the Grey Friars school,—where the Colonel and Clive and I had been
brought up,—an ancient foundation of the time of James I., still
subsisting in the heart of London city. The death-day of the founder of
the place is still kept solemnly by Cistercians. In their chapel, where
assemble the boys of the school, and the fourscore old men of the
Hospital, the founder’s tomb stands, a huge edifice: emblazoned with
heraldic decorations and clumsy carved allegories. There is an old
Hall, a beautiful specimen of the architecture of James’s time; an old
Hall? many old halls; old staircases, passages, old chambers decorated
with old portraits, walking in the midst of which we walk as it were in
the early seventeenth century. To others than Cistercians, Grey Friars
is a dreary place possibly. Nevertheless, the pupils educated there
love to revisit it; and the oldest of us grow young again for an hour
or two as we come back into those scenes of childhood.
The custom of the school is, that on the 12th of December, the
Founder’s Day, the head gown-boy shall recite a Latin oration, in
praise of _Fundatoris Nostri_, and upon other subjects; and a goodly
company of old Cistercians is generally brought together to attend this
oration: after which we go to chapel and hear a sermon; after which we
adjourn to a great dinner, where old condisciples meet, old toasts are
given, and speeches are made. Before marching from the oration-hall to
chapel, the stewards of the day’s dinner, according to old-fashioned
rite, have wands put into their hands, walk to church at the head of
the procession, and sit there in places of honour. The boys are already
in their seats, with smug fresh faces, and shining white collars; the
old black-gowned pensioners are on their benches; the chapel is
lighted, and Founder’s Tomb, with its grotesque carvings, monsters,
heraldries, darkles and shines with the most wonderful shadows and
lights. There he lies, Fundator Noster, in his ruff and gown, awaiting
the great Examination Day. We oldsters, be we ever so old, become boys
again as we look at that familiar old tomb, and think how the seats are
altered since we were here, and how the doctor—not the present doctor,
the doctor of our time—used to sit yonder, and his awful eye used to
frighten us shuddering boys, on whom it lighted; and how the boy next
us _would_ kick our shins during service time, and how the monitor
would cane us afterwards because our shins were kicked. Yonder sit
forty cherry-cheeked boys, thinking about home and holidays to-morrow.
Yonder sit some threescore old gentlemen pensioners of the hospital,
listening to the prayers and the psalms. You hear them coughing feebly
in the twilight,—the old reverend blackgowns. Is Codd Ajax alive, you
wonder?—the Cistercian lads called these old gentlemen Codds, I know
not wherefore—I know not wherefore—but is old Codd Ajax alive, I
wonder? or Codd Soldier? or kind old Codd Gentleman, or has the grave
closed over them? A plenty of candles lights up this chapel, and this
scene of age and youth, and early memories, and pompous death. How
solemn the well-remembered prayers are, here uttered again in the place
wherein childhood we used to hear them! How beautiful and decorous the
rite; how noble the ancient words of the supplications which the priest
utters, and to which generations of fresh children and troops of bygone
seniors have cried Amen! under those arches! The service for Founder’s
Day is a special one; one of the psalms selected being the
thirty-seventh, and we hear—
23. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth
in his way.
24. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord
upholdeth him with his hand.
25. I have been young, and now am old: yet have I not seen the
righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.
As we came to this verse, I chanced to look up from my book towards the
swarm of black-coated pensioners: and amongst them—amongst them—sate
Thomas Newcome.
His dear old head was bent down over his prayer-book—there was no
mistaking him. He wore the black gown of the pensioners of the Hospital
of Grey Friars. His order of the Bath was on his breast. He stood there
amongst the poor brethren, uttering the responses to the psalm. The
steps of this good man had been ordered him hither by Heaven’s decree:
to this almshouse! Here it was ordained that a life all love, and
kindness, and honour, should end! I heard no more of prayers, and
psalms, and sermon, after that. How dared I to be in a place of mark,
and he, he yonder among the poor? Oh, pardon, you noble soul! I ask
forgiveness of you for being of a world that has so treated you—you my
better, you the honest, and gentle, and good! I thought the service
would never end, or the organist’s voluntaries, or the preacher’s
homily.
The organ played us out of chapel at length, and I waited in the
ante-chapel until the pensioners took their turn to quit it. My dear,
dear old friend! I ran to him with a warmth and eagerness of
recognition which no doubt showed themselves in my face and accents, as
my heart was moved at the sight of him. His own face flushed up when he
saw me, and his hand shook in mine. “I have found a home, Arthur,” said
he. “Don’t you remember before I went to India, when we came to see the
old Grey Friars, and visited Captain Scarsdale in his room?—a poor
brother like me—an old Peninsular man. Scarsdale is gone now, sir, and
is where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest; and
I thought then, when we saw him,—here would be a place for an old
fellow when his career was over, to hang his sword up; to humble his
soul, and to wait thankfully for the end. Arthur. My good friend, Lord
H., who is a Cistercian like ourselves, and has just been appointed a
governor, gave me his first nomination. Don’t be agitated, Arthur my
boy, I am very happy. I have good quarters, good food, good light and
fire, and good friends; blessed be God! my dear kind young friend—my
boy’s friend; you have always been so, sir; and I take it uncommonly
kind of you, and I thank God for you, sir. Why, sir, I am as happy as
the day is long.” He uttered words to this effect as he walked through
the courts of the building towards his room, which in truth I found
neat and comfortable, with a brisk fire crackling on the hearth; a
little tea-table laid out, a Bible and spectacles by the side of it,
and over the mantelpiece a drawing of his grandson by Clive.
“You may come and see me here, sir, whenever you like, and so may your
dear wife and little ones, tell Laura, with my love;—but you must not
stay now. You must go back to your dinner.” In vain I pleaded that I
had no stomach for it. He gave me a look, which seemed to say he
desired to be alone, and I had to respect that order and leave him.
Of course I came to him on the very next day; though not with my wife
and children, who were in truth absent in the country at Rosebury,
where they were to pass the Christmas holidays; and where, this
school-dinner over, I was to join them. On my second visit to Grey
Friars my good friend entered more at length into the reasons why he
had assumed the Poor Brother’s gown; and I cannot say but that I
acquiesced in his reasons, and admired that noble humility and
contentedness of which he gave me an example.
“That which had caused him most grief and pain,” he said, “in the issue
of that unfortunate bank, was the thought that poor friends of his had
been induced by his representations to invest their little capital in
that speculation. Good Miss Honeyman, for instance, meaning no harm,
and in all respects a most honest and kindly-disposed old lady, had
nevertheless alluded more than once to the fact that her money had been
thrown away; and these allusions, sir, made her hospitality somewhat
hard to bear,” said the Colonel. “At home—at poor Clivey’s, I mean—it
was even worse,” he continued; “Mrs. Mackenzie for months past, by her
complaints, and—and her conduct, has made my son and me so
miserable—that flight before her, and into any refuge, was the best
course. She too does not mean ill, Pen. Do not waste any of your oaths
upon that poor woman,” he added, holding up his finger, and smiling
sadly. “She thinks I deceived her, though Heaven knows it was myself I
deceived. She has great influence over Rosa. Very few persons can
resist that violent and headstrong woman, sir. I could not bear her
reproaches, or my poor sick daughter, whom her mother leads almost
entirely now, and it was with all this grief on my mind, that, as I was
walking one day upon Brighton cliff, I met my schoolfellow, my Lord
H——, who has ever been a good friend of mine—and who told me how he had
just been appointed a governor of Grey Friars. He asked me to dine with
him on the next day, and would take no refusal. He knew of my pecuniary
misfortunes, of course—and showed himself most noble and liberal in his
offers of help. I was very much touched by his goodness, Pen,—and made
a clean breast of it to his lordship; who at first would not hear of my
coming to this place—and offered me out of the purse of an old
brother-schoolfellow and an old brother soldier as much—as much as
should last me my time. Wasn’t it noble of him, Arthur? God bless him!
There are good men in the world, sir, there are true friends, as I have
found in these later days. Do you know, sir”—here the old man’s eyes
twinkled,—“that Fred Bayham fixed up that bookcase yonder—and brought
me my little boy’s picture to hang up? Boy and Clive will come and see
me soon.”
“Do you mean they do not come?” I cried.
“They don’t know I am here, sir,” said the Colonel, with a sweet, kind
smile. “They think I am visiting his lordship in Scotland. Ah! they are
good people! When we had had a talk downstairs over our bottle of
claret—where my old commander-in-chief would not hear of my plan—we
went upstairs to her ladyship, who saw that her husband was disturbed,
and asked the reason. I dare say it was the good claret that made me
speak, sir; for I told her that I and her husband had had a dispute and
that I would take her ladyship for umpire. And then I told her the
story over, that I had paid away every rupee to the creditors, and
mortgaged my pensions and retiring allowances for the same end, that I
was a burden upon Clivey, who had enough, poor boy, to keep his own
family, and his wife’s mother, whom my imprudence had
impoverished,—that here was an honourable asylum which my friend could
procure for me, and was not that better than to drain his purse? She
was very much moved, sir—she is a very kind lady, though she passed for
being very proud and haughty in India—so wrongly are people judged. And
Lord H. said, in his rough way, ‘that, by Jove, if Tom Newcome took a
thing into his obstinate old head no one could drive it out.’ And so,”
said the Colonel, with his sad smile, “I _had_ my own way. Lady H. was
good enough to come and see me the very next day—and do you know, Pen,
she invited me to go and live with them for the rest of my life—made me
the most generous, the most delicate offers. But I knew I was right,
and held my own. I am too old to work, Arthur: and better here whilst I
am to stay, than elsewhere. Look! all this furniture came from H.
House—and that wardrobe is full of linen, which she sent me. She has
been twice to see me, and every officer in this hospital is as
courteous to me as if I had my fine house.”
I thought of the psalm we had heard on the previous evening, and turned
to it in the opened Bible, and pointed to the verse, “Though he fall,
he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him.” Thomas
Newcome seeing my occupation, laid a kind, trembling hand on my
shoulder; and then, putting on his glasses, with a smile bent over the
volume. And who that saw him then, and knew him and loved him as I
did—who would not have humbled his own heart, and breathed his inward
prayer, confessing and adoring the Divine Will, which ordains these
trials, these triumphs, these humiliations, these blest griefs, this
crowning Love?
I had the happiness of bringing Clive and his little boy to Thomas
Newcome that evening; and heard the child’s cry of recognition and
surprise, and the old man calling the boy’s name, as I closed the door
upon that meeting; and by the night’s mail I went down to Newcome, to
the friends with whom my own family was already staying.
Of course, my conscience-keeper at Rosebury was anxious to know about
the school-dinner, and all the speeches made, and the guests assembled
there; but she soon ceased to inquire about these when I came to give
her the news of the discovery of our dear old friend in the habit of a
Poor Brother of Grey Friars. She was very glad to hear that Clive and
his little son had been reunited to the Colonel; and appeared to
imagine at first, that there was some wonderful merit upon my part in
bringing the three together.
“Well—no great merit, Pen, as you _will_ put it,” says the Confessor;
“but it was kindly thought, sir—and I like my husband when he is kind
best; and don’t wonder at your having made a stupid speech at the
dinner, as you say you did, when you had this other subject to think
of. That is a beautiful psalm, Pen, and those verses which you were
reading when you saw him, especially beautiful.”
“But in the presence of eighty old gentlemen, who have all come to
decay, and have all had to beg their bread in a manner, don’t you think
the clergyman might choose some other psalm?” asks Mr. Pendennis.
“They were not forsaken _utterly_, Arthur,” says Mrs. Laura, gravely:
but rather declines to argue the point raised by me; namely, that the
selection of that especial thirty-seventh psalm was not complimentary
to those decayed old gentlemen.
“_All_ the psalms are good, sir,” she says, “and this one, of course,
is included,” and thus the discussion closed.
I then fell to a description of Howland Street, and poor Clive, whom I
had found there over his work. A dubious maid scanned my appearance
rather eagerly when I asked to see him. I found a picture-dealer
chaffering with him over a bundle of sketches, and his little boy,
already pencil in hand, lying in one corner of the room, the sun
playing about his yellow hair. The child looked languid and pale, the
father worn and ill. When the dealer at length took his bargains away,
I gradually broke my errand to Clive, and told him from whence I had
just come.
He had thought his father in Scotland with Lord H.: and was immensely
moved with the news which I brought.
“I haven’t written to him for a month. It’s not pleasant the letters I
have to write, Pen, and I can’t make them pleasant. Up, Tommykin, and
put on your cap.” Tommykin jumps up. “Put on your cap, and tell them to
take off your pinafore, tell grandmamma——”
At that name Tommykin begins to cry.
“Look at that!” says Clive, commencing to speak in the French language,
which the child interrupts by calling out in that tongue. “I speak also
French, papa.”
“Well, my child! You will like to come out with papa, and Betsy can
dress you.” He flings off his own paint-stained shooting-jacket as he
talks, takes a frock-coat out of a carved wardrobe, and a hat from a
helmet on the shelf. He is no longer the handsome splendid boy of old
times. Can that be Clive, with that haggard face and slouched
handkerchief? “I am not the dandy I was, Pen,” he says bitterly.
A little voice is heard crying overhead—and giving a kind of gasp the
wretched father stops in some indifferent speech he was trying to make.
“I can’t help myself,” he groans out; “my wife is so ill, she can’t
attend to the child. Mrs. Mackenzie manages the house for me—and—here!
Tommy, Tommy! papa is coming!” Tommy has been crying again; and
flinging open the studio door, Clive calls out, and dashes upstairs.
I hear scuffling, stamping, loud voices, poor Tommy’s scared little
pipe—Clive’s fierce objurgations, and the Campaigner’s voice barking
out—“Do, sir, do! with my child suffering in the next room. Behave like
a brute to me, do. He shall not go! He shall not have the hat”—“He
shall”—“Ah—ah!” A scream is heard. It is Clive tearing a child’s hat
out of the Campaigner’s hands, with which, and a flushed face, he
presently rushes downstairs, bearing little Tommy on his shoulder.
“You see what I am come to, Pen,” he says with a heartbroken voice,
trying, with hands all of a tremble, to tie the hat on the boy’s head.
He laughs bitterly at the ill success of his endeavours. “Oh, you silly
papa!” laughs Tommy, too.
The door is flung open, and the red-faced Campaigner appears. Her face
is mottled with wrath, her bandeaux of hair are disarranged upon her
forehead, the ornaments of her cap, cheap, and dirty, and numerous,
only give her a wilder appearance. She is in a large and dingy wrapper,
very different from the lady who had presented herself a few months
back to my wife—how different from the smiling Mrs. Mackenzie of old
days!
“He shall not go out of a winter day, sir,” she breaks out. “I have his
mother’s orders, whom you are _killing_. Mr. Pendennis!” She starts,
perceiving me for the first time, and her breast heaves, and she
prepares for combat, and looks at me over her shoulder.
“You and his father are the best judges upon this point, ma’am,” said
Mr. Pendennis, with a bow.
“The child is delicate, sir,” cries Mrs. Mackenzie; “and this winter——”
“Enough of this,” says Clive with a stamp, and passes through her guard
with Tommy, and we descend the stairs, and at length are in the free
street. Was it not best not to describe at full length this portion of
poor Clive’s history?
CHAPTER LXXVI.
Christmas at Rosebury
We have known our friend Florac under two aristocratic names, and might
now salute him by a third, to which he was entitled, although neither
he nor his wife ever chose to assume it. His father was lately dead,
and M. Paul de Florac might sign himself Duc d’Ivry if he chose, but he
was indifferent as to the matter, and his wife’s friends indignant at
the idea that their kinswoman, after having been a Princess, should
descend to the rank of a mere Duchess. So Prince and Princess these
good folks remained, being exceptions to that order, inasmuch as their
friends could certainly put their trust in them.
On his father’s death Florac went to Paris, to settle the affairs of
the paternal succession; and, having been for some time absent in his
native country, returned to Rosebury for the winter, to resume that
sport of which he was a distinguished amateur. He hunted in black
during the ensuing season; and, indeed, henceforth laid aside his
splendid attire and his _allures_ as a young man. His waist expanded,
or was no longer confined by the cestus which had given it a shape.
When he laid aside his black, his whiskers, too, went into a sort of
half-mourning, and appeared in grey. “I make myself old, my friend,” he
said, pathetically; “I have no more neither twenty years nor forty.” He
went to Rosebury Church no more; but, with great order and sobriety,
drove every Sunday to the neighbouring Catholic chapel at C—— Castle.
We had an ecclesiastic or two to dine with us at Rosebury, one of whom
I inclined to think was Florac’s director.
A reason, perhaps, for Paul’s altered demeanour, was the presence of
his mother at Rosebury. No politeness or respect could be greater than
Paul’s towards the Countess. Had she been a sovereign princess, Madame
de Florac could not have been treated with more profound courtesy than
she now received from her son. I think the humble-minded lady could
have dispensed with some of his attentions; but Paul was a personage
who demonstrated all his sentiments, and performed his various parts in
life with the greatest vigour. As a man of pleasure, for instance, what
more active roué than he? As a _jeune homme_, who could be younger, and
for a longer time? As a country gentleman, or an _homme d’affaires_, he
insisted upon dressing each character with the most rigid accuracy, and
an exactitude that reminded one somewhat of Bouffé, or Ferville, at the
play. I wonder whether, when is he quite old, he will think proper to
wear a pigtail, like his old father? At any rate, that was a good part
which the kind fellow was now acting, of reverence towards his widowed
mother, and affectionate respect for her declining days. He not only
felt these amiable sentiments, but he imparted them to his friends most
freely, as his wont was. He used to weep freely,—quite unrestrained by
the presence of the domestics, as English sentiment would be:—and when
Madame de Florac quitted the room after dinner, would squeeze my hand
and tell me with streaming eyes, that his mother was an angel. “Her
life has been but a long trial, my friend,” he would say. “Shall not I,
who have caused her to shed so many tears, endeavour to dry some?” Of
course the friends who liked him best encouraged him in an intention so
pious.
The reader has already been made acquainted with this lady by the
letters of hers, which came into my possession some time after the
events which I am at present narrating: my wife, through our kind
friend, Colonel Newcome, had also had the honour of an introduction to
Madame de Florac at Paris; and, on coming to Rosebury for the Christmas
holidays, I found Laura and the children greatly in favour with the
good Countess. She treated her son’s wife with a perfect though distant
courtesy. She was thankful to Madame de Moncontour for the latter’s
great goodness to her son. Familiar with but very few persons, she
could scarcely be intimate with her homely daughter-in-law. Madame de
Moncontour stood in the greatest awe of her; and, to do that good lady
justice, admired and reverenced Paul’s mother with all her simple
heart. In truth, I think almost every one had a certain awe of Madame
de Florac, except children, who came to her trustingly, and, as it
were, by instinct. The habitual melancholy of her eyes vanished as they
lighted upon young faces and infantile smiles. A sweet love beamed out
of her countenance: an angelic smile shone over her face, as she bent
towards them and caressed them. Her demeanour then, nay, her looks and
ways at other times;—a certain gracious sadness, a sympathy with all
grief, and pity for all pain; a gentle heart, yearning towards all
children; and, for her own especially, feeling a love that was almost
an anguish: in the affairs of the common world only a dignified
acquiescence, as if her place was not in it, and her thoughts were in
her Home elsewhere;—these qualities, which we had seen exemplified in
another life, Laura and her husband watched in Madame de Florac, and we
loved her because she was like our mother. I see in such women, the
good and pure, the patient and faithful, the tried and meek, the
followers of Him whose earthly life was divinely sad and tender.
But, good as she was to us and to all, Ethel Newcome was the French
lady’s greatest favourite. A bond of extreme tenderness and affection
united these two. The elder friend made constant visits to the younger
at Newcome; and when Miss Newcome, as she frequently did, came to
Rosebury, we used to see that they preferred to be alone; divining and
respecting the sympathy which brought those two faithful hearts
together. I can imagine now the two tall forms slowly pacing the garden
walks, or turning, as they lighted on the young ones in their play.
What was their talk! I never asked it. Perhaps Ethel never said what
was in her heart, though, be sure, the other knew it. Though the grief
of those they love is untold, women hear it; as they soothe it with
unspoken consolations. To see the elder lady embrace her friend as they
parted was something holy—a sort of saintlike salutation.
Consulting the person from whom I had no secrets, we had thought best
at first not to mention to our friends the place and position in which
we had found our dear Colonel; at least to wait for a fitting
opportunity on which we might break the news to those who held him in
such affection. I told how Clive was hard at work, and hoped the best
for him. Good-natured Madame de Moncontour was easily satisfied with my
replies to her questions concerning our friend. Ethel only asked if he
and her uncle were well, and once or twice made inquiries respecting
Rosa and her child. And now it was that my wife told me, what I need no
longer keep secret, of Ethel’s extreme anxiety to serve her distressed
relatives, and how she, Laura, had already acted as Miss Newcome’s
almoner in furnishing and hiring those apartments, which Ethel believed
were occupied by Clive and his father, and wife and child. And my wife
further informed me with what deep grief Ethel had heard of her uncle’s
misfortune, and how, but that she feared to offend his pride, she
longed to give him assistance. She had even ventured to offer to send
him pecuniary help; but the Colonel (who never mentioned the
circumstance to me or any other of his friends), in a kind but very cold
letter, had declined to be beholden to his niece for help.
So I may have remained some days at Rosebury, and the real position of
the two Newcomes was unknown to our friends there. Christmas Eve was
come, and, according to a long-standing promise, Ethel Newcome and her
two children had arrived from the Park, which dreary mansion, since his
double defeat, Sir Barnes scarcely ever visited. Christmas was come,
and Rosebury hall was decorated with holly. Florac did his best to
welcome his friends, and strove to make the meeting gay, though in
truth it was rather melancholy. The children, however, were happy: and
they had pleasure enough, in the school festival, in the distribution
of cloaks and blankets to the poor, and in Madame de Moncontour’s
gardens, delightful and beautiful though the winter was there.
It was only a family meeting, Madame de Florac’s widowhood not
permitting her presence in large companies. Paul sate at his table
between his mother and Mrs. Pendennis; Mr. Pendennis opposite to him,
with Ethel and Madame de Moncontour on each side. The four children
were placed between these personages, on whom Madame de Florac looked
with her tender glances, and to whose little wants the kindest of hosts
ministered with uncommon good-nature and affection. He was very
soft-hearted about children. “Pourquoi n’en avons-nous pas, Jeanne? He!
quoi n’en avons-nous pas?” he said, addressing his wife by her
Christian name. The poor little lady looked kindly at her husband, and
then gave a sigh, and turned and heaped cake upon the plate of the
child next to her. No mamma or Aunt Ethel could interpose. It was a
very light wholesome cake. Brown made it on purpose for the children,
“the little darlings!” cries the Princess.
The children were very happy at being allowed to sit up so late to
dinner, at all the kindly amusements of the day, at the holly and
mistletoe clustering round the lamps—the mistletoe, under which the
gallant Florac, skilled in all British usages, vowed he would have his
privilege. But the mistletoe was clustered round the lamp, the lamp was
over the centre of the great round table—the innocent gratification
which he proposed to himself was denied to M. Paul.
In the greatest excitement and good-humour, our host at the dessert
made us _des speech_. He carried a toast to the charming Ethel, another
to the charming Mistriss Laura, another to his good fren’, his brave
frren’, his ’appy fren’, Pendennis—’appy as possessor of such a wife,
’appy as writer of works destined to the immortality, etc. etc. The
little children round about clapped their happy little hands, and
laughed and crowed in chorus. And now the nursery and its guardians
were about to retreat, when Florac said he had yet a speech, yet a
toast—and he bade the butler pour wine into every one’s glass—yet a
toast—and he carried it to the health of our dear friends, of Clive and
his father,—the good, the brave Colonel! “We who are happy,” says he,
“shall we not think of those who are good? We who love each other,
shall we not remember those whom we all love?” He spoke with very great
tenderness and feeling. “Ma bonne mere, thou too shalt drink this
toast!” he said, taking his mother’s hand, and kissing it. She returned
his caress gently, and tasted the wine with her pale lips. Ethel’s head
bent in silence over her glass; and, as for Laura, need I say what
happened to her! When the ladies went away my heart was opened to my
friend Florac, and I told him where and how I had left my dear Clive’s
father.
The Frenchman’s emotion on hearing this tale was such that I have loved
him ever since. Clive in want! Why had he not sent to his friend?
Grands Dieux! Clive who had helped him in his greatest distress!
Clive’s father, ce _preux chevalier, ce parfait gentilhomme!_ In a
hundred rapid exclamations Florac exhibited his sympathy, asking of
Fate, why such men as he and I were sitting surrounded by
splendours—before golden vases crowned with flowers—with valets to kiss
our feet—(those were merely figures of speech in which Paul expressed
his prosperity)—whilst our friend the Colonel, so much better than we,
spent his last days in poverty, and alone.
I liked Florac none the less, I own, because that one of the conditions
of the Colonel’s present life, which appeared the hardest to most
people, affected Florac but little. To be a Pensioner of an Ancient
Institution? Why not? Might not a man retire without shame to the
Invalides at the close of his campaigns, and, had not Fortune conquered
our old friend, and age and disaster overcome him? It never once
entered Thomas Newcome’s head; nor Clive’s, nor Florac’s, nor his
mother’s, that the Colonel demeaned himself at all by accepting that
bounty; and I recollect Warrington sharing our sentiment and trowling
out those noble lines of the old poet:—
“His golden locks time hath to silver turned;
O time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing!
His youth ’gainst time and age hath ever spurned,
But spurned in vain; youth waneth by encreasing.
Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen.
Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.
“His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And lovers’ songs be turned to holy psalms;
A man at arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are old age’s alms.”
These, I say, respected our friend, whatever was the coat he wore;
whereas, among the Colonel’s own kinsfolk, dire was the dismay, and
indignation even, which they expressed when they came to hear of this,
what they were pleased to call degradation to their family. Clive’s
dear mother-in-law made outcries over the good old man as over a
pauper, and inquired of Heaven, what she had done that her blessed
child should have a mendicant for a father? And Mrs. Hobson, in
subsequent confidential communication with the writer of these memoirs,
improved the occasion religiously as her wont was; referred the matter
to Heaven too, and thought fit to assume that the celestial powers had
decreed this _humiliation_, this _dreadful trial_ for the Newcome
family, as a warning to them all that they should not be too much
puffed up with prosperity, nor set their affections too much upon
things of this earth. Had they not already received _one_ chastisement
in Barnes’s punishment, and Lady Clara’s awful falling away? They had
taught her a lesson, which the Colonel’s _lamentable errors_ had
_confirmed_,—the vanity of trusting in all earthly grandeurs! Thus it
was this worthy woman plumed herself, as it were, on her relative’s
misfortunes; and was pleased to think the latter were designed for the
special warning and advantage of her private family. But Mrs. Hobson’s
philosophy is only mentioned by the way. Our story, which is drawing to
its close, has to busy itself with other members of the house of The
Newcomes.
My talk with Florac lasted for some time: at its close, when we went to
join the ladies in the drawing-room, we found Ethel cloaked and
shawled, and prepared for her departure with her young ones, who were
already asleep. The little festival was over, and had ended in
melancholy—even in weeping. Our hostess sate in her accustomed seat by
her lamp and her worktable; but, neglecting her needle, she was having
perpetual recourse to her pocket-handkerchief, and uttering
ejaculations of pity between the intervals of her gushes of tears.
Madame de Florac was in her usual place, her head cast downwards, and
her hands folded. My wife was at her side, a grave commiseration
showing itself in Laura’s countenance, whilst I read a yet deeper
sadness in Ethel’s pale face. Miss Newcome’s carriage had been
announced; the attendants had already carried the young ones asleep to
the vehicle; and she was in the act of taking leave. We looked round at
this disturbed party, guessing very likely what the subject of their
talk had been, to which, however, Miss Ethel did not allude: but,
announcing that she had intended to depart without disturbing the two
gentlemen, she bade us farewell and good night. “I wish I could say a
merry Christmas,” she added gravely, “but none of us, I fear, can hope
for that.” It was evident that Laura had told the last chapter of the
Colonel’s story.
Madame de Florac rose up and embraced Miss Newcome, and, that farewell
over, she sank back on the sofa exhausted, and with such an expression
of affliction in her countenance, that my wife ran eagerly towards her.
“It is nothing, my dear,” she said, giving a cold hand to the younger
lady, and sate silent for a few moments, during which we heard Florac’s
voice without crying Adieu! and the wheels of Miss Newcome’s carriage
when it drove away.
Our host entered a moment afterwards; and remarking, as Laura had done,
his mother’s pallor and look of anguish, went up and spoke to her with
the utmost tenderness and anxiety.
She gave her hand to her son, and a faint blush rose up out of the past
as it were, and trembled upon her wan cheek. “He was the first friend I
ever had in the world, Paul,” she said “the first and the best. He
shall not want, shall he, my son?”
No signs of that emotion in which her daughter-in-law had been
indulging were as yet visible in Madame de Florac’s eyes, but, as she
spoke, holding her son’s hand in hers, the tears at length overflowed,
and with a sob, her head fell forwards. The impetuous Frenchman flung
himself on his knees before his mother, uttered a hundred words of love
and respect for her, and with tears and sobs of his own called God to
witness that their friend should never want. And so this mother and son
embraced each other, and clung together in a sacred union of love,
before which we who had been admitted as spectators of that scene,
stood hushed and respectful.
That night Laura told me, how, when the ladies left us, the talk had
been entirely about the Colonel and Clive. Madame de Florac had spoken
especially, and much more freely than was her wont. She had told many
reminiscences of Thomas Newcome, and his early days; how her father
taught him mathematics when they were quite poor, and living in their
dear little cottage at Blackheath; how handsome he was then, with
bright eyes, and long black hair flowing over his shoulders; how
military glory was his boyish passion, and he was for ever talking of
India, and the famous deeds of Clive and Lawrence. His favourite book
was a history of India—the history of Orme. “He read it, and I read it
also, my daughter,” the French lady said, turning to Ethel; “ah! I may
say so after so many years.”
Ethel remembered the book as belonging to her grandmother, and now in
the library at Newcome. Doubtless the same sympathy which caused me to
speak about Thomas Newcome that evening, impelled my wife likewise. She
told her friends, as I had told Florac, all the Colonel’s story; and it
was while these good women were under the impression of the melancholy
history, that Florac and his guest found them.
Retired to our rooms, Laura and I talked on the same subject until the
clock tolled Christmas, and the neighbouring church bells rang out a
jubilation. And, looking out into the quiet night, where the stars were
keenly shining, we committed ourselves to rest with humbled hearts;
praying, for all those we loved, a blessing of peace and goodwill.
CHAPTER LXXVII.
The Shortest and Happiest in the Whole History
In the ensuing Christmas morning I chanced to rise betimes, and
entering my dressing-room, opened the windows and looked out on the
soft landscape, over which mists were still lying; whilst the serene
sky above, and the lawns and leafless woods in the foreground near,
were still pink with sunrise. The grey had not even left the west yet,
and I could see a star or two twinkling there, to vanish with that
twilight.
As I looked out, I saw the not very distant lodge-gate open after a
brief parley, and a lady on horseback, followed by a servant, rode
rapidly up to the house. This early visitor was no other than Miss
Ethel Newcome. The young lady espied me immediately. “Come down; come
down to me this moment, Mr. Pendennis,” she cried out. I hastened down
to her, supposing rightly that news of importance had brought her to
Rosebury so early.
The news were of importance indeed. “Look here!” she said, “read this;”
and she took a paper from the pocket of her habit. “When I went home
last night, after Madame de Florac had been talking to us about Orme’s
India, I took the volumes from the bookcase and found this paper. It is
in my grandmother’s—Mrs. Newcome’s—handwriting; I know it quite well,
it is dated on the very day of her death. She had been writing and
reading in her study on that very night; I have often heard papa speak
of the circumstance. Look and read. You are a lawyer, Mr. Pendennis;
tell me about this paper.”
I seized it eagerly, and cast my eyes over it; but having read it, my
countenance fell.
“My dear Miss Newcome, it is not worth a penny,” I was obliged to own.
“Yes, it is, sir, to honest people!” she cried out. “My brother and
uncle will respect it as Mrs. Newcome’s dying wish. They _must_ respect
it.”
The paper in question was a letter in ink that had grown yellow from
time, and was addressed by the late Mrs. Newcome, to “my dear Mr.
Luce.”
“That was her solicitor, my solicitor still,” interposes Miss Ethel.
“THE HERMITAGE, March 14, 182-.
“My Dear Mr. Luce” (the defunct lady wrote)—“My late husband’s grandson
has been staying with me lately, and is a most pleasing, handsome, and
engaging little boy. He bears a strong likeness to his grandfather, I
think; and though he has no claims upon me, and I know is sufficiently
provided for by his father Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, C.B., of the
East India Company’s Service, I am sure my late dear husband will be
pleased that I should leave his grandson, Clive Newcome, a token of
_peace and goodwill;_ and I can do so with the more readiness, as it
has pleased Heaven greatly to increase my means since my husband was
called away hence.
“I desire to bequeath a sum equal to that which Mr. Newcome willed to my
eldest son, Brian Newcome, Esq., to Mr. Newcome’s grandson, Clive
Newcome; and furthermore, that a token of my esteem and affection, a
ring, or a piece of plate, of the value of one £100, be given to
Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Newcome, my stepson, whose excellent conduct
_for many years_, and whose repeated acts of gallantry in the _service
of his sovereign_, have long obliterated the just feelings of
displeasure with which I could not but view his early _disobedience and
misbehaviour_, before he quitted England against my will, and entered
the military service.
“I beg you to prepare immediately a codicil to my will providing for
the above bequests; and desire that the amount of these legacies should
be taken from the property bequeathed to my eldest son. You will be so
good as to prepare the necessary document, and bring it with you when
you come on Saturday, to
yours very truly,
“Sophia Alethea Newcome.
“Tuesday night.”
I gave back the paper with a sigh to the finder. “It is but a wish of
Mrs. Newcome, my dear Miss Ethel,” I said. “Pardon me, if I say, I
think I know your elder brother too well to supposes that he will
fulfil it.”
“He _will_ fulfil it, sir, I am sure he will,” Miss Newcome said, in a
haughty manner. “He would do as much without being asked, I am certain
he would, did he know the depth of my dear uncle’s misfortune. Barnes
is in London now, and——”
“And you will write to him? I know what the answer will be.”
“I will go to him this very day, Mr. Pendennis! I will go to my dear,
dear uncle. I cannot bear to think of him in that place,” cried the
young lady, the tears starting into her honest eyes. “It was the will
of Heaven. Oh, God be thanked for it! Had we found my grandmamma’s
letter earlier, Barnes would have paid the legacy immediately, and the
money would have gone in that dreadful bankruptcy. I will go to Barnes
to-day. Will you come with me? Won’t you come to your old friends? We
may be at his—at Clive’s house this evening; and oh, praise be to God!
there need be no more want in his family.”
“My dear friend, I will go with you round the world on such an errand,”
I said, kissing her hand. How beautiful she looked; the generous colour
rose in her face, her voice thrilled with happiness. The music of
Christmas church bells leaped up at this moment with joyful
gratulations; the face of the old house, before which we stood talking,
shone out in the morning sun.
“You will come I thank you! I must run and tell Madame de Florac,”
cried the happy young lady, and we entered the house together. “How
came you to be kissing Ethel’s hand, sir; and what is the meaning of
this early visit?” asks Mrs. Laura, as soon as I had returned to my own
apartments.
“Martha, get me a carpet-bag! I am going to London in an hour,” cries
Mr. Pendennis. If I had kissed Ethel’s hand just now, delighted at the
news which she brought to me, was not one a thousand times dearer to
me, as happy as her friend? I know who prayed with a thankful heart
that day as we sped, in the almost solitary train, towards London.
CHAPTER LXXVIII.
In which the Author goes on a Pleasant Errand
Before I parted with Miss Newcome at the station, she made me promise
to see her on the morrow at an early hour at her brother’s house; and
having bidden her farewell and repaired to my own solitary residence,
which presented but a dreary aspect on that festive day, I thought I
would pay Howland Street a visit; and, if invited, eat my Christmas
dinner with Clive.
I found my friend at home, and at work still, in spite of the day. He
had promised a pair of pictures to a dealer for the morrow. “He pays me
pretty well, and I want all the money he will give me, Pen,” the
painter said, rubbing on at his canvas. “I am pretty easy in my mind
since I have become acquainted with a virtuous dealer. I sell myself to
him, body and soul, for some half-dozen pounds a week. I know I can get
my money, and he is regularly supplied with his pictures. But for
Rosey’s illness we might carry on well enough.”
Rosey’s illness? I was sorry to hear of that: and poor Clive, entering
into particulars, told me how he had spent upon doctors rather more
than a fourth of his year’s earnings. “There is a solemn fellow, to
whom the women have taken a fancy, who lives but a few doors off in
Gower Street; and who, for his last sixteen visits, has taken sixteen
pounds sixteen shillings out of my pocket, and as if guineas grew
there, with the most admirable gravity. He talks the fashions to my
mother-in-law. My poor wife hangs on every word he says. Look! There is
his carriage coming up now! and there is his fee, confound him!” says
Clive, casting a rueful look towards a little packet lying upon the
mantelpiece, by the side of that skinned figure in plaster of Paris
which we have seen in most studios.
I looked out of window and saw a certain Fashionable Doctor tripping
out of his chariot; that Ladies’ Delight, who has subsequently migrated
from Bloomsbury to Belgravia; and who has his polite foot now in a
thousand nurseries and boudoirs. What Confessors were in old times,
Quackenboss and his like are in our Protestant country. What secrets
they know! into what mystic chambers do they not enter! I suppose the
Campaigner made a special toilette to receive her fashionable friend,
for that lady attired in considerable splendour, and with the precious
jewel on her head, which I remembered at Boulogne, came into the studio
two minutes after the Doctor’s visit was announced, and made him a low
curtsey. I cannot describe the overpowering civilities of that woman.
Clive was very gracious and humble to her. He adopted a lively air in
addressing her—“Must work, you know, Christmas Day and all—for the
owner of the pictures will call for them in the morning. Bring me a
good report about Rosey, Mrs. Mackenzie, please—and if you will have
the kindness to look by the _écorché_ there, you will see that little
packet which I have left for you.” Mrs. Mack, advancing, took the
money. “I thought that plaster of Paris figure was not the only
_écorché_ in the room.”
“I want you to stay to dinner. You must stay, Pen, please,” cried
Clive; “and be civil to her, will you? My dear old father is coming to
dine here. They fancy that he has lodgings at the other end of the
town, and that his brothers do something for him. Not a word about Grey
Friars. It might agitate Rosa, you know. Ah! isn’t he noble, the dear
old boy! and isn’t it fine to see him in that place?” Clive worked on
as he talked, using up the last remnant of the light of Christmas Day,
and was cleaning his palette and brushes, when Mrs. Mackenzie returned
to us.
Darling Rosey was very delicate, but Doctor Quackenboss was going to
give her the very same medicine which had done the charming young
Duchess of Clackmannanshire so much good, and he was not in the least
disquiet.
On this I cut into the conversation with anecdotes concerning the
family of the Duchess of Clackmannanshire, remembering early days, when
it used to be my sport to entertain the Campaigner with anecdotes of
the aristocracy, about whose proceedings she still maintained a
laudable curiosity. Indeed, one of few the books escaped out of the
wreck of Tyburn Gardens was a Peerage, now a well-worn volume, much
read by Rosa and her mother.
The anecdotes were very politely received—perhaps it was the season
which made Mrs. Mack and her son-in-law on more than ordinarily good
terms. When, turning to the Campaigner, Clive said he wished that she
could persuade me to stay to dinner, she acquiesced graciously and at
once in that proposal, and vowed that her daughter would be delighted
if I could condescend to eat their _humble_ fare. “It is not such a
dinner as you _have_ seen at her house, with six side-dishes, two
flanks, that splendid epergne, and the silver dishes top and bottom;
but such as my Rosey _has_ she offers with a willing _heart_,” cries
the Campaigner.
“And Tom may sit to dinner, mayn’t he, grandmamma?” asks Clive, in a
humble voice.
“Oh, if you wish it, sir.”
“His grandfather will like to sit by him,” said Clive. “I will go out
and meet him; he comes through Guildford Street and Russell Square,”
says Clive. “Will you walk, Pen?”
“Oh, pray don’t let us detain you,” says Mrs. Mackenzie, with a toss of
her head: and when she retreated Clive whispered that she would not
want me; for she looked to the roasting of the beef and the making of
the pudding and the mince-pie.
“I thought she might have a finger in it,” I said; and we set forth to
meet the dear old father, who presently came, walking very slowly,
along the line by which we expected him. His stick trembled as it fell
on the pavement: so did his voice, as he called out Clive’s name: so
did his hand, as he stretched it to me. His body was bent, and feeble.
Twenty years had not weakened him so much as the last score of months.
I walked by the side of my two friends as they went onwards, linked
lovingly together. How I longed for the morrow, and hoped they might be
united once more! Thomas Newcome’s voice, once so grave, went up to a
treble, and became almost childish, as he asked after Boy. His white
hair hung over his collar. I could see it by the gas under which we
walked—and Clive’s great back and arm, as his father leaned on it, and
his brave face turned towards the old man. Oh, Barnes Newcome, Barnes
Newcome! Be an honest man for once, and help your kinsfolk! thought I.
The Christmas meal went off in a friendly manner enough. The
Campaigner’s eyes were everywhere: it was evident that the little maid
who served the dinner, and had cooked a portion of it under their keen
supervision, cowered under them, as well as other folks. Mrs. Mack did
not make more than ten allusions to former splendours during the
entertainment, or half as many apologies to me for sitting down to a
table very different from that to which I was _accustomed_. Good,
faithful F. Bayham was the only other guest. He complimented the
mince-pies, so that Mrs. Mackenzie owned she had made them. The Colonel
was very silent, but he tried to feed Boy, and was only once or twice
sternly corrected by the Campaigner. Boy, in the best little words he
could muster, asked why grandpapa wore a black cloak? Clive nudged my
foot under the table. The secret of the Poor Brothership was very
nearly out. The Colonel blushed, and with great presence of mind said
he wore a cloak to keep him warm in winter.
Rosey did not say much. She had grown lean and languid: the light of
her eyes had gone out: all her pretty freshness had faded. She ate
scarce anything, though her mother pressed her eagerly, and whispered
loudly that a woman in her situation ought to strengthen herself. Poor
Rosey was always in a situation.
When the cloth was withdrawn, the Colonel bending his head said, “Thank
God for what we have received,” so reverently, and with an accent so
touching, that Fred Bayham’s big eyes as he turned towards the old man
filled up with tears. When his mother and grandmother rose to go away,
poor little Boy cried to stay longer, and the Colonel would have meekly
interposed, but the domineering Campaigner cried, “Nonsense, let him go
to bed!” and flounced him out of the room: and nobody appealed against
that sentence. Then we three remained, and strove to talk as cheerfully
as we might, speaking now of old times, and presently of new. Without
the slightest affectation, Thomas Newcome told us that his life was
comfortable, and that he was happy in it. He wished that many others of
the old gentlemen, he said, were as contented as himself, but some of
them grumbled sadly, he owned and quarrelled with their
bread-and-butter. He, for his part, had everything he could desire: all
the officers of the Establishment were most kind to him; an excellent
physician came to him when wanted; a most attentive woman waited on
him. “And if I wear a black gown,” said he, “is not that uniform as
good as another, and if we have to go to church every day, at which
some of the Poor Brothers grumble, I think an old fellow can’t do
better; and I can say my prayers with a thankful heart, Clivey my boy,
and should be quite happy but for my—for my past imprudence, God
forgive me. Think of Bayham here coming to our chapel to-day!—he often
comes—that was very right, sir—very right.”
Clive, filling a glass of wine, looked at F. B. with eyes that said God
bless you. F. B. gulped down another bumper. “It is almost a merry
Christmas,” said I; “and oh, I hope it will be a happy New Year!”
Shortly after nine o’clock the Colonel rose to depart, saying he must
be “in barracks” by ten; and Clive and F. B. went a part of the way
with him. I would have followed them, but he whispered me to stay and
talk to Mrs. Mack, for Heaven’s sake, and that he would be back ere
long. So I went and took tea with the two ladies; and as we drank it,
Mrs. Mackenzie took occasion to tell me she did not know what amount of
income the Colonel had from his _wealthy brother_, but that _they_
never received any benefit from it; and again she computed to me all
the sums, principal and interest, which ought at that moment to belong
to her darling Rosey. Rosey now and again made a feeble remark. She did
not seem pleased or sorry when her husband came in; and presently,
dropping me a little curtsey, went to bed under charge of the
Campaigner. So Bayham and I and Clive retired to the studio, where
smoking was allowed, and where we brought that Christmas day to an end.
At the appointed time on the next forenoon I called upon Miss Newcome
at her brother’s house. Sir Barnes Newcome was quitting his own door as
I entered it, and he eyed me with such a severe countenance, as made me
augur but ill of the business upon which I came. The expression of
Ethel’s face was scarcely more cheering: she was standing at the
window, sternly looking at Sir Barnes, who yet lingered at his own
threshold, having some altercation with his cab-boy ere he mounted his
vehicle to drive into the City.
Miss Newcome was very pale when she advanced and gave me her hand. I
looked with some alarm into her face, and inquired what news?
“It is as you expected, Mr. Pendennis,” she said—“not as I did. My
brother is averse to making restitution. He just now parted from me in
some anger. But it does not matter; the restitution must be made, if
not by Barnes, by one of our family—must it not?”
“God bless you for a noble creature, my dear, dear Miss Newcome!” was
all I could say.
“For doing what is right? Ought I not to do it? I am the eldest of our
family after Barnes: I am the richest after him. Our father left all
his younger children the very sum of money which Mrs. Newcome here
devises to Clive; and you know, besides, I have all my grandmother’s,
Lady Kew’s, property. Why, I don’t think I could sleep if this act of
justice were not done. Will you come with me to my lawyer’s? He and my
brother Barnes are trustees of my property; and I have been thinking,
dear Mr. Pendennis—and you are very good to be so kind, and to express
so kind an opinion of me, and you and Laura have always, always been
the best friends to me”—(she says this, taking one of my hands and
placing her other hand over it)—“I have been thinking, you know, that
this transfer had better be made through Mr. Luce, you understand, and
as coming from the _family_, and then I need not appear in it at all,
you see; and—and my dear good uncle’s pride need not be wounded.” She
fairly gave way to tears as she spoke—and for me, I longed to kiss the
hem of her robe, or anything else she would let me embrace, I was so
happy, and so touched by the simple demeanour and affection of the
noble young lady.
“Dear Ethel,” I said, “did I not say I would go to the end of the world
with you—and won’t I go to Lincoln’s Inn?”
A cab was straightway sent for, and in another half-hour we were in the
presence of the courtly little old Mr. Luce in his chambers in
Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
He knew the late Mrs. Newcome’s handwriting at once. He remembered
having seen the little boy at the Hermitage, had talked with Mr.
Newcome regarding his son in India, and had even encouraged Mrs.
Newcome in her idea of leaving some token of goodwill to the latter. “I
was to have dined with your grandmamma on the Saturday, with my poor
wife. Why, bless my soul! I remember the circumstance perfectly well,
my dear young lady. There can’t be a doubt about the letter, but of
course the bequest is no bequest at all, and Colonel Newcome has
behaved so ill to your brother that I suppose Sir Barnes will not go
out of his way to benefit the Colonel.”
“What would you do, Mr. Luce?” asks the young lady.
“H’m! And pray why should I tell you what I should do under the
circumstances?” replied the little lawyer. “Upon my word, Miss Newcome,
I think I should leave matters as they stand. Sir Barnes and I, you are
aware, are not the very best of friends—as your father’s, your
grandmother’s old friend and adviser, your own too, my dear young lady,
I and Sir Barnes Newcome remain on civil terms. But neither is over
much pleased with the other, to say the truth; and, at any rate, I
cannot be accused—nor can any one else that I know of—of being a very
warm partisan of your brother’s. But candidly, were his case mine—had I
a relation who had called me unpleasant names, and threatened me I
don’t know with what, with sword and pistol—who had put me to five or
six thousand pounds’ expense in contesting an election which I had
lost,—I should give him, I think, no more than the law obliged me to
give him; and that, my dear Miss Newcome, is not one farthing.”
“I am very glad you say so,” said Miss Newcome, rather to my
astonishment.
“Of course, my dear young lady; and so you need not be alarmed at
showing your brother this document. Is not that the point about which
you came to consult me? You wished that I should prepare him for the
awful disclosure, did you not? You know, perhaps, that he does not like
to part with his money, and thought the appearance of this note might
agitate him? It has been a long time coming to its address, but nothing
can be done, don’t you see? and be sure Sir Barnes Newcome will not be
the least agitated when I tell him its contents.”
“I mean I am very glad you think my brother is not called upon to obey
Mrs. Newcome’s wishes, because I need not think so hardly of him as I
was disposed to do,” Miss Newcome said. “I showed him the paper this
morning, and he repelled it with scorn; and not kind words passed
between us, Mr. Luce, and unkind thoughts remained in my mind. But if
he, you think, is justified, it is I who have been in the wrong for
saying that he was self—for upbraiding him as I own I did.”
“You called him selfish!—You had words with him! Such things have
happened before, my dear Miss Newcome, in the best-regulated families.”
“But if he is not wrong, sir, holding his opinions, surely I should be
wrong, sir, with mine, not to do as my conscience tells me; and having
found this paper only yesterday at Newcome, in the library there, in
one of my grandmother’s books, I consulted with this gentleman, the
husband of my dearest friend, Mrs. Pendennis—the most intimate friend
of my uncle and cousin Clive; and I wish, and I desire and insist, that
my share of what my poor father left us girls should be given to my
cousin, Mr. Clive Newcome, in accordance with my grandmother’s dying
wishes.”
“My dear, you gave away your portion to your brothers and sisters ever
so long ago!” cried the lawyer.
“I desire, sir, that six thousand pounds may be given to my cousin,”
Miss Newcome said, blushing deeply. “My dear uncle, the best man in the
world, whom I love with all my heart, sir, is in the most dreadful
poverty. Do you know where he is, sir? My dear, kind, generous
uncle!”—and, kindling as she spoke, and with eyes beaming a bright
kindness, and flushing cheeks, and a voice that thrilled to the heart
of those two who heard her, Miss Newcome went on to tell of her uncle’s
and cousin’s misfortunes, and of her wish, under God, to relieve them.
I see before me now the figure of the noble girl as she speaks; the
pleased little old lawyer, bobbing his white head, looking up at her
with his twinkling eyes—patting his knees, patting his snuff-box—as he
sits before his tapes and his deeds, surrounded by a great background
of tin boxes.
“And I understand you want this money paid as coming from the family,
and not from Miss Newcome?” says Mr. Luce.
“Coming from the family—exactly,” answers Miss Newcome.
Mr. Luce rose up from his old chair—his worn-out old horsehair
chair—where he had sat for half a century and listened to many a
speaker, very different from this one. “Mr. Pendennis,” he said, “I
envy you your journey along with this young lady. I envy you the good
news you are going to carry to your friends—and, Miss Newcome, as I am
an old—old gentleman who have known your family these sixty years, and
saw your father in his long-clothes, may I tell you how heartily and
sincerely I—I love and respect you, my dear? When should you wish Mr.
Clive Newcome to have his legacy?”
“I think I should like Mr. Pendennis to have it this instant, Mr. Luce,
please,” said the young lady—and her veil dropped over her face as she
bent her head down, and clasped her hands together for a moment, as if
she was praying.
Mr. Luce laughed at her impetuosity; but said that if she was bent upon
having the money, it was at her instant service; and before we left the
room, Mr. Luce prepared a letter, addressed to Clive Newcome, Esquire,
in which he stated, that amongst the books of the late Mrs. Newcome a
paper had only just been found, of which a copy was enclosed, and that
the family of the late Sir Brian Newcome, desirous to do honour to the
wishes of the late Mrs. Newcome, had placed the sum of 6000 pounds at
the bank of Messrs. H. W——, at the disposal of Mr. Clive Newcome, of
whom Mr. Luce had the honour to sign himself the most obedient servant,
etc. And, the letter approved and copied, Mr. Luce said Mr. Pendennis
might be the postman thereof; if Miss Newcome so willed it; and, with
this document in my pocket, I quitted the lawyer’s chambers, with my
good and beautiful young companion.
Our cab had been waiting several hours in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and I
asked Miss Ethel whither I now should conduct her?
“Where is Grey Friars?” she said. “Mayn’t I go to see my uncle?”
CHAPTER LXXIX.
In which Old Friends come together
We made the descent of Snowhill, we passed by the miry pens of
Smithfield; we travel through the street of St. John, and presently
reach the ancient gateway, in Cistercian Square, where lies the old
Hospital of Grey Friars. I passed through the gate, my fair young
companion on my arm, and made my way to the rooms occupied by brother
Newcome.
As we traversed the court the Poor Brothers were coming from dinner. A
couple of score, or more, of old gentlemen in black gowns, issued from
the door of their refectory, and separated over the court, betaking
themselves to their chambers. Ethel’s arm trembled under mine as she
looked at one and another, expecting to behold her dear uncle’s
familiar features. But he was not among the brethren. We went to his
chamber, of which the door was open: a female attendant was arranging
the room; she told us Colonel Newcome was out for the day, and thus our
journey had been made in vain.
Ethel went round the apartment and surveyed its simple decorations; she
looked at the pictures of Clive and his boy; the two sabres crossed
over the mantelpiece, the Bible laid on the table, by the old latticed
window. She walked slowly up to the humble bed, and sat down on a chair
near it. No doubt her heart prayed for him who slept there; she turned
round where his black pensioner’s cloak was hanging on the wall, and
lifted up the homely garment, and kissed it. The servant looked on
admiring, I should think, her melancholy and her gracious beauty. I
whispered to the woman that the young lady was the Colonel’s niece. “He
has a son who comes here, and is very handsome, too,” said the
attendant.
The two women spoke together for a while. “Oh, miss!” cried the elder
and humbler, evidently astonished at some gratuity which Miss Newcome
bestowed upon her, “I didn’t want this to be good to him. Everybody
here loves him for himself; and I would sit up for him for weeks—that I
would.”
My companion took a pencil from her bag, and wrote “Ethel” on a piece
of paper, and laid the paper on the Bible. Darkness had again fallen by
this time, feeble lights were twinkling in the chamber windows of the
Poor Brethren as we issued into the courts;—feeble lights illumining a
dim, grey, melancholy old scene. Many a career, once bright, was
flickering out here in the darkness; many a night was closing in. We
went away silently from that quiet place; and in another minute were in
the flare and din and tumult of London.
“The Colonel is most likely gone to Clive’s,” I said. Would not Miss
Newcome follow him thither? We consulted whether she should go. She
took heart and said yes. “Drive, cabman, to Howland Street!” The horse
was, no doubt, tired, for the journey seemed extraordinarily long; I
think neither of us spoke a word on the way.
I ran upstairs to prepare our friends for the visit. Clive, his wife,
his father, and his mother-in-law were seated by a dim light in Mrs.
Clive’s sitting-room. Rosey on the sofa, as usual; the little boy on
his grandfather’s knees.
I hardly made a bow to the ladies, so eager was I to communicate with
Colonel Newcome. “I have just been to your quarters at Grey Friars,
sir,” said I. “That is——”
“You have been to the Hospital, sir! You need not be ashamed to mention
it, as Colonel Newcome is not ashamed _to go there_,” cried out the
Campaigner. “Pray speak in your own language, Clive, unless there is
something _not fit_ for ladies to hear.” Clive was growling out to me
in German that there had just been a terrible scene, his father having,
a quarter of an hour previously, let slip the secret about Grey Friars.
“Say at once, Clive!” the Campaigner cried, rising in her might, and
extending a great strong arm over her helpless child, “that Colonel
Newcome owns that he has gone to live as a pauper in a hospital! He who
has squandered his own money. He who has squandered my money. He who
has squandered the money of that darling helpless child—compose
yourself, Rosey my love!—has completed the disgrace of the family, by
his present mean and unworthy—yes, I say, mean and _unworthy_ and
_degraded_ conduct. Oh, my child, my blessed child! to think that your
husband’s father should have come to a _workhouse!_” Whilst this
maternal agony bursts over her, Rosa, on the sofa, bleats and whimpers
amongst the faded chintz cushions.
I took Clive’s hand, which was cast up to his head striking his
forehead with mad impotent rage, whilst this fiend of a woman lashed
his good father. The veins of his great fist were swollen, his whole
body was throbbing and trembling with the helpless pain under which he
writhed. “Colonel Newcome’s friends, ma’am,”, I said, “think very
differently from you; and that he is a better judge than you, or any
one else, of his own honour. We all, who loved him in his prosperity,
love and respect him more than ever for the manner in which he bears
his misfortune. Do you suppose that his noble friend, the Earl of H——,
would have counselled him to a step unworthy of a gentleman; that the
Prince de Moncontour would applaud his conduct as he does, if he did
not think it admirable?” I can hardly say with what scorn I used this
argument, or what depth of contempt I felt for the woman whom I knew it
would influence. “And at this minute,” I added, “I have come from
visiting the Gray Friars with one of the Colonel’s relatives, whose
love and respect for him is boundless; who longs to be reconciled to
him, and who is waiting below, eager to shake his hand, and embrace
Clive’s wife.”
“Who is that?” says the Colonel, looking gently up, as he pats Boy’s
head.
“Who is it, Pen?” says Clive. I said in a low voice, “Ethel;” and
starting up and crying “Ethel! Ethel!” he ran from the room.
Little Mrs. Rosa started up too on her sofa, clutching hold of the
table-cover with her lean hand, and the two red spots on her cheeks
burning more fiercely than ever. I could see what passion was beating
in that poor little heart. “Heaven help us! what a resting-place had
friends and parents prepared for it! for shame!”
“Miss Newcome, is it? My darling Rosa, get on your shawl!” cried the
Campaigner, a grim smile lighting her face.
“It is Ethel; Ethel is my niece. I used to love her when she was quite
a little girl,” says the Colonel, patting Boy on the head; “and she is
a very good, beautiful little child—a very good child.” The torture had
been too much for that kind old heart: there were times when Thomas
Newcome passed beyond it. What still maddened Clive, excited his father
no more; the pain yonder woman inflicted, only felled and stupefied
him.
As the door opened, the little white-headed child trotted forward
towards the visitor, and Ethel entered on Clive’s arm, who was as
haggard and pale as death. Little Boy, looking up at the stately lady,
still followed beside her, as she approached her uncle, who remained
sitting, his head bent to the ground. His thoughts were elsewhere.
Indeed he was following the child, and about to caress it again.
“Here is a friend, father!” says Clive, laying a hand on the old man’s
shoulder. “It is I, Ethel, uncle!” the young lady said, taking his
hand; and kneeling down between his knees, she flung her arms round
him, and kissed him, and wept on his shoulder.
His consciousness had quite returned ere an instant was over. He
embraced her with the warmth of his old affection, uttering many brief
words of love, kindness, and tenderness, such as men speak when
strongly moved.
The little boy had come wondering up to the chair whilst this embrace
took place, and Clive’s tall figure bent over the three. Rosa’s eyes
were not good to look at, as she stared at the group with a ghastly
smile. Mrs. Mackenzie surveyed the scene in haughty state, from behind
the sofa cushions. She tried to take one of Rosa’s lean hot hands. The
poor child tore it away, leaving her rings behind her; lifted her hands
to her face: and cried, cried as if her little heart would break. Ah
me! what a story was there! what an outburst of pent-up feeling! what a
passion of pain! The ring had fallen to the ground; the little boy
crept towards it, and picked it up, and came towards his mother, fixing
on her his large wondering eyes. “Mamma crying. Mamma’s ring!” he said,
holding up the circle of gold. With more feeling than I had ever seen
her exhibit, she clasped the boy in her wasted arms. Great Heaven! what
passion, jealousy, grief, despair, were tearing and trying all these
hearts, that but for fate might have been happy?
Clive went round, and with the utmost sweetness and tenderness hanging
round his child and wife, soothed her with words of consolation, that
in truth I scarce heard, being ashamed almost of being present at this
sudden scene. No one, however, took notice of the witnesses; and even
Mrs. Mackenzie’s voice was silent for the moment. I dare say Clive’s
words were incoherent; but women have more presence of mind; and now
Ethel, with a noble grace which I cannot attempt to describe, going up
to Rosa, seated herself by her, spoke of her long grief at the
differences between her dearest uncle and herself; of her early days,
when he had been as a father to her; of her wish, her hope that Rosa
should love her as a sister; and of her belief that better days and
happiness were in store for them all. And she spoke to the mother about
her boy so beautiful and intelligent, and told her how she had brought
up her brother’s children, and hoped that this one too would call her
Aunt Ethel. She would not stay now, might she come again? Would Rosa
come to her with her little boy? Would he kiss her? He did so with a
very good grace; but when Ethel at parting embraced the child’s mother,
Rosa’s face wore a smile ghastly to look at, and the lips that touched
Ethel’s cheeks, were quite white.
“I shall come and see you again to-morrow, uncle, may I not? I saw your
room to-day, sir, and your housekeeper; such a nice old lady, and your
black gown. And you shall put it on to-morrow, and walk with me, and
show me the beautiful old buildings of that old hospital. And I shall
come and make tea for you, the housekeeper says I may. Will you come
down with me to my carriage? No, Mr. Pendennis must come;” and she
quitted the room, beckoning me after her. “You will speak to Clive now,
won’t you?” she said, “and come to me this evening, and tell me all
before you go to bed?” I went back, anxious in truth to the messenger
of good tidings to my dear old friends.
Brief as my absence had been, Mrs. Mackenzie had taken advantage of
that moment again to outrage Clive and his father, and to announce that
Rosa might go to see this Miss Newcome, whom people respected because
she was rich, but whom _she_ would never visit; no, never! “An
insolent, proud, impertinent thing! Does she take me for a housemaid?”
Mrs. Mackenzie had inquired.
“Am I dust to be trampled beneath her feet? Am I a dog that she can’t
throw me a word?” Her arms were stretched out, and she was making this
inquiry as to her own canine qualities as I re-entered the room, and
remembered that Ethel had never once addressed a single word to Mrs.
Mackenzie in the course of her visit.
I affected not to perceive the incident, and presently said that I
wanted to speak to Clive in his studio. Knowing that I had brought my
friend one or two commissions for drawings, Mrs. Mackenzie was civil to
me, and did not object to our colloquies.
“Will you come too, and smoke a pipe, father?” says Clive.
“_Of course_ your father intends to stay to _dinner?_” says the
Campaigner, with a scornful toss of her head. Clive groaned out as we
were on the stair, “that he could not bear this much longer, by heavens
he could not.”
“Give the Colonel his pipe, Clive,” said I. “Now, sir, down with you in
the sitter’s chair, and smoke the sweetest cheroot you ever smoked in
your life! My dear, dear old Clive! you need not bear with the
Campaigner any longer; you may go to bed without this nightmare
to-night if you like; you may have your father back under your roof
again.”
“My dear Arthur! I must be back at ten, sir, back at ten, military
time; drum beats; no—bell tolls at ten, and gates close;” and he
laughed and shook his old head. “Besides, I am to see a young lady,
sir; and she is coming to make tea for me, and I must speak to Mrs.
Jones to have all things ready—all things ready;” and again the old man
laughed as he spoke.
His son looked at him and then at me with eyes full of sad meaning.
“How do you mean, Arthur,” Clive said, “that he can come and stay with
me, and that that woman can go?”
Then feeling in my pocket for Mr. Luce’s letter, I grasped my dear
Clive by the hand and bade him prepare for good news. I told him how
providentially, two days since, Ethel, in the library at Newcome,
looking into Orme’s History of India, a book which old Mrs. Newcome had
been reading on the night of her death, had discovered a paper, of
which the accompanying letter enclosed a copy, and I gave my friend the
letter.
He opened it, and read it through. I cannot say that I saw any
particular expression of wonder in his countenance, for somehow, all
the while Clive perused this document, I was looking at the Colonel’s
sweet kind face. “It—it is Ethel’s doing,” said Clive, in a hurried
voice. “There was no such letter.”
“Upon my honour,” I answered, “there was. We came up to London with it
last night, a few hours after she had found it. We showed it to Sir
Barnes Newcome, who—who could not disown it. We took it to Mr. Luce,
who recognised it at once, who was old Mrs. Newcome’s man of business,
and continues to be the family lawyer, and the family recognises the
legacy and has paid it, and you may draw for it to-morrow, as you see.
What a piece of good luck it is that it did not come before the B. B.
C. time! That confounded Bundelcund Bank would have swallowed up this
like all the rest.”
“Father! father! do you remember Orme’s History of India?” cries Clive.
“Orme’s History! of course I do, I could repeat whole pages of it when
I was a boy,” says the old man, and began forthwith. “‘The two
battalions advanced against each other cannonading, until the French,
coming to a hollow way, imagined that the English would not venture to
pass it. But Major Lawrence ordered the sepoys and artillery—the sepoys
and artillery to halt and defend the convoy against the
Morattoes’—Morattoes Orme calls ’em. Ho! ho! I could repeat whole
pages, sir.”
“It is the best book that ever was written,” calls out Clive. The
Colonel said he had not read it, but he was informed Mr. Mill’s was a
very learned history; he intended to read it. “Eh! there is plenty of
time now,” said the good Colonel. “I have all day long at Grey
Friars,—after chapel, you know. Do you know, sir, when I was a boy I
used what they call to tib out and run down to a public-house in
Cistercian Lane—the Red Cowl sir,—and buy rum there? I was a terrible
wild boy, Clivy. You weren’t so, sir, thank Heaven! A terrible wild
boy, and my poor father flogged me, though I think it was very hard on
me. It wasn’t the pain, you know: it wasn’t the pain, but——” Here tears
came into his eyes and he dropped his head on his hand, and the cigar
from it fell on to the floor, burnt almost out, and scattering white
ashes.
Clive looked sadly at me. “He was often so at Boulogne, Arthur,” he
whispered; “after a scene with that—that woman yonder, his head would
go: he never replied to her taunts; he bore her infernal cruelty
without an unkind word—Oh! I pay her back, thank God I can pay her! But
who shall pay her,” he said, trembling in every limb, “for what she has
made that good man suffer?”
He turned to his father, who still sate lost in his meditations. “You
need never go back to Grey Friars, father!” he cried out.
“Not go back, Clivy? Must go back, boy, to say Adsum, when my name is
called. Newcome! Adsum! Hey! that is what we used to say—we used to
say!”
“You need not go back, except to pack your things, and return and live
with me and Boy,” Clive continued, and he told Colonel Newcome rapidly
the story of the legacy. The old man seemed hardly to comprehend it.
When he did, the news scarcely elated him; when Clive said “they could
now pay Mrs. Mackenzie,” the Colonel replied, “Quite right, quite
right,” and added up the sum, principal and interest, in which they
were indebted to her—he knew it well enough, the good old man. “Of
course we shall pay her, Clivy, when we can!” But in spite of what
Clive had said he did not appear to understand the fact that the debt
to Mrs. Mackenzie was now actually to be paid.
As we were talking, a knock came to the studio door, and that summons
was followed by the entrance of the maid, who said to Clive, “If you
please, sir, Mrs. Mackenzie says, how long are you a-going to keep the
dinner waiting?”
“Come, father, come to dinner!” cries Clive; “and, Pen, you will come
too, won’t you?” he added; “it may be the last time you dine in such
pleasant company. Come along,” he whispered hurriedly. “I should like
you to be there, it will keep her tongue quiet.” As we proceeded to the
dining-room, I gave the Colonel my arm; and the good man prattled to me
something about Mrs. Mackenzie having taken shares in the Bundelcund
Banking Company, and about her not being a woman of business, and
fancying we had spent her money. “And I have always felt a wish that
Clivy should pay her, and he will pay her, I know he will,” says the
Colonel; “and then we shall lead a quiet life, Arthur; for, between
ourselves, some women are the deuce when they are angry, sir.” And
again he laughed, as he told me this sly news, and he bowed meekly his
gentle old head as we entered the dining-room.
That apartment was occupied by little Boy already seated in his high
chair, and by the Campaigner only, who stood at the mantelpiece in a
majestic attitude. On parting with her, before we adjourned to Clive’s
studio, I had made my bow and taken my leave in form, not supposing
that I was about to enjoy her hospitality yet once again. My return did
not seem to please her. “Does Mr. Pendennis favour us with his company
to dinner again, Clive?” she said, turning to her son-in-law. Clive
curtly said, Yes, he had asked Mr. Pendennis to stay.
“You might at least have been _so kind_ as to give me notice,” says the
Campaigner, still majestic, but ironical. “You will have but a poor
meal, Mr. Pendennis; and one such as I’m not accustomed to give my
guests.”
“Cold beef! what the deuce does it matter;” says Clive, beginning to
carve the joint, which, hot, had served our yesterday’s Christmas
table.
“It does matter, sir! I am not accustomed to treat my guests in this
way. Maria! who has been cutting that beef? Three pounds of that beef
have been cut away since one o’clock to-day,” and with flashing eyes,
and a finger twinkling all over with rings, she pointed towards the
guilty joint.
Whether Maria had been dispensing secret charities, or kept company
with an occult policeman partial to roast-beef, I do not know; but she
looked very much alarmed, and said, Indeed, and indeed, mum, she had
not touched a morsel of it!—not she.
“Confound the beef!” says Clive, carving on.
“She _has_ been cutting it!” cries the Campaigner, bringing her fist
down with a thump upon the table. “Mr. Pendennis! you saw the beef
yesterday; eighteen pounds it weighed, and this is what comes up of it!
As if there was not already ruin enough in the house!”
“D—n the beef!” cries out Clive.
“No! no! Thank God for our good dinner! Benedicti benedicamus, Clivy my
boy,” says the Colonel, in a tremulous voice.
“Swear on, sir! let the child hear your oaths! Let my blessed child,
who is too ill to sit at table and picks her bite! sweetbread on her
sofa,—which her poor mother prepares for her, Mr. Pendennis,—which I
cooked it, and gave it to her with _these hands_,—let _her_ hear your
curses and blasphemies, Clive Newcome! They are loud enough.”
“Do let us have a quiet life,” groans out Clive; and for me, I must
confess, I kept my eyes steadily down upon my plate, nor dared to lift
them until my portion of cold beef had vanished.
No further outbreak took place until the appearance of the second
course, which consisted, as the ingenious reader may suppose, of the
plum-pudding, now in a grilled state, and the remanent of mince-pies
from yesterday’s meal. Maria, I thought, looked particularly guilty as
these delicacies were placed on the table: she set them down hastily,
and was for operating an instant retreat.
But the Campaigner shrieked after her, “Who has eaten that pudding? I
insist upon knowing who has eaten it. I saw it at two o’clock when I
went down to the kitchen and fried a bit for my darling child, and
there’s pounds of it gone since then! There were five mince-pies! Mr.
Pendennis! you saw yourself there were five that went away from table
yesterday—where’s the other two Maria? You leave the house this night,
you thieving, wicked wretch—and I’ll thank you to come back to me
afterwards for a character. Thirteen servants have we had in nine
months, Mr. Pendennis, and this girl is the worst of them all, and the
greatest liar and the greatest thief.”
At this charge the outraged Maria stood up in arms, and as the phrase
is, gave the Campaigner as good as she got. Go! wouldn’t she go? Pay
her her wages, and let her go out of that ell upon hearth, was Maria’s
prayer. “It isn’t you, sir,” she said, turning to Clive. “_You_ are
good enough, and works hard enough to git the guineas which you give
out to pay that doctor; and she don’t pay him—and I see five of them in
her purse wrapped up in paper, myself I did, and she abuses you to
him—and I heard her, and Jane Black, who was here before, told me she
heard her. Go! won’t I just go, I dispises your puddens and pies!” and
with a laugh of scorn this rude Maria snapped her black fingers in the
immediate vicinity of the Campaigner’s nose.
“I will pay her her wages, and she shall go this instant!” says Mrs.
Mackenzie, taking her purse out.
“Pay me with them suvverings that you have got in it, wrapped up in
paper. See if she haven’t, Mr. Newcome,” the refractory waiting-woman
cried out, and again she laughed a strident laugh.
Mrs. Mackenzie briskly shut her portemonnaie, and rose up from table,
quivering with indignant virtue. “Go!” she exclaimed, “go and pack your
trunks this instant! you quit the house this night, and a policeman
shall see to your boxes before you leave it!”
Whilst uttering this sentence against the guilty Maria, the Campaigner
had intended, no doubt, to replace her purse in her pocket,—a handsome
filagree gimcrack of poor Ross’s, one of the relics of former
splendours,—but, agitated by Maria’s insolence, the trembling hand
missed the mark, and the purse fell to the ground.
Maria dashed at the purse in a moment, with a scream of laughter shook
its contents upon the table, and sure enough, five little packets
wrapped in paper rolled out upon the cloth, besides bank-notes and
silver and golden coin. “I’m to go, am I? I’m a thief, am I?” screamed
the girl, clapping her hands. “_I_ sor ’em yesterday when I was
a-lacing of her; and thought of that pore young man working night and
day to get the money;—me a thief, indeed!—I despise you, and _I_ give
you warning.”
“Do you wish to see me any longer insulted by this woman, Clive? Mr.
Pendennis, I am shocked that you should witness such horrible
vulgarity,” cries the Campaigner, turning to her guest. “Does the
wretched creature suppose that I, I who have given _thousands_, I who
have denied myself _everything_, I who have spent my _all_ in support
of this house; and Colonel Newcome _knows_ whether I have given
thousands or not, and _who_ has spent them, and _who_ has been robbed,
I say, and——”
“Here! you! Maria! go about your business,” shouted out Clive Newcome,
starting up; “go and pack your trunks if you like, and pack this
woman’s trunks too. Mrs. Mackenzie, I can bear you no more; go in
peace, and if you wish to see your daughter she shall come to you; but
I will never, so help me God! sleep under the same roof with you; or
break the same crust with you; or bear your infernal cruelty; or sit to
hear my father insulted; or listen to your wicked pride and folly more.
There has not been a day since you thrust your cursed foot into our
wretched house, but you have tortured one and all of us. Look here, at
the best gentleman, and the kindest heart in all the world, you fiend!
and see to what a condition you have brought him! Dearest father! she
is going, do you hear? She leaves us, and you will come back to me,
won’t you? Great God, woman,” he gasped out, “do you know what you have
made me suffer—what you have done to this good man? Pardon, father,
pardon!”—and he sank down by his father’s side, sobbing with passionate
emotion. The old man even now did not seem to comprehend the scene.
When he heard that woman’s voice in anger, a sort of stupor came over
him.
“I am a _fiend_, am I?” cries the lady. “You hear, Mr. Pendennis, this
is the language to which I am accustomed; I am a widow, and I trusted
my child and my all to that old man; he robbed me and my darling of
almost every farthing we had; and what has been my return for such
baseness? I have lived in this house and toiled like a _slave;_ I have
acted as servant to my blessed child; night after night I have sat with
her; and month after month, when _her husband_ has been away, I have
nursed that poor innocent; and the father having robbed me, the son
turns me out of doors!”
A sad thing it was to witness, and a painful proof how frequent were
these battles, that, as this one raged, the poor little boy sat almost
careless, whilst his bewildered grandfather stroked his golden head.
“It is quite clear to me, madam,” I said, turning to Mrs. Mackenzie,
“that you and your son-in-law are better apart; and I came to tell him
to-day of a most fortunate legacy, which has been left to him, and
which will enable him to pay you to-morrow morning every shilling,
every shilling which he does NOT owe you?”
“I will not leave this house until I am paid every shilling of which I
have been robbed,” hissed out Mrs. Mackenzie; and she sat down, folding
her arms across her chest.
“I am sorry,” groaned out Clive, wiping the sweat off his brow, “I used
a harsh word; I will never sleep under the same roof with you.
To-morrow I will pay you what you claim; and the best chance I have of
forgiving you the evil which you have done me, is that we never should
meet again. Will you give me a bed at your house, Arthur? Father, will
you come out and walk? Good night, Mrs. Mackenzie; Pendennis will
settle with you in the morning. You will not be here, if you please,
when I return; and so God forgive you, and farewell.”
Mrs. Mackenzie in a tragic manner dashed aside the hand which poor
Clive held out to her, and disappeared from the scene of this dismal
dinner. Boy presently fell a-crying; in spite of all the battle and
fury, there was sleep in his eyes.
“Maria is too busy, I suppose, to put him to bed,” said Clive, with a
sad smile; “shall we do it, father? Come, Tommy, my son!” and he folded
his arms round the child, and walked with him to the upper regions. The
old man’s eyes lighted up; his seared thoughts returned to him; he
followed his two children up the stairs, and saw his grandson in his
little bed; and, as we walked home with him, he told me how sweetly Boy
said “Our Father,” and prayed God bless all those who loved him, as
they laid him to rest.
So these three generations had joined in that supplication: the strong
man, humbled by trial and grief, whose loyal heart was yet full of
love;—the child, of the sweet age of those little ones whom the Blessed
Speaker of the prayer first bade to come unto Him;—and the old man,
whose heart was well-nigh as tender and as innocent; and whose day was
approaching, when he should be drawn to the bosom of the Eternal Pity.
CHAPTER LXXX.
In which the Colonel says “Adsum” when his Name is called
The vow which Clive had uttered, never to share bread with his
mother-in-law, or sleep under the same roof with her, was broken on the
very next day. A stronger will than the young man’s intervened, and he
had to confess the impotence of his wrath before that superior power.
In the forenoon of the day following that unlucky dinner, I went with
my friend to the banking-house whither Mr. Luce’s letter directed us,
and carried away with me the principal sum, in which the Campaigner
said Colonel Newcome was indebted to her, with the interest accurately
computed and reimbursed. Clive went off with a pocketful of money to
the dear old Poor Brother of Grey Friars; and he promised to return
with his father, and dine with my wife in Queen Square. I had received
a letter from Laura by the morning’s post, announcing her return by the
express train from Newcome, and desiring that a spare bedroom should be
got ready for a friend who accompanied her.
On reaching Howland Street, Clive’s door was opened, rather to my
surprise, by the rebellious maid-servant who had received her dismissal
on the previous night; and the doctor’s carriage drove up as she was
still speaking to me. The polite practitioner sped upstairs to Mrs.
Newcome’s apartment. Mrs. Mackenzie, in a robe-de-chambre and cap very
different from yesterday’s, came out eagerly to meet the physician on
the landing. Ere they had been a quarter of an hour together, arrived a
cab, which discharged an elderly person with her bandbox and bundles; I
had no difficulty in recognising a professional nurse in the new-comer.
She too disappeared into the sick-room, and left me sitting in the
neighbouring chamber, the scene of the last night’s quarrel.
Hither presently came to me Maria, the maid. She said she had not the
heart to go away now she was wanted; that they had passed a sad night,
and that no one had been to bed. Master Tommy was below, and the
landlady taking care of him: the landlord had gone out for the nurse.
Mrs. Clive had been taken bad after Mr. Clive went away the night
before. Mrs. Mackenzie had gone to the poor young thing, and there she
went on, crying, and screaming, and stamping, as she used to do in her
tantrums, which was most cruel of her, and made Mrs. Clive so ill. And
presently the young lady began: my informant told me. She came
screaming into the sitting-room, her hair over her shoulders, calling
out she was deserted, deserted, and would like to die. She was like a
mad woman for some time. She had fit after fit of hysterics: and there
was her mother, kneeling, and crying, and calling out to her darling
child to calm herself;—which it was all her own doing, and she had much
better have held her own tongue, remarked the resolute Maria. I
understood only too well from the girl’s account what had happened, and
that Clive, if resolved to part with his mother-in-law, should not have
left her, even for twelve hours, in possession of his house. The
wretched woman, whose Self was always predominant, and who, though she
loved her daughter after her own fashion, never forgot her own vanity
or passion, had improved the occasion of Clive’s absence: worked upon
her child’s weakness, jealousy, ill-health, and driven her, no doubt,
into the fever which yonder physician was called to quell.
The doctor presently enters to write a prescription, followed by
Clive’s mother-in-law, who had cast Rosa’s fine Cashmere shawl over her
shoulders, to hide her disarray. “You here still, Mr. Pendennis!” she
exclaims. She knew I was there. Had not she changed her dress in order
to receive me?
“I have to speak to you for two minutes on important business, and then
I shall go,” I replied gravely.
“Oh, sir! to what a scene you have come! To what a state has Clive’s
conduct last night driven my darling child!”
As the odious woman spoke so, the doctor’s keen eyes, looking up from
the prescription, caught mine. “I declare before Heaven, madam,” I said
hotly, “I believe you yourself are the cause of your daughter’s present
illness, as you have been of the misery of my friends.”
“Is this, sir,” she was breaking out, “is this language to be used
to——?”
“Madam, will you be silent?” I said. “I am come to bid you farewell on
the part of those whom your temper has driven into infernal torture. I
am come to pay you every halfpenny of the sum which my friends do not
owe you, but which they restore. Here is the account, and here is the
money to settle it. And I take this gentleman to witness, to whom, no
doubt, you have imparted what you call your wrongs” (the doctor smiled,
and shrugged his shoulders) “that now you are paid.”
“A widow—a poor, lonely, insulted widow!” cries the Campaigner, with
trembling hands taking possession of the notes.
“And I wish to know,” I continued, “when my friend’s house will be free
to him, and he can return in peace.”
Here Rosa’s voice was heard from the inner apartment, screaming,
“Mamma, mamma!”
“I go to my child, sir,” she said. “If Captain Mackenzie had been
alive, you would not have _dared_ to insult me so.” And carrying off
her money, she left us.
“Cannot she be got out of the house?” I said to the doctor. “My friend
will never return until she leaves it. It is my belief she is the cause
of her daughter’s present illness.”
“Not altogether, my dear sir. Mrs. Newcome was in a very, very delicate
state of health. Her mother is a lady of impetuous temper, who
expresses herself very strongly—too strongly, I own. In consequence of
unpleasant family discussions, which no physician can prevent, Mrs.
Newcome has been wrought up to a state of—of agitation. Her fever is,
in fact, at present very high. You know her condition. I am
apprehensive of ulterior consequences. I have recommended an excellent
and experienced nurse to her. Mr. Smith, the medical man at the corner,
is a most able practitioner. I shall myself call again in a few hours,
and I trust that, after the event which I apprehend, everything will go
well.
“Cannot Mrs. Mackenzie leave the house, sir?” I asked.
“Her daughter cries out for her at every moment. Mrs. Mackenzie is
certainly not a judicious nurse, but in Mrs. Newcome’s present state I
cannot take upon myself to separate them. Mr. Newcome may return, and I
do think and believe that his presence may tend to impose silence and
restore tranquillity.”
I had to go back to Clive with these gloomy tidings. The poor fellow
must put up a bed in his studio, and there await the issue of his
wife’s illness. I saw Thomas Newcome could not sleep under his son’s
roof that night. That dear meeting, which both so desired, was delayed,
who could say for how long?
“The Colonel may come to us,” I thought; “our old house is big enough.”
I guessed who was the friend coming in my wife’s company; and pleased
myself by thinking that two friends so dear should meet in our home.
Bent upon these plans, I repaired to Grey Friars, and to Thomas
Newcome’s chamber there.
Bayham opened the door when I knocked, and came towards me with a
finger on his lip, and a sad, sad countenance. He closed the door
gently behind him, and led me into the court. “Clive is with him, and
Miss Newcome. He is very ill. He does not know them,” said Bayham with
a sob. “He calls out for both of them: they are sitting there and he
does not know them.”
In a brief narrative, broken by more honest tears, Fred Bayham, as we
paced up and down the court, told me what had happened. The old man
must have passed a sleepless night, for on going to his chamber in the
morning, his attendant found him dressed in his chair, and his bed
undisturbed. He must have sat all through the bitter night without a
fire: but his hands were burning hot, and he rambled in his talk. He
spoke of some one coming to drink tea with him, pointed to the fire,
and asked why it was not made; he would not go to bed, though the nurse
pressed him. The bell began to ring for morning chapel; he got up and
went towards his gown, groping towards it as though he could hardly
see, and put it over his shoulders, and would go out, but he would have
fallen in the court if the good nurse had not given him her arm; and
the physician of the hospital, passing fortunately at this moment, who
had always been a great friend of Colonel Newcome’s, insisted upon
leading him back to his room again, and got him to bed. “When the bell
stopped, he wanted to rise once more; he fancied he was a boy at school
again,” said the nurse, “and that he was going in to Dr. Raine, who was
schoolmaster here ever so many years ago.” So it was, that when happier
days seemed to be dawning for the good man, that reprieve came too
late. Grief, and years, and humiliation, and care, and cruelty had been
too strong for him, and Thomas Newcome was stricken down.
Bayham’s story told, I entered the room, over which the twilight was
falling, and saw the figures of Clive and Ethel seated at each end of
the bed. The poor old man within it was calling incoherent sentences. I
had to call Clive from the present grief before him, with intelligence
of further sickness awaiting him at home. Our poor patient did not heed
what I said to his son. “You must go home to Rosa,” Ethel said. “She
will be sure to ask for her husband, and forgiveness is best, dear
Clive. I will stay with uncle. I will never leave him. Please God, he
will be better in the morning when you come back.” So Clive’s duty
called him to his own sad home; and, the bearer of dismal tidings, I
returned to mine. The fires were lit there and the table spread; and
kind hearts were waiting to welcome the friend who never more was to
enter my door.
It may be imagined that the intelligence which I brought alarmed and
afflicted my wife and Madame de Florac, our guest. Laura immediately
went away to Rosa’s house to offer her services if needed. The accounts
which she brought thence were very bad: Clive came to her for a minute
or two, but Mrs. Mackenzie could not see her. Should she not bring the
little boy home to her children? Laura asked; and Clive thankfully
accepted that offer. The little man slept in our nursery that night,
and was at play with our young ones on the morrow—happy and unconscious
of the fate impending over his home.
Yet two more days passed, and I had to take two advertisements to _The
Times_ newspaper on the part of poor Clive. Among the announcements of
Births was printed, “On the 28th, in Howland Street, Mrs. Clive Newcome
of a son, still-born.” And a little lower, in the third division of the
same column, appeared the words, “On the 29th, in Howland Street, aged
26, Rosa, wife of Clive Newcome, Esq.” So, one day, shall the names of
all of us be written there; to be deplored by how many?—to be
remembered how long?—to occasion what tears, praises, sympathy,
censure?—yet for a day or two, while the busy world has time to
recollect us who have passed beyond it. So this poor little flower had
bloomed for its little day, and pined, and withered, and perished.
There was only one friend by Clive’s side following the humble
procession which laid poor Rosa and her child out of sight of a world
that had been but unkind to her. Not many tears were there to water her
lonely little grave. A grief that was akin to shame and remorse humbled
him as he knelt over her. Poor little harmless lady! no more childish
triumphs and vanities, no more hidden griefs are you to enjoy or
suffer; and earth closes over your simple pleasures and tears! The snow
was falling and whitening the coffin as they lowered it into the
ground. It was at the same cemetery in which Lady Kew was buried. I
dare say the same clergyman read the same service over the two graves,
as he will read it for you or any of us to-morrow, and until his own
turn comes. Come away from the place, poor Clive! Come sit with your
orphan little boy; and bear him on your knee, and hug him to your
heart. He seems yours now, and all a father’s love may pour out upon
him. Until this hour, Fate uncontrollable and homely tyranny had
separated him from you.
It was touching to see the eagerness and tenderness with which the
great strong man now assumed the guardianship of the child, and endowed
him with his entire wealth of affection. The little boy now ran to
Clive whenever he came in, and sat for hours prattling to him. He would
take the boy out to walk, and from our windows we could see Clive’s
black figure striding over the snow in St. James’s Park, the little man
trotting beside him, or perched on his father’s shoulder. My wife and I
looked at them one morning as they were making their way towards the
City.
“He has inherited that loving heart from his father,” Laura said; “and
he is paying over the whole property to his son.”
Clive, and the boy sometimes with him, used to go daily to Grey Friars,
where the Colonel still lay ill. After some days the fever which had
attacked him left him, but left him so weak and enfeebled that he could
only go from his bed to the chair by his fireside. The season was
exceedingly bitter, the chamber which he inhabited was warm and
spacious; it was considered unadvisable to move him until he had
attained greater strength, and till warmer weather. The medical men of
the House hoped he might rally in spring. My friend, Dr. Goodenough,
came to him; he hoped too: but not with a hopeful face. A chamber,
luckily vacant, hard by the Colonel’s, was assigned to his friends,
where we sate when we were too many for him. Besides his customary
attendant, he had two dear and watchful nurses, who were almost always
with him—Ethel and Madame de Florac, who had passed many a faithful
year by an old man’s bedside; who would have come, as to a work of
religion, to any sick couch, much more to this one, where he lay for
whose life she would once gladly have given her own.
But our Colonel, we all were obliged to acknowledge, was no more our
friend of old days. He knew us again, and was good to every one round
him, as his wont was; especially when Boy came, his old eyes lighted up
with simple happiness, and, with eager trembling hands, he would seek
under his bedclothes, or the pockets of his dressing-gown, for toys or
cakes, which he had caused to be purchased for his grandson. There was
a little laughing, red-cheeked, white-headed gown-boy of the school, to
whom the old man had taken a great fancy. One of the symptoms of his
returning consciousness and recovery, as we hoped, was his calling for
this child, who pleased our friend by his archness and merry ways; and
who, to the old gentleman’s unfailing delight, used to call him, “Codd
Colonel.” “Tell little F——, that Codd Colonel wants to see him;” and
the little gown-boy was brought to him; and the Colonel would listen to
him for hours; and hear all about his lessons and his play; and prattle
almost as childishly about Dr. Raine, and his own early school-days.
The boys of the school, it must be said, had heard the noble old
gentleman’s touching history, and had all got to know and love him.
They came every day to hear news of him; sent him in books and papers
to amuse him; and some benevolent young souls,—God’s blessing on all
honest boys, say I,—painted theatrical characters, and sent them in to
Codd Colonel’s grandson. The little fellow was made free of gown-boys,
and once came thence to his grandfather in a little gown, which
delighted the old man hugely. Boy said he would like to be a little
gown-boy; and I make no doubt, when he is old enough, his father will
get him that post, and put him under the tuition of my friend Dr.
Senior.
So, weeks passed away, during which our dear old friend still remained
with us. His mind was gone at intervals, but would rally feebly; and
with his consciousness returned his love, his simplicity, his
sweetness. He would talk French with Madame de Florac, at which time,
his memory appeared to awaken with surprising vividness, his cheek
flushed, and he was a youth again,—a youth all love and hope,—a
stricken old man, with a beard as white as snow covering the noble
careworn face. At such times he called her by her Christian name of
Léonore; he addressed courtly old words of regard and kindness to the
aged lady; anon he wandered in his talk, and spoke to her as if they
still were young. Now, as in those early days, his heart was pure; no
anger remained in it; no guile tainted it; only peace and goodwill
dwelt in it.
Rosa’s death had seemed to shock him for a while when the unconscious
little boy spoke of it. Before that circumstance, Clive had even
forbore to wear mourning, lest the news should agitate his father. The
Colonel remained silent and was very much disturbed all that day, but
he never appeared to comprehend the fact quite; and, once or twice
afterwards, asked, why she did not come to see him? She was prevented,
he supposed—she was prevented, he said, with a look of terror: he never
once otherwise alluded to that unlucky tyrant of his household, who had
made his last years so unhappy.
The circumstance of Clive’s legacy he never understood: but more than
once spoke of Barnes to Ethel, and sent his compliments to him, and
said he should like to shake him by the hand. Barnes Newcome never once
offered to touch that honoured hand, though his sister bore her uncle’s
message to him. They came often from Bryanstone Square; Mrs. Hobson
even offered to sit with the Colonel, and read to him, and brought him
books for his improvement. But her presence disturbed him; he cared not
for her books; the two nurses whom he loved faithfully watched him; and
my wife and I were admitted to him sometimes, both of whom he honoured
with regard and recognition. As for F. B., in order to be near his
Colonel, did not that good fellow take up his lodging in Cistercian
Lane, at the Red Cow? He is one whose errors, let us hope, shall be
pardoned, _quia multum amavit_. I am sure he felt ten times more joy at
hearing of Clive’s legacy, than if thousands had been bequeathed to
himself. May good health and good fortune speed him!
The days went on, and our hopes, raised sometimes, began to flicker and
fail. One evening the Colonel left his chair for his bed in pretty good
spirits, but passed a disturbed night, and the next morning was too
weak to rise. Then he remained in his bed, and his friends visited him
there. One afternoon he asked for his little gown-boy, and the child
was brought to him, and sate by the bed with a very awestricken face;
and then gathered courage, and tried to amuse him by telling him how it
was a half-holiday, and they were having a cricket-match with the St.
Peter’s boys in the green, and Grey Friars was in and winning. The
Colonel quite understood about it; he would like to see the game; he
had played many a game on that green when he was a boy. He grew
excited; Clive dismissed his father’s little friend, and put a
sovereign into his hand; and away he ran to say that Codd Colonel had
come into a fortune, and to buy tarts, and to see the match out. _I,
curre_, little white-haired gown-boy! Heaven speed you, little friend!
After the child had gone, Thomas Newcome began to wander more and more.
He talked louder; he gave the word of command, spoke Hindustanee as if
to his men. Then he spoke words in French rapidly, seizing a hand that
was near him and crying, “Toujours, toujours!” But it was Ethel’s hand
which he took.
Ethel and Clive and the nurse were in the room with him; the latter
came to us, who were sitting in the adjoining apartment; Madame de
Florac was there, with my wife and Bayham.
At the look in the woman’s countenance Madame de Florac started up. “He
is very bad, he wanders a great deal,” the nurse whispered. The French
lady fell instantly on her knees, and remained rigid in prayer.
Some time afterwards Ethel came in with a scared face to our pale
group. “He is calling for you again, dear lady,” she said, going up to
Madame de Florac, who was still kneeling; “and just now he said he
wanted Pendennis to take care of his boy. He will not know you.” She
hid her tears as she spoke.
She went into the room, where Clive was at the bed’s foot; the old man
within it talked on rapidly for a while: then again he would sigh and
be still: once more I heard him say hurriedly, “Take care of him while
I’m in India;” and then with a heart-rending voice he called out,
“Léonore, Léonore!” She was kneeling by his side now. The patient’s
voice sank into faint murmurs; only a moan now and then announced that
he was not asleep.
At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas
Newcome’s hands outside the bed feebly beat a time. And just as the
last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he
lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, “Adsum!” and fell back.
It was the word we used at school, when names were called; and lo, he,
whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name,
and stood in the presence of The Master.
Two years ago, walking with my children in some pleasant fields, near
to Berne in Switzerland, I strayed from them into a little wood; and,
coming out of it presently, told them how the story had been revealed
to me somehow, which for three-and-twenty months the reader has been
pleased to follow. As I write the last line with a rather sad heart,
Pendennis and Laura, and Ethel and Clive, fade away into Fable-land. I
hardly know whether they are not true: whether they do not live near us
somewhere. They were alive, and I heard their voices, but five minutes
since was touched by their grief. And have we parted with them here on
a sudden, and without so much as a shake of the hand? Is yonder line
(——), which I drew with my own pen, a barrier between me and Hades as
it were, across which I can see those figures retreating and only dimly
glimmering? Before taking leave of Mr. Arthur Pendennis, might he not
have told us whether Miss Ethel married anybody finally? It was
provoking that he should retire to the shades without answering that
sentimental question.
But though he has disappeared as irrevocably as Eurydice, these minor
questions may settle the major one above mentioned. How could Pendennis
have got all that information about Ethel’s goings-on at Baden, and
with Lord Kew, unless she had told somebody—her husband, for instance,
who, having made Pendennis an early confidant in his amour, gave him
the whole story? Clive, Pendennis writes expressly, is travelling
abroad with his wife. Who is that wife? By a most monstrous blunder,
Mr. Pendennis killed Lord Farintosh’s mother at one page and brought
her to life again at another; but Rosey, who is so lately consigned to
Kensal Green, it is not surely with _her_ that Clive is travelling, for
then Mrs. Mackenzie would probably be with them to a live certainty,
and the tour would be by no means pleasant. How could Pendennis have
got all those private letters, etc., but that the Colonel kept them in
a teak box, which Clive inherited and made over to his friend? My
belief then is, that in Fable-land somewhere Ethel and Clive are living
most comfortably together: that she is immensely fond of his little
boy, and a great deal happier now than they would have been had they
married at first, when they took a liking to each other as young
people. That picture of J. J.’s of Mrs. Clive Newcome (in the Crystal
Palace Exhibition in Fable-land), is certainly not in the least like
Rosey, who we read was fair; but it represents a tall, handsome, dark
lady, who must be Mrs. Ethel.
Again, why did Pendennis introduce J. J. with such a flourish, giving
us, as it were, an overture, and no piece to follow it? J. J.’s
history, let me confidentially state, has been revealed to me too, and
may be told some of these fine summer months, or Christmas evenings,
when the kind reader has leisure to hear.
What about Sir Barnes Newcome ultimately? My impression is that he is
married again, and it is my fervent hope that his present wife bullies
him. Mrs. Mackenzie cannot have the face to keep that money which Clive
paid over to her, beyond her lifetime; and will certainly leave it and
her savings to little Tommy. I should not be surprised if Madame de
Moncontour left a smart legacy to the Pendennis children; and Lord Kew
stood godfather in case—in case Mr. and Mrs. Clive wanted such an
article. But have they any children? I, for my part, should like her
best without, and entirely devoted to little Tommy. But for you, dear
friend, it is as you like. You may settle your Fable-land in your own
fashion. Anything you like happens in Fable-land. Wicked folks die
apropos (for instance, that death of Lady Kew was most artful, for if
she had not died, don’t you see that Ethel would have married Lord
Farintosh the next week?)—annoying folks are got out of the way; the
poor are rewarded—the upstarts are set down in Fable-land,—the frog
bursts with wicked rage, the fox is caught in his trap, the lamb is
rescued from the wolf, and so forth, just in the nick of time. And the
poet of Fable-land rewards and punishes absolutely. He splendidly deals
out bags of sovereigns, which won’t buy anything; belabours wicked
backs with awful blows, which do not hurt; endows heroines with
preternatural beauty, and creates heroes, who, if ugly sometimes, yet
possess a thousand good qualities, and usually end by being immensely
rich; makes the hero and heroine happy at last, and happy ever after.
Ah, happy, harmless Fable-land, where these things are! Friendly
reader! may you and the author meet there on some future day. He hopes
so; as he yet keeps a lingering hold of your hand, and bids you
farewell with a kind heart.
PARIS, 28th June 1855.