Italy--went from Milan to Venice (where Clive saluted the greatest
painting in the world--the glorious 'Assumption' of Titian)--they went to
Trieste and over the beautiful Styrian Alps to Vienna--they beheld
Danube, and the plain where the Turk and Sobieski fought. They travelled
at a prodigious fast pace. They did not speak much to one another. They
were a pattern pair of English travellers: I dare say many persons whom
they met smiled to observe them; and shrugged their shoulders at the
aspect of ces Anglais. They did not know the care in the young
traveller's mind; and the deep tenderness and solicitude of the elder.
Clive wrote to say it was a very pleasant tour, but I think I should not
have liked to join it. Let us dismiss it in this single sentence. Other
gentlemen have taken the same journey, and with sorrow perhaps as their
silent fellow-traveller. How you remember the places afterwards, and the
thoughts which pursued you! If in after days, when your grief is dead and
buried, you revisit the scenes in which it was your companion, how its
ghost rises and shows itself again! Suppose this part of Mr. Clive's life
were to be described at length in several chapters, and not in a single
brief sentence, what dreary pages they would be! In two or three months
our friends saw a number of men, cities, mountains, rivers, and what not.
It was yet early autumn when they were back in France again, and
September found them at Brussels, where James Binnie, Esq., and his
family were established in comfortable quarters, and where we may be sure
Clive and his father were very welcome.
Dragged abroad at first sorely against his will, James Binnie had found
the Continental life pretty much to his liking. He had passed a winter at
Pau, a summer at Vichy, where the waters had done him good. His ladies
had made several charming foreign acquaintances. Mrs. Mackenzie had quite
a list of counts and marchionesses among her friends. The excellent
Captain Goby, wandered about the country with them. Was it to Rosey, was
it to her mother, the Captain was most attached? Rosey received him as a
godpapa; Mrs. Mackenzie as a wicked, odious, good-for-nothing, dangerous,
delightful creature. Is it humiliating, is it consolatory, to remark,
with what small wit some of our friends are amused? The jovial sallies of
Goby appeared exquisite to Rosey's mother, and to the girl probably;
though that young Bahawder of a Clive Newcome chose to wear a grave face
(confound his insolent airs!) at the very best of the Goby jokes.
In Goby's train was his fervent admirer and inseparable young friend,
Clarence Hoby. Captain Hoby and Captain Goby travelled the world
together, visited Hombourg and Baden, Cheltenham and Leamington, Paris
and Brussels, in company, belonged to the same club in London--the centre
of all pleasure, fashion, and joy, for the young officer and the older
campaigner. The jokes at the Flag, the dinners at the Flag, the committee
of the Flag, were the theme of their constant conversation. Goby fifty
years old, unattached, and with dyed moustaches, was the affable comrade
of the youngest member of his club: when absent, a friend wrote him the
last riddle from the smoking-room; when present, his knowledge of horses,
of cookery, wines, and cigars, and military history, rendered him a most
acceptable companion. He knew the history and achievements of every
regiment in the army; of every general and commanding officer. He was
known to have been 'out' more than once himself, and had made up a
hundred quarrels. He was certainly not a man of an ascetic life or a
profound intellectual culture: but though poor he was known to be most
honourable; though more than middle-aged he was cheerful, busy, and
kindly; and though the youngsters called him Old Goby, he bore his years
very gaily and handsomely, and I dare say numbers of ladies besides Mrs.
Mackenzie thought him delightful. Goby's talk and rattle perhaps somewhat
bored James Binnie, but Thomas Newcome found the Captain excellent
company; and Goby did justice to the good qualities of the Colonel.
Clive's father liked Brussels very well. He and his son occupied very
handsome quarters, near the spacious apartments in the Park which James
Binnie's family inhabited. Waterloo was not far off, to which the Indian
officer paid several visits with Captain Goby for a guide; and many of
Marlborough's battlefields were near, in which Goby certainly took but a
minor interest; but on the other hand Clive beheld these with the
greatest pleasure, and painted more than one dashing piece, in which
Churchill and Eugene, Cutts and Cadogan, were the heroes; whose flowing
periwigs, huge boots, and thundering Flemish chargers were, he thought,
more novel and picturesque than the Duke's surtout, and the French
Grenadiers' hairy caps, which so many English and French artists have
portrayed.
Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis were invited by our kind Colonel to pass a month--
six months if they chose--at Brussels, and were most splendidly
entertained by our friends in that city. A suite of handsome rooms was
set apart for us. My study communicated with Clive's atelier. Many an
hour did we pass, and many a ride and walk did we take together. I
observed that Clive never mentioned Miss Newcome's name, and Laura and I
agreed that it was as well not to recall it. Only once, when we read the
death of Lady Glenlivat, Lord Farintosh's mother, in the newspaper, I
remember to have said, "I suppose that marriage will be put off again."
"Qu'est ce que cela me fait?" says Mr. Clive gloomily, over his picture--
a cheerful piece representing Count Egmont going to execution; in which I
have the honour to figure as a halberdier, Captain Hoby as the Count, and
Captain Goby as the Duke of Alva, looking out of window.
Mrs. Mackenzie was in a state of great happiness and glory during this
winter. She had a carriage, and worked that vehicle most indefatigably.
She knew a great deal of good company at Brussels. She had an evening for
receiving. She herself went to countless evening-parties, and had the joy
of being invited to a couple of court balls, at which I am bound to say
her daughter and herself both looked very handsome. The Colonel brushed
up his old uniform and attended these entertainments. M. Newcome fils, as
I should judge, was not the worst-looking man in the room; and, as these
young people waltzed together (in which accomplishment Clive was very
much more skilful than Captain Goby) I dare say many people thought he
and Rosey made a pretty couple.
Most persons, my wife included, difficult as that lady is to please, were
pleased with the pretty little Rosey. She sang charmingly now, and looked
so while singing. If her mother would but have omitted that chorus, which
she cackled perseveringly behind her daughter's pretty back: about
Rosey's angelic temper; about the compliments Signor Polonini paid her;
about Sir Horace Dash, our minister, insisting upon her singing "Batti
Batti" over again, and the Archduke clapping his hands and saying, "Oh,
yes!" about Count Vanderslaapen's
attentions to her, etc. etc.; but for
these constant remarks of Mrs. Mack's, I am sure no one would have been
better pleased with Miss Rosey's singing and behaviour than myself. As
for Captain Hoby, it was easy to see how he was affected towards Miss
Rosalind's music and person.
And indeed few things could be pleasanter than to watch the behaviour of
this pretty little maid with her Uncle James and his old chum the
Colonel. The latter was soon as fond of her as James Binnie himself,
whose face used to lighten with pleasure whenever it turned towards hers.
She seemed to divine his wants, as she would trip across the room to
fulfil them. She skipped into the carriage and covered his feet with a
shawl. James was lazy and chilly now, when he took his drive. She sate
opposite to him and smiled on him; and, if he dozed, quick, another
handkerchief was round his neck. I do not know whether she understood his
jokes, but she saluted them always with a sweet kind smile. How she
kissed him, and how delighted she was if he bought her a bouquet for her
ball that night! One day, upon occasion of one of these balls, James and
Thomas, those two old boys, absolutely came into Mrs. Mackenzie's
drawing-room with a bouquet apiece for Miss Rosey; and there was a fine
laughing.
"Oh, you little Susanna!" says James, after taking his usual payment;
"now go and pay t'other elder." Rosey did not quite understand at first,
being, you see, more ready to laugh at jokes than to comprehend them: but
when she did, I promise you she looked uncommonly pretty as she advanced
to Colonel Newcome and put that pretty fresh cheek of hers up to his
grizzled moustache.
"I protest I don't know which of you blushes the most," chuckles James
Binnie--and the truth is, the old man and the young girl had both hung
out those signals of amiable distress.
On this day, and as Miss Rosey was to be overpowered by flowers, who
should come presently to dinner but Captain Hoby, with another bouquet?
on which Uncle James said Rosey should go to the ball like an American
Indian with her scalps at her belt.
"Scalps! Oh law, uncle!" exclaims Miss Rosey. "What can you mean by
anything so horrid?"
Goby recalls to Mrs. Mack, Hook-ee-ma-goosh the Indian chief, whom she
must have seen when the Hundred and Fiftieth were at Quebec, and who had
his lodge full of them; and who used to lie about the barracks so drunk,
and who used to beat his poor little European wife: and presently Mr.
Clive Newcome joins this company, when the chirping, tittering, joking,
laughing, cease somehow.
Has Clive brought a bouquet too? No. He has never thought about a
bouquet. He is dressed in black, with long hair, a long moustache, and
melancholy imperial. He looks very handsome, but as glum as an
undertaker. And James Binnie says, "Egad, Tom, they used to call you the
knight of the woeful countenance, and Clive has just inherited the
paternal mug." Then James calls out in a cheery voice, "Dinner, dinner!"
and trots off with Mrs. Pendennis under his arm; Rosey nestles up against
the Colonel; Goby and Mrs. Mack walk away arm-in-arm very contentedly;
and I don't know with which of her three nosegays pretty Rosey appears at
the ball.
Our stay with our friends at Brussels could not be prolonged beyond a
month, for at the end of that period we were under an engagement to other
friends in England, who were good enough to desire the presence of Mrs.
Pendennis and her suite of baby, nurse, and husband. So we presently took
leave of Rosey and the Campaigner, of the two stout elders, and our
melancholy young Clive, who bore us company to Antwerp, and who won
Laura's heart by the neat way in which he took her child on board ship.
Poor fellow! how sad he looked as he bowed to us and took off his hat!
His eyes did not seem to be looking at us, though they and his thoughts
were turned another way. He moved off immediately, with his head down,
puffing his eternal cigar, and lost in his own meditations; our going or
our staying was of very little importance to the lugubrious youth.
"I think it was a great pity they came to Brussels," says Laura, as we
sate on the deck, while her unconscious infant was cheerful, and while
the water of the lazy Scheldt as yet was smooth.
"Who? The Colonel and Clive? They are very handsomely lodged. They have a
good maitre d'hotel. Their dinners, I am sure, are excellent; and your
child, madam, is as healthy as it possibly can be."
"Blessed darling! Yes!" (Blessed darling crows, moos, jumps in his
nurse's arms, and holds out a little mottled hand for a biscuit of Savoy,
which mamma supplies.) "I can't help thinking, Arthur, that Rosey would
have been much happier as Mrs. Hoby than she will be as Mrs. Newcome."
"Who thinks of her being Mrs. Newcome?"
"Her mother, her uncle, and Clive's father, Since the Colonel has been so
rich, I think Mrs. Mackenzie sees a great deal of merit in Clive. Rosey
will do anything her mother bids her. If Clive can be brought to the same
obedience, Uncle James and the Colonel will be delighted. Uncle James has
set his heart on this marriage. (He and his sister agree upon this
point.) He told me, last night, that he would sing 'Nunc dimittis,' could
he but see the two children happy; and that he should lie easier in
purgatory if that could be brought about."
"And what did you say, Laura?"
"I laughed, and told Uncle James I was of the Hoby faction. He is very
good-natured, frank, honest, and gentlemanlike, Mr. Hoby. But Uncle James
said he thought Mr. Hoby was so--well, so stupid--that his Rosey would be
thrown away upon the poor Captain. So I did not tell Uncle James that,
before Clive's arrival, Rosey had found Captain Hoby far from stupid. He
used to sing duets with her; he used to ride with her before Clive came.
Last winter, when they were at Pau, I feel certain Miss Rosey thought
Captain Hoby very pleasant indeed. She thinks she was attached to Clive
formerly, and now she admires him, and is dreadfully afraid of him. He is
taller and handsomer, and richer and cleverer than Captain Hoby,
certainly."
"I should think so, indeed," breaks out Mr. Pendennis. "Why, my dear,
Clive is as fine a fellow as one can see on a summer's day. It does one
good to look at him. What a frank pair of bright blue eyes he has, or
used to have, till this mishap overclouded them! What a pleasant laugh he
has! What a well-built, agile figure it is--what pluck, and spirit, and
highest order, but he is the staunchest, the bravest, the cheeriest, the
most truth-telling, the kindest heart. Compare him and Hoby! Why, Clive
is an eagle, and yonder little creature a mousing owl!"
"I like to hear you speak so," cries Mrs. Laura, very tenderly. "People
say that you are always sneering, Arthur; but I know my husband better.
We know papa better, don't we, baby?" (Here my wife kisses the infant
Pendennis with great
effusion, who has come up dancing on his nurse's
arms.) "But," says she, coming back and snuggling by her husband's side
again--"But suppose your favourite Clive is an eagle, Arthur, don't you
think he had better have an eagle for a mate? If he were to marry little
Rosey, I dare say he would be very good to her; but I think neither he
nor she would be very happy. My dear, she does not care for his pursuits;
she does not understand him when he talks. The two captains, and Rosey
and I, and the campaigner, as you call her, laugh and talk, and prattle,
and have the merriest little jokes with one another, and we all are as
quiet as mice when you and Clive come in."
"What, am I an eagle, too? I have no aquiline pretensions at all, Mrs.
Pendennis."
"No. Well, we are not afraid of you. We are not afraid of papa, are we,
darling?" this young woman now calls out to the other member of her
family; who, if you will calculate, has just had time to be walked twice
up and down the deck of the steamer, whilst Laura has been making her
speech about eagles. And soon the mother, child, and attendant descend
into the lower cabins: and then dinner is announced: and Captain Jackson
treats us to champagne from his end of the table and yet a short while,
and we are at sea, and conversation becomes impossible: and morning sees
us under the grey London sky, and amid the million of masts in the
Thames.
CHAPTER LVII
Rosebury and Newcome
The friends to whom we were engaged in England were Florac and his wife,
Madame la Princesse de Moncontour, who were determined to spend the
Christmas holidays at the Princess's country seat. It was for the first
time since their reconciliation, that the Prince and Princess dispensed
their hospitalities at the latter's chateau. It is situated, as the
reader has already been informed, at some five miles from the town of
Newcome; away from the chimneys and smoky atmosphere of that place, in a
sweet country of rural woodlands; over which quiet villages, grey church
spires, and ancient gabled farmhouses are scattered: still wearing the
peaceful aspect which belonged to them when Newcome was as yet but an
antiquated country town, before mills were erected on its river-banks,
and dyes and cinders blackened its stream. Twenty years since Newcome
Park was the only great house in that district; now scores of fine villas
have sprung up in the suburb lying between the town and park. Newcome New
Town, as everybody knows, has grown round the park-gates, and the New
Town Hotel (where the railway station is) is a splendid structure in the
Tudor style, more ancient in appearance than the park itself; surrounded
by little antique villas with spiked gables, stacks of crooked chimneys,
and plate-glass windows looking upon trim lawns; with glistening hedges
of evergreens, spotless gravel walks, and Elizabethan gig-houses. Under
the great railway viaduct of the New Town, goes the old tranquil winding
London highroad, once busy with a score of gay coaches, and ground by
innumerable wheels: but at a few miles from the New Town Station the road
has become so mouldy that the grass actually grows on it; and Rosebury,
Madame de Moncontour's house, stands at one end of a village-green, which
is even more quiet now than it was a hundred years ago.
When first Madame de Florac bought the place, it scarcely ranked amongst
the country-houses; and she, the sister of manufacturers at Newcome and
Manchester, did not of course visit the county families. A homely little
body, married to a Frenchman from whom she was separated, may or may not
have done a great deal of good in her village, have had pretty gardens,
and won prizes at the Newcome flower and fruit shows; but, of course, she
was nobody in such an aristocratic county as we know ------shire is. She
had her friends and relatives from Newcome. Many of them were Quakers--