and who should be her natural guardian save her husband? Surely, Arthur,
you forget--have you forgotten them yourself, sir?--the solemn vows which
Clive made at the altar. Is he not bound to his wife to keep only unto
her so long as they both shall live, to love and comfort her, honour her,
and keep her in sickness and health?"
"To keep her, yes--but not to keep the Campaigner," cries Mr. Pendennis.
"It is a moral bigamy, Laura, which you advocate, you wicked, immoral
young woman!"
But Laura, though she smiled at this notion, would not be put off from
her first proposition. Turning to Clive, who was with us, talking over
his doleful family circumstances, she took his hand, and pleaded the
cause of right and religion with sweet artless fervour. She agreed with
us that it was a hard lot for Clive to bear. So much the nobler the task,
and the fulfilment of duty in enduring it. A few months too would put an
end to his trials. When his child was born Mrs. Mackenzie would take her
departure. It would even be Clive's duty to separate from her then, as it
now was to humour his wife in her delicate condition, and to soothe the
poor soul who had had a great deal of ill-health, of misfortune, of
domestic calamity to wear and shatter her. Clive acquiesced with a groan,
but--with a touching and generous resignation as we both thought. "She is
right, Pen," he said, "I think your wife is always right. I will try,
Laura, and bear my part, God help me! I will do my duty and strive my
best to soothe and gratify my poor dear little woman. They will be making
caps and things, and will not interrupt me in my studio. Of nights I can
go to Clipstone Street and work at the Life. There's nothing like the
Life, Pen. So you see I shan't be much at home except at meal-times, when
by nature I shall have my mouth full, and no opportunity of quarrelling
with poor Mrs. Mac." So he went home, followed and cheered by the love
and pity of my dear wife, and determined stoutly to bear this heavy yoke
which fate had put on him.
To do Mrs. Mackenzie justice, that lady backed up with all her might the
statement which my wife had put forward, with a view of soothing poor
Clive, viz., that the residence of his mother-in-law in his house was
only to be temporary. "Temporary!" cries Mrs. Mac (who was kind enough to
make a call on Mrs. Pendennis, and treat that lady to a piece of her
mind). "Do you suppose, madam, that it could be otherwise? Do you suppose
that worlds would induce me to stay in a house where I have received such
treatment; where, after I and my daughter had been robbed of every
shilling of our fortune, where we are daily insulted by Colonel Newcome
and his son? Do you suppose, ma'am, that I do not know that Clive's
friends hate me, and give themselves airs and look down upon my darling
child, and try and make differences between my sweet Rosa and me--Rosa
who might have been dead, or might have been starving, but that her dear
mother came to her rescue? No, I would never stay. I loathe every day
that I remain in the house--I would rather beg my bread--I would rather
sweep the streets and starve--though, thank God, I have my pension as the
widow of an officer in Her Majesty's Service, and I can live upon that--
and of that Colonel Newcome cannot rob me; and when my darling love needs
a mother's care no longer, I will leave her. I will shake the dust off my
feet and leave that house. I will--And Mr. Newcome's friends may then
sneer at me and abuse me, and blacken my darling child's heart towards me
if they choose. And I thank you, Mrs. Pendennis, for all your kindness
towards my daughter's family, and for the furniture which you have sent
into the house, and for the trouble you have taken about our family
arrangements. It was for this I took the liberty of calling upon you, and
I wish you a very good morning." So speaking, the Campaigner left my
wife; and Mrs. Pendennis enacted the pleasing scene with great spirit to
her husband afterwards, concluding the whole with a splendid curtsey and
toss of the head, such as Mrs. Mackenzie performed as her parting salute.
Our dear Colonel had fled before. He had acquiesced humbly with the
decree of fate; and, lonely, old and beaten, marched honestly on the path
of duty. It was a great blessing, he wrote to us, to him to think that in
happier days and during many years he had been enabled to benefit his
kind and excellent relative, Miss Honeyman. He could thankfully receive
her hospitality now, and claim the kindness and shelter which this old
friend gave him. No one could be more anxious to make him comfortable.
The air of Brighton did him the greatest good; he had found some old
friends, some old Bengalees there, with whom he enjoyed himself greatly,
etc. How much did we, who knew his noble spirit, believe of this story?
To us Heaven had awarded health, happiness, competence, loving children,
united hearts, and modest prosperity. To yonder good man, whose long life
shone with benefactions, and whose career was but kindness and honour,
fate decreed poverty, disappointment, separation, a lonely old age. We
bowed our heads, humiliated at the contrast of his lot and ours; and
prayed Heaven to enable us to bear our present good fortune meekly, and
our evil days, if they should come, with such a resignation as this good
Christian showed.
I forgot to say that our attempts to better Thomas Newcome's money
affairs were quite in vain, the Colonel insisting upon paying over every
shilling of his military allowances and retiring pension to the parties
from whom he had borrowed money previous to his bankruptcy. "Ah! what a
good man that is," says Mr. Sherrick with tears in his eyes, "what a
noble fellow, sir! He would die rather than not pay every farthing over.
He'd starve, sir, that he would. The money ain't mine, sir, or if it was
do you think I'd take it from the poor old boy? No, sir; by Jove! I
honour and reverence him more now he ain't got a shilling in his pocket,
than ever I did when we thought he was a-rolling in money."
My wife made one or two efforts at Samaritan visits in Howland Street,
but was received by Mrs. Clive with such a faint welcome, and by the
Campaigner with so grim a countenance, so many sneers, innuendoes,
insults almost, that Laura's charity was beaten back, and she ceased to
press good offices thus thanklessly received. If Clive came to visit us,
as he very rarely did, after an official question or two regarding the
health of his wife and child, no further mention was made of his family
affairs. His painting, he said, was getting on tolerably well; he had
work, scantily paid it is true, but work sufficient. He was reserved,
uncommunicative, unlike the frank Clive of former times, and oppressed by
his circumstances, as it was easy to see. I did not press the confidence
which he was unwilling to offer, and thought best to respect his silence.
I had a thousand affairs of my own; who has not in London? If you die
to-morrow, your dearest friend will feel for you a hearty pang of sorrow,
and go to his business as usual. I cou
ld divine, but would not care to
describe, the life which my poor Clive was now leading; the vulgar
misery, the sordid home, the cheerless toil, and lack of friendly
companionship which darkened his kind soul. I was glad Clive's father was
away. The Colonel wrote to us twice or thrice; could it be three months
ago?--bless me, how time flies! He was happy, he wrote, with Miss
Honeyman, who took the best care of him.
Mention has been made once or twice in the course of this history of 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
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
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, wh
enever 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