The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family Part 61

CHAPTER LVI. Rosa quo locorum sera moratur

Clive Newcome bore his defeat with such a courage and resolution as those who knew the young fellow's character were sure he would display.

It was whilst he had a little lingering hope still that the poor lad was in the worst condition; as a gambler is restless and unhappy whilst his last few guineas remain with him, and he is venturing them against the overpowering chances of the bank. His last piece, however, gone, our friend rises up from that unlucky table beaten at the contest but not broken in spirit. He goes back into the world again and withdraws from that dangerous excitement; sometimes when he is alone or wakeful, tossing in his bed at nights, he may recall the fatal game, and think how he might have won it--think what a fool he was ever to have played it at all--but these cogitations Clive kept for himself. He was magnanimous enough not even to blame Ethel much, and to take her side against his father, who it must be confessed now exhibited a violent hostility against that young lady and her belongings. Slow to anger and utterly beyond deceit himself, when Thomas Newcome was once roused, or at length believed that he was cheated woe to the offender! From that day forth, Thomas believed no good of him. Every thought or action of his enemy's life seemed treason to the worthy Colonel. If Barnes gave a dinner-party, his uncle was ready to fancy that the banker wanted to poison somebody; if he made a little speech in the House of Commons (Barnes did make little speeches in the House of Commons), the Colonel was sure some infernal conspiracy lay under the villain's words. The whole of that branch of the Newcomes fared little better at their kinsman's hands--they were all deceitful, sordid, heartless, worldly;--Ethel herself no better now than the people who had bred her up. People hate, as they love, unreasonably. Whether is it the more mortifying to us, to feel that we are disliked or liked undeservedly?

Clive was not easy until he had the sea between him and his misfortune: and now Thomas Newcome had the chance of making that tour with his son, which in early days had been such a favourite project with the good man.

They travelled Rhineland and Switzerland together--they crossed into Italy--went from Milan to Venice (where Clive saluted the greatest painting in the world--the glorious 'a.s.sumption' of t.i.tian)--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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.dpapa; 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 s.p.a.cious 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s, 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 b.a.l.l.s, 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 b.a.l.l.s, 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!" cries Mrs. Mackenzie.

"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, t.i.ttering, 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 honour, there is about my young chap! I don't say he is a genius of the 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-gla.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 n.o.body in such an aristocratic county as we know ------shire is. She had her friends and relatives from Newcome. Many of them were Quakers--many were retail shopkeepers. She even frequented the little branch Ebenezer, on Rosebury Green; and it was only by her charities and kindness at Christmas-time, that the Rev. Dr. Potter, the rector at Rosebury, knew her. The old clergy, you see, live with the county families. Good little Madame de Florac was pitied and patronised by the Doctor, treated with no little superciliousness by Mrs. Potter, and the young ladies, who only kept the first society. Even when her rich brother died, and she got her share of all that money Mrs. Potter said poor Madame de Florac did well in not trying to move out of her natural sphere (Mrs. P. was the daughter of a bankrupt hatter in London, and had herself been governess in a n.o.ble family, out of which she married Mr.

P., who was private tutor). Madame de Florac did well, she said, not to endeavour to leave her natural sphere, and that The County never would receive her. Tom Potter, the rector's son, with whom I had the good fortune to be a fellow-student at Saint Boniface College, Oxbridge--a rattling, forward, and it must be owned, vulgar youth--asked me whether Florac was not a billiard-marker by profession? and was even so kind as to caution his sisters not to speak of billiards before the lady of Rosebury. Tom was surprised to learn that Monsieur Paul de Florac was a gentleman of lineage incomparably better than that of any, except two or three families in England (including your own, my dear and respected reader, of course, if you hold to your pedigree). But the truth is, heraldically speaking, that union with the Higgs of Manchester was the first misalliance which the Florac family had made for long long years.

Not that I would wish for a moment to insinuate that any n.o.bleman is equal to an English n.o.bleman; nay, that an English sn.o.b, with a coat-of-arms bought yesterday, or stolen out of Edmonton, or a pedigree purchased from a peerage-maker, has not a right to look down upon any of your paltry foreign n.o.bility.

One day the carriage-and-four came in state from Newcome Park, with the well-known chaste liveries of the Newcomes, and drove up Rosebury Green, towards the parsonage gate, when Mrs. and the Miss Potters happened to be standing, cheapening fish from a donkey-man, with whom they were in the habit of dealing. The ladies were in their pokiest old head-gear and most dingy gowns, when they perceived the carriage approaching; and considering, of course, that the visit of the Park people was intended for them, dashed into the rectory to change their clothes, leaving Rowkins, the costermonger, in the very midst of the negotiation about the three mackerel. Mamma got that new bonnet out of the bandbox; Lizzy and Liddy skipped up to their bedroom, and brought out those dresses which they wore at the dejeuner at the Newcome Athenaeum, when Lord Leveret came down to lecture; into which they no sooner had hooked their lovely shoulders, than they reflected with terror that mamma had been altering one of papa's flannel waistcoats and had left it in the drawing-room, when they were called out by the song of Rowkins, and the appearance of his donkey's ears over the green gate of the rectory. To think of the Park people coming, and the drawing-room in that dreadful state!

But when they came downstairs the Park people were not in the room--the woollen garment was still on the table (how they plunged it into the chiffonier!)--and the only visitor was Rowkins, the costermonger, grinning at the open French windows, with the three mackerel, and crying, "Make it sixpence, miss--don't say fippens, maam, to a pore fellow that has a wife and family." So that the young ladies had to cry--"Impudence!" "Get away, you vulgar insolent creature!--Go round, sir, to the back door!" "How dare you?" and the like; fearing lest Lady Anne Newcome, and Young Ethel, and Barnes should enter in the midst of this ign.o.ble controversy.

They never came at all--those Park people. How very odd! They pa.s.sed the rectory gate; they drove on to Madame de Florac's lodge. They went in.

They stayed for half an hour; the horses driving round and round the gravel road before the house; and Mrs. Potter and the girls speedily going to the upper chambers, and looking out of the room where the maids slept, saw Lady Anne, Ethel, and Barnes walking with Madame de Florac, going into the conservatories, issuing thence with MacWhirter, the gardener, bearing huge bunches of grapes and large fasces of flowers; they saw Barnes talking in the most respectful manner to Madame de Florac: and when they went downstairs and had their work before them--Liddy her gilt music-book, Lizzy her embroidered altar-cloth, mamma her scarlet cloak for one of the old women--they had the agony of seeing the barouche over the railings whisk by, with the Park people inside, and Barnes driving the four horses.

It was on that day when Barnes had determined to take up Madame de Florac; when he was bent upon reconciling her to her husband. In spite of all Mrs. Potter's predictions, the county families did come and visit the manufacturer's daughter; and when Madame de Florac became Madame la Princesse de Moncontour, when it was announced that she was coming to stay at Rosebury for Christmas, I leave you to imagine whether the circ.u.mstance was or was not mentioned in the Newcome Sentinel and the Newcome Independent; and whether Rev. G. Potter, D.D., and Mrs. Potter did or did not call on the Prince and Princess. I leave you to imagine whether the lady did or did not inspect all the alterations which Vineer's people from Newcome were making at Rosebury House--the chaste yellow satin and gold of the drawing-room--the carved oak for the dining-room--the chintz for the bedrooms--the Princess's apartment--the Prince's apartment--the guests' apartments--the smoking-room, gracious goodness!--the stables (these were under Tom Potter's superintendence), "and I'm finished," says he one day, "if here doesn't come a billiard-table!"