benefactor. Only after her sleep, or when the sun warmed her and the old
wine with which he supplied her, was the good old woman able to recognise
her Colonel. She mingled father and son together in her mind. A lady who
now often came in to her, thought she was wandering in her talk, when the
poor old woman spoke of a visit she had had from her boy; and then the
attendant told Miss Newcome that such a visit had actually taken place,
and that but yesterday Clive and his father had been in that room, and
occupied the chair where she sat. "The young lady was taken quite ill,
and seemed ready to faint almost," Mrs. Mason's servant and spokeswoman
told Colonel Newcome when that gentleman arrived shortly after Ethel's
departure, to see his old nurse. "Indeed! he was very sorry." The maid
told many stories about Miss Newcome's goodness and charity; how she was
constantly visiting the poor now; how she was for ever engaged in good
works for the young, the sick, and the aged. She had had a dreadful
misfortune in love; she was going to be married to a young marquis;
richer even than Prince de Moncontour down at Rosebury; but it was all
broke off on account of that dreadful affair at the Hall.
Was she very good to the poor? did she come often to see her
grandfather's old friend? it was no more than she ought "to do," Colonel
Newcome said; without, however, thinking fit to tell his informant that
he had himself met his niece Ethel, five minutes before he had entered
Mrs. Mason's door.
The poor thing was in discourse with Mr. Harris, the surgeon, and talking
(as best she might, for no doubt the news which she had just heard had
agitated her), talking about blankets, and arrowroot, wine, and
medicaments for her poor, when she saw her uncle coming towards her. She
tottered a step or two forwards to meet him; held both her hands out, and
called his name; but he looked her sternly in the face, took off his hat
and bowed, and passed on. He did not think fit to mention the meeting
even to his son, Clive; but we may be sure Mr. Harris, the surgeon, spoke
of the circumstance that night after the lecture, at the club, where a
crowd of gentlemen were gathered together, smoking their cigars, and
enjoying themselves according to their custom, and discussing Sir Barnes
Newcome's performance.
According to established usage in such cases, our esteemed representative
was received by the committee of the Newcome Athenaeum, assembled in
their committee-room, and thence marshalled by the chairman and
vice-chairman to his rostrum in the lecture-hall, round about which the
magnates of the institution and the notabilities of the town were rallied
on this public occasion. The Baronet came in some state from his own
house, arriving at Newcome in his carriage with four horses, accompanied
by my lady his mother, and Miss Ethel his beautiful sister, who now was
mistress at the Hall. His little girl was brought--five years old now;
she sate on her aunt's knee, and slept during a greater part of the
performance. A fine bustle, we may be sure, was made on the introduction
of these personages to their reserved seats on the platform, where they
sate encompassed by others of the great ladies of Newcome, to whom they
and the lecturer were especially gracious at this season. Was not
Parliament about to be dissolved, and were not the folks at Newcome
Park particularly civil at that interesting period? So Barnes Newcome
mounts his pulpit, bows round to the crowded assembly in acknowledgment
of their buzz of applause or recognition, passes his lily-white
pocket-handkerchief across his thin lips, and dashes off into his lecture
about Mrs. Hemans and the poetry of the affections. A public man, a
commercial man as we well know, yet his heart is in his home, and his joy
in his affections; the presence of this immense assembly here this
evening; of the industrious capitalists; of the intelligent middle class;
of the pride and mainstay of England, the operatives of Newcome; these,
surrounded by their wives and their children (a graceful bow to the
bonnets to the right of the platform), show that they too have hearts to
feel, and homes to cherish; that they, too, feel the love of women, the
innocence of children, the love of song! Our lecturer then makes a
distinction between man's poetry and woman's poetry, charging
considerably in favour of the latter. We show that to appeal to the
affections is after all the true office of the bard; to decorate the
homely threshold, to wreathe flowers round the domestic hearth, the
delightful duty of the Christian singer. We glance at Mrs. Hemans's
biography, and state where she was born, and under what circumstances she
Newcome's lecture? I was not present, and did not read the report. Very
likely the above may be a reminiscence of that mock lecture which
Warrington delivered in anticipation of the Baronet's oration.
After he had read for about five minutes, it was remarked the Baronet
suddenly stopped and became exceedingly confused over his manuscript:
betaking himself to his auxiliary glass of water before he resumed his
discourse, which for a long time was languid, low, and disturbed in tone.
This period of disturbance, no doubt, must have occurred when Sir Barnes
saw before him F. Bayham and Warrington seated in the amphitheatre; and,
by the side of those fierce scornful countenances, Clive Newcome's pale
face.
Clive Newcome was not looking at Barnes. His eyes were fixed upon the
lady seated not far from the lecturer--upon Ethel, with her arm round her
little niece's shoulder, and her thick black ringlets drooping down over
a face paler than Clive's own.
Of course she knew that Clive was present. She was aware of him as she
entered the hall; saw him at the very first moment; saw nothing but him,
I dare say, though her eyes were shut and her head was turned now towards
her mother, and now bent down on the little niece's golden curls. And the
past and its dear histories, and youth and its hopes and passions, and
tones and looks for ever echoing in the heart, and present in the memory
--these, no doubt, poor Clive saw and heard as he looked across the great
gulf of time, and parting, and grief, and beheld the woman he had loved
for many years. There she sits; the same, but changed: as gone from him
as if she were dead; departed indeed into another sphere, and entered
into a kind of death. If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but
a corpse unburied. Strew round it the flowers of youth. Wash it with
tears of passion. Wrap it and envelop it with fond devotion. Break heart,
and fling yourself on the bier, and kiss her cold lips and press her
hand! It falls back dead on the cold breast again. The beautiful lips
have never a blush or a smile. Cover them and lay them in the ground, and
so take thy hatband off, good friend, and go to thy business. Do you
suppose you are the only man who has had to attend such a funeral? You
will find some men smiling and at work the day after
. Some come to the
grave now and again out of the world, and say a brief prayer, and a "God
bless her!" With some men, she gone, and her viduous mansion your heart
to let, her successor, the new occupant, poking in all the drawers and
corners, and cupboards of the tenement, finds her miniature and some of
her dusty old letters hidden away somewhere, and says--Was this the face
he admired so? Why, allowing even for the painter's flattery, it is quite
ordinary, and the eyes certainly do not look straight. Are these the
letters you thought so charming? Well, upon my word, I never read
anything more commonplace in my life! See, here's a line half blotted
out. Oh, I suppose she was crying then--some of her tears, idle tears--
Hark, there is Barnes Newcome's eloquence still plapping on like water
from a cistern--and our thoughts, where have they wandered? far away from
the lecture--as far away as Clive's almost. And now the fountain ceases
to trickle; the mouth from which issued that cool and limpid flux ceases
to smile; the figure is seen to bow and retire; a buzz, a hum, a whisper,
a scuffle, a meeting of bonnets and wagging of feathers and rustling of
silks ensues. "Thank you! delightful, I am sure!" "I really was quite
overcome;" "Excellent;" "So much obliged," are rapid phrases heard
amongst the polite on the platform. While down below, "Yaw! quite enough
of that;" "Mary Jane, cover your throat up, and don't kitch cold, and
don't push me, please, sir;" "Arry! coom along and ave a pint a ale,"
etc., are the remarks heard, or perhaps not heard, by Clive Newcome, as
he watches at the private entrance of the Athenaeum, where Sir Barnes's
carriage is waiting with its flaming lamps, and domestics in state
liveries. One of them comes out of the building bearing the little girl
in his arms, and lays her in the carriage. Then Sir Barnes, and Lady
Anne, and the Mayor; then Ethel issues forth, and as she passes under the
lamps, beholds Clive's face as pale and sad as her own.
Shall we go visit the lodge-gates of Newcome Park the moon shining on
their carving? Is there any pleasure in walking by miles of grey paling,
and endless palisades of firs? Oh, you fool, what do you hope to see
behind that curtain? Absurd fugitive, whither would you run? Can you
sitting yonder waiting for you by the stake? Go home, sir; and don't
catch cold. So Mr. Clive returns to the King's Arms, and goes up to his
bedroom, and he hears Mr. F. Bayham's deep voice as he passes by the
Boscawen Room, where the Jolly Britons are as usual assembled.
CHAPTER LXVII
Newcome and Liberty
We have said that the Baronet's lecture was discussed in the
midnight senate assembled at the King's Arms, where Mr. Tom Potts
showed the orator no mercy. The senate of the King's Arms was hostile
to Sir Barnes Newcome. Many other Newcomites besides were savage and
inclined to revolt against the representative of their borough. As these
patriots met over their cups, and over the bumper of friendship uttered
the sentiments of freedom, they had often asked of one another, where
should a man be found to rid Newcome of its dictator? Generous hearts
writhed under the oppression: patriotic eyes scowled when Barnes Newcome
went by: with fine satire, Tom Potts at Brown the hatter's shop, who made
the hats for Sir Barnes Newcome's domestics, proposed to take one of the
beavers--a gold-laced one with a cockade and a cord--and set it up in the
market-place and bid all Newcome come bow to it, as to the hat of
Gessler. "Don't you think, Potts," says F. Bayham, who of course was
admitted into the King's Arms club, and ornamented that assembly by his
presence and discourse, "Don't you think the Colonel would make a good
William Tell to combat against that Gessler?" Ha! Proposal received with
acclamation--eagerly adopted by Charles Tucker, Esq., Attorney-at-Law,
who would not have the slightest objection to conduct Colonel Newcome's,
or any other gentleman's electioneering business in Newcome or elsewhere.
Like those three gentlemen in the plays and pictures of William Tell, who
conspire under the moon, calling upon liberty and resolving to elect Tell
as their especial champion--like Arnold, Melchthal, and Werner--Tom
Potts, Fred Bayham, and Charles Tucker, Esqs., conspired round a
punch-bowl, and determined that Thomas Newcome should be requested to
free his country. A deputation from the electors of Newcome, that is to
say, these very gentlemen waited on the Colonel in his apartment the very
next morning, and set before him the state of the borough; Barnes
Newcome's tyranny, under which it groaned; and the yearning of all honest
men to be free from that usurpation. Thomas Newcome received the
deputation with great solemnity and politeness, crossed his legs, folded
his arms, smoked his cheroot, and listened moat decorously, as now Potts,
now Tucker, expounded to him; Bayham giving the benefit of his emphatic
"hear, hear," to their statements, and explaining dubious phrases to the
Colonel in the most affable manner.
Whatever the conspirators had to say against Barnes, Colonel Newcome was
only too ready to believe. He had made up his mind that that criminal
ought to be punished and exposed. The lawyer's covert innuendoes, who was
ready to insinuate any amount of evil against Barnes which could safely
be uttered, were by no means strong enough for Thomas Newcome. "'Sharp
practice! exceedingly alive to his own interests--reported violence of
temper and tenacity of money'--say swindling at once, sir--say falsehood
and rapacity--say cruelty and avarice," cries the Colonel. "I believe,
upon my honour and conscience, that unfortunate young man to be guilty of
every one of those crimes."
Mr. Bayham remarks to Mr. Potts that our friend the Colonel, when he does
utter an opinion, takes care that there shall be no mistake about it.
"And I took care there should be no mistake before I uttered it at all,
Bayham!" cries F. B.'s patron. "As long as I was in any doubt about this
young man, I gave the criminal the benefit of it, as a man who admires
our glorious constitution should do, and kept my own counsel, sir."
"At least," remarks Mr. Tucker, "enough is proven to show that Sir Barnes
Newcome Newcome, Baronet, is scarce a fit person to represent this great
borough in Parliament."
"Represent Newcome in Parliament! It is a disgrace to that noble
institution the English House of Commons, that Barnes Newcome should sit
in it. A man whose word you cannot trust; a man stained with every
private crime. What right has he to sit in the assembly of the
legislators of the land, sir?" cries the Colonel, waving his hand as if
addressing a chamber of deputies.
"You are for upholding the House of Commons?" inquires the lawyer.
"Of course, sir, of course."
"And for increasing the franchise, Colonel Newcome, I should hope?"
continues Mr. Tucker.
"Every man who can read and write ought to have a vote, sir; that is my
&nb
sp; opinion!" cries the Colonel.
"He's a Liberal to the backbone," says Potts to Tucker.
"To the backbone!" responds Tucker to Potts. "The Colonel will do for us,
Potts."
"We want such a man, Tucker; the Independent has been crying out for such
a man for years past. We ought to have a Liberal as second representative
of this great town--not a sneaking half-and-half Ministerialist like Sir
Barnes, a fellow with one leg in the Carlton and the other in Brookes's.
Old Mr. Bunce we can't touch. His place is safe; he is a good man of
business: we can't meddle with Mr. Bunce--I know that, who know the
feeling of the country pretty well."
"Pretty well! Better than any man in Newcome, Potts!" cries Mr. Tucker.
"But a good man like the Colonel,--a good Liberal like the Colonel,--a
man who goes in for household suffrage----"
"Certainly, gentlemen."
"And the general great Liberal principles--we know, of course--such a man
would assuredly have a chance against Sir Barnes Newcome at the coming
election! could we find such a man! a real friend of the people!"
"I know a friend of the people if ever there was one," F. Bayham
interposes.
"A man of wealth, station, experience; a man who has fought for his
country; a man who is beloved in this place as you are, Colonel Newcome:
for your goodness is known, sir--You are not ashamed of your origin, and
there is not a Newcomite old or young, but knows how admirably good you
have been to your old friend, Mrs.--Mrs. What-d'-you-call'-em."
"Mrs. Mason," from F. B.
"Mrs. Mason. If such a man as you, sir, would consent to put himself in
nomination at the next election, every true Liberal in this place would
rush to support you; and crush the oligarchy who rides over the liberties
of this borough!"
"Something of this sort, gentlemen, I own to you had crossed my mind,"
Thomas Newcome remarked. "When I saw that disgrace to my name, and the
name of my father's birthplace, representing the borough in Parliament, I
thought for the credit of the town and the family, the Member for Newcome
at least might be an honest man. I am an old soldier; have passed all my
life in India; and am little conversant with affairs at home" (cries of
"You are, you are"). "I hoped that my son, Mr. Clive Newcome, might have
been found qualified to contest this borough against his unworthy cousin,
and possibly to sit as your representative in Parliament. The wealth I
have had the good fortune to amass will descend to him naturally, and at
no very distant period of time, for I am nearly seventy years of age,
gentlemen."
The gentlemen are astonished at this statement.
"But," resumed the Colonel; "my son Clive, as my friend Bayham knows, and
to my own regret and mortification, as I don't care to confess to you,
declares he has no interest or desire in politics, or for public
distinction--prefers his own pursuits--and even these I fear do not
absorb him--declines the offer which I made him, to present himself in
opposition to Sir Barnes Newcome. It becomes men in a certain station, as
I think, to assert that station; and though a few years back I never
should have thought of public life at all, and proposed to end my days in
quiet as a retired dragoon officer, since--since it has pleased Heaven to
increase very greatly my pecuniary means, to place me, as a director and
manager of an important banking company, in a station of great public
responsibility, I and my brother-directors have thought it but right that
one of us should sit in Parliament, if possible, and I am not a man to
shirk from that or from any other duty."
"Colonel, will you attend a meeting of electors which we will call, and
say as much to them and as well?" cries Mr. Potts. "Shall I put an
announcement in my paper to the effect that you are ready to come