The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family Part 69

Legal proceedings were presently threatened by the solicitors of the Company against the banking firm which had caused so much mischief. Mr.

Hobson Newcome was absent abroad when the circ.u.mstance took place, and it was known that the protest of the bills was solely attributable to his nephew and partner. But after the break between the two firms, there was a rupture between Hobson's family and Colonel Newcome. The exasperated Colonel vowed that his brother and his nephew were traitors alike, and would have no further dealings with one or the other. Even poor innocent Sam Newcome, coming up to London from Oxford, where he had been plucked, and offering a hand to Clive, was frowned away by our Colonel, who spoke in terms of great displeasure to his son for taking the least notice of the young traitor.

Our Colonel was changed, changed in his heart, changed in his whole demeanour towards the world, and above all towards his son, for whom he had made so many kind sacrifices in his old days. We have said how, ever since Clive's marriage, a tacit strife had been growing up between father and son. The boy's evident unhappiness was like a reproach to his father. His very silence angered the old man. His want of confidence daily chafed and annoyed him. At the head of a large fortune, which he rightly persisted in spending, he felt angry with himself because he could not enjoy it, angry with his son, who should have helped him in the administration of his new estate, and who was but a listless, useless member of the little confederacy, a living protest against all the schemes of the good man's past life. The catastrophe in the City again brought father and son together somewhat, and the vindictiveness of both was roused by Barnes's treason. Time was when the Colonel himself would have viewed his kinsman more charitably, but fate and circ.u.mstance had angered that originally friendly and gentle disposition; hate and suspicion had mastered him, and if it cannot be said that his new life had changed him, at least it had brought out faults for which there had hitherto been no occasion, and qualities latent before. Do we know ourselves, or what good or evil circ.u.mstance may bring from us? Did Cain know, as he and his younger brother played round their mother's knee, that the little hand which caressed Abel should one day grow larger, and seize a brand to slay him? Thrice fortunate he, to whom circ.u.mstance is made easy: whom fate visits with gentle trial, and kindly Heaven keeps out of temptation.

In the stage which the family feud now reached, and which the biographer of the Newcomes is bound to describe, there is one gentle moralist who gives her sentence decidedly against Clive's father; whilst on the other hand a rough philosopher and friend of mine, whose opinions used to have some weight with me, stoutly declares that they were right. "War and justice are good things," says George Warrington, rattling his clenched fist on the table. "I maintain them, and the common sense of the world maintains them, against the preaching of all the Honeymans that ever puled from the pulpit. I have not the least objection in life to a rogue being hung. When a scoundrel is whipped I am pleased, and say, serve him right. If any gentleman will horsewhip Sir Barnes Newcome, Baronet, I shall not be shocked, but, on the contrary, go home and order an extra mutton-chop for dinner."

"Ah! revenge is wrong, Pen," pleads the other counsellor.

"Let alone that the wisest and best of all Judges has condemned it. It blackens the hearts of men. It distorts their views of right. It sets them to devise evil. It causes them to think unjustly of others. It is not the n.o.blest return for injury, not even the bravest way of meeting it. The greatest courage is to bear persecution, not to answer when you are reviled, and when wrong has been done you to forgive. I am sorry for what you call the Colonel's triumph and his enemy's humiliation.

Let Barnes be as odious as you will, he ought never to have humiliated Ethel's brother; but he is weak. Other gentlemen as well are weak, Mr.

Pen, although you are so much cleverer than women. I have no patience with the Colonel, and I beg you to tell him, whether he asks you or not that he has lost my good graces, and that I for one will not huzzah at what his friends and flatterers call his triumphs, and that I don't think in this instance he has acted like the dear Colonel, and the good Colonel, and the good Christian that I once thought him."

We must now tell what the Colonel and Clive had been doing, and what caused two such different opinions respecting their conduct from the two critics just named. The refusal of the London Banking House to accept the bills of the Great Indian Company of course affected very much the credit of that Company in this country. Sedative announcements were issued by the Directors in London; brilliant accounts of the Company's affairs abroad were published; proof incontrovertible was given that the B. B. C. was never in so flourishing a state as at that time when Hobson Brothers had refused its drafts; there could be no question that the Company had received a severe wound and was deeply if not vitally injured by the conduct of the London firm.

The propensity to sell out became quite epidemic amongst the shareholders. Everybody was anxious to realise. Why, out of the thirty names inscribed on poor Mrs. Clive's cocoa-nut tree no less than twenty deserters might be mentioned, or at least who would desert could they find an opportunity of doing so with arms and baggage. Wrathfully the good Colonel scratched the names of those faithless ones out of his daughter's visiting-book: haughtily he met them in the street; to desert the B. B. C. at the hour of peril was, in his idea, like applying for leave of absence on the eve of an action. He would not see that the question was not one of sentiment at all, but of chances and arithmetic; he would not hear with patience of men quitting the ship, as he called it. "They may go, sir," says he, "but let them never more be officers of mine." With scorn and indignation he paid off one or two timid friends, who were anxious to fly, and purchased their shares out of his own pocket. But his purse was not long enough for this kind of amus.e.m.e.nt.

What money he had was invested in the Company already, and his name further pledged for meeting the engagements from which their late London bankers had withdrawn.

Those gentlemen, in the meanwhile, spoke of their differences with the Indian Bank as quite natural, and laughed at the absurd charges of personal hostility which poor Thomas Newcome publicly preferred. "Here is a hot-headed old Indian dragoon," says Sir Barnes, "who knows no more about business than I do about cavalry tactics or Hindostanee; who gets into a partnership along with other dragoons and Indian wiseacres, with some uncommonly wily old native pract.i.tioners; and they pay great dividends, and they set up a bank. Of course we will do these people's business as long as we are covered, but I have always told their manager that we would run no risks whatever, and close the account the very moment it did not suit us to keep it: and so we parted company six weeks ago, since when there has been a panic in the Company, a panic which has been increased by Colonel Newcome's absurd swagger and folly. He says I am his enemy; enemy indeed! So I am in private life, but what has that to do with business? In business, begad, there are no friends and no enemies at all. I leave all my sentiment on the other side of Temple Bar."

So Thomas Newcome, and Clive the son of Thomas, had wrath in their hearts against Barnes, their kinsman, and desired to be revenged upon him, and were eager after his undoing, and longed for an opportunity when they might meet him and overcome him, and put him to shame.

When men are in this frame of mind, a certain personage is said always to be at hand to help them and give them occasion for indulging in their pretty little pa.s.sion. What is sheer hate seems to the individual entertaining the sentiment so like indignant virtue, that he often indulges in the propensity to the full, nay, lauds himself for the exercise of it. I am sure if Thomas Newcome in his present desire for retaliation against Barnes, had known the real nature of his sentiments towards that worthy, his conduct would have been different, and we should have heard of no such active hostilities as ensued.

CHAPTER LXV. In which Mrs. Clive comes into her Fortune

Speaking of the affairs of B. B. C., Sir Barnes Newcome always took care to maintain his candid surprise relating to the proceedings of that Company. He set about evil reports against it! He endeavour to do it a wrong--absurd! If a friend were to ask him (and it was quite curious what a number did manage to ask him) whether he thought the Company was an advantageous investment, of course he would give an answer. He could not say conscientiously he thought so--never once had said so--in the time of their connexion, which had been formed solely with a view of obliging his amiable uncle. It was a quarrelsome Company; a dragoon Company; a Company of gentlemen accustomed to gunpowder, and fed on mulligatawny. He, forsooth, be hostile to it! There were some Companies that required no enemies at all, and would be pretty sure to go to the deuce their own way.

Thus, and with this amiable candour, spake Barnes, about a commercial speculation, the merits of which he had a right to canva.s.s as well as any other citizen. As for Uncle Hobson, his conduct was characterised by a timidity which one would scarcely have expected from a gentleman of his florid, jolly countenance, active habits, and generally manly demeanour. He kept away from the cocoa-nut feast, as we have seen: he protested privily to the Colonel that his private goodwill continued undiminished but he was deeply grieved at the B. B. C. affair, which took place while he was on the Continent--confound the Continent, my wife would go--and which was entirely without his cognisance. The Colonel received his brother's excuses, first with awful bows and ceremony, and finally with laughter. "My good Hobson," said he, with the most insufferable kindness, "of course you intended to be friendly; of course the affair was done without your knowledge. We understand that sort of thing. London bankers have no hearts--for these last fifty years past that I have known you and your brother, and my amiable nephew, the present commanding officer, has there been anything in your conduct that has led me to suppose you had?" and herewith Colonel Newcome burst out into a laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. Worthy Hobson took his hat, and walked away, brushing it round and round, and looking very confused. The Colonel strode after him downstairs, and made him an awful bow at the hall door. Never again did Hobson Newcome set foot in that Tyburnian mansion.

During the whole of that season of the testimonial the cocoa-nut figured in an extraordinary number of banquets. The Colonel's hospitalities were more profuse than ever, and Mrs. Clive's toilettes more brilliant.

Clive, in his confidential conversations with his friends, was very dismal and gloomy. When I asked City news of our well-informed friend F. B., I am sorry to say, his countenance became funereal. The B. B. C.

shares, which had been at an immense premium twelve months since, were now slowly falling, falling.

"I wish," said Mr. Sherrick to me, "the Colonel would realise, even now, like that Mr. Ratray who has just come out of the ship, and brought a hundred thousand pounds with him."

"Come out of the ship! You little know the Colonel, Mr. Sherrick, if you think he will ever do that."

Mr. Ratray, though he had returned to Europe, gave the most cheering accounts of the B. B. C. It was in the most flourishing state. Shares sure to get up again. He had sold out entirely on account of his liver.

Must come home--the doctor said so.

Some months afterwards, another director, Mr. Hedges, came home. Both of these gentlemen, as we know, entertained the fashionable world, got seats in Parliament, purchased places in the country, and were greatly respected. Mr. Hedges came out, but his wealthy partner, Mr. M'Gaspey, entered into the B. B. C. The entry of Mr. M'Gaspey into the affairs of the Companyt did not seem to produce very great excitement in England.

The shares slowly fell. However, there was a prodigious indigo crop. The London manager was in perfect good-humour. In spite of this and that, of defections, of unpleasantries, of unfavourable whispers, and doubtful friends--Thomas Newcome kept his head high, and his face was always kind and smiling, except when certain family enemies were mentioned, and he frowned like Jove in anger.

We have seen how very fond little Rosey was of her mamma, of her uncle, James Binnie, and now of her papa, as she affectionately styled Thomas Newcome. This affection, I am sure, the two gentlemen returned with all their hearts, and but that they were much too generous and simple-minded to entertain such a feeling. It may be wondered that the two good old boys were not a little jealous of one another. Howbeit it does not appear that they entertained such a feeling; at least it never interrupted the kindly friendship between them, and Clive was regarded in the light of a son by both of them, and each contented himself with his moiety of the smiling little girl's affection.

As long as they were with her, the truth is, little Mrs. Clive was very fond of people, very docile, obedient, easily pleased, brisk, kind, and good-humoured. She charmed her two old friends with little songs, little smiles,--little kind offices, little caresses; and having administered Thomas Newcome's cigar to him in the daintiest, prettiest way, she would trip off to drive with James Binnie, or sit at his dinner, if he was indisposed, and be as gay, neat-handed, watchful, and attentive a child as any old gentleman could desire.

She did not seem to be very sorry to part with mamma, a want of feeling which that lady bitterly deplored in her subsequent conversation with her friends about Mrs. Clive Newcome. Possibly there were reasons why Rosey should not be very much vexed at quitting mamma; but surely she might have dropped a little tear as she took leave of kind, good old James Binnie. Not she. The gentleman's voice faltered, but hers did not in the least. She kissed him on the face, all smiles, blushes, and happiness, and tripped into the railway carriage with her husband and father-in-law, leaving the poor old uncle very sad. Our women said, I know not why, that little Rosey had no heart at all. Women are accustomed to give such opinions respecting the wives of their newly married friends. I am bound to add (and I do so during Mr. Clive Newcome's absence from England, otherwise I should not like to venture upon the statement), that some men concur with the ladies' opinion of Mrs. Clive. For instance, Captains Goby and Hoby declare that her treatment of the latter, her encouragement, and desertion of him when Clive made his proposals, were shameful.

At this time Rosey was in a pupillary state. A good, obedient little girl, her duty was to obey the wishes of her dear mamma. How show her sense of virtue and obedience better than by promptly and cheerfully obeying mamma, and at the orders of that experienced Campaigner, giving up Bobby Hoby, and going to England to a fine house, to be presented at Court, to have all sorts of pleasure with a handsome young husband and a kind father-in-law by her side? No wonder Rosey was not in a very active state of grief at parting from Uncle James. He strove to console himself with these considerations when he had returned to the empty house, where she had danced, and smiled, and warbled; and he looked at the chair she sat in; and at the great mirror which had so often reflected her fresh pretty face;--the great callous mirror, which now only framed upon its shining sheet the turban, and the ringlets, and the plump person, and the resolute smile of the old Campaigner.

After that parting with her uncle at the Brussels railway, Rosey never again beheld him. He pa.s.sed into the Campaigner's keeping, from which alone he was rescued by the summons of pallid death. He met that summons like a philosopher; rejected rather testily all the mortuary consolations which his nephew-in-law, Josey's husband, thought proper to bring to his bedside; and uttered opinions which scandalised that divine. But as he left Mrs. M'Craw only 500 pounds, thrice that sum to his sister, and the remainder of his property to his beloved niece, Rosa Mackenzie, now Rosa Newcome, let us trust that Mr. M'Craw, hurt and angry at the ill-favour shown to his wife, his third young wife, his best-beloved Josey, at the impatience with which the deceased had always received his, Mr. M'Craw's, own sermons;--let us hope, I say, that the reverend gentleman was mistaken in his views respecting the present position of Mr. James Binnie's soul; and that Heaven may have some regions yet accessible to James, which Mr. M'Craw's intellect has not yet explored. Look, gentlemen! Does a week pa.s.s without the announcement of the discovery of a new comet in the sky, a new star in the heaven, twinkling dimly out of a yet farther distance, and only now becoming visible to human ken though existent for ever and ever? So let us hope divine truths may be shining, and regions of light and love extant, which Geneva gla.s.ses cannot yet perceive, and are beyond the focus of Roman telescopes.

I think Clive and the Colonel were more affected by the news of James's death than Rosey, concerning whose wonderful strength of mind good Thomas Newcome discoursed to my Laura and me, when, fancying that my friend's wife needed comfort and consolation, Mrs. Pendennis went to visit her. "Of course we shall have no more parties this year," sighed Rosey. She looked very pretty in her black dress. Clive, in his hearty way, said a hundred kind feeling things about the departed friend.

Thomas Newcome's recollections of him, and regret, were no less tender and sincere. "See," says he, "how that dear child's sense of duty makes her hide her feelings! Her grief is most deep, but she wears a calm countenance. I see her looking sad in private, but I no sooner speak than she smiles." "I think," said Laura, as we came away, "that Colonel Newcome performs all the courtship part in the marriage, and Clive, poor Clive, though he spoke very n.o.bly and generously about Mr. Binnie, I am sure it is not his old friend's death merely, which makes him so unhappy."

Poor Clive, by right of his wife, was now rich Clive; the little lady having inherited from her kind relative no inconsiderable sum of money.

In a very early part of this story, mention has been made of a small sum producing one hundred pounds a year, which Clive's father had made over to the lad when he sent him from India. This little sum Mr. Clive had settled upon his wife before his marriage, being indeed all he had of his own; for the famous bank shares which his father presented to him, were only made over formally when the young man came to London after his marriage, and at the paternal request and order appeared as a most inefficient director of the B. B. C. Now Mrs. Newcome, of her inheritance, possessed not only B. B. C. shares, but moneys in bank, and shares in East India Stock, so that Clive in the right of his wife had a seat in the a.s.sembly of East India shareholders, and a voice in the election of directors of that famous company. I promise you Mrs. Clive was a personage of no little importance. She carried her little head with an aplomb and gravity which amused some of us. F. B. bent his most respectfully down before her; she sent him on messages, and deigned to ask him to dinner. He once more wore a cheerful countenance; the clouds which gathered o'er the sun of Newcome were in the bosom of the ocean buried, Bayham said, by James Binnie's brilliant behaviour to his niece.

Clive was a proprietor of East India Stock, and had a vote in electing the directors of that Company; and who so fit to be a director of his affairs as Thomas Newcome, Esq., Companion of the Bath, and so long a distinguished officer in its army? To hold this position of director, used, up to very late days, to be the natural ambition of many East Indian gentlemen. Colonel Newcome had often thought of offering himself as a candidate, and now openly placed himself on the lists, and publicly announced his intention. His interest was rather powerful through the Indian bank, of which he was a director, and many of the shareholders of which were proprietors of the East India Company. To have a director of the B. B. C. also a member of the parliament in Leadenhall Street, would naturally be beneficial to the former inst.i.tution. Thomas Newcome's prospectuses were issued accordingly, and his canva.s.s received with tolerable favour.

Within a very short time another candidate appeared in the field--a retired Bombay lawyer, of considerable repute and large means--and at the head of this gentleman's committee appeared the names of Hobson Brothers and Newcome, very formidable personages at the East India House, with which the bank of Hobson Brothers have had dealings for half a century past, and where the old lady, who founded or consolidated that family, had had three stars before her own venerable name, which had descended upon her son Sir Brian, and her grandson, Sir Barnes.

War was thus openly declared between Thomas Newcome and his nephew. The canva.s.s on both sides was very hot and eager. The number of promises was pretty equal. The election was not to come off yet for a while; for aspirants to the honourable office of director used to announce their wishes years before they could be fulfilled, and returned again and again to the contest before they finally won it. Howbeit, the Colonel's prospects were very fair, and a prodigious indigo crop came in to favour the B. B. C., with the most brilliant report from the board at Calcutta.

The shares, still somewhat sluggish, rose again, the Colonel's hopes with them, and the courage of gentlemen at home who had invested their money in the transaction.

We were sitting one day round the Colonel's dinner-table; it was not one of the cocoa-nut-tree days; that emblem was locked up in the butler's pantry, and only beheld the lamps on occasions of state. It was a snug family party in the early part of the year, When scarcely anybody was in town; only George Warrington, and F. B., and Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis; and the ladies having retired, We were having such a talk as we used to enjoy in quiet old days, before marriages and cares and divisions had separated us.

F. B. led the conversation. The Colonel received his remarks with great gravity, and thought him an instructive personage. Others considered him rather as amusing than instructive, and so his eloquence was generally welcome. The canva.s.s for the directorship was talked over. The improved affairs of a certain great Banking Company, which shall be nameless, but one which F. B. would take the liberty to state, would, in his opinion, for ever unite the mother country to our great Indian possessions;--the prosperity of this great Company was enthusiastically drunk by Mr.

Bayham in some of the very best claret. The conduct of the enemies of that Company was characterised in terms of bitter, but not undeserved, satire. F. B. rather liked to air his oratory, and neglected few opportunities for making speeches after dinners.

The Colonel admired his voice and sentiments not the less, perhaps, because the latter were highly laudatory of the good man. And not from interest, at least, as far as he himself knew--not from any mean or selfish motives, did F. B. speak. He called Colonel Newcome his friend, his benefactor: kissed the hem of his garment: he wished fervently that he could have been the Colonel's son: he expressed, repeatedly, a desire that some one would speak ill of the Colonel, so that he, F. B., might have the opportunity of polishing that individual off in about two seconds. He covered the Colonel with all his heart; nor is any gentleman proof altogether against this constant regard and devotion from another.

The Colonel used to wag his head wisely, and say Mr. Bayham's suggestions were often exceedingly valuable, as indeed the fact was, though his conduct was no more of a piece with his opinions than those of some other folks occasionally are.

"What the Colonel ought to do, sir, to help him in the direction," says F. B., "is to get into Parliament. The House of Commons would aid him into the Court of Directors, and the Court of Directors would help him in the House of Commons."

"Most wisely said," says Warrington.

The Colonel declined. "I have long had the House of Commons in my eye,"

he said; "but not for me. I wanted my boy to go there. It would be a proud day for me if I could see him there."

"I can't speak," says Clive, from his end of the table. "I don't understand about parties, like F. B. here."

"I believe I do know a thing or two," Mr. Bayham here interposes.

"And politics do not interest me in the least," Clive sighs out, drawing pictures with his fork on his napkin, and not heeding the other's interruption.

"I wish I knew what would interest him," his father whispers to me, who happened to be at his side. "He never cares to be out of his painting-room; and he doesn't seem to be very happy even in there. I wish to G.o.d, Pen, I knew what had come over the boy." I thought I knew; but what was the use of telling, now there was no remedy?

"A dissolution is expected every day," continued F. B. "The papers are full of it. Ministers cannot go on with this majority--cannot possibly go on, sir. I have it on the best authority; and men who are anxious about their seats are writing to their const.i.tuents, or are subscribing at missionary meetings, or are gone down to lecturing at Athenaeums, and that sort of thing."

Here Warrington burst out into a laughter much louder than the occasion of the speech of F. B. seemed to warrant; and the Colonel, turning round with some dignity, asked the cause of George's amus.e.m.e.nt.

"What do you think your darling, Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, has been doing during the recess?" cries Warrington. "I had a letter this morning, from my liberal and punctual employer, Thomas Potts, Esquire, of the Newcome Independent, who states, in language scarcely respectful, that Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome is trying to come the religious dodge, as Mr. Potts calls it. He professes to be stricken down by grief on account of late family circ.u.mstances; wears black, and puts on the most piteous aspect, and asks ministers of various denominations to tea with him; and the last announcement is the most stupendous of all. Stop, I have it in my greatcoat;" and, ringing the bell, George orders a servant to bring him a newspaper from his great-coat pocket. "Here it is, actually in print," Warrington continues, and reads to us:--"'Newcome Athenaeum. 1, for the benefit of the Newcome Orphan Children's Home, and 2, for the benefit of the Newcome Soup a.s.sociation, without distinction of denomination. Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., proposes to give two lectures, on Friday the 23rd, and Friday the 30th, instant. No. 1, The Poetry of Childhood: Doctor Watts, Mrs. Barbauld, Jane Taylor, No.

2, The Poetry of Womanhood, and the Affections: Mrs. Hemans, L. E. L.