The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family Part 64

Their mutiny of course did not add to their master's good-humour; and his letters brought him news which increased Barnes's fury. A messenger arrived with a letter from his man of business at Newcome, upon the receipt of which be started up with such an execration as frightened the servant waiting on him, and letter in hand he ran to Lady Clara's sitting-room. Her ladyship was up. Sir Barnes breakfasted rather late on the first morning after an arrival at Newcome. He had to look over the bailiff's books, and to look about him round the park and grounds; to curse the gardeners; to d.a.m.n the stable and kennel grooms; to yell at the woodman for clearing not enough or too much; to rail at the poor old workpeople brooming away the fallen leaves, etc. So Lady Clara was up and dressed when her husband went to her room, which lay at the end of the house as we have said, the last of a suite of ancestral halls.

The mutinous servant heard high voices and curses within; then Lady Clara's screams; then Sir Barnes Newcome burst out of the room, locking the door and taking the key with him, and saluting with more curses James, the mutineer, over whom his master ran.

"Curse your wife, and don't curse me, Sir Barnes Newcome!" said James, the mutineer; and knocked down a hand which the infuriated Baronet raised against him, with an arm that was twice as strong as Barnes's own. This man and maid followed their mistress in the sad journey upon which she was bent. They treated her with unalterable respect. They never could be got to see that her conduct was wrong. When Barnes's counsel subsequently tried to impugn their testimony, they dared him; and hurt the plaintiff's case very much. For the balance had weighed over; and it was Barnes himself who caused what now ensued; and what we learned in a very few hours afterwards from Newcome, where it was the talk of the whole neighbourhood.

Florac and I, as yet ignorant of all that was occurring, met Barnes near his own lodge-gate riding in the direction of Newcome, as we were ourselves returning to Rosebury. The Prince de Moncontour, who was driving, affably saluted the Baronet, who gave us a scowling recognition, and rode on, his groom behind him. "The figure of the garcon," says Florac, as our acquaintance pa.s.sed, "is not agreeable. Of pale, he has become livid. I hope these two men will not meet, or evil will come!" Evil to Barnes there might be, Florac's companion thought, who knew the previous little affairs between Barnes and his uncle and cousin; and that Lord Highgate was quite able to take care of himself.

In half an hour after Florac spoke, that meeting between Barnes and Highgate actually had taken place--in the open square of Newcome, within four doors of the King's Arms inn, close to which lives Sir Barnes Newcome's man of business; and before which, Mr. Harris, as he was called, was walking, and waiting till a carriage which he had ordered came round from the inn yard. As Sir Barnes Newcome rode into the place many people touched their hats to him, however little they loved him. He was bowing and smirking to one of these, when he suddenly saw Belsize.

He started back, causing his horse to back with him on to the pavement, and it may have been rage and fury, or accident and nervousness merely, but at this instant Barnes Newcome, looking towards Lord Highgate, shook his whip.

"You cowardly villain!" said the other, springing forward. "I was going to your house."

"How dare you, sir," cries Sir Barnes, still holding up that unlucky cane, "how dare you to--to----"

"Dare, you scoundrel!" said Belsize. "Is that the cane you strike your wife with, you ruffian!" Belsize seized and tore him out of the saddle, flinging him screaming down on the pavement. The horse, rearing and making way for himself, galloped down the clattering street; a hundred people were round Sir Barnes in a moment.

The carriage which Belsize had ordered came round at this very juncture.

Amidst the crowd, shrinking, bustling, expostulating, threatening, who pressed about him, he shouldered his way. Mr. Taplow, aghast, was one of the hundred spectators of the scene.

"I am Lord Highgate," said Barnes's adversary. "If Sir Barnes Newcome wants me, tell him I will send him word where he may hear of me."

And getting into the carriage, he told the driver to go "to the usual place."

Imagine the hubbub in the town, the conclaves at the inns, the talks in the counting-houses, the commotion amongst the factory people, the paragraphs in the Newcome papers, the bustle of surgeons and lawyers, after this event. Crowds gathered at the King's Arms, and waited round Mr. Speers the lawyer's house, into which Sir Barnes was carried. In vain policemen told them to move on; fresh groups gathered after the seceders. On the next day, when Barnes Newcome, who was not much hurt, had a fly to go home, a factory man shook his fist in at the carriage window, and, with a curse, said, "Serve you right, you villain." It was the man whose sweetheart this Don Juan had seduced and deserted years before; whose wrongs were well known amongst his mates, a leader in the chorus of hatred which growled round Barnes Newcome.

Barnes's mother and sister Ethel had reached Newcome shortly before the return of the master of the house. The people there were in disturbance.

Lady Anne and Miss Newcome came out with pallid looks to greet him. He laughed and rea.s.sured them about his accident: indeed his hurt had been trifling; he had been bled by the surgeon, a little jarred by the fall from his horse; but there was no sort of danger. Still their pale and doubtful looks continued. What caused them? In the open day, with a servant attending her Lady Clara Newcome had left her husband's house; and a letter was forwarded to him that same evening from my Lord Highgate, informing Sir Barnes Newcome that Lady Clara Pulleyn could bear his tyranny no longer, and had left his roof; that Lord Highgate proposed to leave England almost immediately, but would remain long enough to afford Sir Barnes Newcome the opportunity for an interview, in case he should be disposed to demand one: and a friend (of Lord Highgate's late regiment) was named who would receive letters and act in any way necessary for his lordship.

The debates of the House of Lords must tell what followed afterwards in the dreary history of Lady Clara Pulleyn. The proceedings in the Newcome Divorce Bill filled the usual number of columns in the papers,--especially the Sunday papers. The witnesses were examined by learned peers whose business--nay, pleasure--it seems to be to enter into such matters; and, for the ends of justice and morality, doubtless, the whole story of Barnes Newcome's household was told to the British public. In the previous trial in the Court of Queen's Bench, how grandly Serjeant Rowland stood up for the rights of British husbands! with what pathos he depicted the conjugal paradise, the innocent children prattling round their happy parents, the serpent, the destroyer, entering into that Belgravian Eden; the wretched and deserted husband alone by his desecrated hearth, and calling for redress on his country!

Rowland wept freely during his n.o.ble harangue. At not a shilling under twenty thousand pounds would he estimate the cost of his client's injuries. The jury was very much affected: the evening papers gave Rowland's address in extenso, with some pretty sharp raps at the aristocracy in general. The Day, the princ.i.p.al morning journal of that period, came out with a leading article the next morning, in which every party concerned and every inst.i.tution was knocked about. The disgrace of the peerage, the ruin of the monarchy (with a retrospective view of the well-known case of Gyges and Candaules), the monstrosity of the crime, and the absurdity of the tribunal and the punishment, were all set forth in the terrible leading article of the Day.

But when, on the next day, Serjeant Rowland was requested to call witnesses to prove that connubial happiness which he had depicted so pathetically, he had none at hand.

Oliver, Q.C., now had his innings. A man, a husband, and a father, Mr. Oliver could not attempt to defend the conduct of his unfortunate client; but if there could be any excuse for such conduct, that excuse he was free to confess the plaintiff had afforded, whose cruelty and neglect twenty witnesses in court were ready to prove--neglect so outrageous, cruelty so systematic, that he wondered the plaintiff had not been better advised than to bring this trial, with all its degrading particulars, to a public issue. On the very day when the ill-omened marriage took place, another victim of cruelty had interposed as vainly--as vainly as Serjeant Rowland himself interposed in Court to prevent this case being made known--and with piteous outcries, in the name of outraged neglected woman, of castaway children pleading in vain for bread, had besought the bride to pause, and the bridegroom to look upon the wretched beings who owed him life. Why had not Lady Clara Pulleyn's friends listened to that appeal? And so on, and so on, between Rowland and Oliver the battle waged fiercely that day. Many witnesses were mauled and slain. Out of that combat scarce anybody came well, except the two princ.i.p.al champions, Rowland, Serjeant, and Oliver, Q.C.

The whole country looked on and heard the wretched story, not only of Barnes's fault and Highgate's fault, but of the private peccadilloes of their suborned footmen and conspiring housemaids. Mr. Justice C. Sawyer charged the jury at great length--those men were respectable men and fathers of families themselves--of course they dealt full measure to Lord Highgate for his delinquencies; consoled the injured husband with immense damages, and left him free to pursue the further steps for releasing himself altogether from the tie which had been bound with affecting episcopal benediction at St. George's, Hanover Square.

So Lady Clara flies from the custody of her tyrant, but to what a rescue! The very man who loves her, and gives her asylum, pities and deplores her. She scarce dares to look out of the windows of her new home upon the world, lest it should know and reproach her. All the sisterhood of friendship is cut off from her. If she dares to go abroad she feels the sneer of the world as she goes through it; and knows that malice and scorn whisper behind her. People, as criminal but undiscovered, make room for her, as if her touch were pollution. She knows she has darkened the lot and made wretched the home of the man whom she loves best; that his friends who see her, treat her with but a doubtful respect; and the domestics who attend her, with a suspicious obedience. In the country lanes, or the streets of the county town, neighbours look aside as the carriage pa.s.ses in which she sits splendid and lonely. Rough hunting companions of her husband's come to her table: he is driven perforce to the company of flatterers and men of inferior sort; his equals, at least in his own home, will not live with him. She would be kind, perhaps, and charitable to the cottagers round about her, but she fears to visit them lest they too should scorn her. The clergyman who distributes her charities, blushes and looks awkward on pa.s.sing her in the village, if he should be walking with his wife or one of his children. Shall they go to the Continent, and set up a grand house at Paris or at Florence? There they can get society, but of what a sort! Our acquaintances of Baden,--Madame Schlangenbad, and Madame de Crucheca.s.see, and Madame d'Ivry, and Messrs. Loder, and Punter, and Blackball, and Deuceace, will come, and dance, and flirt, and quarrel, and gamble, and feast round about her; but what in common with such wild people has this poor, timid, shrinking soul? Even these scorn her. The leers and laughter on those painted faces are quite unlike her own sad countenance. She has no reply to their wit. Their infernal gaiety scares her more than the solitude at home. No wonder that her husband does not like home, except for a short while in the hunting season. No wonder that he is away all day; how can he like a home which she has made so wretched? In the midst of her sorrow, and doubt, and misery, a child comes to her: how she clings to it! how her whole being, and hope, and pa.s.sion centres itself on this feeble infant!----but she no more belongs to our story; with the new name she has taken, the poor lady pa.s.ses out of the history of the Newcomes.

If Barnes Newcome's children meet yonder solitary lady, do they know her? If her once-husband thinks upon the unhappy young creature whom his cruelty drove from him, does his conscience affect his sleep at night?

Why should Sir Barnes Newcome's conscience be more squeamish than his country's, which has put money in his pocket for having trampled on the poor weak young thing, and scorned her, and driven her to ruin? When the whole of the accounts of that wretched bankruptcy are brought up for final Audit, which of the unhappy partners shall be shown to be most guilty? Does the Right Reverend Prelate who did the benedictory business for Barnes and Clara his wife repent in secret? Do the parents who pressed the marriage, and the fine folks who signed the book, and ate the breakfast, and applauded the bridegroom's speech, feel a little ashamed? O Hymen Hymenaee! The bishops, beadles, clergy, pew-openers, and other officers of the temple dedicated to Heaven under the invocation of St. George, will officiate in the same place at scores and scores more of such marriages: and St. George of England may behold virgin after virgin offered up to the devouring monster, Mammon (with many most respectable female dragons looking on)--may see virgin after virgin given away, just as in the Soldan of Babylon's time, but with never a champion to come to the rescue!

CHAPTER LIX. In which Achilles loses Briseis

Although the years of the Marquis of Farintosh were few, he had spent most of them in the habit of command; and, from his childhood upwards, had been obeyed by all persons round about him. As an infant he had but to roar, and his mother and nurses were as much frightened as though he had been a Libyan lion. What he willed and ordered was law amongst his clan and family. During the period of his London and Parisian dissipations his poor mother did not venture to remonstrate with her young prodigal, but shut her eyes, not daring to open them on his wild courses. As for the friends of his person and house, many of whom were portly elderly gentlemen, their affection for the young Marquis was so extreme that there was no company into which their fidelity would not lead them to follow him; and you might see him dancing at Mabille with veteran aides-de-camp looking on, or disporting with opera-dancers at a Trois Freres banquet, which some old gentleman of his father's age had taken the pains to order. If his lordship Count Almaviva wants a friend to carry the lanthorn or to hold the ladder; do you suppose there are not many most respectable men in society who will act Figaro? When Farintosh thought fit, in the fulness of time and the blooming pride of manhood, to select a spouse, and to elevate a marchioness to his throne, no one dared gainsay him. When he called upon his mother and sisters, and their ladyships' hangers-on and attendants; upon his own particular kinsmen, led captains, and toadies; to bow the knee and do homage to the woman whom he delighted to honour, those duteous subjects trembled and obeyed; in fact, he thought that the position of a Marchioness of Farintosh was under heaven, and before men, so splendid, that, had he elevated a beggar-maid to that sublime rank, the inferior world was bound to worship her.

So my lord's lady-mother, and my lord's sisters, and his captains, and his players of billiards, and the toadies of his august person, all performed obeisance to his bride-elect, and never questioned the will of the young chieftain. What were the private comments of the ladies of the family we had no means of knowing; but it may naturally be supposed that his lordship's gentlemen-in-waiting, Captain Henchman, Jack Todhunter, and the rest, had many misgivings of their own respecting their patrons change in life, and could not view without anxiety the advent of a mistress who might reign over him and them, who might possibly not like their company, and might exert her influence over her husband to oust these honest fellows from places in which they were very comfortable.

The jovial rogues had the run of my lord's kitchen, stables, cellars, and cigar-boxes. A new marchioness might hate hunting, smoking, jolly parties, and toad-eaters in general, or might bring into the house favourites of her own. I am sure any kind-hearted man of the world must feel for the position of these faithful, doubtful, disconsolate va.s.sals, and have a sympathy for their rueful looks and demeanour as they eye the splendid preparations for the ensuing marriage, the grand furniture sent to my lord's castles and houses, the magnificent plate provided for his tables--tables at which they may never have a knife and fork; castles and houses of which the poor rogues may never be allowed to pa.s.s the doors.

When, then, "the elopement in High Life," which has been described in the previous pages, burst upon the town in the morning papers, I can fancy the agitation which the news occasioned in the faithful bosoms of the generous Todhunter, and the attached Henchman. My lord was not in his own house as yet. He and his friends still lingered on in the little house in Mayfair, the dear little bachelor's quarters, where they had enjoyed such good dinners, such good suppers, such rare doings, such a jolly time. I fancy Hench coming down to breakfast, and reading the Morning Post. I imagine Tod dropping in from his bedroom over the way, and Hench handing the paper over to Tod, and the conversation which ensued between those worthy men. Elopement in high life--excitement in N--come, and flight of Lady Cl-- N--come, daughter of the late and sister of the present Earl of D-rking, with Lord H---gate; personal rencontre between Lord H---gate and Sir B--nes N---come. Extraordinary disclosures. I say, I can fancy Hench and Tod over this awful piece of news.

"Pretty news, ain't it, Toddy?" says Henchman, looking up from a Perigord-pie, which the faithful creature is discussing.

"Always expected it," remarks the other. "Anybody who saw them together last season must have known it. The Chief himself spoke of it to me."

"It'll cut him up awfully when he reads it. Is it in the Morning Post?

He has the Post in his bedroom. I know he has rung his bell: I heard it.

Bowman, has his lordship read his paper yet?"

Bowman, the valet, said, "I believe you, he have read his paper. When he read it, he jumped out of bed and swore most awful. I cut as soon as I could," continued Mr. Bowman, who was on familiar--nay contemptuous terms with the other two gentlemen.

"Enough to make any man swear," says Toddy to Henchman; and both were alarmed in their n.o.ble souls, reflecting that their chieftain was now actually getting up and dressing himself; that he would speedily, and in course of nature, come downstairs; and, then, most probably, would begin swearing at them.

The most n.o.ble Mungo Malcolm Angus was in an awful state of mind when, at length, he appeared in the breakfast-room. "Why the dash do you make a taproom of this?" he cries. The trembling Henchman, who has begun to smoke--as he has done a hundred times before in this bachelor's hall--flings his cigar into the fire.

"There you go--nothing like it! Why don't you fling some more in?

You can get 'em at Hudson's for five guineas a pound." bursts out the youthful peer.

"I understand why you are out of sorts, old boy," says Henchman, stretching out his manly hand. A tear of compa.s.sion twinkled in his eyelid, and coursed down his mottled cheek. "Cut away at old Frank, Farintosh,--a fellow who has been attached to you since before you could speak. It's not when a fellow's down and cut up, and riled--naturally riled--as you are--I know you are, Marquis; it's not then that I'm going to be angry with you. Pitch into old Frank Henchman--hit away, my young one." And Frank put himself into an att.i.tude as of one prepared to receive a pugilistic a.s.sault. He bared his breast, as it were, and showed his scars, and said, "Strike!" Frank Henchman was a florid toady.

My uncle, Major Pendennis, has often laughed with me about the fellow's pompous flatteries and ebullient fidelity.

"You have read this confounded paragraph?" says the Marquis. "We have read it: and were deucedly cut up, too," says Henchman, "for your sake, my dear boy."

"I remembered what you said, last year, Marquis," cries Todhunter (not unadroitly). "You, yourself, pointed out, in this very room, I recollect, at this very table--that night Coralie and the little Spanish dancer and her mother supped here, and there was a talk about Highgate--you, yourself, pointed out what was likely to happen. I doubted it; for I have dined at the Newcomes', and seen Highgate and her together in society often. But though you are a younger bird, you have better eyes than I have--and you saw the thing at once--at once, don't you remember I and Coralie said how glad she was, because Sir Barnes ill-treated her friend. What was the name of Coralie's friend, Hench?"

"How should I know her confounded name?" Henchman briskly answers.

"What do I care for Sir Barnes Newcome and his private affairs? He is no friend of mine. I never said he was a friend of mine. I never said I liked him. Out of respect for the Chief here, I held my tongue about him, and shall hold my tongue. Have some of this pate, Chief! No? Poor old boy! I know you haven't got an appet.i.te. I know this news cuts you up. I say nothing, and make no pretence of condolence; though I feel for you--and you know you can count on old Frank Henchman--don't you, Malcolm?" And again he turns away to conceal his gallant sensibility and generous emotion.

"What does it matter to me?" bursts out the Marquis, garnishing his conversation with the usual expletives which adorned his eloquence when he was strongly moved. "What do I care for Barnes Newcome, and his confounded affairs and family? I never want to see him again, but in the light of a banker, when I go to the City, where he keeps my account. I say, I have nothing to do with him, or all the Newcomes under the sun.

Why, one of them is a painter, and will paint my dog, Ratcatcher, by Jove! or my horse, or my groom, if I give him the order. Do you think I care for any one of the pack? It's not the fault of the Marchioness of Farintosh that her family is not equal to mine. Besides two others in England and Scotland, I should like to know what family is? I tell you what, Hench. I bet you five to two, that before an hour is over my mother will be here, and down on her knees to me, begging me to break off this engagement."

"And what will you do, Farintosh?" asks Henchman, slowly, "Will you break it off?"

"No!" shouts the Marquis. "Why shall I break off with the finest girl in England--and the best-plucked one, and the cleverest and wittiest, and the most beautiful creature, by Jove, that ever stepped, for no fault of hers, and because her sister-in-law leaves her brother, who I know treated her infernally? We have talked this matter over at home before.

I wouldn't dine with the fellow; though he was always asking me; nor meet, except just out of civility, any of his confounded family. Lady Anne is different. She is a lady, she is. She is a good woman: and Kew is a most respectable man, though he is only a peer of George III.'s creation, and you should hear how he speaks of Miss Newcome, though she refused him. I should like to know who is to prevent me marrying Lady Anne Newcome's daughter?"

"By Jove, you are a good-plucked fellow, Farintosh--give me your hand, old boy," says Henchman.

"Heh! am I? You would have said, give me your hand, old boy, whichever way I determined, Hench! I tell you, I ain't intellectual, and that sort of thing. But I know my rank, and I know my place; and when a man of my station gives his word, he sticks to it, sir; and my lady, and my sisters, may go on their knees all round; and, by Jove, I won't flinch."

The justice of Lord Farintosh's views was speedily proved by the appearance of his lordship's mother, Lady Glenlivat, whose arrival put a stop to a conversation which Captain Francis Henchman has often subsequently narrated. She besought to see her son in terms so urgent, that the young n.o.bleman could not be denied to his parent; and, no doubt, a long and interesting interview took place, in which Lord Farintosh's mother pa.s.sionately implored him to break off a match upon which he was as resolutely bent.

Was it a sense of honour, a longing desire to possess this young beauty, and call her his own, or a fierce and profound dislike to being balked in any object of his wishes, which actuated the young lord? Certainly he had borne, very philosophically, delay after delay which had taken place in the devised union; and being quite sure of his mistress, had not cared to press on the marriage, but lingered over the dregs of his bachelor cup complacently still. We all know in what an affecting farewell he took leave of the a.s.sociates of his vie de garcon: the speeches made (in both languages), the presents distributed, the tears and hysterics of some of the guests a.s.sembled; the cigar-boxes given over to this friend, the ecrin of diamonds to that, et caetera, et caetera, et caetera. Don't we know? If we don't it is not Henchman's fault, who has told the story of Farintosh's betrothals a thousand and one times at his clubs, at the houses where he is asked to dine, on account of his intimacy with the n.o.bility, among the young men of fashion, or no fashion, whom this two-bottle Mentor, and burly admirer of youth, has since taken upon himself to form. The farewell at Greenwich was so affecting that all "traversed the cart," and took another farewell at Richmond, where there was crying too, but it was Eucharis cried because fair Calypso wanted to tear her eyes out; and where not only Telemachus (as was natural to his age), but Mentor likewise, quaffed the wine-cup too freely. You are virtuous, O reader!

but there are still cakes and ale, Ask Henchman if there be not. You will find him in the Park any afternoon; he will dine with you if no better man ask him in the interval. He will tell you story upon story regarding young Lord Farintosh, and his marriage, and what happened before his marriage, and afterwards; and he will sigh, weep almost at some moments, as he narrates their subsequent quarrel, and Farintosh's unworthy conduct, and tells you how he formed that young man. My uncle and Captain Henchman disliked each other very much, I am sorry to say--sorry to add that it was very amusing to hear either one of them speak of the other.