clear that dearest Laura must take her farewell. In these last days,
besides the visits which daily took place between one and other, the
young messenger was put in ceaseless requisition, and his donkey must
have been worn off his little legs with trotting to and fro between the
two houses, Laura was quite anxious and hurt at not hearing from the
Colonel; it was a shame that he did not have over his letters from
Belgium and answer that one which she had honoured him by writing. By
some information, received who knows how? our host was aware of the
intrigue which Mrs. Pendennis was carrying on; and his little wife almost
as much interested in it as my own. She whispered to me in her kind way
that she would give a guinea, that she would, to see a certain couple
made happy together; that they were born for one another, that they were;
she was for having me go off to fetch Clive: but who was I to act as
Hymen's messenger, or to interpose in such delicate family affairs?
All this while Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., remained absent in London,
attending to his banking duties there, and pursuing the dismal inquiries
which ended, in the ensuing Michaelmas term, in the famous suit of
Newcome v. Lord Highgate. Ethel, pursuing the plan which she had laid
down for herself from the first, took entire charge of his children and
house: Lady Anne returned to her own family: never indeed having been of
much use in her son's dismal household. My wife talked to me of course
about her pursuits and amusements at Newcome, in the ancestral hall which
we have mentioned. The children played and ate their dinner (mine often
partook of his infantine mutton, in company with little Clara and the
poor young heir of Newcome) in the room which had been called my lady's
own, and in which her husband had locked her, forgetting that the
conservatories were open, through which the hapless woman had fled. Next
to this was the baronial library, a side of which was fitted with the
gloomy books from Clapham, which old Mrs. Newcome had amassed; rows of
tracts, and missionary magazines, and dingy quarto volumes of worldly
travel and history which that lady had admitted into her collection.
Almost on the last day of our stay at Rosebury, the two young ladies
bethought them of paying a visit to the neighbouring town of Newcome, to
that old Mrs. Mason who has been mentioned in a foregoing page in some
yet earlier chapter of our history. She was very old now, very faithful
to the recollections of her own early time, and oblivious of yesterday.
Thanks to Colonel Newcome's bounty, she had lived in comfort for many a
long year past; and he was as much her boy now as in those early days of
which we have given but an outline. There were Clive's pictures of
himself and his father over her little mantelpiece, near which she sat in
comfort and warmth by the winter fire which his bounty supplied.
Mrs. Mason remembered Miss Newcome, prompted thereto by the hints of her
little maid, who was much younger, and had a more faithful memory than
her mistress. Why, Sarah Mason would have forgotten the pheasants whose
very tails decorated the chimney-glass, had not Keziah, the maid,
reminded her that the young lady was the donor. Then she recollected her
benefactor, and asked after her father, the Baronet; and wondered, for
her part, why her boy, the Colonel, was not made baronet, and why his
brother had the property? Her father was a very good man; though Mrs.
Mason had heard he was not much liked in those parts. "Dead and gone, was
he, poor man?" (This came in reply to a hint from Keziah, the attendant,
bawled in the old lady's ears, who was very deaf.) "Well, well, we must
all go; and if we were all good, like the Colonel, what was the use of
staying? I hope his wife will be good. I am sure such a good man deserves
one," added Mrs. Mason.
The ladies thought the old woman doting, led thereto by the remark of
Keziah, the maid, that Mrs. Mason have a lost her memory. And she asked
who the other bonny lady was, and Ethel told her that Mrs. Pendennis was
a friend of the Colonel's and Clive's.
"Oh, Clive's friend! Well, she was a pretty lady, and he was a dear
pretty boy. He drew those pictures; and he took off me in my cap, with my
old cat and all--my poor old cat that's buried this ever so long ago."
"She has had a letter from the Colonel, miss," cries out Keziah. "Haven't
you had a letter from the Colonel, mum? It came only yesterday." And
Keziah takes out the letter and shows it to the ladies. They read as
follows:--
"London, Feb. 12, 184-.
"My Dear Old Mason--I have just heard from a friend of mine who has been
staying in your neighbourhood, that you are well and happy, and that you
have been making inquiries after your young scapegrace, Tom Newcome, who
is well and happy too, and who proposes to be happier still before any
very long time is over.
"The letter which was written to me about you was sent to me in Belgium,
at Brussels, where I have been living--a town near the place where the
famous Battle of Waterloo was fought; and as I had run away from Waterloo
it followed me to England.
"I cannot come to Newcome just now to shake my dear old friend and nurse
by the hand. I have business in London; and there are those of my name
living in Newcome who would not be very happy to see me and mine.
"But I promise you a visit before very long, and Clive will come with me;
and when we come I shall introduce a new friend to you, a very pretty
little daughter-in-law, whom you must promise to love very much. She is a
Scotch lassie, niece of my oldest friend, James Binnie, Esquire, of the
Bengal Civil Service, who will give her a pretty bit of siller, and her
present name is Miss Rosa Mackenzie.
"We shall send you a wedding cake soon, and a new gown for Keziah (to
whom remember me), and when I am gone, my grandchildren after me will
hear what a dear friend you were to your affectionate Thomas Newcome."
Keziah must have thought that there was something between Clive and my
wife, for when Laura had read the letter she laid it down on the table,
and sitting down by it, and hiding her face in her hands, burst into
tears.
Ethel looked steadily at the two pictures of Clive and his father. Then
she put her hand on her friend's shoulder. "Come, my dear," she said, "it
is growing late, and I must go back to my children." And she saluted Mrs.
Mason and her maid in a very stately manner, and left them, leading my
wife away, who was still exceedingly overcome.
We could not stay long at Rosebury after that. When Madame de Moncontour
heard the news, the good lady cried too. Mrs. Pendennis's emotion was
renewed as we passed the gates of Newcome Park on our way to the
railroad.
CHAPTER LXII
Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome
The friendship between Ethel and Laura, which the last narrated
sentimental occurrences had so much increased, subsists very little
impaired up to the present day. A lady with many domestic interests and
increasing family, etc. etc
., cannot be supposed to cultivate female
intimacies out of doors with that ardour and eagerness which young
spinsters exhibit in their intercourse; but Laura, whose kind heart first
led her to sympathise with her young friend in the latter's days of
distress and misfortune, has professed ever since a growing esteem for
Ethel Newcome, and says, that the trials and perhaps grief which the
young lady now had to undergo have brought out the noblest qualities of
her disposition. She is a very different person from the giddy and
worldly girl who compelled our admiration of late in the days of her
triumphant youthful beauty, of her wayward generous humour, of her
frivolities and her flirtations.
Did Ethel shed tears in secret over the marriage which had caused Laura's
gentle eyes to overflow? We might divine the girl's grief, but we
respected it. The subject was never mentioned by the ladies between
themselves, and even in her most intimate communications with her husband
that gentleman is bound to say his wife maintained a tender reserve upon
the point, nor cared to speculate upon a subject which her friend held
sacred. I could not for my part but acquiesce in this reticence; and, if
Ethel felt regret and remorse, admire the dignity of her silence, and the
sweet composure of her now changed and saddened demeanour.
The interchange of letters between the two friends was constant, and in
these the younger lady described at length the duties, occupations, and
pleasures of her new life. She had quite broken with the world, and
devoted herself entirely to the nurture and education of her brother's
orphan children. She educated herself in order to teach them. Her letters
contain droll yet touching confessions of her own ignorance and her
determination to overcome it. There was no lack of masters of all kinds
in Newcome. She set herself to work like a schoolgirl. The little piano
became quite obedient to her, and yielded the sweetest music under her
fingers. When she came to pay us a visit at Fairoaks some two years
afterwards she played for our dancing children (our third is named Ethel,
our second Helen, after one still more dear), and we were in admiration
of her skill. There must have been the labour of many lonely nights when
her little charges were at rest, and she and her sad thoughts sat up
together, before she overcame the difficulties of the instrument so as to
be able to soothe herself and to charm and delight her children.
When the divorce was pronounced, which came in due form, though we know
that Lady Highgate was not much happier than the luckless Lady Clara
Newcome had been, Ethel's dread was lest Sir Barnes should marry again,
and by introducing a new mistress into his house should deprive her of
the care of her children.
Miss Newcome judged her brother rightly in that he would try to marry,
but a noble young lady to whom he offered himself rejected him, to his
surprise and indignation, for a beggarly clergyman with a small living,
on which she elected to starve; and the wealthy daughter of a
neighbouring manufacturer whom he next proposed to honour with his
gracious hand, fled from him with horror to the arms of her father,
wondering how such a man as that should ever dare to propose marriage to
an honest girl. Sir Barnes Newcome was much surprised at this outbreak of
anger; he thought himself a very ill-used and unfortunate man, a victim
of most cruel persecutions, which we may be sure did not improve his
temper or tend to the happiness of his circle at home. Peevishness, and
selfish rage, quarrels with servants and governesses, and other domestic
disquiet, Ethel had of course to bear from her brother, but not actual
personal ill-usage. The fiery temper of former days was subdued in her,
but the haughty resolution remained, which was more than a match for her
brother's cowardly tyranny: besides, she was the mistress of sixty
thousand pounds, and by many wily hints and piteous appeals to his sister
Sir Barnes sought to secure this desirable sum of money for his poor dear
unfortunate children.
He professed to think that she was ruining herself for her younger
brothers, whose expenses the young lady was defraying, this one at
college, that in the army, and whose maintenance he thought might be
amply defrayed out of their own little fortunes and his mother's
jointure: and, by ingeniously proving that a vast number of his household
expenses were personal to Miss Newcome and would never have been incurred
but for her residence in his house, he subtracted for his own benefit no
inconsiderable portion of her income. Thus the carriage-horses were hers,
for what need had he, a miserable bachelor, of anything more than a
riding-horse and a brougham? A certain number of the domestics were hers,
and as he could get no scoundrel of his own to stay with him, he took
Miss Newcome's servants. He would have had her pay the coals which burned
in his grate, and the taxes due to our sovereign lady the Queen; but in
truth, at the end of the year, with her domestic bounties and her
charities round about Newcome, which daily increased as she became
acquainted with her indigent neighbours, Miss Ethel, the heiress, was as
poor as many poorer persons.
Her charities increased daily with her means of knowing the people round
about her. She gave much time to them and thought; visited from house to
house, without ostentation; was awestricken by that spectacle of the
poverty which we have with us always, of which the sight rebukes our
selfish griefs into silence, the thought compels us to charity, humility,
and devotion. The priests of our various creeds, who elsewhere are doing
battle together continually, lay down their arms in its presence and
kneel before it; subjugated by that overpowering master. Death, never
dying out; hunger always crying; and children born to it day after day,--
our young London lady, flying from the splendours and follies in which
her life had been past, found herself in the presence of these; threading
darkling alleys which swarmed with wretched life; sitting by naked beds,
whither by God's blessing she was sometimes enabled to carry a little
comfort and consolation; or whence she came heart-stricken by the
overpowering misery, or touched by the patient resignation of the new
friends to whom fate had directed her. And here she met the priest upon
his shrift, the homely missionary bearing his words of consolation, the
now and again to help their people in trouble. "Oh! what good there is in
this woman!" my wife would say to me, as she laid one of Miss Ethel's
letters aside; "who would have thought this was the girl of your glaring
London ballroom? If she has had grief to bear, how it has chastened and
improved her!"
And now I have to confess that all this time, whilst Ethel Newcome has
been growing in grace with my wife, poor Clive has been lapsing sadly out
of favour. Sh
e has no patience with Clive. She drubs her little foot when
his name is mentioned and turns the subject. Whither are all the tears
and pities fled now? Mrs. Laura has transferred all her regard to Ethel,
and when that lady's ex-suitor writes to his old friend, or other news is
had of him, Laura flies out in her usual tirades against the world, the
horrid wicked selfish world, which spoils everybody who comes near it.
What has Clive done, in vain his apologist asks, that an old friend
should be so angry with him?
She is not angry with him--not she. She only does not care about him. She
wishes him no manner of harm--not the least, only she has lost all
interest in him. And the Colonel too, the poor good old Colonel, was
actually in Mrs. Pendennis' black books, and when he sent her the
Brussels veil which we have heard of, she did not think it was a bargain
at all--not particularly pretty, in fact, rather dear at the money. When
we met Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome in London, whither they came a few
months after their marriage, and where Rosey appeared as pretty, happy,
good-humoured a little blushing bride as eyes need behold, Mrs.
Pendennis's reception of her was quite a curiosity of decorum. "I, not
receive her well?" cried Laura. "How on earth would you have me receive
her? I talked to her about everything, and she only answered yes or no. I
showed her the children, and she did not seem to care. Her only
conversation was about millinery and Brussels balls, and about her dress
at the drawing-room. The drawing-room! What business has she with such
follies?"
The fact is, that the drawing-room was Tom Newcome's affair, not his
son's, who was heartily ashamed of the figure he cut in that astounding
costume, which English private gentlemen are made to sport when they bend
the knee before their gracious Sovereign.
Warrington roasted poor Clive upon the occasion, and complimented him
with his usual gravity, until the young fellow blushed and his father
somewhat testily signified to our friend that his irony was not
agreeable. "I suppose," says the Colonel, with great hauteur, "that there
is nothing ridiculous in an English gentleman entertaining feelings of
loyalty and testifying his respect to his Queen: and I presume that Her
Majesty knows best, and has a right to order in what dress her subjects
shall appear before her and I don't think it's kind of you, George, I
say, I don't think it's kind of you to quiz my boy for doing his duty to
his Queen and to his father too, sir,--for it was at my request that
Clive went, and we went together, sir--to the levee and then to the
drawing-room afterwards with Rosey, who was presented by the lady of my
old friend, Sir George Tufto, a lady of rank herself, and the wife of as
brave an officer as ever drew a sword."
Warrington stammered an apology for his levity, but no explanations were
satisfactory, and it was clear George had wounded the feelings of our
dear simple old friend.
After Clive's marriage, which was performed at Brussels, Uncle James and
the lady, his sister, whom we have sometimes flippantly ventured to call
the Campaigner, went off to perform that journey to Scotland which James
had meditated for ten years past; and, now little Rosey was made happy
for life, to renew acquaintance with little Josey. The Colonel and his
son and daughter-in-law came to London, not to the bachelor quarters,
where we have seen them, but to an hotel, which they occupied until their
new house could be provided for them, a sumptuous mansion in the
Tyburnian district, and one which became people of their station.
We have been informed already what the Colonel's income was, and have the
gratification of knowing that it was very considerable. The simple
gentleman who would dine off a crust, and wear a coat for ten years,