“By no means; never saw a fellow show such a confounded white feather.

At first I congratulated him, thinking your boy’s offer must please

him, as it would have pleased any fellow in our time to have a shot.

Dammy! but I was mistaken in my man. He entered into some confounded

long-winded story about a marriage you wanted to make with that

infernal pretty sister of his, who is going to marry young Farintosh,

and how you were in a rage because the scheme fell to the ground, and

how a family duel might occasion unpleasantries to Miss Newcome; though

I showed him how this could be most easily avoided, and that the lady’s

name need never appear in the transaction. ‘Confound it, Sir Barnes,’

says I, ‘I recollect this boy, when he was a youngster throwing a glass

of wine in your face! We’ll put it upon that, and say it’s an old feud

between you.’ He turned quite pale, and he said your fellow had

apologised for the glass of wine.”

“Yes,” said the Colonel, sadly, “my boy apologised for the glass of

wine. It is curious how we have disliked that Barnes ever since we set

eyes on him.”

“Well, Newcome,” Sir George resumed, as his mettled charger suddenly

jumped and curvetted, displaying the padded warrior’s cavalry-seat to

perfection. “Quiet, old lady!—easy, my dear! Well, when I found the

little beggar turning tail in this way I said to him, ‘Dash me, sir, if

you don’t want me, why the dash do you send for me, dash me? Yesterday

you talked as if you would bite the Colonel’s head off, and to-day,

when his son offers you every accommodation, by dash, sir, you’re

afraid to meet him. It’s my belief you had better send for a policeman.

A 22 is your man, Sir Barnes Newcome.’ And with that I turned on my

heel and left him. And the fellow went off to Newcome that very night.”

“A poor devil can’t command courage, General,” said the Colonel, quite

peaceably, “any more than he can make himself six feet high.”

“Then why the dash did the beggar send for me?” called out General Sir

George Tufto, in a loud and resolute voice; and presently the two

officers parted company.

When the Colonel reached home, Mr. Warrington and Mr. Pendennis

happened to be on a visit to Clive, and all three were in the young

fellow’s painting-room. We knew our lad was unhappy, and did our little

best to amuse and console him. The Colonel came in. It was in the dark

February days: we lighted the gas in the studio. Clive had made a

sketch from some favourite verses of mine and George’s: those charming

lines of Scott’s:—

“He turned his charger as he spake,

Beside the river shore;

He gave his bridle-rein a shake,

With adieu for evermore,

My dear!

Adieu for evermore!”

Thomas Newcome held up a finger at Warrington, and he came up to the

picture and looked at it; and George and I trolled out:

“Adieu for evermore,

My dear!

Adieu for evermore!”

From the picture the brave old Colonel turned to the painter, regarding

his son with a look of beautiful inexpressible affection. And he laid

his hand on his son’s shoulder, and smiled, and stroked Clive’s yellow

moustache.

“And—and did Barnes send no answer to that letter you wrote him?” he

said, slowly.

Clive broke out into a laugh that was almost a sob. He took both his

father’s hands. “My dear, dear old father!” says he, “what a—what

an—old—trump you are!” My eyes were so dim I could hardly see the two

men as they embraced.

CHAPTER LIV.

Has a Tragical Ending

Clive presently answered the question which his father put to him in

the last chapter, by producing from the ledge of his easel a crumpled

paper, full of Cavendish now, but on which was written Sir Barnes

Newcome’s reply to his cousin’s polite invitation. Sir Barnes Newcome

wrote, “that he thought a reference to a friend was quite unnecessary,

in the most disagreeable and painful dispute in which Mr. Clive desired

to interfere as a principal; that the reasons which prevented Sir

Barnes from taking notice of Colonel Newcome’s shameful and

ungentlemanlike conduct applied equally, as Mr. Clive Newcome very well

knew, to himself; that if further insult was offered, or outrage

attempted, Sir Barnes should resort to the police for protection; that

he was about to quit London, and certainly should not delay his

departure on account of Mr. Clive Newcome’s monstrous proceedings; and

that he desired to take leave of an odious subject, as of an individual

whom he had striven to treat with kindness, but from whom, from youth

upwards, Sir Barnes Newcome had received nothing but insolence, enmity,

and ill-will.”

“He is an ill man to offend,” remarked Mr. Pendennis. “I don’t think he

has ever forgiven that claret, Clive.”

“Pooh! the feud dates from long before that,” said Clive; “Barnes

wanted to lick me when I was a boy, and I declined: in fact, I think he

had rather the worst of it; but then I operated freely on his shins,

and that wasn’t fair in war, you know.”

“Heaven forgive me,” cries the Colonel; “I have always felt the fellow

was my enemy: and my mind is relieved now war is declared. It has been

a kind of hypocrisy with me to shake his hand and eat his dinner. When

I trusted him it was against my better instinct; and I have been

struggling against it these ten years, thinking it was a wicked

prejudice, and ought to be overcome.”

“Why should we overcome such instincts?” asks Mr. Warrington. “Why

shouldn’t we hate what is hateful in people and scorn what is mean?

From what friend Pen has described to me, and from some other accounts

which have come to my ears, your respectable nephew is about as

loathsome a little villain as crawls on the earth. Good seems to be out

of his sphere, and away from his contemplation. He ill-treats every one

he comes near; or, if, gentle to them, it is that they may serve some

base purpose. Since my attention has been drawn to the creature, I have

been contemplating his ways with wonder and curiosity. How much

superior Nature’s rogues are, Pen, to the villains you novelists put

into your books! This man goes about his life business with a natural

propensity to darkness and evil—as a bug crawls, and stings, and

stinks. I don’t suppose the fellow feels any more remorse than a cat

that runs away with a mutton-chop. I recognise the Evil Spirit, sir,

and do honour to Ahrimanes, in taking off my hat to this young man. He

seduced a poor girl in his father’s country town—is it not natural?

Deserted her and her children—don’t you recognise the beast? married

for rank—could you expect otherwise from him? invites my Lord Highgate

to his house in consideration of his balance at the bank;—sir, unless

somebody’s heel shall crunch him on the way, there is no height to

which this aspiring vermin mayn’t crawl. I look to see Sir Barnes

Newcome prosper more and more. I make no doubt he will die an immense

capitalist, and an exalted Peer of this realm. He will have a marble

monument, and a pathetic funeral sermon. There is a divine in your

family, Clive, that shall preach it. I will weep respectful tears over

the grave of Baron Newcome, Viscount Newcome, Earl Newcome; and the

children whom he has deserted, and who, in the course of time, will be

sent by a grateful nation to New South Wales, will proudly say to their

brother convicts,—‘Yes, the Earl was our honoured father.’”

“I fear he is no better than he should be, Mr. Warrington,” says the

Colonel, shaking his head. “I never heard the story about the deserted

children.”

“How should you, O you guileless man!” cries Warrington.

“I am not in the ways of scandal-hearing myself much: but this tale I

had from Sir Barnes Newcome’s own country. Mr. Batters of the _Newcome

Independent_ is my esteemed client. I write leading articles for his

newspaper, and when he was in town last spring he favoured me with the

anecdote; and proposed to amuse the Member for Newcome by publishing it

in his journal. This kind of writing is not much in my line: and, out

of respect to you and your young one, I believe—I strove with Mr.

Batters, and—entreated him and prevailed with him, not to publish the

story. That is how I came to know it.”

I sate with the Colonel in the evening, when he commented on

Warrington’s story and Sir Barnes’s adventures in his simple way. He

said his brother Hobson had been with him the morning after the

dispute, reiterating Barnes’s defence of his conduct: and professing on

his own part nothing but goodwill towards his brother. “Between

ourselves the young Baronet carries matters with rather a high hand

sometimes, and I am not sorry that you gave him a little dressing. But

you were too hard upon him, Colonel—really you were.” “Had I known that

child-deserting story I would have given it harder still, sir,” says

Thomas Newcome, twirling his mustachios: “but my brother had nothing to

do with the quarrel, and very rightly did not wish to engage in it. He

has an eye to business, has Master Hobson too,” my friend continued:

“for he brought me a cheque for my private account, which of course, he

said, could not remain after my quarrel with Barnes. But the Indian

bank account, which is pretty large, he supposed need not be taken

away? and indeed why should it? So that, which is little business of

mine, remains where it was; and brother Hobson and I remain perfectly

good friends.

“I think Clive is much better since he has been quite put out of his

suspense. He speaks with a great deal more kindness and good-nature

about the marriage than I am disposed to feel regarding it: and depend

on it has too high a spirit to show that he is beaten. But I know he is

a good deal cut up, though he says nothing; and he agreed willingly

enough to take a little journey, Arthur, and be out of the way when

this business takes place. We shall go to Paris: I don’t know where

else besides. These misfortunes do good in one way, hard as they are to

bear: they unite people who love each other. It seems to me my boy has

been nearer to me, and likes his old father better than he has done of

late.” And very soon after this talk our friends departed.

The Bulgarian minister having been recalled, and Lady Anne Newcome’s

house in park Lane being vacant, her ladyship and her family came to

occupy the mansion for this eventful season, and sate once more in the

dismal dining-room under the picture of the defunct Sir Brian. A little

of the splendour and hospitality of old days was revived in the house:

entertainments were given by Lady Anne: and amongst other festivities a

fine ball took place, when pretty Miss Alice, Miss Ethel’s younger

sister, made her first appearance in the world, to which she was

afterwards to be presented by the Marchioness of Farintosh. All the

little sisters were charmed, no doubt, that the beautiful Ethel was to

become a beautiful Marchioness, who, as they came up to womanhood one

after another, would introduce them severally to amiable young earls,

dukes, and marquises, when they would be married off and wear coronets

and diamonds of their own right. At Lady Anne’s ball I saw my

acquaintance, young Mumford, who was going to Oxford next October, and

about to leave Rugby, where he was at the head of the school, looking

very dismal as Miss Alice whirled round the room dancing in Viscount

Bustington’s arms;—Miss Alice, with whose mamma he used to take tea at

Rugby, and for whose pretty sake Mumford did Alfred Newcome’s verses

for him and let him off his thrashings. Poor Mumford! he dismally went

about under the protection of young Alfred, a fourth-form boy—not one

soul did he know in that rattling London ballroom; his young face—as

white as the large white tie, donned two hours since at the Tavistock

with such nervousness and beating of heart!

With these lads, and decorated with a tie equally splendid, moved about

young Sam Newcome, who was shirking from his sister and his mamma. Mrs.

Hobson had actually assumed clean gloves for this festive occasion. Sam

stared at all the “Nobs:” and insisted upon being introduced to

“Farintosh,” and congratulated his lordship with much graceful ease:

and then pushed about the rooms perseveringly hanging on to Alfred’s

jacket. “I say, I wish you wouldn’t call me Al’,” I heard Mr. Alfred

say to his cousin. Seeing my face, Mr. Samuel ran up to claim

acquaintance. He was good enough to say he thought Farintosh seemed

devilish haughty. Even my wife could not help saying, that Mr. Sam was

an odious little creature.

So it was for young Alfred, and his brothers and sisters, who would

want help and protection in the world, that Ethel was about to give up

her independence, her inclination perhaps, and to bestow her life on

yonder young nobleman. Looking at her as a girl devoting herself to her

family, her sacrifice gave her a melancholy interest in our eyes. My

wife and I watched her, grave and beautiful, moving through the rooms,

receiving and returning a hundred greetings, bending to compliments,

talking with this friend and that, with my lord’s lordly relations,

with himself, to whom she listened deferentially; faintly smiling as he

spoke now and again; doing the honours of her mother’s house. Lady

after lady of his lordship’s clan and kinsfolk complimented the girl

and her pleased mother. Old Lady Kew was radiant (if one can call

radiance the glances of those darkling old eyes). She sate in a little

room apart, and thither people went to pay their court to her.

Unwillingly I came in on this levee with my wife on my arm: Lady Kew

scowled at me over her crutch, but without a sign of recognition. “What

an awful countenance that old woman has!” Laura whispered as we

retreated out of that gloomy presence.

And Doubt (as its wont is) whispered too a question in my ear, “Is it

for her brothers and sisters only that Miss Ethel is sacrificing

herself? Is it not for the coronet, and the triumph, and the fine

houses?” “When two motives may actuate a friend, we surely may try and

believe in the good one,” says Laura. “But, but I am glad Clive does

not marry her—poor fellow—he would not have been happy with her. She

belongs to this great world: she has spent all her life in it: Clive

would have entered into it very likely in her train; and you know, sir,

it is not good that we should be our husbands’ superiors,” adds Mrs.

Laura, with a curtsey.

She presently pronounced that the air was very hot in the rooms, and in

fact wanted to go home to see her child. As we passed out, we saw Sir

Barnes Newcome, eagerly smiling, smirking, bowing, and in the fondest

conversation with his sister and Lord Farintosh. By Sir Barnes

presently brushed Lieutenant-General Sir George Tufto, K.C.B., who,

when he saw on whose foot he had trodden, grunted out, “H’m, beg your

pardon!” and turning his back on Barnes, forthwith began complimenting

Ethel and the Marquis. “Served with your lordship’s father in Spain;

glad to make your lordship’s acquaintance,” says Sir George. Ethel bows

to us as we pass out of the rooms, and we hear no more of Sir George’s

conversation.

In the cloak-room sits Lady Clara Newcome, with a gentleman bending

over her, just in such an attitude as the bride is in Hogarth’s

“Marriage à la Mode” as the counsellor talks to her. Lady Clara starts

up as a crowd of blushes come into her wan face, and tries to smile,

and rises to greet my wife, and says something about its being so

dreadfully hot in the upper rooms, and so very tedious waiting for the

carriages. The gentleman advances towards me with a military stride,

and says, “How do you do, Mr. Pendennis? How’s our young friend, the

painter?” I answer Lord Highgate civilly enough, whereas my wife will

scarce speak a word in reply to Lady Clara Newcome.

Lady Clara asked us to her ball, which my wife declined altogether to

attend. Sir Barnes published a series of quite splendid entertainments

on the happy occasion of his sister’s betrothal. We read the names of

all the clan Farintosh in the _Morning Post_, as attending these

banquets. Mr. and Mrs. Hobson Newcome, in Bryanstone Square, gave also

signs of rejoicing at their niece’s marriage. They had a grand banquet

followed by a tea, to which latter amusement the present biographer was

invited. Lady Anne, and Lady Kew and her granddaughter, and the Baronet

and his wife, and my Lord Highgate and Sir George Tufto attended the

dinner; but it was rather a damp entertainment. “Farintosh,” whispers

Sam Newcome, “sent word just before dinner that he had a sore throat,

and Barnes was as sulky as possible. Sir George wouldn’t speak to him,

and the Dowager wouldn’t speak to Lord Highgate. Scarcely anything was

drank,” concluded Mr. Sam, with a slight hiccup. “I say, Pendennis, how

sold Clive will be!” And the amiable youth went off to commune with

others of his parents’ guests.

Thus the Newcomes entertained the Farintoshes, and the Farintoshes

entertained the Newcomes. And the Dowager Countess of Kew went from

assembly to assembly every evening, and to jewellers and upholsterers

and dressmakers every morning; and Lord Farintosh’s town-house was

splendidly re-decorated in the newest fashion; and he seemed to grow

more and more attentive as the happy day approached, and he gave away

all his cigars to his brother Rob; and his sisters were delighted with

Ethel, and constantly in her company, and his mother was pleased with

her, and thought a girl of her spirit and resolution would make a good

wife for her son: and select crowds flocked to see the service of plate

at Handyman’s, and the diamonds which were being set for the lady; and

Smee, R.A., painted her portrait, as a _souvenir_ for mamma when Miss

Newcome should be Miss Newcome no more; and Lady Kew made a will

leaving all she could leave to her beloved granddaughter, Ethel,

daughter of the late Sir Brian Newcome, Baronet; and Lord Kew wrote an

affectionate letter to his cousin, congratulating her, and wishing her

happiness with all his heart; and I was glancing over _The Times_

newspaper at breakfast one morning; when I laid it down with an

exclamation which caused my wife to start with surprise.

“What is it?” cries Laura, and I read as follows:—

“‘Death of the Countess Dowager of Kew.—We regret to have to announce

the awfully sudden death of this venerable lady. Her ladyship, who had

been at several parties of the nobility the night before last,

seemingly in perfect health, was seized with a fit as she was waiting

for her carriage, and about to quit Lady Pallgrave’s assembly.

Immediate medical assistance was procured, and her ladyship was carried

to her own house, in Queen Street, Mayfair. But she never rallied, or,

we believe, spoke, after the first fatal seizure, and sank at eleven

o’clock last evening, The deceased, Louisa Joanna Gaunt, widow of

Frédéric, first Earl of Kew, was daughter of Charles, Earl of Gaunt,

and sister of the late and aunt of the present Marquis of Steyne. The

present Earl of Kew is her ladyship’s grandson, his lordship’s father,

Lord Walham, having died before his own father, the first earl. Many

noble families are placed in mourning by this sad event. Society has to

deplore the death of a lady who has been its ornament for more than

half a century, and who was known, we may say, throughout Europe for

her remarkable sense, extraordinary memory, and brilliant wit.’”

CHAPTER LV.

Barnes’s Skeleton Closet

The demise of Lady Kew of course put a stop for a while to the

matrimonial projects so interesting to the house of Newcome. Hymen blew

his torch out, put it into the cupboard for use on a future day, and

exchanged his garish saffron-coloured robe for decent temporary

mourning. Charles Honeyman improved the occasion at Lady Whittlesea’s

Chapel hard by; and “Death at the Festival” was one of his most

thrilling sermons; reprinted at the request of some of the

congregation. There were those of his flock, especially a pair whose

quarter of the fold was the organ-loft, who were always charmed with

the piping of that melodious pastor.

Shall we too, while the coffin yet rests on the earth’s outer surface,

enter the chapel whither these void remains of our dear sister departed

are borne by the smug undertaker’s gentlemen, and pronounce an elegy

over that bedizened box of corruption? When the young are stricken

down, and their roses nipped in an hour by the destroying blight, even

the stranger can sympathise, who counts the scant years on the

gravestone, or reads the notice in the newspaper corner. The contrast

forces itself on you. A fair young creature, bright and blooming

yesterday, distributing smiles, levying homage, inspiring desire,

conscious of her power to charm, and gay with the natural enjoyment of

her conquests—who in his walk through the world has not looked on many

such a one; and, at the notion of her sudden call away from beauty,

triumph, pleasure; her helpless outcries during her short pain; her

vain pleas for a little respite; her sentence, and its execution; has

not felt a shock of pity? When the days of a long life come to its

close, and a white head sinks to rise no more, we bow our own with

respect as the mourning train passes, and salute the heraldry and

devices of yonder pomp, as symbols of age, wisdom, deserved respect and

merited honour; long experience of suffering and action. The wealth he

may have achieved is the harvest which he sowed; the titles on his

hearse, fruits of the field he bravely and laboriously wrought in. But

to live to fourscore years, and be found dancing among the idle

virgins! to have had near a century of allotted time, and then be

called away from the giddy notes of a Mayfair fiddle! To have to yield

your roses too, and then drop out of the bony clutch of your old

fingers a wreath that came from a Parisian bandbox! One fancies around

some graves unseen troops of mourners waiting; many and many a poor

pensioner trooping to the place; many weeping charities; many kind

actions; many dear friends beloved and deplored, rising up at the toll

of that bell to follow the honoured hearse; dead parents waiting above,

and calling, “Come, daughter!” lost children, heaven’s fondlings,

hovering round like cherubim, and whispering, “Welcome, mother!” Here

is one who reposes after a long feast where no love has been; after

girlhood without kindly maternal nurture; marriage without affection;

matronhood without its precious griefs and joys; after fourscore years

of lonely vanity. Let us take off our hats to that procession too as it

passes, admiring the different lots awarded to the children of men, and

the various usages to which Heaven puts its creatures.

Leave we yonder velvet-palled box, spangled with fantastic heraldry,

and containing within the aged slough and envelope of a soul gone to

render its account. Look rather at the living audience standing round

the shell;—the deep grief on Barnes Newcome’s fine countenance; the

sadness depicted in the face of the most noble the Marquis of

Farintosh; the sympathy of her ladyship’s medical man (who came in the

third mourning carriage); better than these, the awe, and reverence,

and emotion, exhibited in the kind face of one of the witnesses of this

scene, as he listens to those words which the priest rehearses over our

dead. What magnificent words! what a burning faith, what a glorious

triumph; what a heroic life, death, hope, they record! They are read

over all of us alike; as the sun shines on just and unjust. We have all

of us heard them; and I have fancied, for my part, that they fell and

smote like the sods on the coffin.

The ceremony over, the undertaker’s gentlemen clamber on the roof of

the vacant hearse, into which palls, tressels, trays of feathers, are

inserted, and the horses break out into a trot, and the empty

carriages, expressing the deep grief of the deceased lady’s friends,

depart homeward. It is remarked that Lord Kew hardly has any

communication with his cousin, Sir Barnes Newcome. His lordship jumps

into a cab, and goes to the railroad. Issuing from the cemetery, the

Marquis of Farintosh hastily orders that thing to be taken off his hat,

and returns to town in his brougham, smoking a cigar. Sir Barnes

Newcome rides in the brougham beside Lord Farintosh as far as Oxford

Street, where he gets a cab, and goes to the City. For business is

business, and must be attended to, though grief be ever so severe.

A very short time previous to her demise, Mr. Rood (that was Mr.

Rood—that other little gentleman in black, who shared the third

mourning coach along with her ladyship’s medical man) had executed a

will by which almost all the Countess’s property was devised to her

granddaughter, Ethel Newcome. Lady Kew’s decease of course delayed the

marriage projects for a while. The young heiress returned to her

mother’s house in Park Lane. I dare say the deep mourning habiliments

in which the domestics of that establishment appeared, were purchased

out of the funds left in his hands, which Ethel’s banker and brother

had at her disposal.

Sir Barnes Newcome, who was one of the trustees of his sister’s

property, grumbled no doubt because his grandmother had bequeathed to

him but a paltry recompense of five hundred pounds for his pains and

trouble of trusteeship; but his manner to Ethel was extremely bland and

respectful: an heiress now, and to be a marchioness in a few months,

Sir Barnes treated her with a very different regard to that which he

was accustomed to show to other members of his family. For while this

worthy Baronet would contradict his mother at every word she uttered,

and take no pains to disguise his opinion that Lady Anne’s intellect

was of the very poorest order, he would listen deferentially to Ethel’s

smallest observations, exert himself to amuse her under her grief,

which he chose to take for granted was very severe, visit her

constantly, and show the most charming solicitude for her general

comfort and welfare.

During this time my wife received constant notes from Ethel Newcome,

and the intimacy between the two ladies much increased. Laura was so

unlike the women of Ethel’s circle, the young lady was pleased to say,

that to be with her was Ethel’s greatest comfort. Miss Newcome was now

her own mistress, had her carriage, and would drive day after day to

our cottage at Richmond. The frigid society of Lord Farintosh’s

sisters, the conversation of his mother, did not amuse Ethel, and she

escaped from both with her usual impatience of control. She was at home

every day dutifully to receive my lord’s visits; but though she did not

open her mind to Laura as freely regarding the young gentleman as she

did when the character and disposition of her future mother and

sisters-in-law was the subject of their talk, I could see, from the

grave look of commiseration which my wife’s face bore after her young

friend’s visits, that Mrs. Pendennis augured rather ill of the future

happiness of this betrothed pair. Once, at Miss Newcome’s special

request, I took my wife to see her in Park Lane, where the Marquis of

Farintosh found us. His lordship and I had already a half-acquaintance,

which was not, however, improved after my regular presentation to him

by Miss Newcome: he scowled at me with a countenance indicative of

anything but welcome, and did not seem in the least more pleased when

Ethel entreated her friend Laura not to take her bonnet, not to think

of going away so soon. She came to see us the very next day, stayed

much longer with us than usual, and returned to town quite late in the

evening, in spite of the entreaties of the inhospitable Laura, who

would have had her leave us long before. “I am sure,” says

clear-sighted Mrs. Laura, “she is come out of bravado, and after we

went away yesterday that there were words between her and Lord

Farintosh on our account.”

“Confound the young man,” breaks out Mr. Pendennis in a fume; “what

does he mean by his insolent airs?”

“He may think we are partisans de l’autre,” says Mrs. Pendennis, with a

smile first, and a sigh afterwards, as she said “poor Clive!”

“Do you ever talk about Clive?” asks the husband.

“Never. Once, twice, perhaps, in the most natural manner in the world

we mentioned where he is; but nothing further passes. The subject is a

sealed one between us. She often looks at his drawings in my album

(Clive had drawn our baby there and its mother in a great variety of

attitudes), and gazes at his sketch of his dear old father: but of him

she never says a word.”

“So it is best,” says Mr. Pendennis.

“Yes—best,” echoes Laura, with a sigh.

“You think, Laura,” continues the husband, “you think she——”

“She what?” What did Mr. Pendennis mean? Laura his wife certainly

understood him, though upon my conscience the sentence went no

further—for she answered at once:

“Yes—I think she certainly did, poor boy! But that, of course, is over

now: and Ethel, though she cannot help being a worldly woman, has such

firmness and resolution of character, that if she has once determined

to conquer any inclination of that sort I am sure she will master it,

and make Lord Farintosh a very good wife.”

“Since the Colonel’s quarrel with Sir Barnes,” cries Mr. Pendennis,

adverting by a natural transition from Ethel to her amiable brother,

“our banking friend does not invite us any more: Lady Clara sends you

no cards. I have a great mind to withdraw my account.”

Laura, who understands nothing about accounts, did not perceive the

fine irony of this remark: but her face straightway put on the severe

expression which it chose to assume whenever Sir Barnes’s family was

mentioned, and she said, “My dear, I am very glad indeed that Lady

Clara sends us no more of her invitations. You know very well why I

disliked them.”

“Why?”

“I hear baby crying,” says Laura. Oh, Laura, Laura! how could you tell

your husband such a fib?—and she quits the room without deigning to

give any answer to that “Why?”

Let us pay a brief visit to Newcome in the north of England, and there

we may get some answer to the question of which Mr. Pendennis had just

in vain asked a reply from his wife. My design does not include a

description of that great and flourishing town of Newcome, and of the

manufactures which caused its prosperity; but only admits of the

introduction of those Newcomites who are concerned in the affairs of

the family which has given its respectable name to these volumes.

Thus in previous pages we have said nothing about the Mayor and

Corporation of Newcome the magnificent bankers and manufacturers who

had their places of business in the town, and their splendid villas

outside its smoky precincts; people who would give their thousand

guineas for a picture or a statue, and write you off a cheque for ten

times the amount any day; people who, if there was a talk of a statue

to the Queen or the Duke, would come down to the Town All and subscribe

their one, two, three undred apiece (especially if in the neighbouring

city of SLOWCOME they were putting up a statue to the Duke or the

Queen)—not of such men have I spoken, the magnates of the place; but of

the humble Sarah Mason in Jubilee Row—of the Reverend Dr. Bulders the

Vicar, Mr. Vidler the apothecary, Mr. Puff the baker—of Tom Potts, the

jolly reporter of the _Newcome Independent_, and —— Batters, Esq., the

proprietor of that journal—persons with whom our friends have had

already, or will be found presently to have, some connexion. And it is

from these that we shall arrive at some particulars regarding the

Newcome family, which will show us that they have a skeleton or two in

_their_ closets, as well as their neighbours.

Now, how will you have the story? Worthy mammas of families—if you do

not like to have your daughters told that bad husbands will make bad

wives; that marriages begun in indifference make homes unhappy; that

men whom girls are brought to swear to love and honour are sometimes

false, selfish, and cruel; and that women forget the oaths which they

have been made to swear—if you will not hear of this, ladies, close the

book, and send for some other. Banish the newspaper out of your houses,

and shut your eyes to the truth, the awful truth, of life and sin. Is

the world made of Jennies and Jessamies; and passion the play of

schoolboys and schoolgirls, scribbling valentines and interchanging

lollipops? Is life all over when Jenny and Jessamy are married; and are

there no subsequent trials, griefs, wars, bitter heart-pangs, dreadful

temptations, defeats, remorses, sufferings to bear, and dangers to

overcome? As you and I, friend, kneel with our children round about us,

prostrate before the Father of us all, and asking mercy for miserable

sinners, are the young ones to suppose the words are mere form, and

don’t apply to us?—to some outcasts in the free seats probably, or

those naughty boys playing in the churchyard? Are they not to know that

we err too, and pray with all our hearts to be rescued from temptation?

If such a knowledge is wrong for them, send them to church apart. Go

you and worship in private; or if not too proud, kneel humbly in the

midst of them, owning your wrong, and praying Heaven to be merciful to

you a sinner.

When Barnes Newcome became the reigning Prince of the Newcome family,

and after the first agonies of grief for his father’s death had

subsided, he made strong attempts to conciliate the principal persons

in the neighbourhood, and to render himself popular in the borough. He

gave handsome entertainments to the townsfolk and to the county gentry;

he tried even to bring those two warring classes together. He

endeavoured to be civil to the _Newcome Independent_, the Opposition

paper, as well as to the _Newcome Sentinel_ that true old

Uncompromising Blue. He asked the Dissenting clergyman to dinner, and

the Low Church clergyman, as well as the orthodox Doctor Bulders and

his curates. He gave a lecture at the Newcome Athenæum, which everybody

said was very amusing, and which _Sentinel_ and _Independent_ both

agreed in praising. Of course he subscribed to that statue which the

Newcomites were raising; to the philanthropic missions which Reverend

Low Church gentlemen were engaged in; to the races (for the young Newcomite

manufacturers are as sporting as any gents in the North), to the

hospital, the People’s Library, the restoration of the rood-screen and

the great painted window in Newcome Old Church (Rev. J. Bulders), and

he had to pay in fine a most awful price for his privilege of sitting

in Parliament as representative of his native place—as he called it in

his speeches “the cradle of his forefathers, the home of his race,”

etc., though Barnes was in fact born at Clapham.

Lady Clara could not in the least help this young statesman in his

designs upon Newcome and the Newcomites. After she came into Barnes’s

hands, a dreadful weight fell upon her. She would smile and simper, and

talk kindly and gaily enough at first, during Sir Brian’s life; and

among women, when Barnes was not present. But as soon as he joined the

company, it was remarked that his wife became silent, and looked

eagerly towards him whenever he ventured to speak. She blundered, her

eyes filled with tears; the little wit she had left her in her

husband’s presence: he grew angry, and tried to hide his anger with a

sneer, or broke out with gibe and an oath, when he lost patience, and

Clara, whimpering, would leave the room. Everybody at Newcome knew that

Barnes bullied his wife.

People had worse charges against Barnes than wife-bullying. Do you

suppose that little interruption which occurred at Barnes’s marriage

was not known in Newcome? His victim had been a Newcome girl, the man

to whom she was betrothed was in a Newcome factory. When Barnes was a

young man, and in his occasional visits to Newcome, lived along with

those dashing young blades Sam Jollyman (Jollyman Brothers and

Bowcher), Bob Homer, Cross Country Bill, Al Rackner (for whom his

father had to pay eighteen thousand pounds after the Leger, the year

Toggery won it) and that wild lot, all sorts of stories were told of

them, and of Barnes especially. Most of them were settled, and steady

business men by this time. Al, it was known had become very serious,

besides making his fortune in cotton. Bob Homer managed the Bank; and

as for S. Jollyman, Mrs. S. J. took uncommon good care that he didn’t

break out of bounds any more; why, he was not even allowed to play a

game at billiards; or to dine out without her——I could go on giving you

interesting particulars of a hundred members of the Newcome

aristocracy, were not our attention especially directed to one

respectable family.

All Barnes’s endeavours at popularity were vain, partly from his own

fault, and partly from the nature of mankind, and of the Newcome folks

especially, whom no single person could possibly conciliate. Thus,

suppose he gave the advertisements to the _Independent;_ the old Blue

paper the _Sentinel_ was very angry: suppose he asked Mr. Hunch, the

Dissenting minister, to bless the tablecloth after dinner, as he had

begged Dr. Bulders to utter a benediction on the first course, Hunch

and Bulders were both angry. He subscribed to the races—what

heathenism! to the missionaries—what sanctimonious humbug! And the

worst was that Barnes being young at that time, and not able to keep

his tongue in order, could not help saying not to but of such and such

a man, that he was an infernal ass, or a confounded old idiot, and so

forth—peevish phrases, which undid in a moment the work of a dozen

dinners, countless compliments, and months of grinning good-humour.

Now he is wiser. He is very proud of being Newcome of Newcome, and

quite believes that the place is his hereditary principality. But

still, he says, his father was a fool for ever representing the

borough. “Dammy, sir,” cries Sir Barnes, “never sit for a place that

lies at your park-gates, and above all never try to conciliate ’em.

Curse ’em! Hate ’em well, sir! Take a line, and flog the fellows on the

other side. Since I have sate in Parliament for another place, I have

saved myself I don’t know how much a year. I never go to High Church or

Low; don’t give a shillin’ to the confounded races, or the infernal

souptickets, or to the miserable missionaries; and at last live in

quiet.”

So, in spite of all his subscriptions, and his coaxing of the various

orders of Newcomites, Sir Barnes Newcome was not popular among them;

and while he had enemies on all sides, had sturdy friends not even on

his own. Scarce a man but felt Barnes was laughing at him; Bulders in

his pulpit, Holder who seconded him in his election, the Newcome

society; and the ladies, even more than the men, were uneasy under his

ominous familiarity, and recovered their good-humour when he left them.

People felt as if it was a truce only, and not an alliance with him,

and always speculated on the possibility of war: when he turned his

back on them in the market, men felt relieved, and, as they passed his

gate, looked with no friendly glances over his park-wall.

What happened within was perfectly familiar to many persons. Our friend

was insolent to all his servants; and of course very well served, but

very much disliked, in consequence. The butler was familiar with

Taplow—the housekeeper had a friend at Newcome; Mrs. Taplow, in fact, of

the King’s Arms—one of the grooms at Newcome Park kept company with

Mrs. Bulder’s maid: the incomings and outgoings, the quarrels and

tears, the company from London, and all the doings of the folks at

Newcome Park were thus known to the neighbourhood round about. The

apothecary brought an awful story back from Newcome. He had been called

to Lady Clara in strong hysterical fits. He found her ladyship with a

bruise on her face. When Sir Barnes approached her (he would not allow

the medical man to see her except in his presence) she screamed and

bade him not come near her. These things did Mr. Vidler weakly impart

to Mrs. Vidler: these, under solemn vows of secrecy, Mrs. Vidler told

to one or two friends. Sir Barnes and Lady Clara were seen shopping

together very graciously in Newcome a short time afterwards; persons

who dined at the Park said the Baronet and his wife seemed on very good

terms; but—but that story of the bruised cheek remained in the minds of

certain people, and lay by at compound interest as such stories will.

Now, say people quarrel and make it up; or don’t make it up, but wear a

smirking face to society, and call each other “my dear” and “my love,”

and smooth over their countenances before John, who enters with the

coals as they are barking and biting, or who announces the dinner as

they are tearing each other’s eyes out? Suppose a woman is ever so

miserable, and yet smiles, and doesn’t show her grief? “Quite right,”

say her prudent friends, and her husband’s relations above all. “My

dear, you have too much propriety to exhibit your grief before the

world, or above all, before the darling children.” So to lie is your

duty, to lie to your friends, to yourself if you can, to your children.

Does this discipline of hypocrisy improve any mortal woman? Say she

learns to smile after a blow, do you suppose in this matter alone she

will be a hypocrite? Poor Lady Clara! I fancy a better lot for you than

that to which fate handed you over. I fancy there need have been no

deceit in your fond simple little heart, could it but have been given

into other keeping. But you were consigned to a master, whose scorn and

cruelty terrified you; under whose sardonic glances your scared eyes

were afraid to look up, and before whose gloomy coldness you dared not

be happy. Suppose a little plant, very frail and delicate from the

first, but that might have bloomed sweetly and borne fair flowers, had

it received warm shelter and kindly nurture; suppose a young creature

taken out of her home, and given over to a hard master whose caresses

are as insulting as his neglect; consigned to cruel usage; to weary

loneliness; to bitter, bitter recollections of the past; suppose her

schooled into hypocrisy by tyranny—and then, quick, let us hire an

advocate to roar out to a British jury the wrongs of her injured

husband, to paint the agonies of his bleeding heart (if Mr. Advocate

gets plaintiff’s brief in time, and before defendant’s attorney has

retained him), and to show Society injured through him. Let us console

that martyr, I say, with thumping damages; and as for the woman—the

guilty wretch!—let us lead her out and stone her.

CHAPTER LVI.

Rosa quo locorum sera moratur

Clive Newcome bore his defeat with such a courage and resolution as

those who knew the young fellow’s character were sure he would display.

It was whilst he had a little lingering hope still that the poor lad

was in the worst condition; as a gambler is restless and unhappy whilst

his last few guineas remain with him, and he is venturing them against

the overpowering chances of the bank. His last piece, however, gone,

our friend rises up from that unlucky table beaten at the contest but

not broken in spirit. He goes back into the world again and withdraws

from that dangerous excitement; sometimes when he is alone or wakeful,

tossing in his bed at nights, he may recall the fatal game, and think

how he might have won it—think what a fool he was ever to have played

it at all—but these cogitations Clive kept for himself. He was

magnanimous enough not even to blame Ethel much, and to take her side

against his father, who it must be confessed now exhibited a violent

hostility against that young lady and her belongings. Slow to anger and

utterly beyond deceit himself, when Thomas Newcome was once roused, or

at length believed that he was cheated woe to the offender! From that

day forth, Thomas believed no good of him. Every thought or action of

his enemy’s life seemed treason to the worthy Colonel. If Barnes gave a

dinner-party, his uncle was ready to fancy that the banker wanted to

poison somebody; if he made a little speech in the House of Commons

(Barnes did make little speeches in the House of Commons), the Colonel

was sure some infernal conspiracy lay under the villain’s words. The

whole of that branch of the Newcomes fared little better at their

kinsman’s hands—they were all deceitful, sordid, heartless,

worldly;—Ethel herself no better now than the people who had bred her

up. People hate, as they love, unreasonably. Whether is it the more

mortifying to us, to feel that we are disliked or liked undeservedly?

Clive was not easy until he had the sea between him and his misfortune:

and now Thomas Newcome had the chance of making that tour with his son,

which in early days had been such a favourite project with the good

man. They travelled Rhineland and Switzerland together—they crossed

into Italy—went from Milan to Venice (where Clive saluted the greatest

painting in the world—the glorious ‘Assumption’ of Titian)—they went to

Trieste and over the beautiful Styrian Alps to Vienna—they beheld

Danube, and the plain where the Turk and Sobieski fought. They

travelled at a prodigious fast pace. They did not speak much to one

another. They were a pattern pair of English travellers: I dare say

many persons whom they met smiled to observe them; and shrugged their

shoulders at the aspect of _ces Anglais_. They did not know the care in

the young traveller’s mind; and the deep tenderness and solicitude of

the elder. Clive wrote to say it was a very pleasant tour, but I think

I should not have liked to join it. Let us dismiss it in this single

sentence. Other gentlemen have taken the same journey, and with sorrow

perhaps as their silent fellow-traveller. How you remember the places

afterwards, and the thoughts which pursued you! If in after days, when

your grief is dead and buried, you revisit the scenes in which it was

your companion, how its ghost rises and shows itself again! Suppose

this part of Mr. Clive’s life were to be described at length in several

chapters, and not in a single brief sentence, what dreary pages they

would be! In two or three months our friends saw a number of men,

cities, mountains, rivers, and what not. It was yet early autumn when

they were back in France again, and September found them at Brussels,

where James Binnie, Esq., and his family were established in

comfortable quarters, and where we may be sure Clive and his father

were very welcome.

Dragged abroad at first sorely against his will, James Binnie had found

the Continental life pretty much to his liking. He had passed a winter

at Pau, a summer at Vichy, where the waters had done him good. His

ladies had made several charming foreign acquaintances. Mrs. Mackenzie

had quite a list of counts and marchionesses among her friends. The

excellent Captain Goby, wandered about the country with them. Was it to

Rosey, was it to her mother, the Captain was most attached? Rosey

received him as a godpapa; Mrs. Mackenzie as a wicked, odious,

good-for-nothing, dangerous, delightful creature. Is it humiliating, is

it consolatory, to remark, with what small wit some of our friends are

amused? The jovial sallies of Goby appeared exquisite to Rosey’s

mother, and to the girl probably; though that young Bahawder of a Clive

Newcome chose to wear a grave face (confound his insolent airs!) at the

very best of the Goby jokes.

In Goby’s train was his fervent admirer and inseparable young friend,

Clarence Hoby. Captain Hoby and Captain Goby travelled the world

together, visited Hombourg and Baden, Cheltenham and Leamington, Paris

and Brussels, in company, belonged to the same club in London—the

centre of all pleasure, fashion, and joy, for the young officer and the

older campaigner. The jokes at the Flag, the dinners at the Flag, the

committee of the Flag, were the theme of their constant conversation.

Goby fifty years old, unattached, and with dyed moustaches, was the

affable comrade of the youngest member of his club: when absent, a

friend wrote him the last riddle from the smoking-room; when present,

his knowledge of horses, of cookery, wines, and cigars, and military

history, rendered him a most acceptable companion. He knew the history

and achievements of every regiment in the army; of every general and

commanding officer. He was known to have been ‘out’ more than once

himself, and had made up a hundred quarrels. He was certainly not a man

of an ascetic life or a profound intellectual culture: but though poor

he was known to be most honourable; though more than middle-aged he was

cheerful, busy, and kindly; and though the youngsters called him Old

Goby, he bore his years very gaily and handsomely, and I dare say

numbers of ladies besides Mrs. Mackenzie thought him delightful. Goby’s

talk and rattle perhaps somewhat bored James Binnie, but Thomas Newcome

found the Captain excellent company; and Goby did justice to the good

qualities of the Colonel.

Clive’s father liked Brussels very well. He and his son occupied very

handsome quarters, near the spacious apartments in the Park which James

Binnie’s family inhabited. Waterloo was not far off, to which the

Indian officer paid several visits with Captain Goby for a guide; and

many of Marlborough’s battlefields were near, in which Goby certainly

took but a minor interest; but on the other hand Clive beheld these

with the greatest pleasure, and painted more than one dashing piece, in

which Churchill and Eugene, Cutts and Cadogan, were the heroes; whose

flowing periwigs, huge boots, and thundering Flemish chargers were, he

thought, more novel and picturesque than the Duke’s surtout, and the

French Grenadiers’ hairy caps, which so many English and French artists

have portrayed.

Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis were invited by our kind Colonel to pass a

month—six months if they chose—at Brussels, and were most splendidly

entertained by our friends in that city. A suite of handsome rooms was

set apart for us. My study communicated with Clive’s atelier. Many an

hour did we pass, and many a ride and walk did we take together. I

observed that Clive never mentioned Miss Newcome’s name, and Laura and

I agreed that it was as well not to recall it. Only once, when we read

the death of Lady Glenlivat, Lord Farintosh’s mother, in the newspaper,

I remember to have said, “I suppose that marriage will be put off

again.”

“Qu’est ce que cela me fait?” says Mr. Clive gloomily, over his

picture—a cheerful piece representing Count Egmont going to execution;

in which I have the honour to figure as a halberdier, Captain Hoby as

the Count, and Captain Goby as the Duke of Alva, looking out of window.

Mrs. Mackenzie was in a state of great happiness and glory during this

winter. She had a carriage, and worked that vehicle most indefatigably.

She knew a great deal of good company at Brussels. She had an evening

for receiving. She herself went to countless evening-parties, and had

the joy of being invited to a couple of court balls, at which I am

bound to say her daughter and herself both looked very handsome. The

Colonel brushed up his old uniform and attended these entertainments.

M. Newcome fils, as I should judge, was not the worst-looking man in

the room; and, as these young people waltzed together (in which

accomplishment Clive was very much more skilful than Captain Goby) I

dare say many people thought he and Rosey made a pretty couple.

Most persons, my wife included, difficult as that lady is to please,

were pleased with the pretty little Rosey. She sang charmingly now, and

looked so while singing. If her mother would but have omitted that

chorus, which she cackled perseveringly behind her daughter’s pretty

back: about Rosey’s angelic temper; about the compliments Signor

Polonini paid her; about Sir Horace Dash, our minister, _insisting_

upon her singing “Batti Batti” over again, and the Archduke clapping

his hands and saying, “Oh, yes!” about Count Vanderslaapen’s attentions

to her, etc. etc.; but for these constant remarks of Mrs. Mack’s, I am

sure no one would have been better pleased with Miss Rosey’s singing

and behaviour than myself. As for Captain Hoby, it was easy to see how

_he was_ affected towards Miss Rosalind’s music and person.

And indeed few things could be pleasanter than to watch the behaviour

of this pretty little maid with her Uncle James and his old chum the

Colonel. The latter was soon as fond of her as James Binnie himself,

whose face used to lighten with pleasure whenever it turned towards

hers. She seemed to divine his wants, as she would trip across the room

to fulfil them. She skipped into the carriage and covered his feet with

a shawl. James was lazy and chilly now, when he took his drive. She

sate opposite to him and smiled on him; and, if he dozed, quick,

another handkerchief was round his neck. I do not know whether she

understood his jokes, but she saluted them always with a sweet kind

smile. How she kissed him, and how delighted she was if he bought her a

bouquet for her ball that night! One day, upon occasion of one of these

balls, James and Thomas, those two old boys, absolutely came into Mrs.

Mackenzie’s drawing-room with a bouquet apiece for Miss Rosey; and

there was a fine laughing.

“Oh, you little Susanna!” says James, after taking his usual payment;

“now go and pay t’other elder.” Rosey did not quite understand at

first, being, you see, more ready to laugh at jokes than to comprehend

them: but when she did, I promise you she looked uncommonly pretty as

she advanced to Colonel Newcome and put that pretty fresh cheek of hers

up to his grizzled moustache.

“I protest I don’t know which of you blushes the most,” chuckles James

Binnie—and the truth is, the old man and the young girl had both hung

out those signals of amiable distress.

On this day, and as Miss Rosey was to be overpowered by flowers, who

should come presently to dinner but Captain Hoby, with another bouquet?

on which Uncle James said Rosey should go to the ball like an American

Indian with her scalps at her belt.

“Scalps!” cries Mrs. Mackenzie.

“Scalps! Oh law, uncle!” exclaims Miss Rosey. “What can you mean by

anything so horrid?”

Goby recalls to Mrs. Mack, Hook-ee-ma-goosh the Indian chief, whom she

must have seen when the Hundred and Fiftieth were at Quebec, and who

had his lodge full of them; and who used to lie about the barracks so

drunk, and who used to beat his poor little European wife: and

presently Mr. Clive Newcome joins this company, when the chirping,

tittering, joking, laughing, cease somehow.

Has Clive brought a bouquet too? No. He has never thought about a

bouquet. He is dressed in black, with long hair, a long moustache, and

melancholy imperial. He looks very handsome, but as glum as an

undertaker. And James Binnie says, “Egad, Tom, they used to call you

the knight of the woeful countenance, and Clive has just inherited the

paternal mug.” Then James calls out in a cheery voice, “Dinner,

dinner!” and trots off with Mrs. Pendennis under his arm; Rosey nestles

up against the Colonel; Goby and Mrs. Mack walk away arm-in-arm very

contentedly; and I don’t know with which of her three nosegays pretty

Rosey appears at the ball.

Our stay with our friends at Brussels could not be prolonged beyond a

month, for at the end of that period we were under an engagement to

other friends in England, who were good enough to desire the presence

of Mrs. Pendennis and her suite of baby, nurse, and husband. So we

presently took leave of Rosey and the Campaigner, of the two stout

elders, and our melancholy young Clive, who bore us company to Antwerp,

and who won Laura’s heart by the neat way in which he took her child on

board ship. Poor fellow! how sad he looked as he bowed to us and took

off his hat! His eyes did not seem to be looking at us, though they and

his thoughts were turned another way. He moved off immediately, with

his head down, puffing his eternal cigar, and lost in his own

meditations; our going or our staying was of very little importance to

the lugubrious youth.

“I think it was a great pity they came to Brussels,” says Laura, as we

sate on the deck, while her unconscious infant was cheerful, and while

the water of the lazy Scheldt as yet was smooth.

“Who? The Colonel and Clive? They are very handsomely lodged. They have

a good maître-d’hôtel. Their dinners, I am sure, are excellent; and

your child, madam, is as healthy as it possibly can be.”

“Blessed darling! Yes!” (Blessed darling crows, moos, jumps in his

nurse’s arms, and holds out a little mottled hand for a biscuit of

Savoy, which mamma supplies.) “I can’t help thinking, Arthur, that

Rosey would have been much happier as Mrs. Hoby than she will be as

Mrs. Newcome.”

“Who thinks of her being Mrs. Newcome?”

“Her mother, her uncle, and Clive’s father. Since the Colonel has been

so rich, I think Mrs. Mackenzie sees a great deal of merit in Clive.

Rosey will do anything her mother bids her. If Clive can be brought to

the same obedience, Uncle James and the Colonel will be delighted.

Uncle James has set his heart on this marriage. (He and his sister

agree upon this point.) He told me, last night, that he would sing

‘Nunc dimittis,’ could he but see the two children happy; and that he

should lie easier in purgatory if that could be brought about.”

“And what did you say, Laura?”

“I laughed, and told Uncle James I was of the Hoby faction. He is very

good-natured, frank, honest, and gentlemanlike, Mr. Hoby. But Uncle

James said he thought Mr. Hoby was so—well, so stupid—that his Rosey

would be thrown away upon the poor Captain. So I did not tell Uncle

James that, before Clive’s arrival, Rosey had found Captain Hoby far

from stupid. He used to sing duets with her; he used to ride with her

before Clive came. Last winter, when they were at Pau, I feel certain

Miss Rosey thought Captain Hoby very pleasant indeed. She thinks she

was attached to Clive formerly, and now she admires him, and is

dreadfully afraid of him. He is taller and handsomer, and richer and

cleverer than Captain Hoby, certainly.”

“I should think so, indeed,” breaks out Mr. Pendennis. “Why, my dear,

Clive is as fine a fellow as one can see on a summer’s day. It does one

good to look at him. What a frank pair of bright blue eyes he has, or

used to have, till this mishap overclouded them! What a pleasant laugh

he has! What a well-built, agile figure it is—what pluck, and spirit,

and honour, there is about my young chap! I don’t say he is a genius of

the highest order, but he is the staunchest, the bravest, the

cheeriest, the most truth-telling, the kindest heart. Compare him and

Hoby! Why, Clive is an eagle, and yonder little creature a mousing

owl!”

“I like to hear you speak so,” cries Mrs. Laura, very tenderly. “People

say that you are always sneering, Arthur; but I know my husband better.

We know papa better, don’t we, baby?” (Here my wife kisses the infant

Pendennis with great effusion, who has come up dancing on his nurse’s

arms.) “But,” says she, coming back and snuggling by her husband’s side

again—“But suppose your favourite Clive is an eagle, Arthur, don’t you

think he had better have an eagle for a mate? If he were to marry

little Rosey, I dare say he would be very good to her; but I think

neither he nor she would be very happy. My dear, she does not care for

his pursuits; she does not understand him when he talks. The two

captains, and Rosey and I, and the campaigner, as you call her, laugh

and talk, and prattle, and have the merriest little jokes with one

another, and we all are as quiet as mice when you and Clive come in.”

“What, am I an eagle, too? I have no aquiline pretensions at all, Mrs.

Pendennis.”

“No. Well, we are not afraid of you. We are not afraid of papa, are we,

darling?” this young woman now calls out to the other member of her

family; who, if you will calculate, has just had time to be walked

twice up and down the deck of the steamer, whilst Laura has been making

her speech about eagles. And soon the mother, child, and attendant

descend into the lower cabins: and then dinner is announced: and

Captain Jackson treats us to champagne from his end of the table: and

yet a short while, and we are at sea, and conversation becomes

impossible: and morning sees us under the grey London sky, and amid the

million of masts in the Thames.

CHAPTER LVII.

Rosebury and Newcome

The friends to whom we were engaged in England were Florac and his

wife, Madame la Princesse de Moncontour, who were determined to spend

the Christmas holidays at the Princess’s country seat. It was for the

first time since their reconciliation, that the Prince and Princess

dispensed their hospitalities at the latter’s château. It is situated,

as the reader has already been informed, at some five miles from the

town of Newcome; away from the chimneys and smoky atmosphere of that

place, in a sweet country of rural woodlands; over which quiet

villages, grey church spires, and ancient gabled farmhouses are

scattered: still wearing the peaceful aspect which belonged to them

when Newcome was as yet but an antiquated country town, before mills

were erected on its river-banks, and dyes and cinders blackened its

stream. Twenty years since Newcome Park was the only great house in

that district; now scores of fine villas have sprung up in the suburb

lying between the town and park. Newcome New Town, as everybody knows,

has grown round the park-gates, and the New Town Hotel (where the

railway station is) is a splendid structure in the Tudor style, more

ancient in appearance than the park itself; surrounded by little

antique villas with spiked gables, stacks of crooked chimneys, and

plate-glass windows looking upon trim lawns; with glistening hedges of

evergreens, spotless gravel walks, and Elizabethan gig-houses. Under

the great railway viaduct of the New Town, goes the old tranquil

winding London highroad, once busy with a score of gay coaches, and

ground by innumerable wheels: but at a few miles from the New Town

Station the road has become so mouldy that the grass actually grows on

it; and Rosebury, Madame de Moncontour’s house, stands at one end of a

village-green, which is even more quiet now than it was a hundred years

ago.

When first Madame de Florac bought the place, it scarcely ranked

amongst the country-houses; and she, the sister of manufacturers at

Newcome and Manchester, did not of course visit the county families. A

homely little body, married to a Frenchman from whom she was separated,

may or may not have done a great deal of good in her village, have had

pretty gardens, and won prizes at the Newcome flower and fruit shows;

but, of course, she was nobody in such an aristocratic county as we

know ———shire is. She had her friends and relatives from Newcome. Many

of them were Quakers—many were retail shopkeepers. She even frequented

the little branch Ebenezer, on Rosebury Green; and it was only by her

charities and kindness at Christmas-time, that the Rev. Dr. Potter, the

rector at Rosebury, knew her. The old clergy, you see, live with the

county families. Good little Madame de Florac was pitied and patronised

by the Doctor, treated with no little superciliousness by Mrs. Potter,

and the young ladies, who only kept the first society. Even when her

rich brother died, and she got her share of all that money Mrs. Potter

said poor Madame de Florac did well in not trying to move out of her

natural sphere (Mrs. P. was the daughter of a bankrupt hatter in

London, and had herself been governess in a noble family, out of which

she married Mr. P., who was private tutor). Madame de Florac did well,

she said, not to endeavour to leave her natural sphere, and that The

County never would receive her. Tom Potter, the rector’s son, with whom

I had the good fortune to be a fellow-student at Saint Boniface

College, Oxbridge—a rattling, forward, and it must be owned, vulgar

youth—asked me whether Florac was not a billiard-marker by profession?

and was even so kind as to caution his sisters not to speak of

billiards before the lady of Rosebury. Tom was surprised to learn that

Monsieur Paul de Florac was a gentleman of lineage incomparably better

than that of any, except two or three families in England (including

your own, my dear and respected reader, of course, if you hold to your

pedigree). But the truth is, heraldically speaking, that union with the

Higgs of Manchester was the first misalliance which the Florac family

had made for long long years. Not that I would wish for a moment to

insinuate that any nobleman is equal to an English nobleman; nay, that

an English snob, with a coat-of-arms bought yesterday, or stolen out of

Edmonton, or a pedigree purchased from a peerage-maker, has not a right

to look down upon any of your paltry foreign nobility.

One day the carriage-and-four came in state from Newcome Park, with the

well-known chaste liveries of the Newcomes, and drove up Rosebury

Green, towards the parsonage gate, when Mrs. and the Miss Potters

happened to be standing, cheapening fish from a donkey-man, with whom

they were in the habit of dealing. The ladies were in their pokiest old

head-gear and most dingy gowns, when they perceived the carriage

approaching; and considering, of course, that the visit of the Park

people was intended for them, dashed into the rectory to change their

clothes, leaving Rowkins, the costermonger, in the very midst of the

negotiation about the three mackerel. Mamma got that new bonnet out of

the bandbox; Lizzy and Liddy skipped up to their bedroom, and brought

out those dresses which they wore at the _déjeûner_ at the Newcome

Athenæum, when Lord Leveret came down to lecture; into which they no

sooner had hooked their lovely shoulders, than they reflected with

terror that mamma had been altering one of papa’s flannel waistcoats

and had left it in the drawing-room, when they were called out by the

song of Rowkins, and the appearance of his donkey’s ears over the green

gate of the rectory. To think of the Park people coming, and the

drawing-room in that dreadful state!

But when they came downstairs the Park people were not in the room—the

woollen garment was still on the table (how they plunged it into the

chiffonier!)—and the only visitor was Rowkins, the costermonger,

grinning at the open French windows, with the three mackerel, and

crying, “Make it sixpence, miss—don’t say fippens, maam, to a pore

fellow that has a wife and family.” So that the young ladies had to

cry—“Impudence!” “Get away, you vulgar insolent creature!—Go round,

sir, to the back door!” “How dare you?” and the like; fearing lest Lady

Anne Newcome, and Young Ethel, and Barnes should enter in the midst of

this ignoble controversy.

They never came at all—those Park people. How very odd! They passed the

rectory gate; they drove on to Madame de Florac’s lodge. They went in.

They stayed for half an hour; the horses driving round and round the

gravel road before the house; and Mrs. Potter and the girls speedily

going to the upper chambers, and looking out of the room where the

maids slept, saw Lady Anne, Ethel, and Barnes walking with Madame de

Florac, going into the conservatories, issuing thence with MacWhirter,

the gardener, bearing huge bunches of grapes and large fasces of

flowers; they saw Barnes talking in the most respectful manner to

Madame de Florac: and when they went downstairs and had their work

before them—Liddy her gilt music-book, Lizzy her embroidered

altar-cloth, mamma her scarlet cloak for one of the old women—they had

the agony of seeing the barouche over the railings whisk by, with the

Park people inside, and Barnes driving the four horses.

It was on that day when Barnes had determined to take up Madame de

Florac; when he was bent upon reconciling her to her husband. In spite

of all Mrs. Potter’s predictions, the county families did come and

visit the manufacturer’s daughter; and when Madame de Florac became

Madame la Princesse de Moncontour, when it was announced that she was

coming to stay at Rosebury for Christmas, I leave you to imagine

whether the circumstance was or was not mentioned in the _Newcome

Sentinel_ and the _Newcome Independent;_ and whether Rev. G. Potter,

D.D., and Mrs. Potter did or did not call on the Prince and Princess. I

leave you to imagine whether the lady did or did not inspect all the

alterations which Vineer’s people from Newcome were making at Rosebury

House—the chaste yellow satin and gold of the drawing-room—the carved

oak for the dining-room—the chintz for the bedrooms—the Princess’s

apartment—the Prince’s apartment—the guests’ apartments—the

smoking-room, gracious goodness!—the stables (these were under Tom

Potter’s superintendence), “and I’m finished,” says he one day, “if

here doesn’t come a billiard-table!”

The house was most comfortably and snugly appointed from top to bottom;

and thus it will be seen that Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis were likely to be

in very good quarters for Christmas of 184-.

Tom Potter was so kind as to call on me two days after our arrival; and

to greet me in the Princess’s pew at church on the previous day. Before

desiring to be introduced to my wife, he requested me to present him to

my friend the Prince. He called him your Highness. His Highness, who

had behaved with exemplary gravity, save once when he shrieked an “ah!”

as Miss Liddy led off the children in the organ-loft in a hymn, and the

whole pack went woefully out of tune, complimented Monsieur Tom on the

sermon of monsieur his father. Tom walked with us to Rosebury

lodge-gate. “Will you not come in, and make a party of billiard with

me?” says His Highness. “Ah Pardon! I forgot, you do not play the

billiard the Sunday!” “_Any other day_, Prince, I shall be delighted,”

says Tom; and squeezed His Highness’s hand tenderly at parting. “Your

comrade of college was he?” asks Florac. “My dear, what men are these

comrades of college! What men are you English! My word of honour, there

are some of them here—if I were to say to them wax my boots, they would

take them and wax them! Didst thou see how the Révérend eyed us during

the sermon? He regarded us over his book, my word of honour!”

Madame de Florac said simply, she wished the Prince would go and hear

Mr. Jacob at the Ebenezer. Mr. Potter was not a good preacher,

certainly.

“Savez-vous qu’elle est furieusement belle, la fille du Révérend?”

whispered His Highness to me. “I have made eyes at her during the

sermon. They will be of pretty neighbours these meess!” and Paul looked

unutterably roguish and victorious as he spoke. To my wife, I am bound

to say, Monsieur de Moncontour showed a courtesy, a respect and

kindness, that could not be exceeded. He admired her. He paid her

compliments innumerable, and gave me I am sure sincere congratulations

at possessing such a treasure. I do not think he doubted about his

power of conquering her, or any other of the daughters of women. But I

was the friend of his misfortunes—his guest; and he spared me.

I have seen nothing more amusing, odd, and pleasant than Florac at this

time of his prosperity. We arrived, as this veracious chronicle has

already asserted, on a Saturday evening. We were conducted to our most

comfortable apartments; with crackling fires blazing on the hearths,

and every warmth of welcome. Florac expanded and beamed with

good-nature. He shook me many times by the hand; he patted me; he

called me his good—his brave. He cried to his maître-d’hôtel,

“Frédéric, remember monsieur is master here! Run before his orders.

Prostrate thyself to him. He was good to me in the days of my

misfortune. Hearest thou, Frédéric? See that everything be done for

Monsieur Pendennis—for madame sa charmante lady—for her angelic infant,

and the bonne. None of thy garrison tricks with that young person,

Frédéric! vieux scélérat! Garde-toi de là, Frédéric; si non, je

t’envoie à Botani Bay; je te traduis devant le Lord-Maire!”

“En Angleterre je me fais Anglais, vois-tu, mon ami,” continued the

Prince. “Demain c’est Sunday, et tu vas voir! I hear the bell, dress

thyself for the dinner—my friend!”; Here there was another squeeze of

both hands from the good-natured fellow. “It do good to my art to ’ave

you in my ’ouse! Heuh!” He hugged his guest; he had tears in his eyes

as he performed this droll, this kind embrace. Not less kind in her

way, though less expensive and _embracive_, was Madame de Moncontour to

my wife, as I found on comparing notes with that young woman, when the

day’s hospitalities were ended. The little Princess trotted from

bedchamber to nursery to see that everything was made comfortable for

her guests. She sate and saw the child washed and put to bed. She had

never beheld such a little angel. She brought it a fine toy to play

with. She and her grim old maid frightened the little creature at

first, but it was very speedily reconciled to their countenances. She

was in the nursery almost as early as the child’s mother. “Ah!” sighed

the poor little woman, “how happy you must be to have one!” In fine, my

wife was quite overcome by her goodness and welcome.

Sunday morning arrived in the course of time, and then Florac appeared

as a most wonderful Briton indeed! He wore top-boots and buckskins; and

after breakfast, when we went to church, a white great-coat with a

little cape, in which garment he felt that his similarity to an English

gentleman was perfect. In conversation with his grooms and servants he

swore freely,—not that he was accustomed to employ oaths in his own

private talk, but he thought the employment of these expletives

necessary as an English country gentleman. He never dined without a

roast-beef, and insisted that the piece of meat should be bleeding, “as

you love it, you others.” He got up boxing-matches: and kept birds for

combats of cock. He assumed the sporting language with admirable

enthusiasm—drove over to cover with a steppère—rode across countri like

a good one—was splendid in the hunting-field in his velvet cap and

Napoleon boots, and made the Hunt welcome at Rosebury where his

good-natured little wife was as kind to the gentlemen in scarlet as she

used to be of old to the stout Dissenting gentlemen in black, who sang

hymns and spake sermons on her lawn. These folks, scared at the change

which had taken place in the little Princess’s habits of life, lamented

her falling away: but in the county she and her husband got a great

popularity, and in Newcome town itself they were not less liked, for

her benefactions were unceasing, and Paul’s affability the theme of all

praise. The _Newcome Independent_ and the _Newcome Sentinel_ both paid

him compliments; the former journal contrasting his behaviour with that

of Sir Barnes, their member. Florac’s pleasure was to drive his

Princess with four horses into Newcome. He called his carriage his

“trappe,” his “drague.” The street-boys cheered and hurrayed the Prince

as he passed through the town. One haberdasher had a yellow stock

called the “Moncontour” displayed in his windows; another had a pink

one marked “The Princely,” and as such recommended it to the young

Newcome gents.

The drague conveyed us once to the neighbouring house of Newcome,

whither my wife accompanied Madame de Moncontour at that lady’s own

request, to whom Laura very properly did not think fit to confide her

antipathy for Lady Clara Newcome. Coming away from a great house, how

often she and I, egotistical philosophers, thanked our fates that our

own home was a small one! How long will great houses last in this

world? Do not their owners now prefer a lodging at Brighton, or a

little entresol on the Boulevard, to the solitary ancestral palace in a

park barred round with snow? We were as glad to get out of Newcome as

out of a prison. My wife and our hostess skipped into the carriage, and

began to talk freely as the lodge-gates closed after us. Would we be

lords of such a place under the penalty of living in it? We agreed that

the little angle of earth called Fairoaks was dearer to us than the

clumsy Newcome-pile of Tudor masonry. The house had been fitted up in

the time of George IV. and the quasi-Gothic revival. We were made to

pass through Gothic dining-rooms, where there was now no

hospitality,—Gothic drawing-rooms shrouded in brown hollands, to one

little room at the end of the dusky suite, where Lady Clara sate alone,

or in the company of the nurses and children. The blank gloom of the

place had fallen upon the poor lady. Even when my wife talked about

children (good-natured Madame de Moncontour vaunting ours as a prodigy)

Lady Clara did not brighten up! Her pair of young ones was exhibited

and withdrawn. A something weighed upon the woman. We talked about

Ethel’s marriage. She said it was fixed for the new year, she believed.

She did not know whether Glenlivat had been very handsomely fitted up.

She had not seen Lord Farintosh’s house in London. Sir Barnes came down

once—twice—of a Saturday sometimes, for three or four days to hunt, to

amuse himself, as all men do she supposed. She did not know when he was

coming again. She rang languidly when we rose to take leave, and sank

back on her sofa, where lay a heap of French novels. “She has chosen

some pretty books,” says Paul, as we drove through the sombre avenues

through the grey park, mists lying about the melancholy ornamental

waters, dingy herds of huddled sheep speckling the grass here and

there; no smoke rising up from the great stacks of chimneys of the

building we were leaving behind us, save one little feeble thread of

white which we knew came from the fire by which the lonely mistress of

Newcome was seated. “Ouf!” cries Florac, playing his whip, as the

lodge-gates closed on us, and his team of horses rattled merrily along

the road, “what a blessing it is to be out of that vault of a place!

There is something fatal in this house—in this woman. One smells

misfortune there.”

The hotel which our friend Florac patronised on occasion of his visits

to Newcome was the King’s Arms, and it happened, one day, as we entered

that place of entertainment in company, that a visitor of the house was

issuing through the hall, to whom Florac seemed as if he would

administer one of his customary embraces, and to whom the Prince called

out “Jack,” with great warmth and kindness as he ran towards the

stranger.

Jack did not appear to be particularly well pleased on beholding us; he

rather retreated from before the Frenchman’s advances.

“My dear Jack, my good, my brave Ighgate! I am delighted to see you!”

Florac continues, regardless of the stranger’s reception, or of the

landlord’s looks towards us, who was bowing the Prince into his very

best room.

“How do you do, Monsieur de Florac?” growls the new comer, surlily; and

was for moving on after this brief salutation; but having a second

thought seemingly, turned back and followed Florac into the apartment

where our host conducted us. _A la bonne heure!_ Florac renewed his

cordial greetings to Lord Highgate. “I knew not, mon bon, what fly had

stung you,” says he to my lord. The landlord, rubbing his hands,

smirking and bowing, was anxious to know whether the Prince would take

anything after his drive. As the Prince’s attendant and friend, the

lustre of his reception partially illuminated me. When the chief was

not by, I was treated with great attention (mingled with a certain

degree of familiarity) by my landlord.

Lord Highgate waited until Mr. Taplow was out of the room; and then

said to Florac, “Don’t call me by my name here, please, Florac, I am

here incog.”

“Plait-il?” asks Florac. “Where is incog.?” He laughed when the word

was interpreted to him. Lord Highgate had turned to me. “There was no

rudeness, you understand, intended, Mr. Pendennis, but I am down here

on some business, and don’t care to wear the handle to my name. Fellows

work it so, don’t you understand? never leave you at rest in a country

town—that sort of thing. Heard of our friend Clive lately?”

“Whether you ’ave ’andle or no ’andle, Jack, you are always the

bien-venu to me. What is thy affair? Old monster! I wager——”

“No, no, no such nonsense,” says Jack, rather eagerly. “I give you my

honour, I—I want to—to raise a sum of money—that is, to invest some in

a speculation down here—deuced good the speculations down here; and, by

the way, if the landlord asks you, I’m Mr. Harris—I’m a civil

engineer—I’m waiting for the arrival of the Canada at Liverpool from

America, and very uneasy about my brother who is on board.”

“What does he recount to us there? Keep these stories for the landlord,

Jack; to us ’tis not the pain to lie. My good Mr. Harris, why have we

not seen you at Rosebury? The Princess will scold me if you do not

come; and you must bring your dear brother when he arrive too. Do you

hear?” The last part of this sentence was uttered for Mr. Taplow’s

benefit, who had re-entered the George bearing a tray of wine and

biscuit.

The Master of Rosebury and Mr. Harris went out presently to look at a

horse which was waiting the former’s inspection in the stableyard of

the hotel. The landlord took advantage of his business, to hear a bell

which never was rung, and to ask me questions about the guest who had

been staying at his house for a week past. Did I know that party? Mr.

Pendennis said, “Yes, he knew that party.”

“Most respectable party, I have no doubt,” continues Boniface. “Do you

suppose the Prince of Moncontour knows any but respectable parties?”

asks Mr. Pendennis—a query of which the force was so great as to

discomfit and silence our landlord, who retreated to ask questions

concerning Mr. Harris of Florac’s grooms.

What was Highgate’s business here? Was it mine to know? I might have

suspicions, but should I entertain them or communicate them, and had I

not best keep them to myself? I exchanged not a word on the subject of

Highgate with Florac, as we drove home: though from the way in which we

looked at one another each saw that the other was acquainted with that

unhappy gentleman’s secret. We fell to talking about Madame la Duchesse

d’Ivry as we trotted on; and then of English manners by way of

contrast, of intrigues, elopements, Gretna Grin, etc., etc. “You are a

droll nation!” says Florac. “To make love well, you must absolutely

have a chaise-de-poste, and a scandal afterwards. If our affairs of

this kind made themselves on the grand route, what armies of

postillions we should need!”

I held my peace. In that vision of Jack Belsize I saw misery, guilt,

children dishonoured, homes deserted,—ruin for all the actors and

victims of the wretched conspiracy. Laura marked my disturbance when we

reached home. She even divined the cause of it, and charged me with it

at night, when we sate alone by our dressing-room fire, and had taken

leave of our kind entertainers. Then, under her cross-examination, I

own that I told what I had seen—Lord Highgate, under a feigned name

staying at Newcome. It might be nothing. “Nothing! Gracious heavens!

Could not this crime and misery be stopped?” “It might be too late,”

Laura’s husband said sadly, bending down his head into the fire.

She was silent too for a while. I could see she was engaged where pious

women ever will betake themselves in moments of doubt, of grief, of

pain, of separation, of joy even, or whatsoever other trial. They have

but to will, and as it were an invisible temple rises round them; their

hearts can kneel down there; and they have an audience of the great,

the merciful untiring Counsellor and Consoler. She would not have been

frightened at Death near at hand. I have known her to tend the poor

round about us, or to bear pain—not her own merely, but even her

children’s and mine, with a surprising outward constancy and calm. But

the idea of this crime being enacted close at hand, and no help for

it—quite overcame her. I believe she lay awake all that night; and rose

quite haggard and pale after the bitter thoughts which had deprived her

of rest.

She embraced her own child with extraordinary tenderness that morning,

and even wept over it, calling it by a thousand fond names of maternal

endearment “Would I leave you, my darling—could I ever, ever, ever quit

you, my blessing, and treasure!” The unconscious little thing, hugged

to his mother’s bosom, and scared at her tones and tragic face, clung

frightened and weeping round Laura’s neck. Would you ask what the

husband’s feelings were as he looked at that sweet love, that sublime

tenderness, that pure Saint blessing the life of him unworthy? Of all

the gifts of Heaven to us below, that felicity is the sum and the

chief. I tremble as I hold it lest I should lose it, and be left alone

in the blank world without it: again, I feel humiliated to think that I

possess it; as hastening home to a warm fireside and a plentiful table,

I feel ashamed sometimes before the poor outcast beggar shivering in

the street.

Breakfast was scarcely over when Laura asked for a pony carriage, and

said she was bent on a private visit. She took her baby and nurse with

her. She refused our company, and would not even say whither she was

bound until she had passed the lodge-gate. I may have suspected what

the object was of her journey. Florac and I did not talk of it. We rode

out to meet the hounds of a cheery winter morning: on another day I

might have been amused with my host—the splendour of his raiment, the

neatness of his velvet cap, the gloss of his hunting-boots; the cheers,

shouts, salutations, to dog and man; the oaths and outcries of this

Nimrod, who shouted louder than the whole field and the whole pack

too—but on this morning—I was thinking of the tragedy yonder enacting,

and came away early from the hunting-field, and found my wife already

returned to Rosebury.

Laura had been, as I suspected, to Lady Clara. She did not know why,

indeed. She scarce knew what she should say when she arrived—how she

could say what she had in her mind. “I hoped, Arthur, that I should

have something—something told me to say,” whispered Laura, with her

head on my shoulder; and as I lay awake last night thinking of her,

prayed—that is, hoped, I might find a word of consolation for that poor

lady. Do you know, I think she has hardly ever heard a kind word? She

said so; she was very much affected after we had talked together a

little.

“At first she was very indifferent; cold and haughty in her manner;

asked what had caused the pleasure of this visit, for I would go in,

though at the lodge they told me her ladyship was unwell, and they

thought received no company. I said I wanted to show our boy to

her—that the children ought to be acquainted—I don’t know what I said.

She seemed more and more surprised—then all of a sudden—I don’t know

how—I said, ‘Lady Clara, I have had a dream about you and your

children, and I was so frightened that I came over to you to speak

about it.’ And I _had_ the dream, Pen; it came to me absolutely as I

was speaking to her.

“She looked a little scared, and I went on telling her the dream. ‘My

dear’ I said, ‘I dreamed that I saw you happy with those children.’

“‘Happy!’ says she—the three were playing in the conservatory into

which her sitting-room opens.

“‘And that a bad spirit came and tore them from you, and drove you out

into the darkness; and I saw you wandering about quite lonely and

wretched, and looking back into the garden where the children were

playing. And you asked and implored to see them; and the Keeper at the

gate said ‘No, never.’ And then—then I thought they passed by you, and

they did not know you.’

“‘Ah!’ said Lady Clara.

“‘And then I thought, as we do in dreams, you know, that it was my

child who was separated from me, and who would not know me: and oh,

what a pang that was! Fancy that! Let us pray God it was only a dream.

And worse than that, when you, when I implored to come to the child,

and the man said, ‘No, never,’ I thought there came a spirit—an angel

that fetched the child to heaven, and you said, ‘Let me come too; oh,

let me come too, I am so miserable.’ And the angel said, ‘No, never,

never.’

“By this time Lady Clara was looking very pale. ‘What do you mean?’ she

asked of me,” Laura continued.

“‘Oh, dear lady, for the sake of the little ones, and Him who calls

them to Him, go you with them. Never, never part from them! Cling to

His knees, and take shelter there.’ I took her hands, and I said more

to her in this way, Arthur, that I need not, that I ought not to speak

again. But she was touched at length when I kissed her; and she said I

was very kind to her, and no one had ever been so, and that she was

quite alone in the world and had no friend to fly to; and would I go

and stay with her? and I said ‘yes;’ and we must go, my dear. I think

you should see that person at Newcome—see him, and warn him,” cried

Laura, warming as she spoke, “and pray God to enlighten and strengthen

him, and to keep him from this temptation, and implore him to leave

this poor, weak, frightened, trembling creature; if he has the heart of

a gentleman and the courage of a man, he will, I know he will.”

“I think he would, my dearest,” I said, “if he but heard the

petitioner.” Laura’s cheeks were blushing, her eyes brightened, her

voice rang with a sweet pathos of love that vibrates through my whole

being sometimes. It seems to me as if evil must give way, and bad

thoughts retire before that purest creature.

“Why has she not some of her family with her, poor thing!” my wife

continued. “She perishes in that solitude. Her husband prevents her, I

think—and—oh—I know enough of _him_ to know what his life is. I

shudder, Arthur, to see you take the hand of that wicked, selfish man.

You must break with him, do you hear, sir?”

“Before or after going to stay at his house, my love?” asks Mr.

Pendennis.

“Poor thing! she lighted up at the idea of any one coming. She ran and

showed me the rooms we were to have. It will be very stupid; and you

don’t like that. But you can write your book, and still hunt and shoot

with our friends here. And Lady Anne Newcome must be made to come back

again. Sir Barnes quarrelled with his mother and drove her out of the

house on her last visit—think of that! The servants here know it.

Martha brought me the whole story from the housekeeper’s room. This Sir

Barnes Newcome is a dreadful creature, Arthur. I am so glad I loathed

him from the very first moment I saw him.”

“And into this ogre’s den you propose to put me and my family, madam!”

says the husband. “Indeed, where won’t I go if you order me? Oh, who

will pack my portmanteau?”

Florac and the Princess were both in desolation when, at dinner, we

announced our resolution to go away—and to our neighbours at Newcome!

that was more extraordinary. “Que diable goest thou to do in this

galley?” asks our host as we sat alone over our wine.

But Laura’s intended visit to Lady Clara was never to have a

fulfilment, for on this same evening, as we sate at our dessert, comes

a messenger from Newcome, with a note for my wife from the lady there:—

“_Dearest, kindest_ Mrs. Pendennis,” Lady Clara wrote, with many

italics, and evidently in much distress of mind. “Your visit _is not to

be_. I spoke about it to Sir B., who _arrived this afternoon_, and who

has already begun to treat me _in his usual way_. Oh, I am so unhappy!

Pray, pray do not be angry at this rudeness—though indeed it is only a

kindness to keep you from this wretched place! I feel as _if I cannot

bear this much longer_. But, whatever happens, I shall always remember

your goodness, your beautiful goodness and kindness; and shall worship

you as _an angel_ deserves to be worshipped. Oh, why had I not such a

friend _earlier!_ But alas! I have none—only _his odious family_ thrust

upon me for companions to the _wretched, lonely_, C. N.

“P.S.—He does not know of my writing. Do not be surprised if you get

another note from me in the morning, written in a _ceremonious style_

and regretting that we _cannot have the pleasure_ of receiving Mr. and

Mrs. Pendennis for the present at Newcome.

“P.S.—The hypocrite!”

This letter was handed to my wife at dinner-time, and she gave it to me

as she passed out of the room with the other ladies.

I told Florac that the Newcomes could not receive us, and that we would

remain, if he willed it, his guests for a little longer. The kind

fellow was only too glad to keep us. “My wife would die without

_Bébi_,” he said. “She becomes quite dangerous about Bébi.” It was

gratifying that the good old lady was not to be parted as yet from the

innocent object of her love.

My host knew as well as I the terms upon which Sir Barnes and his wife

were living. Their quarrels were the talk of the whole county; one side

brought forward his treatment of her, and his conduct elsewhere, and

said that he was so bad that honest people should not know him. The

other party laid the blame upon her, and declared that Lady Clara was a

languid, silly, weak, frivolous creature; always crying out of season;

who had notoriously taken Sir Barnes for his money and who as certainly

had had an attachment elsewhere. Yes, the accusations were true on both

sides. A bad, selfish husband had married a woman for her rank: a weak,

thoughtless girl had been sold to a man for his money; and the union,

which might have ended in a complete indifference, had taken an ill

turn and resulted in misery, cruelty, fierce mutual recriminations,

bitter tears shed in private, husband’s curses and maledictions, and

open scenes of wrath and violence for servants to witness and the world

to sneer at. We arrange such matches every day; we sell or buy beauty,

or rank, or wealth; we inaugurate the bargain in churches with

sacramental services, in which the parties engaged call upon Heaven to

witness their vows—we know them to be lies, and we seal them with God’s

name. “I, Barnes, promise to take you, Clara, to love and honour till

death do us part” “I Clara, promise to take you, Barnes,” etc, etc. Who

has not heard the ancient words; and how many of us have uttered them,

knowing them to be untrue: and is there a bishop on the bench that has

not amen’d the humbug in his lawn sleeves and called a blessing over

the kneeling perjurers?

“Does Mr. Harris know of Newcome’s return?” Florac asked, when I

acquainted him with this intelligence. “Ce scelerat de Highgate—Va!”

“Does Newcome know that Lord Highgate is here?” I thought within

myself, admiring my wife’s faithfulness and simplicity, and trying to

believe with that pure and guileless creature that it was not yet too

late to save the unhappy Lady Clara.

“Mr. Harris had best be warned,” I said to Florac; “will you write him

a word, and let us send a messenger to Newcome?”

At first Florac said, “Parbleu! No;” the affair was none of his, he

attended himself always to this result of Lady Clara’s marriage. He had

even complimented Jack upon it years before at Baden, when scenes

enough tragic, enough comical, _ma foi_, had taken place _à propos_ of

this affair. Why should he meddle with it now?

“Children dishonoured,” said I, “honest families made miserable; for

Heaven’s sake, Florac, let us stay this catastrophe if we can.” I spoke

with much warmth, eagerly desirous to avert this calamity if possible,

and very strongly moved by the tale which I had heard only just before

dinner from that noble and innocent creature, whose pure heart had

already prompted her to plead the cause of right and truth, and to try

and rescue an unhappy desperate sister trembling on the verge of ruin.

“If you will not write to him,” said I, in some heat, “if your grooms

don’t like to go out of a night” (this was one of the objections which

Florac had raised), “I will walk.” We were talking over the affair

rather late in the evening, the ladies having retreated to their

sleeping apartments, and some guests having taken leave, whom our

hospitable host and hostess had entertained that night, and before whom

I naturally did not care to speak upon a subject so dangerous.

“Parbleu, what virtue, my friend! what a Joseph!” cries Florac, puffing

his cigar. “One sees well that your wife had made you the sermon. My

poor Pendennis! You are henpecked, my pauvre bon! You become the

husband model. It is true my mother writes that thy wife is an angel!”

“I do not object to obey such a woman when she bids me do right,” I

said; and would indeed at that woman’s request have gone out upon the

errand, but that we here found another messenger. On days when

dinner-parties were held at Rosebury, certain auxiliary waiters used to

attend from Newcome whom the landlord of the King’s Arms was accustomed

to supply; indeed, it was to secure these, and make other necessary

arrangements respecting fish, game, etc., that the Prince de Moncontour

had ridden over to Newcome on the day when we met Lord Highgate,

_alias_ Mr. Harris, before the bar of the hotel. Whilst we were engaged

in the above conversation a servant enters, and says, “My lord, Jenkins

and the other man is going back to Newcome in their cart, and is there

anything wanted?”

“It is the Heaven which sends him,” says Florac, turning round to me

with a laugh; “make Jenkins to wait five minutes, Robert; I have to

write to a gentleman at the King’s Arms.” And so saying, Florac wrote a

line which he showed me, and having sealed the note, directed it to Mr.

Harris at the King’s Arms. The cart, the note, and the assistant

waiters departed on their way to Newcome. Florac bade me go to rest

with a clear conscience. In truth, the warning was better given in that

way than any other, and a word from Florac was more likely to be

effectual than an expostulation from me. I had never thought of making

it, perhaps; except at the expressed desire of a lady whose counsel in

all the difficult circumstances of life I own I am disposed to take.

Mr. Jenkins’s horse no doubt trotted at a very brisk pace, as

gentlemen’s horses will of a frosty night, after their masters have

been regaled with plentiful supplies of wine and ale. I remember in my

bachelor days that my horses always trotted quicker after I had had a

good dinner; the champagne used to communicate itself to them somehow,

and the claret get into their heels. Before midnight the letter for Mr.

Harris was in Mr. Harris’s hands in the King’s Arms.

It has been said that in the Boscawen Room at the Arms, some of the

jolly fellows of Newcome had a club, of which Parrot the auctioneer,

Tom Potts the talented reporter, now editor of the _Independent_,

Vidler the apothecary, and other gentlemen, were members.

When we first had occasion to mention that society, it was at an early

stage of this history, long before Clive Newcome’s fine moustache had

grown. If Vidler the apothecary was old and infirm then, he is near ten

years older now; he has had various assistants, of course, and one of

them of late years had his become his partner, though the firm

continues to be known by Vidler’s ancient and respectable name. A

jovial fellow was this partner—a capital convivial member of the Jolly

Britons, where he used to sit very late, so as to be in readiness for

any night-work that might come in.

So the Britons were all sitting, smoking, drinking, and making merry,

in the Boscawen Room, when Jenkins enters with a note, which he

straightway delivers to Mr. Vidler’s partner. “From Rosebury? The

Princess ill again, I suppose,” says the surgeon, not sorry to let the

company know that he attends her. “I wish the old girl would be ill in

the daytime. Confound it,” says he, “what’s this——” and he reads out,

“‘Sir Newcome est de retour. Bon voyage, mon ami.—F.’ What does this

mean?”

“I thought you knew French, Jack Harris,” says Tom Potts; “you’re

always bothering us with your French songs.”

“Of course I know French,” says the other; “but what’s the meaning of

this?”

“Screwcome came back by the five o’clock train. I was in it, and his

royal highness would scarcely speak to me. Took Brown’s fly from the

station. Brown won’t enrich his family much by the operation,” says Mr.

Potts.

“But what do _I_ care?” cries Jack Harris; “we don’t attend him, and we

don’t lose much by that. Howell attends him, ever since Vidler and he

had that row.”

“Hulloh! I say, it’s a mistake,” cries Mr. Taplow, smoking in his

chair. “This letter is for the party in the Benbow. The gent which the

Prince spoke to him, and called him Jack the other day when he was

here. Here’s a nice business, and the seal broke, and all. Is the

Benbow party gone to bed? John, you must carry him in this here note.”

John, quite innocent of the note and its contents, for he that moment

had entered the clubroom with Mr. Potts’s supper, took the note to the

Benbow, from which he presently returned to his master with a very

scared countenance. He said the gent in the Benbow was a most

harbitrary gent. He had almost choked John after reading the letter,

and John wouldn’t stand it; and when John said he supposed that Mr.

Harris in the Boscawen—that Mr. Jack Harris, had opened the letter, the

other gent cursed and swore awful.

“Potts,” said Taplow, who was only too communicative on some occasions

after he had imbibed too much of his own brandy-and-water, “it’s my

belief that that party’s name is no more Harris than mine is. I have

sent his linen to the wash, and there was two white

pocket-handkerchiefs with H. and a coronet.”

On the next day we drove over to Newcome, hoping perhaps to find that

Lord Highgate had taken the warning sent to him and quitted the place.

But we were disappointed. He was walking in front of the hotel, where a

thousand persons might see him as well as ourselves.

We entered into his private apartment with him, and there expostulated

upon his appearance in the public street, where Barnes Newcome or any

passer-by might recognise him. He then told us of the mishap which had

befallen Florac’s letter on the previous night.

“I can’t go away now, whatever might have happened previously: by this

time that villain knows that I am here. If I go, he will say I was

afraid of him, and ran away. Oh, how I wish he would come and find me!”

He broke out with a savage laugh.

“It is best to run away,” one of us interposed sadly.

“Pendennis,” he said with a tone of great softness, “your wife is a

good woman. God bless her! God bless her for all she has said and

done—would have done, if that villain had let her! Do you know the poor

thing hasn’t a single friend in the world, not one, one—except me, and

that girl they are selling to Farintosh, and who does not count for

much. He has driven away all her friends from her: one and all turn

upon her. Her relations, of course; when did _they_ ever fail to hit a

poor fellow or a poor girl when she was down? The poor angel! The

mother who sold her comes and preaches at her; Kew’s wife turns up her

little cursed nose and scorns her; Rooster, forsooth, must ride high

the horse, now he is married and lives at Chanticlere, and give her

warning to avoid my company or his! Do you know the only friend she

ever had was that old woman with the stick—old Kew; the old witch whom

they buried four months ago after nobbling her money for the beauty of

the family? She used to protect her—that old woman; heaven bless her

for it, wherever she is now, the old hag—a good word won’t do her any

harm. Ha! ha!” His laughter was cruel to hear.

“Why did I come down?” he continued in reply to our sad queries. “Why

did I come down, do you ask? Because she was wretched, and sent for me.

Because if I was at the end of the world, and she was to say, ‘Jack,

come!’ I’d come.”

“And if she bade you go?” asked his friends.

“I would go; and I have gone. If she told me to jump into the sea, do

you think I would not do it? But I go; and when she is alone with him,

do you know what he does? He strikes her. Strikes _that_ poor little

thing! He has owned to it. She fled from him and sheltered with the old

woman who’s dead. He may be doing it now. Why did I ever shake hands

with him? that’s humiliation sufficient, isn’t it? But she wished it;

and I’d black his boots, curse him, if she told me. And because he

wanted to keep my money in his confounded bank; and because he knew he

might rely upon my honour and hers, poor dear child, he chooses to

shake hands with me—me, whom he hates worse than a thousand devils—and

quite right too. Why isn’t there a place where we can go and meet, like

man to man, and have it over! If I had a ball through my brains I

shouldn’t mind, I tell you. I’ve a mind to do it for myself, Pendennis.

You don’t understand me, Viscount.”

“Il est vrai,” said Florac, with a shrug, “I comprehend neither the

suicide nor the chaise-de-poste. What will you? I am not yet enough

English, my friend. We make marriages of convenance in our country, que

diable, and what follows follows; but no scandal afterwards! Do not

adopt our institutions à demi, my friend. Vous ne me comprenez pas non

plus, men pauvre Jack!”

“There is one way still, I think,” said the third of the speakers in

this scene. “Let Lord Highgate come to Rosebury in his own name,

leaving that of Mr. Harris behind him. If Sir Barnes Newcome wants you,

he can seek you there. If you will go, as go you should, and God speed

you, you can go, and in your own name, too.”

“Parbleu, c’est ça,” cries Florac, “he speaks like a book—the

romancier!” I confess, for my part, I thought that a good woman might

plead with him, and touch that manly not disloyal heart now trembling

on the awful balance between evil and good.

“Allons! let us make to come the drague!” cries Florac. “Jack, thou

returnest with us, my friend! Madame Pendennis, an angel, my friend, a

_quakre_ the most charming, shall roucoule to thee the sweetest

sermons. My wife shall tend thee like a mother—a grandmother. Go make

thy packet!”

Lord Highgate was very much pleased and relieved seemingly. He shook

our hands, he said he should never forget our kindness, never! In

truth, the didactic part of our conversation was carried on at much

greater length than as here noted down: and he would come that evening,

but not with us, thank you; he had a particular engagement, some

letters he must write. Those done, he would not fail us, and would be

at Rosebury by dinner-time.

CHAPTER LVIII.

“One more Unfortunate”

The Fates did not ordain that the plan should succeed which Lord

Highgate’s friends had devised for Lady Clara’s rescue or respite. He

was bent upon one more interview with the unfortunate lady; and in that

meeting the future destiny of their luckless lives was decided. On the

morning of his return home, Barnes Newcome had information that Lord

Highgate, under a feigned name, had been staying in the neighbourhood

of his house, and had repeatedly been seen in the company of Lady

Clara. She may have gone out to meet him but for one hour more. She had

taken no leave of her children on the day when she left her home, and,

far from making preparations for her own departure, had been engaged in

getting the house ready for the reception of members of the family,

whose arrival her husband announced as speedily to follow his own.

Ethel and Lady Anne and some of the children were coming. Lord

Farintosh’s mother and sisters were to follow. It was to be a reunion

previous to the marriage which was closer to unite the two families.

Lady Clara said Yes to her husband’s orders; rose mechanically to obey

his wishes and arrange for the reception of the guests; and spoke

tremblingly to the housekeeper as her husband gibed at her. The little

ones had been consigned to bed early and before Sir Barnes’s arrival.

He did not think fit to see them in their sleep; nor did their mother.

She did not know, as the poor little creatures left her room in charge

of their nurses, that she looked on them for the last time. Perhaps,

had she gone to their bedsides that evening, had the wretched

panic-stricken soul been allowed leisure to pause, and to think, and to

pray, the fate of the morrow might have been otherwise, and the

trembling balance of the scale have inclined to right’s side. But the

pause was not allowed her. Her husband came and saluted her with his

accustomed greetings of scorn, and sarcasm, and brutal insult. On a

future day he never dared to call a servant of his household to testify

to his treatment of her; though many were ready to attend to prove his

cruelty and her terror. On that very last night, Lady Clara’s maid, a

country girl from her father’s house at Chanticlere, told Sir Barnes in

the midst of a conjugal dispute that her lady might bear his conduct

but she could not, and that she would no longer live under the roof of

such a brute. The girl’s interference was not likely to benefit her

mistress much: the wretched Lady Clara passed the last night under the

roof of her husband and children, unattended save by this poor domestic

who was about to leave her, in tears and hysterical outcries, and then

in moaning stupor. Lady Clara put to sleep with laudanum, her maid

carried down the story of her wrongs to the servants’ quarters; and

half a dozen of them took in their resignation to Sir Barnes as he sat

over his breakfast the next morning—in his ancestral hall—surrounded by

the portraits of his august forefathers—in his happy home.

Their mutiny of course did not add to their master’s good-humour; and

his letters brought him news which increased Barnes’s fury. A messenger

arrived with a letter from his man of business at Newcome, upon the

receipt of which he started up with such an execration as frightened

the servant waiting on him, and letter in hand he ran to Lady Clara’s

sitting-room. Her ladyship was up. Sir Barnes breakfasted rather late

on the first morning after an arrival at Newcome. He had to look over

the bailiff’s books, and to look about him round the park and grounds;

to curse the gardeners; to damn the stable and kennel grooms; to yell

at the woodman for clearing not enough or too much; to rail at the poor

old workpeople brooming away the fallen leaves, etc. So Lady Clara was

up and dressed when her husband went to her room, which lay at the end

of the house as we have said, the last of a suite of ancestral halls.

The mutinous servant heard high voices and curses within; then Lady

Clara’s screams; then Sir Barnes Newcome burst out of the room, locking

the door and taking the key with him, and saluting with more curses

James, the mutineer, over whom his master ran.

“Curse your wife, and don’t curse me, Sir Barnes Newcome!” said James,

the mutineer; and knocked down a hand which the infuriated Baronet

raised against him, with an arm that was twice as strong as Barnes’s

own. This man and maid followed their mistress in the sad journey upon

which she was bent. They treated her with unalterable respect. They

never could be got to see that her conduct was wrong. When Barnes’s

counsel subsequently tried to impugn their testimony, they dared him;

and hurt the plaintiff’s case very much. For the balance had weighed

over; and it was Barnes himself who caused what now ensued; and what we

learned in a very few hours afterwards from Newcome, where it was the

talk of the whole neighbourhood.

Florac and I, as yet ignorant of all that was occurring, met Barnes

near his own lodge-gate riding in the direction of Newcome, as we were

ourselves returning to Rosebury. The Prince de Moncontour, who was

driving, affably saluted the Baronet, who gave us a scowling

recognition, and rode on, his groom behind him. “The figure of the

garçon,” says Florac, as our acquaintance passed, “is not agreeable. Of

pale, he has become livid. I hope these two men will not meet, or evil

will come!” Evil to Barnes there might be, Florac’s companion thought,

who knew the previous little affairs between Barnes and his uncle and

cousin; and that Lord Highgate was quite able to take care of himself.

In half an hour after Florac spoke, that meeting between Barnes and

Highgate actually had taken place—in the open square of Newcome, within

four doors of the King’s Arms inn, close to which lives Sir Barnes

Newcome’s man of business; and before which, Mr. Harris, as he was

called, was walking, and waiting till a carriage which he had ordered

came round from the inn yard. As Sir Barnes Newcome rode into the place

many people touched their hats to him, however little they loved him.

He was bowing and smirking to one of these, when he suddenly saw

Belsize.

He started back, causing his horse to back with him on to the pavement,

and it may have been rage and fury, or accident and nervousness merely,

but at this instant Barnes Newcome, looking towards Lord Highgate,

shook his whip.

“You cowardly villain!” said the other, springing forward. “I was going

to your house.”

“How dare you, sir,” cries Sir Barnes, still holding up that unlucky

cane, “how dare you to—to——”

“Dare, you scoundrel!” said Belsize. “Is that the cane you strike your

wife with, you ruffian!” Belsize seized and tore him out of the saddle,

flinging him screaming down on the pavement. The horse, rearing and

making way for himself, galloped down the clattering street; a hundred

people were round Sir Barnes in a moment.

The carriage which Belsize had ordered came round at this very

juncture. Amidst the crowd, shrinking, bustling, expostulating,

threatening, who pressed about him, he shouldered his way. Mr. Taplow,

aghast, was one of the hundred spectators of the scene.

“I am Lord Highgate,” said Barnes’s adversary. “If Sir Barnes Newcome

wants me, tell him I will send him word where he may hear of me.” And

getting into the carriage, he told the driver to go “to the usual

place.”

Imagine the hubbub in the town, the conclaves at the inns, the talks in

the counting-houses, the commotion amongst the factory people, the

paragraphs in the Newcome papers, the bustle of surgeons and lawyers,

after this event. Crowds gathered at the King’s Arms, and waited round

Mr. Speers the lawyer’s house, into which Sir Barnes was carried. In

vain policemen told them to move on; fresh groups gathered after the

seceders. On the next day, when Barnes Newcome, who was not much hurt,

had a fly to go home, a factory man shook his fist in at the carriage

window, and, with a curse, said, “Serve you right, you villain.” It was

the man whose sweetheart this Don Juan had seduced and deserted years

before; whose wrongs were well known amongst his mates, a leader in the

chorus of hatred which growled round Barnes Newcome.

Barnes’s mother and sister Ethel had reached Newcome shortly before the

return of the master of the house. The people there were in

disturbance. Lady Anne and Miss Newcome came out with pallid looks to

greet him. He laughed and reassured them about his accident: indeed his

hurt had been trifling; he had been bled by the surgeon, a little

jarred by the fall from his horse; but there was no sort of danger.

Still their pale and doubtful looks continued. What caused them? In the

open day, with a servant attending her Lady Clara Newcome had left her

husband’s house; and a letter was forwarded to him that same evening

from my Lord Highgate, informing Sir Barnes Newcome that Lady Clara

Pulleyn could bear his tyranny no longer, and had left his roof; that

Lord Highgate proposed to leave England almost immediately, but would

remain long enough to afford Sir Barnes Newcome the opportunity for an

interview, in case he should be disposed to demand one: and a friend

(of Lord Highgate’s late regiment) was named who would receive letters

and act in any way necessary for his lordship.

The debates of the House of Lords must tell what followed afterwards in

the dreary history of Lady Clara Pulleyn. The proceedings in the

Newcome Divorce Bill filled the usual number of columns in the

papers,—especially the Sunday papers. The witnesses were examined by

learned peers whose business—nay, pleasure—it seems to be to enter into

such matters; and, for the ends of justice and morality, doubtless, the

whole story of Barnes Newcome’s household was told to the British

public. In the previous trial in the Court of Queen’s Bench, how

grandly Serjeant Rowland stood up for the rights of British husbands!

with what pathos he depicted the conjugal paradise, the innocent

children prattling round their happy parents, the serpent, the

destroyer, entering into that Belgravian Eden; the wretched and

deserted husband alone by his desecrated hearth, and calling for

redress on his country! Rowland wept freely during his noble harangue.

At not a shilling under twenty thousand pounds would he estimate the

cost of his client’s injuries. The jury was very much affected: the

evening papers gave Rowland’s address _in extenso_, with some pretty

sharp raps at the aristocracy in general. The _Day_, the principal

morning journal of that period, came out with a leading article the

next morning, in which every party concerned and every institution was

knocked about. The disgrace of the peerage, the ruin of the monarchy

(with a retrospective view of the well-known case of Gyges and

Candaules), the monstrosity of the crime, and the absurdity of the

tribunal and the punishment, were all set forth in the terrible leading

article of the _Day_.

But when, on the next day, Serjeant Rowland was requested to call

witnesses to prove that connubial happiness which he had depicted so

pathetically, he had none at hand.

Oliver, Q.C., now had his innings. A man, a husband, and a father, Mr.

Oliver could not attempt to defend the conduct of his unfortunate

client; but if there could be any excuse for such conduct, that excuse

he was free to confess the plaintiff had afforded, whose cruelty and

neglect twenty witnesses in court were ready to prove—neglect so

outrageous, cruelty so systematic, that he wondered the plaintiff had

not been better advised than to bring this trial, with all its

degrading particulars, to a public issue. On the very day when the

ill-omened marriage took place, another victim of cruelty had

interposed as vainly—as vainly as Serjeant Rowland himself interposed

in Court to prevent this case being made known—and with piteous

outcries, in the name of outraged neglected woman, of castaway children

pleading in vain for bread, had besought the bride to pause, and the

bridegroom to look upon the wretched beings who owed him life. Why had

not Lady Clara Pulleyn’s friends listened to that appeal? And so on,

and so on, between Rowland and Oliver the battle waged fiercely that

day. Many witnesses were mauled and slain. Out of that combat scarce

anybody came well, except the two principal champions, Rowland,

Serjeant, and Oliver, Q.C. The whole country looked on and heard the

wretched story, not only of Barnes’s fault and Highgate’s fault, but of

the private peccadilloes of their suborned footmen and conspiring

housemaids. Mr. Justice C. Sawyer charged the jury at great

length—those men were respectable men and fathers of families

themselves—of course they dealt full measure to Lord Highgate for his

delinquencies; consoled the injured husband with immense damages, and

left him free to pursue the further steps for releasing himself

altogether from the tie which had been bound with affecting episcopal

benediction at St. George’s, Hanover Square.