have thought of
allowing the cousins to meet in her house; but with the English it was
different. Paul assured her that in the English châteaux, _les Meess_
walked for entire hours with the young men, made parties of the fish,
mounted to horse with them, the whole with the permission of the
mothers. “When I was at Newcome, Miss Ethel rode with me several
times,” Paul said; “_à preuve_ that we went to visit an old relation of
the family, who adores Clive and his father.” When Madame de Florac
questioned her son about the young Marquis to whom it was said Ethel
was engaged, Florac flouted the idea. “Engaged! This young Marquis is
engaged to the Théâtre des Variétés, my mother. He laughs at the notion
of an engagement.” When one charged him with it of late at the club;
and asked how Mademoiselle Louqsor—she is so tall, that they call her
the Louqsor—she is an _Odalisque Obélisque_, ma mère; when one asked
how the Louqsor would pardon his pursuit of Miss Newcome, my Ecossois
permitted himself to say in full club, that it was Miss Newcome pursued
him,—that nymph, that Diane, that charming and peerless young creature!
On which, as the others laughed, and his friend Monsieur Walleye
applauded, I dared to say in my turn, “Monsieur le Marquis, as a young
man, not familiar with our language, you have said what is not true,
milor, and therefore luckily not mischievous. I have the honour to
count of my friends the parents of the young lady of whom you have
spoken. You never could have intended to say that a young miss who
lives under the guardianship of her parents, and is obedient to them,
whom you meet in society all the nights, and at whose door your
carriage is to be seen every day, is capable of that with which you
charge her so gaily. These things say themselves, monsieur, in the
_coulisses_ of the theatre, of women from whom you learn our language;
not of young persons pure and chaste, Monsieur de Farintosh! Learn to
respect your compatriots; to honour youth and innocence everywhere,
monsieur! and when you forget yourself, permit one who might be your
father to point where you are wrong.”
“And what did he answer?” asked the Countess.
“I attended myself to a _soufflet_,” replied Florac; “but his reply was
much more agreeable. The young insulary, with many blushes and a _gros
juron_, as his polite way is, said he had not wished to say a word
against that person. ‘Of whom the name,’ cried I, ‘ought never to be
spoken in these places.’ Herewith our little dispute ended.”
So, occasionally, Mr. Clive had the good luck to meet with his cousin
at the Hôtel de Florac, where, I dare say, all the inhabitants wished
he should have his desire regarding this young lady. The Colonel had
talked early to Madame de Florac about this wish of his life,
impossible then to gratify, because Ethel was engaged to Lord Kew.
Clive, in the fulness of his heart, imparted his passion to Florac, and
in answer to Paul’s offer to himself, had shown the Frenchman that kind
letter in which his father bade him carry aid to “Léonore de Florac’s
son,” in case he should need it. The case was all clear to the lively
Paul. “Between my mother and your good Colonel there must have been an
affair of the heart in the early days during the emigration.” Clive
owned his father had told him as much, at least that he himself had
been attached to Mademoiselle de Blois. “It is for that that her heart
yearns towards thee, that I have felt myself _entrained_ toward thee
since I saw thee”—Clive momentarily expected to be kissed again. “Tell
thy father that I feel—am touched by his goodness with an eternal
gratitude, and love every one that loves my mother.” As far as wishes
went, these two were eager promoters of Clive’s little love-affair; and
Madame la Princesse became equally not less willing. Clive’s good looks
and good-nature had had their effects upon that good-natured woman, and
he was as great a favourite with her as with her husband. And thus it
happened that when Miss Ethel came to pay her visit, and sate with
Madame de Florac and her grandchildren in the garden, Mr. Newcome would
sometimes walk up the avenue there, and salute the ladies.
If Ethel had not wanted to see him, would she have come? Yes; she used
to say she was going to Madame de Préville’s, not Madame de Florac’s,
and would insist, I have no doubt, that it was Madame de Préville whom
she went to see (whose husband was a member of the Chamber of Deputies,
a Conseiller d’etat; or other French bigwig), and that she had no idea
of going to meet Clive, or that he was more than a casual acquaintance
at the Hôtel de Florac. There was no part of her conduct in all her
life, which this lady, when it was impugned, would defend more strongly
than this intimacy at the Hôtel de Florac. It is not with this I
quarrel especially. My fair young readers, who have seen a half-dozen
of seasons, can you call to mind the time when you had such a
friendship for Emma Tomkins, that you were always at the Tomkins’s, and
notes were constantly passing between your house and hers? When her
brother, Paget Tomkins, returned to India, did not your intimacy with
Emma fall off? If your younger sister is not in the room, I know you
will own as much to me. I think you are always deceiving yourselves and
other people. I think the motive you put forward is very often not the
real one; though you will confess, neither to yourself, nor to any
human being, what the real motive is. I think that what you desire you
pursue, and are as selfish in your way as your bearded fellow-creatures
are. And as for the truth being in you, of all the women in a great
acquaintance, I protest there are but—never mind. A perfectly honest
woman, a woman who never flatters, who never manages, who never
cajoles, who never conceals, who never uses her eyes, who never
speculates on the effect which she produces, who never is conscious of
unspoken admiration, what a monster, I say, would such a female be!
Miss Hopkins, you have been a coquette since you were a year old; you
worked on your papa’s friends in the nurse’s arms by the fascination of
your lace frock and pretty new sash and shoes; when you could just
toddle, you practised your arts upon other children in the square, poor
little lambkins sporting among the daisies; and _nunc in ovilia, mox in
reluctantes dracones_, proceeding from the lambs to reluctant dragoons,
you tried your arts upon Captain Paget Tomkins, who behaved so ill, and
went to India without—without making those proposals which of course
you never expected. Your intimacy was with Emma. It has cooled. Your
sets are different. The Tomkins’s are not _quite_ etc. etc. You believe
Captain Tomkins married a Miss O’Grady, etc. etc. Ah, my pretty, my
sprightly Miss Hopkins, be gentle in your judgment of your neighbours!
CHAPTER XLVII.
Contains two or three Acts of a Little Comedy
All this story is told by one, who, if he was not actually present at
the circumstances here narrated, yet had information concerning them,
and could supply such a narrative of facts and conversations as is,
indeed, not less authentic than the details we have of other histories.
How can I tell the feelings in a young lady’s mind; the thoughts in a
young gentleman’s bosom?—As Professor Owen or Professor Agassiz takes a
fragment of a bone, and builds an enormous forgotten monster out of it,
wallowing in primeval quagmires, tearing down leaves and branches of
plants that flourished thousands of years ago, and perhaps may be coal
by this time—so the novelist puts this and that together: from the
footprint finds the foot; from the foot, the brute who trod on it; from
the brute, the plant he browsed on, the marsh in which he swam—and thus
in his humble way a physiologist too, depicts the habits, size,
appearance of the beings whereof he has to treat;—traces this slimy
reptile through the mud, and describes his habits filthy and rapacious;
prods down this butterfly with a pin, and depicts his beautiful coat
and embroidered waistcoat; points out the singular structure of yonder
more important animal, the megatherium of his history.
Suppose then, in the quaint old garden of the Hôtel de Florac, two
young people are walking up and down in an avenue of lime-trees, which
are still permitted to grow in that ancient place. In the centre of
that avenue is a fountain, surmounted by a Triton so grey and
moss-eaten, that though he holds his conch to his swelling lips,
curling his tail in the arid basin, his instrument has had a sinecure
for at least fifty years; and did not think fit even to play when the
Bourbons, in whose time he was erected, came back from their exile. At
the end of the lime-tree avenue is a broken-nosed damp Faun, with a
marble panpipe, who pipes to the spirit ditties which I believe never
had any tune. The _perron_ of the hotel is at the other end of the
avenue; a couple of Cæsars on either side of the door-window, from
which the inhabitants of the hotel issue into the garden—Caracalla
frowning over his mouldy shoulder at Nerva, on to whose clipped hair
the roofs of the grey château have been dribbling for ever so many long
years. There are more statues gracing this noble place. There is Cupid,
who has been at the point of kissing Psyche this half-century at least,
though the delicious event has never come off, through all those
blazing summers and dreary winters: there is Venus and her Boy under
the damp little dome of a cracked old temple. Through the alley of this
old garden, in which their ancestors have disported in hoops and
powder, Monsieur de Florac’s chair is wheeled by St. Jean, his
attendant; Madame de Préville’s children trot about, and skip, and play
at cache-cache. The R. P. de Florac (when at home) paces up and down
and meditates his sermons; Madame de Florac sadly walks sometimes to
look at her roses; and Clive and Ethel Newcome are marching up and
down; the children, and their bonne of course being there, jumping to
and fro; and Madame de Florac, having just been called away to Monsieur
le Comte, whose physician has come to see him.
Ethel says, “How charming and odd this solitude is: and how pleasant to
hear the voices of the children playing in the neighbouring Convent
garden,” of which they can see the new chapel rising over the trees.
Clive remarks that “the neighbouring hotel has curiously changed its
destination. One of the members of the Directory had it; and, no doubt,
in the groves of its garden, Madame Tallien, and Madame Recamier, and
Madame Beauharnais have danced under the lamps. Then a Marshal of the
Empire inhabited it. Then it was restored to its legitimate owner,
Monsieur le Marquis de Bricquabracque, whose descendants, having a
lawsuit about the Bricquabracque succession, sold the hotel to the
Convent.”
After some talk about nuns, Ethel says, “There were convents in
England. She often thinks she would like to retire to one;” and she
sighs as if her heart were in that scheme.
Clive, with a laugh, says, “Yes. If you could retire after the season,
when you were very weary of the balls, a convent would be very nice. At
Rome he had seen San Pietro in Montorio and Sant Onofrio, that
delightful old place where Tasso died: people go and make a retreat
there. In the ladies’ convents, the ladies do the same thing—and he
doubts whether they are much more or less wicked after their retreat,
than gentlemen and ladies in England or France.”
_Ethel_. Why do you sneer at all faith? Why should not a retreat do
people good? Do you suppose the world is so satisfactory, that those
who are in it never wish for a while to leave it’d (_She heaves a sigh
and looks down towards a beautiful new dress of many flounces, which
Madame de Flouncival, the great milliner, has sent her home that very
day._)
_Clive_. I do not know what the world is, except from afar off. I am
like the Peri who looks into Paradise and sees angels within it. I live
in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square: which is not within the gates of
Paradise. I take the gate to be somewhere in Davies Street, leading out
of Oxford Street into Grosvenor Square. There’s another gate in Hay
Hill: and another in Bruton Street, Bond——
_Ethel_. Don’t be a goose.
_Clive_. Why not? It is as good to be a goose, as to be a lady—no, a
gentleman of fashion. Suppose I were a Viscount, an Earl, a Marquis, a
Duke, would you say Goose? No, you would say Swan.
_Ethel_. Unkind and unjust!—ungenerous to make taunts which common
people make: and to repeat to me those silly sarcasms which your low
_Radical literary_ friends are always putting in their books! Have I
ever made any difference to you? Would I not sooner see you than the
fine people? Would I talk with you, or with the young dandies most
willingly? Are we not of the same blood, Clive; and of all the grandees
I see about, can there be a grander gentleman than your dear old
father? You need not squeeze my hand so.—Those little imps are
look—that has nothing to do with the question. Viens, Léonore! Tu
connois bien, monsieur, n’est-ce pas? qui te fait de si jolis dessins?
_Léonore_. Ah, oui! Vous m’en ferez toujours, n’est-ce pas Monsieur
Clive? des chevaux, et puis des petites filles avec leurs gouvernantes,
et puis des maisons—et puis—et puis des maisons encore—où est bonne
maman?
[_Exit little_ LÉONORE _down an alley._
_Ethel_. Do you remember when we were children, and you used to make
drawings for us? I have some now that you did—in my geography book,
which I used to read and read with Miss Quigley.
_Clive_. I remember all about our youth, Ethel.
_Ethel_. Tell me what you remember?
_Clive_. I remember one of the days, when I first saw you, I had been
reading the Arabian Nights at school—and you came in in a bright dress
of shot silk, amber, and blue—and I thought you were like that
fairy-princess who came out of the crystal box—because——
_Ethel_. Because why?
_Clive_. Because I always thought that fairy somehow must be the most
beautiful creature in all the world—that is “why and because.” Do not
make me Mayfair curtsies. You know whether you are good-looking or not:
and how long I have thought you so. I remember when I thought I would
like to be Ethel’s knight, and that if there was anything she would
have me do, I would try and achieve it in order to please her. I
remember when I was so ignorant I did not know there was any difference
in rank between us.
_Ethel_. Ah, Clive!
_Clive_. Now it is altered. Now I know the difference between a poor
painter and a young lady of the world. Why haven’t I a title and a
great fortune? Why did I ever see you, Ethel; or, knowing the distance
which it seems fate has placed between us, why have I seen you again?
_Ethel_ (_innocently_). Have I ever made any difference between us?
Whenever I may see you, am I not too glad? Don’t I see you sometimes
when I should not—no—I do not say when I should not; but when others,
whom I am bound to obey, forbid me? What harm is there in my
remembering old days? Why should I be ashamed of our relationship?—no,
not ashamed—shy should I forget it? Don’t do that, sir; we have shaken
hands twice already. Léonore! Xavier!
_Clive_. At one moment you like me: and at the next you seem to repent
it. One day you seem happy when I come; and another day you are ashamed
of me. Last Tuesday, when you came with those fine ladies to the
Louvre, you seemed to blush when you saw me copying at my picture; and
that stupid young lord looked quite alarmed because you spoke to me. My
lot in life is not very brilliant; but I would not change it against
that young man’s—no, not with all his chances.
_Ethel_. What do you mean with all his chances?
_Clive_. You know very well. I mean I would not be as selfish or as
dull, or as ill educated—I won’t say worse of him—not to be as
handsome, or as wealthy, or as noble as he is. I swear I would not now
change my place against his, or give up being Clive Newcome to be my
Lord Marquis of Farintosh, with all his acres and titles of nobility.
_Ethel_. Why are you for ever harping about Lord Farintosh and his
titles? I thought it was only women who were jealous—you gentlemen say
so.—(_Hurriedly_.) I am going to-night with grandmamma to the Minister
of the Interior, and then to the Russian ball; and to-morrow to the
Tuileries. We dine at the Embassy first; and on Sunday, I suppose, we
shall go to the Rue d’Aguesseau. I can hardly come here before Mon—.
Madam de Florac! Little Léonore is very like you—resembles you very
much. My cousin says he longs to make a drawing of her.
_Madame de Florac_. My husband always likes that I should be present at
his dinner. Pardon me, young people, that I have been away from you for
a moment.
[_Exeunt_ CLIVE, ETHEL, _and_ Madame DE F. _into the house_.
CONVERSATION II.—_Scene_ I.
_Miss Newcome arrives in Lady Kew’s carriage, which enters the court of
the Hôtel de Florac._
_Saint Jean_. Mademoiselle—Madame la Comtesse is gone out but madame
has charged me to say, that she will be at home to the dinner of M. le
Comte, as to the ordinary.
_Miss Newcome_. Madame de Préville is at home?
_Saint Jean_. Pardon me, madame is gone out with M. le Baron, and M.
Xavier, and Mademoiselle de Préville. They are gone, miss, I believe,
to visit the parents of Monsieur le Baron; of whom it is probably
to-day the fête: for Mademoiselle Léonore carried a bouquet—no doubt
for her grandpapa. Will it please mademoiselle to enter? I think
Monsieur the Count sounds me. (_Bell rings_.)
_Miss Newcome_. Madame la Prince—Madame la Vicomtesse is at home,
Monsieur St. Jean?
_Saint Jean_. I go to call the people of Madame la Vicomtesse.
[_Exit Old_ SAINT JEAN _to the carriage: a Lackey comes presently in a
gorgeous livery, with buttons like little cheese plates_.
_The Lackey_. The Princess is at home, miss, and will be most appy to
see you, miss. (_Miss trips up the great stair: a gentleman out of
livery has come forth to the landing, and introduces her to the
apartments of_ Madame la Princesse.)
_The Lackey to the Servants on the box_. Good morning, Thomas. How dy’
do, old Backystopper?
_Backystopper_. How de do, Jim? I say, you couldn’t give a feller a
drink of beer, could yer, Muncontour? It was precious wet last night, I
can tell you. ’Ad to stop for three hours at the Napolitum Embassy,
when we was a dancing. Me and some chaps went into Bob Parsom’s and had
a drain. Old Cat came out and couldn’t find her carriage, not by no
means, could she, Tommy? Blest if I didn’t nearly drive her into a
wegetable-cart. I was so uncommon scruey! Who’s this a-hentering at
your pot-coshare? Billy, my fine feller!
_Clive Newcome_ (_by the most singular coincidence_). Madame la
Princesse?
_Lackey_. We, Munseer. (_He rings a bell: the gentleman in black
appears as before on the landing-place up the stair_.)
[_Exit_ CLIVE.
_Backystopper_. I say, Bill: is that young chap often a-coming about
here? They’d run pretty in a curricle, wouldn’t they? Miss N. and
Master N. Quiet, old woman! Jest look to that mare’s ead, will you,
Billy? He’s a fine young feller, that is. He gave me a covering the
other night. Whenever I sor him in the Park, he was always riding an
ansum hanimal. What is he? They said in our ’all he was a hartis. I can
’ardly think that. Why, there used to be a hartis come to our club, and
painted two or three of my ’osses, and my old woman too.
_Lackey_. There’s hartises and hartises, Backystopper. Why, there’s
some on ’em comes here with more stars on their coats than Dukes has
got. Have you never ’eard of Mossyer Verny, or Mossyer Gudang?
_Backystopper_. They say this young gent is sweet on Miss N.; which, I
guess, I wish he may git it.
_Tommy_. He! he! he!
_Backystopper_. Brayvo, Tommy. Tom ain’t much of a man for
conversation, but he’s a precious one to drink. _Do_ you think the
young gent is sweet on her, Tommy? I sor him often prowling about our
’ouse in Queen Street, when we was in London.
_Tommy_. I guess he wasn’t let in in Queen Street. I guess hour little
Buttons was very near turned away for saying we was at home to him—I
guess a footman’s place is to keep his mouth hopen—no, his heyes
hopen—and his mouth shut. (_He lapses into silence_.)
_Lackey_. I think Thomis is in love, Thomis is. Who was that young
woman I saw you a-dancing of at the Showmier, Thomis? How the young
Marquis was a-cuttin’ of it about there! The pleace was obliged to come
up and stop him dancing. His man told old Buzfuz upstairs, that the
Marquis’s goings on is hawful. Up till four or five every morning;
blind hookey, shampaign, the dooce’s own delight. That party have had I
don’t know how much in diamonds—and they quarrel and swear at each
other, and fling plates: it’s tremendous.
_Tommy_. Why doesn’t the Marquis man mind his own affairs? He’s a
supersellious beast: and will no more speak to a man, except he’s
out-a-livery, than he would to a chimbly-swip. He! Cuss him, I’d fight
’im for ’alf-a-crown.
_Lackey_. And we’d back you, Tommy. Buzfuz upstairs ain’t
supersellious; nor is the Prince’s walet nether. That old Sangjang’s a
rum old guvnor. He was in England with the Count, fifty years ago—in
the hemigration—in Queen Hann’s time, you know. He used to support the
old Count. He says he remembers a young Musseer Newcome then, that used
to take lessons from the Shevallier, the Countess’ father—there’s my
bell.
[_Exit Lackey_.
_Backystopper_. Not a bad chap that. Sports his money very free—sings
an uncommon good song.
_Thomas_. Pretty voice, but no cultiwation.
_Lackey_ (_who re-enters_). Be here at two o’clock for Miss N. Take
anything? Come round the corner.—There’s a capital shop round the
corner.
[_Exeunt Servants_.
SCENE II.
_Ethel_. I can’t think where Madame de Moncontour has gone. How very
odd it was that you should come here—that we should both come here
to-day! How surprised I was to see you at the Minister’s! Grandmamma
was so angry! “That boy pursues us wherever we go,” she said. I am sure
I don’t know why we shouldn’t meet, Clive. It seems to be wrong even my
seeing you by chance here. Do you know, sir, what a scolding I had
about—about going to Brighton with you? My grandmother did not hear of
it till we were in Scotland, when that foolish maid of mine talked of
it to her maid; and, there was oh, such a tempest! If there were a
Bastile here, she would like to lock you into it. She says that you are
always upon our way—I don’t know how, I am sure. She says, but for you
I should have been—you know what I should have been: but I am thankful
that I wasn’t, and Kew has got a much nicer wife in Henrietta Pulleyn,
than I could ever have been to him. She will be happier than Clara,
Clive. Kew is one of the kindest creatures in the world—not very wise;
not very strong: but he is just such a kind, easy, generous little man,
as will make a girl like Henrietta quite happy.
_Clive_. But not you, Ethel?
_Ethel_. No, nor I him. My temper is difficult, Clive, and I fear few
men would bear with me. I feel, somehow, always very lonely. How old am
I? Twenty—I feel sometimes as if I was a hundred; and in the midst of
all these admirations and fêtes and flatteries, so tired, oh, so tired!
And yet if I don’t have them, I miss them. How I wish I was religious
like Madame de Florac: there is no day that she does not go to church.
She is for ever busy with charities, clergymen, conversions; I think
the Princess will be brought over ere long—that dear old Madame de
Florac! and yet she is no happier than the rest of us. Hortense is an
empty little thing, who thinks of her prosy fat Camille with
spectacles, and of her two children, and of nothing else in the world
besides. Who is happy? Clive!
_Clive_. You say Barnes’s wife is not.
_Ethel_. We are like brother and sister, so I may talk to you. Barnes
is very cruel to her. At Newcome, last winter, poor Clara used to come
into my room with tears in her eyes morning after morning. He calls her
a fool; and seems to take a pride in humiliating her before company. My
poor father has luckily taken a great liking to her: and before him,
for he has grown very very hot-tempered since his illness, Barnes
leaves poor Clara alone. We were in hopes that the baby might make
matters better, but as it is a little girl, Barnes chooses to be very
much disappointed. He wants papa to give up his seat in Parliament, but
he clings to that more than anything. Oh, dear me! who is happy in the
world? What a pity Lord Highgate’s father had not died sooner! He and
Barnes have been reconciled. I wonder my brother’s spirit did not
revolt against it. The old lord used to keep a great sum of money at
the bank, I believe: and the present one does so still: he has paid all
his debts off: and Barnes is actually friends with him. He is always
abusing the Dorkings, who want to borrow money from the bank, he says.
This eagerness for money is horrible. If I had been Barnes I would
never have been reconciled with Mr. Belsize, never, never! And yet they
say he was quite right: and grandmamma is even pleased that Lord
Highgate should be asked to dine in Park Lane. Poor papa is there: come
to attend his parliamentary duties as he thinks. He went to a division
the other night; and was actually lifted out of his carriage and
wheeled into the lobby in a chair. The ministers thanked him for
coming. I believe he thinks he will have his peerage yet. Oh, what a
life of vanity ours is!
_Enter Madame de Moncontour_. What are you young folks a-talkin’
about—balls and operas? When first I was took to the opera I did not
like it—and fell asleep. But now, oh, it’s ’eavenly to hear Grisi sing!
_The Clock_. Ting, ting!
_Ethel_. Two o’clock already! I must run back to grandmamma. Good-bye,
Madame de Moncontour; I am so sorry I have not been able to see dear
Madame de Florac. I will try and come to her on Thursday—please tell
her. Shall we meet you at the American minister’s to-night, or at
Madame de Brie’s to-morrow? Friday is your own night—I hope grandmamma
will bring me. How charming your last music was! Good-bye, mon cousin!
You shall not come downstairs with me, I insist upon it, sir: and had
much best remain here, and finish your drawing of Madame de Moncontour.
_Princess_. I’ve put on the velvet, you see, Clive—though it’s very ’ot
in May. Good-bye, my dear.
[_Exit_ ETHEL.
As far as we can judge from the above conversation, which we need not
prolong—as the talk between Madame de Moncontour and Monsieur Clive,
after a few complimentary remarks about Ethel, had nothing to do with
the history of the Newcomes—as far as we can judge, the above little
colloquy took place on Monday: and about Wednesday, Madame la Comtesse
de Florac received a little note from Clive, in which he said, that one
day when she came to the Louvre, where he was copying, she had admired
a picture of a Virgin and Child, by Sasso Ferrato, since when he had
been occupied in making a water-colour drawing after the picture, and
hoped she would be pleased to accept the copy from her affectionate and
grateful servant, Clive Newcome. The drawing would be done the next
day, when he would call with it in his hand. Of course Madame de Florac
received this announcement very kindly; and sent back by Clive’s
servant a note of thanks to that young gentleman.
Now on Thursday morning, about one o’clock, by one of those singular
coincidences which, etc. etc., who should come to the Hotel de Florac
but Miss Ethel Newcome? Madame la Comtesse was at home, waiting to
receive Clive and his picture: but Miss Ethel’s appearance frightened
the good lady, so much so that she felt quite guilty at seeing the
girl, whose parents might think—I don’t know what they might not
think—that Madame de Florac was trying to make a match between the
young people. Hence arose the words uttered by the Countess, after a
while, in—
CONVERSATION III.
_Madame de Florac_ (_at work_). And so you like to quit the world and
to come to our _triste_ old hotel. After to-day you will find it still
more melancholy, my poor child.
_Ethel_. And why?
_Madame de F_. Some one who has been here to _égayer_ our little
meetings will come no more.
_Ethel_. Is the Abbé de Florac going to quit Paris, madam?
_Madame de F_. It is not of him that I speak, thou knowest it very
well, my daughter. Thou hast seen my poor Clive twice here. He will
come once again, and then no more. My conscience reproaches me that I
have admitted him at all. But he is like a son to me, and was so
confided to me by his father. Five years ago, when we met, after an
absence—of how many years!—Colonel Newcome told me what hopes he had
cherished for his boy. You know well, my daughter, with whom those
hopes were connected. Then he wrote me that family arrangements
rendered his plans impossible—that the hand of Miss Newcome was
promised elsewhere. When I heard from my son Paul how these
negotiations were broken, my heart rejoiced, Ethel, for my friend’s
sake. I am an old woman now, who have seen the world, and all sorts of
men. Men more brilliant no doubt I have known, but such a heart as his,
such a faith as his, such a generosity and simplicity as Thomas
Newcome’s—never!
_Ethel_ (_smiling_). Indeed, dear lady, I think with you.
_Madame de F_. I understand thy smile, my daughter. I can say to thee,
that when we were children almost, I knew thy good uncle. My poor
father took the pride of his family into exile with him. Our poverty
only made his pride the greater. Even before the emigration a contract
had been passed between our family and the Count de Florac. I could not
be wanting to the word given by my father. For how many long years have
I kept it? But when I see a young girl who may be made the victim—the
subject of a marriage of convenience, as I was—my heart pities her. And
if I love her, as I love you, I tell her my thoughts. Better poverty,
Ethel: better a cell in a convent: than a union without love. Is it
written eternally that men are to make slaves of us? Here in France,
above all, our fathers sell us every day. And what a society ours is!
Thou wilt know this when thou art married. There are some laws so cruel
that nature revolts against theme, and breaks them—or we die in keeping
them. You smile. I have been nearly fifty years dying—_n’est-ce
pas?_—and am here an old woman, complaining to a young girl. It is
because our recollections of youth are always young: and because I have
suffered so, that I would spare those I love a like grief. Do you know
that the children of those who do not love in marriage seem to bear an
hereditary coldness, and do not love their parents as other children
do? They witness our differences and our indifferences, hear our
recriminations, take one side or the other in our disputes, and are
partisans for father or mother. We force ourselves to be hypocrites,
and hide our wrongs from them; we speak of a bad father with false
praises; we wear feint smiles over our tears, and deceive our
children—deceive them, do we? Even from the exercise of that pious
deceit there is no woman but suffers in the estimation of her sons.
They may shield her as champions against their father’s selfishness or
cruelty. In this case, what a war! What a home, where the son sees a
tyrant in the father, and in the mother but a trembling victim! I speak
not for myself—whatever may have been the course of our long wedded
life, I have not to complain of these ignoble storms. But when the
family chief neglects his wife, or prefers another to her, the children
too, courtiers as we are, will desert her. You look incredulous about
domestic love. Tenez, my child, if I may so surmise, I think you cannot
have seen it.
_Ethel_ (_blushing, and thinking, perhaps, how she esteems her father,
how her mother, and how much they esteem each other_). My father and
mother have been most kind to all their children, madame; and no one
can say that their marriage has been otherwise than happy. My mother is
the kindest and most affectionate mother, and—(_Here a vision of Sir
Brian alone in his room, and nobody really caring for him so much as
his valet, who loves him to the extent of fifty pounds a year and
perquisites; or, perhaps, Miss Cann, who reads to him, and plays a good
deal of evenings, much to Sir Brian’s liking—here this vision, we say,
comes, and stops Miss Ethel’s sentence_.)
_Madame de F_. Your father, in his infirmity—and yet he is five years
younger than Colonel Newcome—is happy to have such a wife and such
children. They comfort his age; they cheer his sickness; they confide
their griefs and pleasures to him—is it not so? His closing days are
soothed by their affection.
_Ethel_. Oh, no, no! And yet it is not his fault or ours that he is a
stranger to us. He used to be all day at the bank, or at night in the
House of Commons, or he and mamma went to parties, and we young ones
remained with the governess. Mamma is very kind. I have never, almost,
known her angry; never with us; about us, sometimes, with the servants.
As children, we used to see papa and mamma at breakfast; and then when
she was dressing to go out. Since he has been ill, she has given up all
parties. I wanted to do so too. I feel ashamed in the world, sometimes,
when I think of my poor father at home, alone. I wanted to stay, but my
mother and my grandmother forbade me. Grandmamma has a fortune, which
she says I am to have: since then they have insisted on my being with
her. She is very clever you know: she is kind too in her way; but she
cannot live out of society. And I, who pretend to revolt, I like it
too; and I, who rail and scorn flatterers—oh, I like admiration! I am
pleased when the women hate me, and the young men leave them for me.
Though I despise many of these, yet I can’t help drawing them towards
me. One or two of them I have seen unhappy about me, and I like it; and
if they are indifferent I am angry, and never tire till they come back.
I love beautiful dresses; I love jewels; I love a great name and a fine
house—oh, I despise myself, when I think of these things! When I lie in
bed and say I have been heartless and a coquette, I cry with
humiliation; and then rebel and say, Why not?—and to-night—yes,
to-night—after leaving you, I shall be wicked, I know I shall.
_Madame de F_. (_sadly_). One will pray for thee, my child.
_Ethel_ (_sadly_). I thought I might be good once. I used to say my own
prayers then. Now I speak them but by rote, and feel ashamed—yes,
ashamed to speak them. Is it not horrid to say them, and next morning
to be no better than you were last night? Often I revolt at these as at
other things, and am dumb. The Vicar comes to see us at Newcome, and
eats so much dinner, and pays us such court, and “Sir Brians” papa, and
“Your Ladyship’s” mamma. With grandmamma I go to hear a fashionable
preacher—Clive’s uncle, whose sister lets lodgings at Brighton; such a
queer, bustling, pompous, honest old lady. Do you know that Clive’s
aunt lets lodgings at Brighton?
_Madame de F_. My father was an usher in a school. Monsieur de Florac
gave lessons in the emigration. Do you know in what?
_Ethel_. Oh, the old nobility! that is different, you know. That Mr.
Honeyman is so affected that I have no patience with him!
_Madame de F_. (_with a sigh_). I wish you could attend the services of
a better church. And when was it you thought you might be good, Ethel?
_Ethel_. When I was a girl. Before I came out. When I used to take long
rides with my dear Uncle Newcome; and he used to talk to me in his
sweet simple way; and he said I reminded him of some one he once knew.
_Madame de F_. Who—who was that, Ethel?
_Ethel_ (_looking up at Gerard’s picture of the Countess de Florac_).
What odd dresses you wore in the time of the Empire, Madame de Florac!
How could you ever have such high waists, and such wonderful _fraises!_
(MADAME DE FLORAC _kisses_ ETHEL. _Tableau_.)
_Enter_ SAINT JEAN, _preceding a gentleman with a drawing-board under
his arm_.
_Saint Jean_. Monsieur Claive! [_Exit_ SAINT JEAN.
_Clive_. How do you do, Madame la Comtesse? Mademoiselle, j’ai
l’honneur de vous souhaiter le bon jour.
_Madame de F_. Do you come from the Louvre? Have you finished that
beautiful copy, mon ami?
_Clive_. I have brought it for you. It is not very good. There are
always so many _petites demoiselles_ copying that Sasso Ferrato; and
they chatter about it so, and hop from one easel to another; and the
young artists are always coming to give them advice—so that there is no
getting a good look at the picture. But I have brought you the sketch;
and am so pleased that you asked for it.
_Madame de F_. (_surveying the sketch_). It is charming—charming! What
shall we give to our painter for his chef-d’œuvre?
_Clive_ (_kisses her hand_). There is my pay! And you will be glad to
hear that two of my portraits have been received at the Exhibition. My
uncle, the clergyman, and Mr. Butts, of the Life Guards.
_Ethel_. Mr. Butts—quel nom! Je ne connois aucun M. Butts!
_Clive_. He has a famous head to draw. They refused Crackthorpe and—and
one or two other heads I sent in.
_Ethel_ (_tossing up hers_). Miss Mackenzie’s, I suppose!
_Clive_. Yes, Miss Mackenzie’s. It is a sweet little face; too delicate
for my hand, though.
_Ethel_. So is a wax-doll’s a pretty face. Pink cheeks; china-blue
eyes; and hair the colour of old Madame Hempenfeld’s—not her last
hair—her last but one. (_She goes to a window that looks into the
court_.)
_Clive_ (_to the Countess_). Miss Mackenzie speaks more respectfully of
other people’s eyes and hair. She thinks there is nobody in the world
to compare to Miss Newcome.
_Madame de F_. (_aside_). And you, mon ami? This is the last time,
entendez-vous? You must never come here again. If M. le Comte knew it
he never would pardon me. Encore? (_He kisses her ladyship’s hand
again_.)
_Clive_. A good action gains to be repeated. Miss Newcome, does the
view of the courtyard please you? The old trees and the garden are
better. That dear old Faun without a nose! I must have a sketch of him:
the creepers round the base are beautiful.
_Miss N_. I was looking to see if the carriage had come for me. It is
time that I return home.
_Clive_. That is my brougham. May I carry you anywhere? I hire him by
the hour: and I will carry you to the end of the world.
_Miss N_. Where are you going, Madame de Florac?—to show that sketch to
M. le Comte? Dear me! I don’t fancy that M. de Florac can care for such
things! I am sure I have seen many as pretty on the quays for
twenty-five sous. I wonder the carriage is not come for me.
_Clive_. You can take mine without my company, as that seems not to
please you.
_Miss N_. Your company is sometimes very pleasant—when you please.
Sometimes, as last night, for instance, when you particularly lively.
_Clive_. Last night, after moving heaven and earth to get an invitation
to Madame de Brie—I say, heaven and earth, that is a French phrase—I
arrive there; I find Miss Newcome engaged for almost every dance,
waltzing with M. de Klingenspohr, galloping with Count de Capri,
galloping and waltzing with the most noble the Marquis of Farintosh.
She will scarce speak to me during the evening; and when I wait till
midnight, her grandmamma whisks her home, and I am left alone for my
pains. Lady Kew is in one of her high moods, and the only words she
condescends to say to me are, “Oh, I thought you had returned to
London,” with which she turns her venerable back upon me.
_Miss N_. A fortnight ago you said you were going to London. You said
the copies you were about here would not take you another week, and
that was three weeks since.
_Clive_. It were best I had gone.
_Miss N_. If you think so, I cannot but think so.
_Clive_. Why do I stay and hover about you, and follow you know—I
follow you? Can I live on a smile vouchsafed twice a week, and no
brighter than you give to all the world? What I do I get, but to hear
your beauty praised, and to see you, night after night, happy and
smiling and triumphant, the partner of other men? Does it add zest to
your triumph, to think that I behold it? I believe you would like a
crowd of us to pursue you.
_Miss N_. To pursue me; and if they find me alone, by chance to
compliment me with such speeches as you make? That would be pleasure
indeed! Answer me here in return, Clive. Have I ever disguised from any
of my friends the regard I have for you? Why should I? Have not I taken
your part when you were maligned? In former days, when—when Lord Kew
asked me, as he had a right to do then—I said it was as a brother I
held you; and always would. If I have been wrong, it has been for two
or three times in seeing you at all—or seeing you thus; in letting you
speak to me as you do—injure me as you do. Do you think I have not hard
enough words said to me about you, but that you must attack me too in
turn? Last night only, because you were at the ball,—it was very, very
wrong of me to tell you I was going there,—as we went home, Lady
Kew—Go, sir. I never thought you would have seen in me this
humiliation.
_Clive_. Is it possible that I should have made Ethel Newcome shed
tears? Oh, dry them, dry them. Forgive me, Ethel, forgive me! I have no
right to jealousy, or to reproach you—I know that. If others admire
you, surely I ought to know that they—they do but as I do: I should be
proud, not angry, that they admire my Ethel—my sister, if you can be no
more.
_Ethel_. I will be that always, whatever harsh things you think or say
of me. There, sir, I am not going to be so foolish as to cry again.
Have you been studying very hard? Are your pictures good at the
Exhibition? I like you with your mustachios best, and order you not to
cut them off again. The young men here wear them. I hardly knew Charles
Beardmore when he arrived from Berlin the other day, like a sapper and
miner. His little sisters cried out, and were quite frightened by his
apparition. Why are you not in diplomacy? That day, at Brighton, when
Lord Farintosh asked whether you were in the army, I thought to myself,
why is he not?
_Clive_. A man in the army may pretend to anything, _n’est-ce pas?_ He
wears a lovely uniform. He may be a General, a K.C.B., a Viscount, an
Earl. He may be valiant in arms, and wanting a leg, like the lover in
the song. It is peace-time, you say? so much the worse career for a
soldier. My father would not have me, he said, for ever dangling in
barracks, or smoking in country billiard-rooms. I have no taste for
law: and as for diplomacy, I have no relations in the Cabinet, and no
uncles in the House of Peers. Could my uncle, who is in Parliament,
help me much, do you think? or would he, if he could?—or Barnes, his
noble son and heir, after him?
_Ethel_ (_musing_). Barnes would not, perhaps, but papa might even
still, and you have friends who are fond of you.
_Clive_. No—no one can help me: and my art, Ethel, is not only my
choice and my love, but my honour too. I shall never distinguish myself
in it: I may take smart likenesses, but that is all. I am not fit to
grind my friend Ridley’s colours for him. Nor would my father, who
loves his own profession so, make a good general probably. He always
says so. I thought better of myself when I began as a boy; and was a
conceited youngster, expecting to carry it all before me. But as I
walked the Vatican, and looked at Raphael, and at the great Michael—I
knew I was but a poor little creature; and in contemplating his genius,
shrunk up till I felt myself as small as a man looks under the dome of
St. Peter’s. Why should I wish to have a great genius?—Yes, there is
one reason why I should like to have it.
_Ethel_. And that is?
_Clive_. To give it you, if it pleased you, Ethel. But I might wish for
the roc’s egg: there is no way of robbing the bird. I must take a
humble place, and you want a brilliant one. A brilliant one! Oh, Ethel,
what a standard we folks measure fame by! To have your name in the
_Morning Post_, and to go to three balls every night. To have your
dress described at the Drawing-Room; and your arrival, from a round of
visits in the country, at your town-house; and the entertainment of the
Marchioness of Farin——
_Ethel_. Sir, if you please, no calling names.
_Clive_. I wonder at it. For you are in the world, and you love the
world, whatever you may say. And I wonder that one of your strength of
mind should so care for it. I think my simple old father is much finer
than all your grandees: his single-mindedness more lofty than all their
bowing, and haughtiness, and scheming. What are you thinking of, as
you stand in that pretty attitude—like Mnemosyne—with your finger on
your chin?
_Ethel_. Mnemosyne! who was she? I think I like you best when you are
quiet and gentle, and not when you are flaming out and sarcastic, sir.
And so you think you will never be a famous painter? They are quite in
society here. I was so pleased, because two of them dined at the
Tuileries when grandmamma was there; and she mistook one, who was
covered all over with crosses, for an ambassador, I believe, till the
Queen call him Monsieur Delaroche. She says there is no knowing people
in this country. And do you think you will never be able to paint as
well as M. Delaroche?
_Clive_. No—never.
_Ethel_. And—and—you will never give up painting?
_Clive_. No—never. That would be like leaving your friend who was poor;
or deserting your mistress because you were disappointed about her
money. They do those things in the great world, Ethel.
_Ethel_ (_with a sigh_). Yes.
_Clive_. If it is so false, and base, and hollow, this great world—if
its aims are so mean, its successes so paltry, the sacrifices it asks
of you so degrading, the pleasures it gives you so wearisome, shameful
even, why does Ethel Newcome cling to it? Will you be fairer, dear,
with any other name than your own? Will you be happier, after a month,
at bearing a great title, with a man whom you can’t esteem, tied for
ever to you, to be the father of Ethel’s children, and the lord and
master of her life and actions? The proudest woman in the world
consents to bend herself to this ignominy, and own that a coronet is a
bribe sufficient for her honour! What is the end of a Christian life,
Ethel; a girl’s pure nurture?—it can’t be this! Last week, as we walked
in the garden here, and heard the nuns singing in their chapel, you
said how hard it was that poor women should be imprisoned so, and were
thankful that in England we had abolished that slavery. Then you cast
your eyes to the ground, and mused as you paced the walk; and thought,
I know, that perhaps their lot was better than some others.
_Ethel_. Yes, I did. I was thinking that almost all women are made
slaves one way or other, and that these poor nuns perhaps were better
off than we are.
_Clive_. I never will quarrel with nun or matron for following her
vocation. But for our women, who are free, why should they rebel
against Nature, shut their hearts up, sell their lives for rank and
money, and forgo the most precious right of their liberty? Look, Ethel,
dear. I love you so, that if I thought another had your heart, an
honest man, a loyal gentleman, like—like him of last year even, I think
I could go back with a God bless you, and take to my pictures again,
and work on in my own humble way. You seem like a queen to me, somehow;
and I am but a poor, humble fellow, who might be happy, I think, if you
were. In those balls, where I have seen you surrounded by those
brilliant young men, noble and wealthy, admirers like me, I have often
thought, “How could I aspire to such a creature, and ask her to forgo a
palace to share the crust of a poor painter?”
_Ethel_. You spoke quite scornfully of palaces just now, Clive. I won’t
say a word about the—the regard which you express for me. I think you
have it. Indeed, I do. But it were best not said, Clive; best for me,
perhaps, not to own that I know it. In your speeches, my poor boy—and
you will please not to make any more, or I never can see you or speak
to you again, never—you forgot one part of a girl’s duty: obedience to
her parents. They would never agree to my marrying any one below—any
one whose union would not be advantageous in a worldly point of view. I
never would give such pain to the poor father, or to the kind soul who
never said a harsh word to me since I was born. My grandmamma is kind,
too, in her way. I came to her of my own free will. When she said she
would leave me her fortune, do you think it was for myself alone that I
was glad? My father’s passion was to make an estate, and all my
brothers and sisters will be but slenderly portioned. Lady Kew said she
would help them if I came to her—and—it is the welfare of those little
people that depends upon me, Clive. Now, do you see, _brother_, why you
must speak to me so no more? There is the carriage. God bless you, dear
Clive.
(Clive sees the carriage drive away after Miss Newcome has entered it
without once looking up to the window where he stands. When it is gone
he goes to the opposite windows of the salon, which are open, towards
the garden. The chapel music begins to play from the Convent, next
door. As he hears it he sinks down, his head in his hands.)
_Enter Madame de Florac_ (_She goes to him with anxious looks_.) What
hast thou, my child? Hast thou spoken?
_Clive_ (_very steadily_). Yes.
_Madame de F_. And she loves thee? I know she loves thee.
_Clive_. You hear the organ of the convent?
_Madame de F_. Qu’as tu?
_Clive_. I might as well hope to marry one of the sisters of yonder
convent, dear lady. (_He sinks down again, and she kisses him_.)
_Clive_. I never had a mother; but you seem like one.
_Madame de F_. Mon fils! Oh, mon fils!
CHAPTER XLVIII.
In which Benedick is a Married Man
We have all heard of the dying French Duchess, who viewed her coming
dissolution and subsequent fate so easily, because she said she was
sure that Heaven must deal politely with a person of her quality;—I
suppose Lady Kew had some such notions regarding people of rank: her
long-suffering towards them was extreme; in fact, there were vices
which the old lady thought pardonable, and even natural, in a young
nobleman of high station, which she never would have excused in persons
of vulgar condition.
Her ladyship’s little knot of associates and scandal-bearers—elderly
roues and ladies of the world, whose business it was to know all sorts
of noble intrigues and exalted tittle-tattle; what was happening among
the devotees of the exiled court at Frobsdorf; what among the citizen
princes of the Tuileries; who was the reigning favourite of the Queen
Mother at Aranjuez; who was smitten with whom at Vienna or Naples; and
the last particulars of the _chroniques scandaleuses_ of Paris and
London;—Lady Kew, I say, must have been perfectly aware of my Lord
Farintosh’s amusements, associates, and manner of life, and yet she
never, for one moment, exhibited any anger or dislike towards that
nobleman. Her amiable heart was so full of kindness and forgiveness
towards the young prodigal that, even without any repentance on his
part, she was ready to take him to her old arms, and give him her
venerable benediction. Pathetic sweetness of nature! Charming
tenderness of disposition! With all his faults and wickednesses, his
follies and his selfishness, there was no moment when Lady Kew would
not have received the young lord, and endowed him with the hand of her
darling Ethel.
But the hopes which this fond forgiving creature had nurtured for one
season, and carried on so resolutely to the next, were destined to be
disappointed yet a second time, by a most provoking event, which
occurred in the Newcome family. Ethel was called away suddenly from
Paris by her father’s third and last paralytic seizure. When she
reached her home, Sir Brian could not recognise her. A few hours after
her arrival, all the vanities of the world were over for him: and Sir
Barnes Newcome, Baronet, reigned in his stead. The day after Sir Brian
was laid in his vault at Newcome—a letter appeared in the local papers
addressed to the Independent Electors of that Borough, in which his
orphan son, feelingly alluding to the virtue, the services, and the
political principles of the deceased, offered himself as a candidate
for the seat in Parliament now vacant. Sir Barnes announced that he
should speedily pay his respects in person to the friends and
supporters of his lamented father. That he was a staunch friend of our
admirable constitution need not be said. That he was a firm, but
conscientious upholder of our Protestant religion, all who knew Barnes
Newcome must be aware. That he would do his utmost to advance the
interests of this great agricultural, this great manufacturing county
and borough, we may be sure he avowed; as that he would be (if returned
to represent Newcome in Parliament) the advocate of every rational
reform, the unhesitating opponent of every reckless innovation. In
fine, Barnes Newcome’s manifesto to the Electors of Newcome was as
authentic a document and gave him credit for as many public virtues, as
that slab over poor Sir Brian’s bones in the chancel of Newcome church,
which commemorated the good qualities of the defunct, and the grief of
his heir.
In spite of the virtues, personal and inherited, of Barnes, his seat
for Newcome was not got without a contest. The dissenting interest and
the respectable Liberals of the borough wished to set up Samuel Higg,
Esq.; against Sir Barnes Newcome: and now it was that Barnes’s
civilities of the previous year, aided by Madame de Moncontour’s
influence over her brother, bore their fruit. Mr. Higg declined to
stand against Sir Barnes Newcome, although Higg’s political principles
were by no means those of the honourable Baronet; and the candidate
from London, whom the Newcome extreme Radicals set up against Barnes,
was nowhere on the poll when the day of election came. So Barnes had
the desire of his heart; and, within two months after his father’s
demise, he sate in Parliament as Member for Newcome.
The bulk of the late Baronet’s property descended, of course, to his
eldest son: who grumbled, nevertheless, at the provision made for his
brothers and sisters, and that the town-house should have been left to
Lady Anne, who was too poor to inhabit it. But Park Lane is the best
situation in London, and Lady Anne’s means were greatly improved by the
annual produce of the house in Park Lane, which, as we all know, was
occupied by a foreign minister for several subsequent seasons. Strange
mutations of fortune: old places; new faces; what Londoner does not see
and speculate upon them every day? Cœlia’s boudoir, who is dead with
the daisies over her at Kensal Green, is now the chamber where Delia is
consulting Dr. Locock, or Julia’s children are romping: Florio’s
dining-tables have now Pollio’s wine upon them: Calista, being a widow,
and (to the surprise of everybody who knew Trimalchio, and enjoyed his
famous dinners) left but very poorly off, lets the house, and the rich,
chaste, and appropriate planned furniture, by Dowbiggin, and the
proceeds go to keep her little boys at Eton. The next year, as Mr.
Clive Newcome rode by the once familiar mansion (whence the hatchment
had been removed, announcing that there was _in Cœlo Quies_ for the
late Sir Brian Newcome, Bart.), alien faces looked from over the
flowers in the balconies. He got a card for an entertainment from the
occupant of the mansion, H.E. the Bulgarian minister; and there was the
same crowd in the reception-room and on the stairs, the same grave men
from Gunter’s distributing the refreshments in the dining-room, the
same old Smee, R. A. (always in the room where the edibles were),
cringing and flattering to the new occupants; and the same effigy of
poor Sir Brian, in his deputy-lieutenant’s uniform, looking blankly
down from over the sideboard, at the feast which his successors were
giving. A dreamy old ghost of a picture. Have you ever looked at those
round George IV.’s banqueting-hall at Windsor? Their frames still hold
them, but they smile ghostly smiles, and swagger in robes and velvets
which are quite faint and faded: their crimson coats have a twilight
tinge: the lustre of their stars has twinkled out: they look as if they
were about to flicker off the wall and retire to join their originals
in limbo.
Nearly three years had elapsed since the good Colonel’s departure for
India, and during this time certain changes had occurred in the lives
of the principal actors and the writer of this history. As regards the
latter, it must be stated that the dear old firm of Lamb Court had been
dissolved, the junior member having contracted another partnership. The
chronicler of these memoirs was a bachelor no longer. My wife and I had
spent the winter at Rome (favourite resort of young married couples);
and had heard from the artists there Clive’s name affectionately
repeated; and many accounts of his sayings and doings, his merry
supper-parties, and the talents of young Ridley, his friend. When we
came to London in the spring, almost our first visit was to Clive’s
apartments in Charlotte Street, whither my wife delightedly went to
give her hand to the young painter.
But Clive no longer inhabited that quiet region. On driving to the
house we found a bright brass plate, with the name of Mr. J. J. Ridley
on the door, and it was J. J.’s hand which I shook (his other being
engaged with a great palette, and a sheaf of painting-brushes) when we
entered the well-known quarters. Clive’s picture hung over the
mantelpiece, where his father’s head used to hang in our time—a careful
and beautifully executed portrait of the lad in a velvet coat and a
Roman hat, with that golden beard which was sacrificed to the
exigencies of London fashion. I showed Laura the likeness until she
could become acquainted with the original. On her expressing her
delight at the picture, the painter was pleased to say, in his modest
blushing way, that he would be glad to execute my wife’s portrait too,
nor, as I think, could any artist find a subject more pleasing.
After admiring others of Mr. Ridley’s works, our talk naturally
reverted to his predecessor. Clive had migrated to much more splendid
quarters. Had we not heard? he had become a rich man, a man of fashion.
“I fear he is very lazy about the arts,” said J. J., with regret on his
countenance; “though I begged and prayed him to be faithful to his
profession. He would have done very well in it, in portrait-painting
especially. Look here, and here, and here!” said Ridley, producing fine
vigorous sketches of Clive’s. “He had the art of seizing the likeness,
and of making all his people look like gentlemen, too. He was improving
every day, when this abominable bank came in the way, and stopped him.”
What bank? I did not know the new Indian bank of which the Colonel was
a director. Then, of course, I was aware that the mercantile affair in
question was the Bundelcund Bank, about which the Colonel had written
to me from India more than a year since, announcing that fortunes were
to be made by it, and that he had reserved shares for me in the
company. Laura admired all Clive’s sketches, which his affectionate
brother-artist showed to her with the exception of one representing the
reader’s humble servant; which, Mrs. Pendennis considered, by no means
did justice to the original.
Bidding adieu to the kind J. J., and leaving him to pursue his art, in
that silent serious way in which he daily laboured at it, we drove to
Fitzroy Square hard by, where I was not displeased to show the good old
hospitable James Binnie the young lady who bore my name. But here, too,
we were disappointed. Placards wafered in the windows announced that
the old house was to let. The woman who kept it brought a card in Mrs.
Mackenzie’s frank handwriting, announcing Mr. James Binnie’s address
was “Poste-restante, Pau, in the Pyrenees,” and that his London agents
were Messrs. So-and-so. The woman said she believed the gentleman had
been unwell. The house, too, looked very pale, dismal, and disordered.
We drove away from the door, grieving to think that ill-health, or any
other misfortunes, had befallen good old James.
Mrs. Pendennis drove back to our lodgings, Brixham’s, in Jermyn Street,
while I sped to the City, having business in that quarter. It has been
said that I kept a small account with Hobson Brothers, to whose bank I
went, and entered the parlour with that trepidation which most poor men
feel on presenting themselves before City magnates and capitalists. Mr.
Hobson Newcome shook hands most jovially and good-naturedly,
congratulated me on my marriage, and so forth, and presently Sir Barnes
Newcome made his appearance, still wearing his mourning for his
deceased father.
Nothing could be more kind, pleasant, and cordial than Sir Barnes’s
manner. He seemed to know well about my affairs; complimented me on
every kind of good fortune; had heard that I had canvassed the borough
in which I lived; hoped sincerely to see me in Parliament and on the
right side; was most anxious to become acquainted with Mrs. Pendennis,
of whom Lady Rockminster said all sorts of kind things; and asked for
our address, in order that Lady Clara Newcome might have the pleasure
of calling on my wife. This ceremony was performed soon afterwards; and
an invitation to dinner from Sir Barnes and Lady Clara Newcome speedily
followed it.
Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., M.P., I need not say, no longer inhabited
the small house which he had occupied immediately after his marriage:
but dwelt in a much more spacious mansion in Belgravia, where he
entertained his friends. Now that he had come into his kingdom, I must
say that Barnes was by no means so insufferable as in the days of his
bachelorhood. He had sown his wild oats, and spoke with regret and
reserve of that season of his moral culture. He was grave, sarcastic,
statesmanlike; did not try to conceal his baldness (as he used before
his father’s death, by bringing lean wisps of hair over his forehead
from the back of his head); talked a great deal about the House; was
assiduous in his attendance there and in the City; and conciliating
with all the world. It seemed as if we were all his constituents, and
though his efforts to make himself agreeable were rather apparent, the
effect succeeded pretty well. We met Mr. and Mrs. Hobson Newcome, and
Clive, and Miss Ethel looking beautiful in her black robes. It was a
family party, Sir Barnes said, giving us to understand, with a decorous
solemnity in face and voice, that no _large_ parties as yet could be
received in that house of mourning.
To this party was added, rather to my surprise, my Lord Highgate, who
under the sobriquet of Jack Belsize has been presented to the reader of
this history. Lord Highgate gave Lady Clara his arm to dinner, but went
and took a place next Miss Newcome, on the other side of her; that
immediately by Lady Clara being reserved for a guest who had not as yet
made his appearance.
Lord Highgate’s attentions to his neighbour, his laughing and talking,
were incessant; so much so that Clive, from his end of the table,
scowled in wrath at Jack Belsize’s assiduities: it was evident that the
youth, though hopeless, was still jealous and in love with his charming
cousin.
Barnes Newcome was most kind to all his guests: from Aunt Hobson to
your humble servant, there was not one but the of master the house had
an agreeable word for him. Even for his cousin Samuel Newcome, a gawky
youth with an eruptive countenance, Barnes had appropriate words of
conversation, and talked about King’s College, of which the lad was an
ornament, with the utmost affability. He complimented that institution
and young Samuel, and by that shot knocked not only over Sam but his
mamma too. He talked to Uncle Hobson about his crops; to Clive about
his pictures; to me about the great effect which a certain article in
the _Pall Mall Gazette_ had produced in the House, where the Chancellor
of the Exchequer was perfectly livid with fury, and Lord John bursting
out laughing at the attack: in fact, nothing could be more amiable than
our host on this day. Lady Clara was very pretty—grown a little stouter
since her marriage; the change only became her. She was a little
silent, but then she had Uncle Hobson on her left-hand side, between
whom and her ladyship there could not be much in common, and the place
at the right hand was still vacant. The person with whom she talked
most freely was Clive, who had made a beautiful drawing of her and her
little girl, for which the mother and the father too, as it appeared,
were very grateful.
What had caused this change in Barnes’s behaviour? Our particular
merits or his own private reform? In the two years over which this
narrative has had to run in the course of as many chapters, the writer
had inherited a property so small that it could not occasion a banker’s
civility; and I put down Sir Barnes Newcome’s politeness to a sheer
desire to be well with me. But with Lord Highgate and Clive the case
was different, as you must now hear.
Lord Highgate, having succeeded to his father’s title and fortune, had
paid every shilling of his debts, and had sowed his wild oats to the
very last corn. His lordship’s account at Hobson Brothers was very
large. Painful events of three years’ date, let us hope, were
forgotten—gentlemen cannot go on being in love and despairing, and
quarrelling for ever. When he came into his funds, Highgate behaved
with uncommon kindness to Rooster, who was always straitened for money:
and when the late Lord Dorking died and Rooster succeeded to him, there
was a meeting at Chanticlere between Highgate and Barnes Newcome and
his wife, which went off very comfortably. At Chanticlere the Dowager
Lady Kew and Miss Newcome were also staying, when Lord Highgate
announced his prodigious admiration for the young lady; and, it was
said, corrected Farintosh, as a low-minded, foul-tongued young cub, for
daring to speak disrespectfully of her. Nevertheless, vous concevez,
when a man of the Marquis’s rank was supposed to look with the eyes of
admiration upon a young lady, Lord Highgate would not think of spoiling
sport, and he left Chanticlere declaring that he was always destined to
be unlucky in love. When old Lady Kew was obliged to go to Vichy for
her lumbago, Highgate said to Barnes, “Do ask your charming sister to
come to you in London; she will bore herself to death with the old
woman at Vichy, or with her mother at Rugby” (whither Lady Anne had
gone to get her boys educated), and accordingly Miss Newcome came on a
visit to her brother and sister, at whose house we have just had the
honour of seeing her.
When Rooster took his seat in the House of Lords, he was introduced by
Highgate and Kew, as Highgate had been introduced by Kew previously.
Thus these three gentlemen all rode in gold coaches; had all got
coronets on their heads; as you will, my respected young friend, if you
are the eldest son of a peer who dies before you. And now they were
rich, they were all going to be very good boys, let us hope. Kew, we
know, married one of the Dorking family, that second Lady Henrietta
Pulleyn, whom we described as frisking about at Baden, and not in the
least afraid of him. How little the reader knew, to whom we introduced
the girl in that chatty offhand way, that one day the young creature
would be a countess! But we knew it all the while—and, when she was
walking about with the governess, or romping with her sisters; and when
she had dinner at one o’clock; and when she wore a pinafore very
likely—we secretly respected her as the future Countess of Kew, and
mother of the Viscount Walham.
Lord Kew was very happy with his bride, and very good to her. He took
Lady Kew to Paris, for a marriage trip; but they lived almost
altogether at Kewbury afterwards, where his lordship sowed tame oats
now after his wild ones, and became one of the most active farmers of
his county. He and the Newcomes were not very intimate friends; for
Lord Kew was heard to say that he disliked Barnes more after his
marriage than before. And the two sisters, Lady Clara and Lady Kew, had
a quarrel on one occasion, when the latter visited London just before
the dinner at which we have just assisted—nay, at which we are just
assisting, took place,—a quarrel about Highgate’s attentions to Ethel,
very likely. Kew was dragged into it, and hot words passed between him
and Jack Belsize; and Jack did not go down to Kewbury afterwards,
though Kew’s little boy was christened after him. All these interesting
details about people of the very highest rank, we are supposed to
whisper in the reader’s ear as we are sitting at a Belgravian
dinner-table. My dear Barmecide friend, isn’t it pleasant to be in such
fine company?
And now we must tell how it is that Clive Newcome, Esq., whose eyes are
flashing fire across the flowers of the table at Lord Highgate, who is
making himself so agreeable to Miss Ethel—now we must tell how it is
that Clive and his cousin Barnes have grown to be friends again.
The Bundelcund Bank, which had been established for four years, had now
grown to be one of the most flourishing commercial institutions in
Bengal. Founded, as the prospectus announced, at a time when all
private credit was shaken by the failure of the great Agency Houses, of
which the downfall had carried dismay and ruin throughout the
Presidency, the B. B. had been established on the _only_ sound
principle of commercial prosperity—that is association. The native
capitalists, headed by the great firm of Rummun Loll and Co., of
Calcutta, had largely embarked in the B. B., and the officers of the
two services and the European mercantile body of Calcutta had been
invited to take shares in an institution which, to merchants, native
and English, civilian and military men, was alike advantageous and
indispensable. How many young men of the latter services had been
crippled for life by the ruinous cost of agencies, of which the profits
to the agents themselves were so enormous! The shareholders of the B.
B. were their own agents; and the greatest capitalist in India as well
as the youngest ensign in the service might invest at the largest and
safest premium, and borrow at the smallest interest, by becoming
according to his means, a shareholder in the B. B. Their correspondents
were established in each presidency and in every chief city of India,
as well as at Sydney, Singapore, Canton, and, of course. London. With
China they did, an immense opium-trade, of which the profits were so
great, that it was only in private sittings of the B. B. managing
committee that the details and accounts of these operations could be
brought forward. Otherwise the books of the bank were open to every
shareholder; and the ensign or the young civil servant was at liberty
at any time to inspect his own private account as well as the common
ledger. With New South Wales they carried on a vast trade in wool,
supplying that great colony with goods, which their London agents
enabled them to purchase in such a way as to give them the command of
the market. As if to add to their prosperity, coppermines were
discovered on lands in the occupation of the B. Banking Company, which
gave the most astonishing returns. And throughout the vast territories
of British India, through the great native firm of Rummun Loll and Co.,
the Bundelcund Banking Company had possession of the native markets.
The order from Birmingham for idols alone (made with their copper and
paid in their wool) was enough to make the Low Church party in England
cry out; and a debate upon this subject actually took place in the
House of Commons, of which the effect was to send up the shares of the
Bundelcund Banking Company very considerably upon the London Exchange.
The fifth half-yearly dividend was announced at twelve and a quarter
per cent of the paid-up capital: the accounts from the copper-mine sent
the dividend up to a still greater height, and carried the shares to an
extraordinary premium. In the third year of the concern, the house of
Hobson Brothers, of London, became the agents of the Bundelcund Banking
Company of India and amongst our friends, James Binnie, who had
prudently held out for some time and Clive Newcome, Esq., became
shareholders, Clive’s good father having paid the first instalments of
the lad’s shares up in Calcutta, and invested every rupee he could
himself command in this enterprise. When Hobson Brothers joined it, no
wonder James Binnie was convinced; Clive’s friend, the Frenchman, and
through that connexion the house of Higg, of Newcome and Manchester,
entered into the affair; and amongst the minor contributors in England
we may mention Miss Cann, who took a little fifty-pound-note share and
dear old Miss Honeyman; and J. J., and his father, Ridley, who brought
a small bag of saving—all knowing that their Colonel, who was eager
that his friends should participate in his good fortune, would never
lead them wrong. To Clive’s surprise Mrs. Mackenzie, between whom and
himself there was a considerable coolness, came to his chambers, and
with a solemn injunction that the matter between them should be quite
private, requested him to purchase 1500 pounds worth of Bundelcund
shares for her and her darling girls, which he did, astonished to find
the thrifty widow in possession of so much money. Had Mr. Pendennis’s
mind not been bent at this moment on quite other subjects, he might
have increased his own fortune by the Bundelcund Bank speculation; but
in these two years I was engaged in matrimonial affairs (having Clive
Newcome, Esq., as my groomsman on a certain interesting occasion). When
we returned from our tour abroad the India Bank shares were so very
high that I did not care to purchase, though I found an affectionate
letter from our good Colonel (enjoining me to make my fortune) awaiting
me at the agent’s, and my wife received a pair of beautiful Cashmere
shawls from the same kind friend.
CHAPTER XLIX.
Contains at least six more Courses and two Desserts
The banker’s dinner-party over, we returned to our apartments, having
dropped Major Pendennis at his lodgings, and there, as the custom is
amongst most friendly married couples, talked over the company and the
dinner. I thought my wife would naturally have liked Sir Barnes
Newcome, who was very attentive to her, took her to dinner as the
bride, and talked ceaselessly to her during the whole entertainment.
Laura said No—she did not know why—could there be any better reason?
There was a tone about Sir Barnes Newcome she did not like—especially
in his manner to women.
I remarked that he spoke sharply and in a sneering manner to his wife,
and treated one or two remarks which she made as if she was an idiot.
Mrs. Pendennis flung up her head as much as to say, “and so she is.”
_Mr. Pendennis_. What, the wife too, my dear Laura! I should have
thought such a pretty, simple, innocent young woman, with just enough
good looks to make her pass muster, who is very well bred and not
brilliant at all,—I should have thought such a one might have secured a
sister’s approbation.
_Mrs. Pendennis_. You fancy we are all jealous of one another. No
protests of ours can take that notion out of your heads. My dear Pen, I
do not intend to try. We are not jealous of mediocrity: we are not
patient of it. I dare say we are angry because we see men admire it so.
You gentlemen, who pretend to be our betters, give yourselves such airs
of protection, and profess such a lofty superiority over us, prove it
by quitting the cleverest woman in the room for the first pair of
bright eyes and dimpled cheeks that enter. It was those charms which
attracted you in Lady Clara, sir.
_Pendennis_. I think she is very pretty, and very innocent, and
artless.
_Mrs. P_. Not very pretty, and perhaps not so very artless.
_Pendennis_. How can you tell, you wicked woman? Are you such a
profound deceiver yourself, that you can instantly detect artifice in
others? O Laura!
_Mrs. P_. We can detect all sorts of things. The inferior animals have
instincts, you know. (I must say my wife is always very satirical upon
this point of the relative rank of the sexes.) One thing I am sure of
is, that she is not happy; and oh, Pen! that she does not care much for
her little girl.
_Pendennis_. How do you know that, my dear?
_Mrs. P_. We went upstairs to see the child after dinner. It was at my
wish. The mother did not offer to go. The child was awake and crying.
Lady Clara did not offer to take it. Ethel—Miss Newcome took it, rather
to my surprise, for she seems very haughty; and the nurse, who I
suppose was at supper, came running up at the noise, and then the poor
little thing was quiet.
_Pendennis_. I remember we heard the music as the dining-room door was
open; and Newcome said, “That is what you will have to expect,
Pendennis.”
_Mrs. P_. Hush, sir! If my baby cries, I think you must expect me to
run out of the room. I liked Miss Newcome after seeing her with the
poor little thing. She looked so handsome as she walked with it! I
longed to have it myself.
_Pendennis. Tout vient à fin, à qui sait_——
_Mrs. P_. Don’t be silly. What a dreadful dreadful place this great
world of yours is, Arthur; where husbands do not seem to care for their
wives; where mothers do not love their children; where children love
their nurses best; where men talk what they call gallantry!
_Pendennis_. What?
_Mrs. P_. Yes, such as that dreary, languid, pale, bald, cadaverous,
leering man whispered to me. Oh, how I dislike him! I am sure he is
unkind to his wife. I am sure he has a bad temper; and if there is any
excuse for——
_Pendennis_. For what?
_Mrs. P_. For nothing. But you heard yourself that he had a bad temper,
and spoke sneeringly to his wife. What could make her marry him?
_Pendennis_. Money, and the desire of papa and mamma. For the same
reason Clive’s flame, poor Miss Newcome, was brought out to-day; that
vacant seat at her side was for Lord Farintosh, who did not come. And
the Marquis not being present, the Baron took his innings. Did you not
see how tender he was to her, and how fierce poor Clive looked?
_Mrs. P_. Lord Highgate was very attentive to Miss Newcome, was he?
_Pendennis_. And some years ago, Lord Highgate was breaking his heart
about whom do you think? about Lady Clara Pulleyn, our hostess of last
night. He was Jack Belsize then, a younger son, plunged over head and
ears in debt; and of course there could be no marriage. Clive was
present at Baden when a terrible scene took place, and carried off poor
Jack to Switzerland and Italy, where he remained till his father died,
and he came into the title in which he rejoices. And now he is off with
the old love, Laura, and on with the new. Why do you look at me so? Are
you thinking that other people have been in love two or three times
too?
_Mrs. P_. I am thinking that I should not like to live in London,
Arthur.
And this was all that Mrs. Laura could be brought to say. When this
young woman chooses to be silent, there is no power that can extract a
word from her. It is true that she is generally in the right; but that
is only the more aggravating. Indeed, what can be more provoking, after
a dispute with your wife, than to find it is you, and not she, who has
been in the wrong?
Sir Barnes Newcome politely caused us to understand that the
entertainment of which we had just partaken was given in honour of the
bride. Clive must needs not be outdone in hospitality; and invited us
and others to a fine feast at the Star and Garter at Richmond, where
Mrs. Pendennis was placed at his right hand. I smile as I think how
much dining has been already commemorated in these veracious pages; but
the story is an everyday record; and does not dining form a certain
part of the pleasure and business of every day? It is at that pleasant
hour that our set has the privilege of meeting the other. The morning
man and woman alike devote to business; or pass mainly in the company
of their own kind. John has his office; Jane her household, her
nursery, her milliner, her daughters and their masters. In the country
he has his hunting, his fishing, his farming, his letters; she her
schools, her poor, her garden, or what not. Parted through the shining
hours, and improving them, let us trust, we come together towards
sunset only, we make merry and amuse ourselves. We chat with our pretty
neighbour, or survey the young ones sporting; we make love and are
jealous; we dance, or obsequiously turn over the leaves of Cecilia’s
music-book; we play whist, or go to sleep in the arm-chair, according
to our ages and conditions. Snooze gently in thy arm-chair, thou easy
bald-head! play your whist, or read your novel, or talk scandal over
your work, ye worthy dowagers and fogies! Meanwhile the young ones
frisk about, or dance, or sing, or laugh; or whisper behind curtains in
moonlit windows; or shirk away into the garden, and come back smelling
of cigars; nature having made them so to do.
Nature at this time irresistibly impelled Clive Newcome towards
love-making. It was pairing-season with him. Mr. Clive was now some
three-and-twenty years old: enough has been said about his good looks,
which were in truth sufficient to make him a match for the young lady
on whom he had set his heart, and from whom, during this entertainment
which he gave to my wife, he could never keep his eyes away for three
minutes. Laura’s did not need to be so keen as they were in order to
see what poor Clive’s condition was. She did not in the least grudge
the young fellow’s inattention to herself; or feel hurt that he did not
seem to listen when she spoke; she conversed with J. J., her neighbour,
who was very modest and agreeable; while her husband, not so well
pleased, had Mrs. Hobson Newcome for his partner during the chief part
of the entertainment. Mrs. Hobson and Lady Clara were the matrons who
gave the sanction of their presence to this bachelor-party. Neither of
their husbands could come to Clive’s little fête; had they not the City
and the House of Commons to attend? My uncle, Major Pendennis, was
another of the guests; who for his part found the party was what you
young fellows call very slow. Dreading Mrs. Hobson and her powers of
conversation, the old gentleman nimbly skipped out of her
neighbourhood, and fell by the side of Lord Highgate, to whom the Major
was inclined to make himself very pleasant. But Lord Highgate’s broad
back was turned upon his neighbour, who was forced to tell stories to
Captain Crackthorpe, which had amused dukes and marquises in former
days, and were surely quite good enough for any baron in this realm.
“Lord Highgate sweet upon _la belle_ Newcome, is he?” said the testy
Major afterwards. “He seemed to me to talk to Lady Clara the whole
time. When I awoke in the garden after dinner, as Mrs. Hobson was
telling one of her confounded long stories, I found her audience was
diminished to one. Crackthorpe, Lord Highgate, and Lady Clara, we had
all been sitting there when the bankeress cut in (in the mid of a very
good story I was telling them, which entertained them very much), and
never ceased talking till I fell off into a doze. When I roused myself,
begad, she was still going on. Crackthorpe was off, smoking a cigar on
the terrace: my Lord and Lady Clara were nowhere; and you four, with
the little painter, were chatting cosily in another arbour. Behaved
himself very well, the little painter. Doosid good dinner Ellis gave
us. But as for Highgate being _aux soins_ with _la belle Banquière_,
trust me, my boy, he is—upon my word, my dear, it seemed to me his
thoughts went quite another way. To be sure, Lady Clara is a _belle
Banquière_ too now. He, he, he! How could he say he had no carriage to
go home in? He came down in Crackthorpe’s cab, who passed us just now,
driving back young What-dye-call the painter.”
Thus did the Major discourse, as we returned towards the City. I could
see in the open carriage which followed us (Lady Clara Newcome’s) Lord
Highgate’s white hat, by Clive’s on the back seat.
Laura looked at her husband. The same thought may have crossed their
minds, though neither uttered it; but although Sir Barnes and Lady
Clara Newcome offered us other civilities during our stay in London, no
inducements could induce Laura to accept the proffered friendship of
that lady. When Lady Clara called, my wife was not at home; when she
invited us, Laura pleaded engagements. At first she bestowed on Miss
Newcome, too, a share of this haughty dislike, and rejected the
advances which that young lady, who professed to like my wife very
much, made towards an intimacy. When I appealed to her (for Newcome’s
house was after all a very pleasant one, and you met the best people
there), my wife looked at me with an expression of something like
scorn, and said: “Why don’t I like Miss Newcome? Of course because I am
jealous of her—all women, you know, Arthur, are jealous of such
beauties.” I could get for a long while no better explanation than
these sneers, for my wife’s antipathy towards this branch of the
Newcome family; but an event presently came which silenced my
remonstrances, and showed to me, that Laura had judged Barnes and his
wife only too well.
Poor Mrs. Hobson Newcome had reason to be sulky at the neglect which
all the Richmond party showed her, for nobody, not even Major
Pendennis, as we have seen, would listen to her intellectual
conversation; nobody, not even Lord Highgate, would drive back to town
in her carriage, though the vehicle was large and empty, and Lady
Clara’s barouche, in which his lordship chose to take a place, had
already three occupants within it:—but in spite of these rebuffs and
disappointments the virtuous lady of Bryanstone Square was bent upon
being good-natured and hospitable; and I have to record, in the present
chapter, yet one more feast of which Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis partook at
the expense of the most respectable Newcome family.