my wife gave with a very pretty imitation of the girl's manner), we both
burst out laughing so loud that little Madame de Moncontour put her head
into the drawing-room and asked what we was a-laughing at? We did not
tell our hostess that poor Ethel and her grandmother had been accused of
doing the very same thing for which she found fault with the Misses Burr.
Miss Newcome thought herself quite innocent, or how should she have cried
out at the naughty behaviour of other people?
"'Wherever we went, however,' resumed my wife's young penitent, 'it was
easy to see, I think I may say so without vanity, who was the object of
Lord Farintosh's attention. He followed us everywhere; and we could not
go upon any visit in England or Scotland but he was in the same house.
Grandmamma's whole heart was bent upon that marriage, and when he
proposed for me I do not disown that I was very pleased and vain.
"'It is in these last months that I have heard about him more, and
learned to know him better--him and myself too, Laura. Some one--some one
you know, and whom I shall always love as a brother--reproached me in
former days for a worldliness about which you talk too sometimes. But it
is not worldly to give yourself up for your family, is it? One cannot
help the rank in which one is born, and surely it is but natural and
proper to marry in it. Not that Lord Farintosh thinks me or any one of
his rank.' (Here Miss Ethel laughed.) 'He is the Sultan, and we, every
unmarried girl in society, is his humblest slave. His Majesty's opinions
upon this subject did not suit me, I can assure you: I have no notion of
such pride!
"'But I do not disguise from you, dear Laura, that after accepting him,
as I came to know him better, and heard him, and heard of him, and talked
with him daily, and understood Lord Farintosh's character, I looked
forward with more and more doubt to the day when I was to become his
wife. I have not learned to respect him in these months that I have known
him, and during which there has been mourning in our families. I will not
talk to you about him; I have no right, have I?--to hear him speak out
his heart, and tell it to any friend. He said he liked me because I
did not flatter him. Poor Malcolm! they all do. What was my acceptance of
him, Laura, but flattery? Yes, flattery, and servility to rank, and a
desire to possess it. Would I have accepted plain Malcolm Roy? I sent
away a better than him, Laura.
"'These things have been brooding in my mind for some months past. I must
have been but an ill companion for him, and indeed he bore with my
waywardness much more kindly than I ever thought possible; and when four
days since we came to this sad house, where he was to have joined us, and
I found only dismay and wretchedness, and these poor children deprived of
a mother, whom I pity, God help her, for she has been made so miserable--
and is now and must be to the end of her days; as I lay awake, thinking
of my own future life, and that I was going to marry, as poor Clara had
married, but for an establishment and a position in life; I, my own
mistress, and not obedient by nature, or a slave to others as that poor
creature was--I thought to myself, why shall I do this? Now Clara has
left us, and is, as it were, dead to us who made her so unhappy, let me
be the mother to her orphans. I love the little girl, and she has always
loved me, and came crying to me that day when we arrived, and put her
dear little arms round my neck, and said, 'You won't go away, will you,
Aunt Ethel?' in her sweet voice. And I will stay with her; and will try
and learn myself that I may teach her; and learn to be good too--better
than I have been. Will praying help me, Laura? I did. I am sure I was
right, and that it is my duty to stay here.'"
Laura was greatly moved as she told her friend's confession; and when the
next day at church the clergyman read the opening words of the service I
thought a peculiar radiance and happiness beamed from her bright face.
* * * * * *
Some subsequent occurrences in the history of this branch of the Newcome
family I am enabled to report from the testimony of the same informant
who has just given us an account of her own feelings and life. Miss Ethel
and my wife were now in daily communication, and "my-dearesting" each
other with that female fervour, which, cold men of the world as we are--
not only chary of warm expressions of friendship, but averse to
entertaining warm feelings at all--we surely must admire in persons of
the inferior sex, whose loves grow up and reach the skies in a night; who
kiss, embrace, console, call each other by Christian names, in that
sweet, kindly sisterhood of Misfortune and Compassion who are always
entering into partnership here in life. I say the world is full of Miss
Nightingales; and we, sick and wounded in our private Scutaris, have
countless nurse-tenders. I did not see my wife ministering to the
afflicted family at Newcome Park; but I can fancy her there amongst the
women and children, her prudent counsel, her thousand gentle offices, her
apt pity and cheerfulness, the love and truth glowing in her face, and
inspiring her words, movements, demeanour.
Mrs. Pendennis's husband for his part did not attempt to console Sir
Barnes Newcome Newcome, Baronet. I never professed to have a
halfpennyworth of pity at that gentleman's command. Florac, who owed
Barnes his principality and his present comforts in life, did make some
futile efforts at condolence, but was received by the Baronet with such
fierceness, and evident ill-humour, that he did not care to repeat his
visits, and allowed him to vent his curses and peevishness on his own
immediate dependents. We used to ask Laura on her return to Rosebury from
her charity visits to Newcome about the poor suffering master of the
house. She faltered and stammered in describing him and what she heard of
him; she smiled, I grieve to say, for this unfortunate lady cannot help
having a sense of humour; and we could not help laughing outright
sometimes at the idea of that discomfited wretch, that overbearing
creature overborne in his turn--which laughter Mrs. Laura used to chide
as very naughty and unfeeling. When we went into Newcome the landlord of
the King's Arms looked knowing and quizzical: Tom Potts grinned at me and
rubbed his hands. "This business serves the paper better than Mr.
Warrington's articles," says Mr. Potts. "We have sold no end of
Independents; and if you polled the whole borough, I bet that five to one
would say Sir Screwcome Screwcome was served right. By the way, what's up
about the Marquis of Farintosh, Mr. Pendennis? He arrived at the Arms
last night; went over to the Park this morning, and is gone back to town
by the afternoon train."
What had happened between the Marquis of Farintosh and Miss Newcome I am
enabled to know from the report of Miss Newcome's confidante. On the
receipt of that letter of conge which has been mentioned in a former
chapter, his lordship must have been very much excited, for he left t
own
straightway by that evening's mail, and on the next morning, after a few
hours of rest at his inn, was at Newcome lodge-gate demanding to see the
Baronet.
On that morning it chanced that Sir Barnes had left home with Mr Speer,
his legal adviser; and hereupon the Marquis asked to see Miss Newcome;
nor could the lodge-keeper venture to exclude so distinguished a person
from the Park. His lordship drove up to the house, and his name was taken
to Miss Ethel. She turned very pale when she heard it; and my wife
divined at once who was her visitor. Lady Anne had not left her room as
yet. Laura Pendennis remained in command of the little conclave of
children, with whom the two ladies were sitting when Lord Farintosh
arrived. Little Clara wanted to go with her aunt as she rose to leave the
room--the child could scarcely be got to part from her now.
At the end of an hour the carriage was seen driving away, and Ethel
returned looking as pale as before, and red about the eyes. Miss Clara's
mutton-chop for dinner coming in at the same time, the child was not so
presently eager for her aunt's company. Aunt Ethel cut up the mutton-chop
very neatly, and then, having seen the child comfortably seated at her
meal, went with her friend into a neighbouring apartment (of course, with
some pretext of showing Laura a picture, or a piece of china, or a new
child's frock, or with some other hypocritical pretence by which the
ingenuous female attendants pretended to be utterly blinded), and there,
I have no doubt, before beginning her story, dearest Laura embraced
dearest Ethel, and vice versa.
"He is gone!" at length gasps dearest Ethel.
"Pour toujours? poor young man!" sighs dearest Laura. "Was he very
unhappy, Ethel?"
"He was more angry," Ethel answers. "He had a right to be hurt, but not
to speak as he did. He lost his temper quite at last, and broke out in
the most frantic reproaches. He forgot all respect and even gentlemanlike
behaviour. Do you know he used words--words such as Barnes uses sometimes
very sorry, and very much moved; but I know more than ever, now, that I
was right in refusing Lord Farintosh."
Dearest Laura now pressed for an account of all that had happened, which
may be briefly told as follows. Feeling very deeply upon the subject
which brought him to Miss Newcome, it was no wonder that Lord Farintosh
spoke at first in a way which moved her. He said he thought her letter to
his mother was very rightly written under the circumstances, and thanked
her for her generosity in offering to release him from his engagement.
But the affair--the painful circumstance of Highgate, and that--which had
happened in the Newcome family, was no fault of Miss Newcome's, and Lord
Farintosh could not think of holding her accountable. His friends had
long urged him to marry, and it was by his mother's own wish that the
engagement was formed, which he was determined to maintain. In his course
through the world (of which he was getting very tired), he had never seen
a woman, a lady who was so--you understand, Ethel--whom he admired so
much, who was likely to make so good a wife for him as you are. "You
allude," he continued, "to differences we have had--and we have had them
--but many of them, I own, have been from my fault. I have been bred up
in a way different to most young men. I cannot help it if I have had
temptations to which other men are not exposed; and have been placed by--
by Providence--in a high rank of life; I am sure if you share it with me
you will adorn it, and be in every way worthy of it, and make me much
better than I have been. If you knew what a night of agony I passed after
my mother read that letter to me--I know you'd pity me, Ethel,--I know
you would. The idea of losing you makes me wild. My mother was dreadfully
alarmed when she saw the state I was in; so was the doctor--I assure you
he was. And I had no rest at all, and no peace of mind, until I
determined to come down to you; and say that I adored you, and you only;
and that I would hold to my engagement in spite of everything--and prove
to you that--that no man in the world could love you more sincerely than
I do." Here the young gentleman was so overcome that he paused in his
speech, and gave way to an emotion, for which, surely no man who has been
in the same condition with Lord Farintosh will blame him.
Miss Newcome was also much touched by this exhibition of natural feeling;
and, I dare say, it was at this time that her eyes showed the first
symptoms of that malady of which the traces were visible an hour after.
"You are very generous and kind to me, Lord Farintosh," she said. "Your
constancy honours me very much, and proves how good and loyal you are;
but--but do not think hardly of me for saying that the more I have
thought of what has happened here,--of the wretched consequences of
interested marriages; the long union growing each day so miserable, that
at last it becomes intolerable and is burst asunder, as in poor Clara's
case;--the more I am resolved not to commit that first fatal step of
entering into a marriage without--without the degree of affection which
people who take that vow ought to feel for one another."
"Affection! Can you doubt it? Gracious heavens, I adore you! Isn't my
being here a proof that I do?" cries the young lady's lover.
"But I?" answered the girl. "I have asked my own heart that question
before now. I have thought to myself,--If he comes after all,--if his
affection for me survives this disgrace of our family, as it has, and
every one of us should be thankful to you--ought I not to show at least
gratitude for so much kindness and honour, and devote myself to one who
makes such sacrifices for me? But, before all things I owe you the truth,
Lord Farintosh. I never could make you happy; I know I could not: nor
obey you as you are accustomed to be obeyed; nor give you such a devotion
as you have a right to expect from your wife. I thought I might once. I
can't now! I know that I took you because you were rich, and had a great
name; not because you were honest, and attached to me as you show
yourself to be. I ask your pardon for the deceit I practised on you.--
Look at Clara, poor child, and her misery! My pride, I know, would never
have let me fall as far as she has done; but oh! I am humiliated to think
that I could have been made to say I would take the first step in that
awful career."
"What career, in God's name?" cries the astonished suitor. "Humiliated,
Ethel? Who's going to humiliate you? I suppose there is no woman in
England who need be humiliated by becoming my wife. I should like to see
better than mine. Humiliated, indeed! That is news. Ha! ha! You don't
suppose that your pedigree, which I know all about, and the Newcome
family, with your barber-surgeon to Edward the Confessor, are equal
to----"
"To yours? No. It is not very long that I have learned to
disbelieve in
that story altogether. I fancy it was an odd whim of my poor father's,
and that our family were quite poor people.
"I knew it," said Lord Farintosh. "Do you suppose there was not plenty of
women to tell it me?"
"It was not because we were poor that I am ashamed," Ethel went on. That
cannot be our fault, though some of us seem think it is, as they hide the
truth so. One of my uncles used to tell me that my grandfather's father
was a labourer in Newcome: but I was a child then, and liked to believe
the prettiest story best."
"As if it matters!" cries Lord Farintosh.
"As if it matters in your wife? n'est-ce pas? I never thought that it
would. I should have told you, as it was my duty to tell you all. It was
not my ancestors you cared for; and it is you yourself that your wife
must swear before heaven to love."
"Of course it's me," answers the young man, not quite understanding the
train of ideas in his companion's mind. "And I've given up everything--
everything--and have broken off with my old habits and--and things, you
know--and intend to lead a regular life--and will never go to
Tattersall's again; nor bet a shilling; nor touch another cigar if you
like--that is, if you don't like; for I love you so, Ethel--I do, with
all my heart I do!"
"You are very generous and kind, Lord Farintosh," Ethel said. "It is
myself, not you, I doubt. Oh, I am humiliated to make such a confession!"
"How humiliated?" Ethel withdrew the hand which the young nobleman
endeavoured to seize.
"If," she continued, "if I found it was your birth, and your name, and
your wealth that I coveted, and had nearly taken, ought I not to feel
humiliated, and ask pardon of you and of God? Oh, what perjuries poor
Clara was made to speak,--and see what has befallen her! We stood by and
heard her without being shocked. We applauded even. And to what shame and
misery we brought her! Why did her parents and mine consign her to such
ruin! She might have lived pure and happy but for us. With her example
before me--not her flight, poor child--I am not afraid of that happening
to me--but her long solitude, the misery of her wasted years,--my
brother's own wretchedness and faults aggravated a hundredfold by his
unhappy union with her--I must pause while it is yet time, and recall a
promise which I know I should make you unhappy if I fulfilled. I ask your
pardon that I deceived you, Lord Farintosh, and feel ashamed for myself
that I could have consented to do so."
"Do you mean," cried the young Marquis, "that after my conduct to you--
after my loving you, so that even this--this disgrace in your family
don't prevent my going on--after my mother has been down on her knees to
me to break off, and I wouldn't--no, I wouldn't--after all White's
sneering at me and laughing at me, and all my friends, friends of my
family, who would go to--go anywhere for me, advising me, and saying,
'Farintosh, what a fool you are! break off this match,'--and I wouldn't
back out, because I loved you so, by Heaven, and because, as a man and a
gentleman, when I give my word I keep it--do you mean that you throw me
over? It's a shame--it's a shame!" And again there were tears of rage and
anguish in Farintosh's eyes.
"What I did was a shame, my lord," Ethel said, humbly; "and again I ask
your pardon for it. What I do now is only to tell you the truth, and to
grieve with all my soul for the falsehood--yes the falsehood--which I
told you, and which has given your kind heart such cruel pain."
"Yes, it was a falsehood!" the poor lad cried out. "You follow a fellow,
and you make a fool of him, and you make him frantic in love with you,
and then you fling him over! I wonder you can look me in the face after
such an infernal treason. You've done it to twenty fellows before, I know