The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family Part 44

"What a droll, funny picture!" exclaims Lady Anne. "Isn't it capital, Lord Farintosh?"

"I dare say--I confess I don't understand that sort of thing," says his lordship. "Don't, upon my honour. There's Odo Carton, always making those caricatures--I don't understand 'em. You'll come up to town to-morrow, won't you? And you're goin' to Lady Hm's, and to Hm and Hm's, ain't you?" (The names of these aristocratic places of resort were quite inaudible.) "You mustn't let Miss Blackcap have it all her own way, you know, that you mustn't."

"She won't have it all her own way," says Miss Ethel. "Lord Farintosh, will you do me a favour? Lady Innishowan is your aunt?"

"Of course she is my aunt."

"Will you be so very good as to get a card for her party on Tuesday, for my cousin, Mr. Clive Newcome? Clive, please be introduced to the Marquis of Farintosh."

The young Marquis perfectly well recollected those mustachios and their wearer on a former night, though he had not thought fit to make any sign of recognition. "Anything you wish, Miss Newcome," he said; "delighted, I'm sure;" and turning to Clive--In the army, I suppose?"

"I am an artist," says Clive, turning very red.

"Oh, really, I didn't know!" cries the n.o.bleman; and my lord bursting out laughing presently as he was engaged in conversation with Miss Ethel on the balcony, Clive thought, very likely with justice, "He is making fun of my mustachios. Confound him! I should like to pitch him over into the street." But this was only a kind wish on Mr. Newcome's part; not followed out by any immediate fulfilment.

As the Marquis of Farintosh seemed inclined to prolong his visit, and his company was exceedingly disagreeable to Clive, the latter took his departure for an afternoon walk, consoled to think that he should have Ethel to himself at the evening's dinner, when Lady Anne would be occupied about Sir Brian, and would be sure to be putting the children to bed, and, in a word, would give him a quarter of an hour of delightful tete-a-tete with the beautiful Ethel.

Clive's disgust was considerable when he came to dinner at length, and found Lord Farintosh, likewise invited, and sprawling in the drawing-room. His hopes of a tete-a-tete were over. Ethel and Lady Anne and my lord talked, as all people will, about their mutual acquaintance: what parties were coming off, who was going to marry whom, and so forth.

And as the persons about whom they conversed were in their own station of life, and belonged to the fashionable world, of which Clive had but a slight knowledge, he chose to fancy that his cousin was giving herself airs, and to feel sulky and uneasy during their dialogue.

Miss Newcome had faults of her own, and was worldly enough as perhaps the reader has begun to perceive; but in this instance no harm, sure, was to be attributed to her. If two gossips in Aunt Honeyman's parlour had talked over the affairs of Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown, Clive would not have been angry; but a young man of spirit not unfrequently mistakes his vanity for independence: and it is certain that nothing is more offensive to us of the middle cla.s.s than to hear the names of great folks constantly introduced into conversation.

So Clive was silent and ate no dinner, to the alarm of Martha, who had put him to bed many a time, and always had a maternal eye over him. When he actually refused currant and raspberry tart, and custard, the chef d'oeuvre of Miss Honeyman, for which she had seen him absolutely cry in his childhood, the good Martha was alarmed.

"Law, Master Clive!" she said, "do 'ee eat some. Missis made it, you know she did;" and she insisted on bringing back the tart to him.

Lady Anne and Ethel laughed at this eagerness on the worthy old woman's part. "Do 'ee eat some, Clive," says Ethel, imitating honest Mrs. Hicks, who had left the room.

"It's doosid good," remarked Lord Farintosh.

"Then do 'ee eat some more," said Miss Newcome: on which the young n.o.bleman, holding out his plate, observed with much affability, that the cook of the lodgings was really a stunner for tarts.

"The cook! dear me, it's not the cook!" cries Miss Ethel. "Don't you remember the princess in the Arabian Nights, who was such a stunner for tarts, Lord Farintosh?"

Lord Farintosh couldn't say that he did.

"Well, I thought not; but there was a princess in Arabia or China, or somewhere, who made such delicious tarts and custards that n.o.body's could compare with them; and there is an old lady in Brighton who has the same wonderful talent. She is the mistress of this house."

"And she is my aunt, at your lordship's service," said Mr. Clive, with great dignity.

"Upon my honour! did you make 'em, Lady Anne?" asked my lord.

"The Queen of Hearts made tarts!" cried out Miss Newcome, rather eagerly, and blushing somewhat.

"My good old aunt, Miss Honeyman, made this one," Clive would go on to say.

"Mr. Honeyman's sister, the preacher, you know, where we go on Sunday,"

Miss Ethel interposed.

"The Honeyman pedigree is not a matter of very great importance," Lady Anne remarked gently. "Kuhn, will you have the goodness to take away these things? When did you hear of Colonel Newcome, Clive?"

An air of deep bewilderment and perplexity had spread over Lord Farintosh's fine countenance whilst this talk about pastry had been going on. The Arabian Princess, the Queen of Hearts making tarts, Miss Honeyman? Who the deuce were all these? Such may have been his lordship's doubts and queries. Whatever his cogitations were he did not give utterance to them, but remained in silence for some time, as did the rest of the little party. Clive tried to think he had a.s.serted his independence by showing that he was not ashamed of his old aunt; but the doubt may be whether there was any necessity for presenting her in this company, and whether Mr. Clive had not much better have left the tart question alone.

Ethel evidently thought so: for she talked and rattled in the most lively manner with Lord Farintosh for the rest of the evening, and scarcely chose to say a word to her cousin. Lady Anne was absent with Sir Brian and her children for the most part of the time: and thus Clive had the pleasure of listening to Miss Newcome uttering all sorts of odd little paradoxes, firing the while sly shots at Mr. Clive, and, indeed, making fun of his friends, exhibiting herself in not the most agreeable light. Her talk only served the more to bewilder Lord Farintosh, who did not understand a t.i.the of her allusions: for Heaven, which had endowed the young Marquis with personal charms, a large estate, an ancient t.i.tle and the pride belonging to it, had not supplied his lordship with a great quant.i.ty of brains, or a very feeling heart.

Lady Anne came back from the upper regions presently, with rather a grave face, and saying that Sir Brian was not so well this evening, upon which the young men rose to depart. My lord said he had "a most delightful dinner and a most delightful tart, 'pon his honour," and was the only one of the little company who laughed at his own remark. Miss Ethel's eyes flashed scorn at Mr. Clive when that unfortunate subject was introduced again.

My lord was going back to London to-morrow. Was Miss Newcome going back?

Wouldn't he like to go back in the train with her!--another unlucky observation. Lady Anne said, "it would depend on the state of Sir Brian's health the next morning whether Ethel would return; and both of you gentlemen are too young to be her escort," added the kind lady. Then she shook hands with Clive, as thinking she had said something too for him.

Farintosh in the meantime was taking leave of Miss Newcome. "Pray, pray," said his lordship, "don't throw me over at Lady Innishowan's.

You know I hate b.a.l.l.s and never go to 'em, except when you go. I hate dancing, I do, 'pon my honour."

"Thank you," said Miss Newcome, with a curtsey.

"Except with one person--only one person, upon my honour. I'll remember and get the invitation for your friend. And if you would but try that mare, I give you my honour I bred her at Codlington. She's a beauty to look at, and as quiet as a lamb."

"I don't want a horse like a lamb," replied the young lady.

"Well--she'll go like blazes now: and over timber she's splendid now.

She is, upon my honour."

"When I come to London perhaps you may trot her out," said Miss Ethel, giving him her hand and a fine smile.

Clive came up biting his lips. "I suppose you don't condescend to ride Bhurtpore any more now?" he said.

"Poor old Bhurtpore! The children ride him now," said Miss Ethel--giving Clive at the same time a dangerous look of her eyes, as though to see if her shot had hit. Then she added, "No--he has not been brought up to town this year: he is at Newcome, and I like him very much." Perhaps she thought the shot had struck too deep.

But if Clive was hurt he did not show his wound. "You have had him these four years--yes, it's four years since my father broke him for you. And you still continue to like him? What a miracle of constancy! You use him sometimes in the country--when you have no better horse--what a compliment to Bhurtpore!"

"Nonsense!" Miss Ethel here made Clive a sign in her most imperious manner to stay a moment when Lord Farintosh had departed.

But he did not choose to obey this order. "Good night," he said. "Before I go I must shake hands with my aunt downstairs." And he was gone, following close upon Lord Farintosh, who I dare say thought, "Why the deuce can't he shake hands with his aunt up here?" and when Clive entered Miss Honeyman's back-parlour, making a bow to the young n.o.bleman, my lord went away more perplexed than ever: and the next day told friends at White's what uncommonly queer people those Newcomes were. "I give you my honour there was a fellow at Lady Anne's whom they call Clive, who is a painter by trade--his uncle is a preacher--his father is a horse-dealer, and his aunt lets lodgings and cooks the dinner."

CHAPTER XLIII. Returns to some Old Friends

The haggard youth burst into my chambers, in the Temple, on the very next morning, and confided to me the story which has been just here narrated. When he had concluded it, with many e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns regarding the heroine of the tale, "I saw her, sir," he added, "walking with the children and Miss Cann as I drove round in the fly to the station--and didn't even bow to her."

"Why did you go round by the cliff?" asked Clive's friend.

"That is not the way from the Steyne Arms to the railroad."

"Hang it," says Clive, turning very red, "I wanted to pa.s.s just under her windows, and if I saw her, not to see her: and that's what I did."

"Why did she walk on the cliff?" mused Clive's friend, "at that early hour? Not to meet Lord Farintosh, I should think, he never gets up before twelve. It must have been to see you. Didn't you tell her you were going away in the morning?"