The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family Part 79

"His golden locks time hath to silver turned; O time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing!

His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned, But spurned in vain; youth waneth by encreasing.

Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen.

Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees, And lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms; A man at arms must now serve on his knees, And feed on prayers, which are old age's alms."

These, I say, respected our friend, whatever was the coat he wore; whereas, among the Colonel's own kinsfolk, dire was the dismay, and indignation even, which they expressed when they came to hear of this, what they were pleased to call degradation to their family. Clive's dear mother-in-law made outcries over the good old man as over a pauper, and inquired of Heaven, what she had done that her blessed child should have a mendicant for a father? And Mrs. Hobson, in subsequent confidential communication with the writer of these memoirs, improved the occasion religiously as her wont was; referred the matter to Heaven too, and thought fit to a.s.sume that the celestial powers had decreed this humiliation, this dreadful trial for the Newcome family, as a warning to them all that they should not be too much puffed up with prosperity, nor set their affections too much upon things of this earth. Had they not already received one chastis.e.m.e.nt in Barnes's punishment, and Lady Clara's awful falling away? They had taught her a lesson, which the Colonel's lamentable errors had confirmed,--the vanity of trusting in all earthly grandeurs! Thus it was this worthy woman plumed herself, as it were, on her relative's misfortunes; and was pleased to think the latter were designed for the special warning and advantage of her private family. But Mrs. Hobson's philosophy is only mentioned by the way. Our story, which is drawing to its close, has to busy itself with other members of the house of The Newcomes.

My talk with Florac lasted for some time: at its close, when we went to join the ladies in the drawing-room, we found Ethel cloaked and shawled, and prepared for her departure with her young ones, who were already asleep. The little festival was over, and had ended in melancholy--even in weeping. Our hostess sate in her accustomed seat by her lamp and her worktable; but, neglecting her needle, she was having perpetual recourse to her pocket-handkerchief, and uttering e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of pity between the intervals of her gushes of tears. Madame de Florac was in her usual place, her head cast downwards, and her hands folded. My wife was at her side, a grave commiseration showing itself in Laura's countenance, whilst I read a yet deeper sadness in Ethel's pale face. Miss Newcome's carriage had been announced; the attendants had already carried the young ones asleep to the vehicle; and she was in the act of taking leave. We looked round at this disturbed party, guessing very likely what the subject of their talk had been, to which, however, Miss Ethel did not allude: but, announcing that she had intended to depart without disturbing the two gentlemen, she bade us farewell and good night. "I wish I could say a merry Christmas," she added gravely, "but none of us, I fear, can hope for that." It was evident that Laura had told the last chapter of the Colonel's story.

Madame de Floras rose up and embraced Miss Newcome, and, that farewell over, she sank back on the sofa exhausted, and with such an expression of affliction in her countenance, that my wife ran eagerly towards her.

"It is nothing, my dear," she said, giving a cold hand to the younger lady, and sate silent for a few moments, during which we heard Florac's voice without crying Adieu! and the wheels of Miss Newcome's carriage when it drove away.

Our host entered a moment afterwards; and remarking, as Laura had done, his mother's pallor and look of anguish, went up and spoke to her with the utmost tenderness and anxiety.

She gave her hand to her son, and a faint blush rose up out of the past as it were, and trembled upon her wan cheek. "He was the first friend I ever had in the world, Paul," she said "the first and the best. He shall not want, shall he, my son?"

No signs of that emotion in which her daughter-in-law had been indulging were as yet visible in Madame de Florac's eyes, but, as she spoke, holding her son's hand in hers, the tears at length overflowed, and with a sob, her head fell forwards. The impetuous Frenchman flung himself on his knees before his mother, uttered a hundred words of love and respect for her, and with tears and sobs of his own called G.o.d to witness that their friend should never want. And so this mother and son embraced each other, and clung together in a sacred union of love, before which we who had been admitted as spectators of that scene, stood hushed and respectful.

That night Laura told me, how, when the ladies left us, the talk had been entirely about the Colonel and Clive. Madame de Florac had spoken especially, and much more freely than was her wont. She had told many reminiscences of Thomas Newcome, and his early days; how her father taught him mathematics when they were quite poor, and living in their dear little cottage at Blackheath; how handsome he was then, with bright eyes, and long black hair flowing over his shoulders; how military glory was his boyish pa.s.sion, and he was for ever talking of India, and the famous deeds of Clive and Lawrence. His favourite book was a history of India--the history of Orme. "He read it, and I read it also, my daughter," the French lady said, turning to Ethel; "ah! I may say so after so many years."

Ethel remembered the book as belonging to her grandmother, and now in the library at Newcome. Doubtless the same sympathy which caused me to speak about Thomas Newcome that evening, impelled my wife likewise. She told her friends, as I had told Florac, all the Colonel's story; and it was while these good women were under the impression of the melancholy history, that Florac and his guest found them.

Retired to our rooms, Laura and I talked on the same subject until the clock tolled Christmas, and the neighbouring church bells rang out a jubilation. And, looking out into the quiet night, where the stars were keenly shining, we committed ourselves to rest with humbled hearts; praying, for all those we loved, a blessing of peace and goodwill.

CHAPTER LXXVII. The Shortest and Happiest in the Whole History

In the ensuing Christmas morning I chanced to rise betimes, and entering my dressing-room, opened the windows and looked out on the soft landscape, over which mists were still lying; whilst the serene sky above, and the lawns and leafless woods in the foreground near, were still pink with sunrise. The grey had not even left the west yet, and I could see a star or two twinkling there, to vanish with that twilight.

As I looked out, I saw the not very distant lodge-gate open after a brief parley, and a lady on horseback, followed by a servant, rode rapidly up to the house. This early visitor was no other than Miss Ethel Newcome. The young lady espied me immediately. "Come down; come down to me this moment, Mr. Pendennis," she cried out. I hastened down to her, supposing rightly that news of importance had brought her to Rosebury so early.

The news were of importance indeed. "Look here!" she said, "read this;"

and she took a paper from the pocket of her habit. "When I went home last night, after Madame de Florac had been talking to us about Orme's India, I took the volumes from the bookcase and found this paper. It is in my grandmother's--Mrs. Newcome's--handwriting; I know it quite well, it is dated on the very day of her death. She had been writing and reading in her study on that very night; I have often heard papa speak of the circ.u.mstance. Look and read. You are a lawyer, Mr. Pendennis; tell me about this paper."

I seized it eagerly, and cast my eyes over it; but having read it, my countenance fell.

"My dear Miss Newcome, it is not worth a penny," I was obliged to own.

"Yes, it is, sir, to honest people!" she cried out. "My brother and uncle will respect it as Mrs. Newcome's dying wish. They must respect it."

The paper in question was a letter in ink that had grown yellow from time, and was addressed by the late Mrs. Newcome, to "my dear Mr. Luce."

"That was her solicitor, my solicitor still," interposes Miss Ethel.

"THE HERMITAGE, March 14, 182-.

"My Dear Mr. Luce" (the defunct lady wrote)--"My late husband's grandson has been staying with me lately, and is a most pleasing, handsome, and engaging little boy. He bears a strong likeness to his grandfather, I think; and though he has no claims upon me, and I know is sufficiently provided for by his father Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, C.B., of the East India Company's Service, I am sure my late dear husband will be pleased that I should leave his grandson, Clive Newcome, a token of peace and goodwill; and I can do so with the more readiness, as it has pleased Heaven greatly to increase my means since my husband was called away hence.

"I desire to bequeath a sum equal to that which Mr Newcome willed to my eldest son, Brian Newcome, Esq., to Mr. Newcome's grandson, Clive Newcome; and furthermore, that a token of my esteem and affection, a ring, or a piece of plate, of the value of one hundred pounds, be given to Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Newcome, my stepson, whose excellent conduct for many years, and whose repeated acts of gallantry in the service of his sovereign, have long obliterated the just feelings of displeasure with which I could not but view his early disobedience and misbehaviour, before he quitted England against my will, and entered the military service.

"I beg you to prepare immediately a codicil to my will providing for the above bequests; and desire that the amount of these legacies should be taken from the property bequeathed to my eldest son. You will be so good as to prepare the necessary doc.u.ment, and bring it with you when you come on Sat.u.r.day, to yours very truly,

"Sophia Alethea Newcome.

"Tuesday night."

I gave back the paper with a sigh to the finder. "It is but a wish of Mrs. Newcome, my dear Miss Ethel," I said. "Pardon me, if I say, I think I know your elder brother too well to supposes that he will fulfil it."

"He will fulfil it, sir, I am sure he will," Miss Newcome said, in a haughty manner. "He would do as much without being asked, I am certain he would, did he know the depth of my dear uncle's misfortune. Barnes is in London now, and----"

"And you will write to him? I know what the answer will be."

"I will go to him this very day, Mr. Pendennis! I will go to my dear, dear uncle. I cannot bear to think of him in that place," cried the young lady, the tears starting into her honest eyes. "It was the will of Heaven. Oh, G.o.d be thanked for it! Had we found my grandmamma's letter earlier, Barnes would have paid the legacy immediately, and the money would have gone in that dreadful bankruptcy. I will go to Barnes to-day.

Will you come with me? Won't you come to your old friends? We may be at his--at Clive's house this evening; and oh, praise be to G.o.d! there need be no more want in his family."

"My dear friend, I will go with you round the world on such an errand,"

I said, kissing her hand. How beautiful she looked; the generous colour rose in her face, her voice thrilled with happiness. The music of Christmas church bells leaped up at this moment with joyful gratulations; the face of the old house, before which we stood talking, shone out in the morning sun.

"You will come I thank you! I must run and tell Madame de Florac," cried the happy young lady, and we entered the house together. "How came you to be kissing Ethel's hand, sir; and what is the meaning of this early visit?" asks Mrs. Laura, as soon as I had returned to my own apartments.

"Martha, get me a carpet-bag! I am going to London in an hour," cries Mr. Pendennis. If I had kissed Ethel's hand jus now, delighted at the news which she brought to me, was not one a thousand times dearer to me, as happy as her friend? I know who prayed with a thankful heart that day as we sped, in the almost solitary train, towards London.

CHAPTER LXXVIII. In which the Author goes on a Pleasant Errand

Before I parted with Miss Newcome at the station, she made me promise to see her on the morrow at an early hour at her brother's house; and having bidden her farewell and repaired to my own solitary residence, which presented but a dreary aspect on that festive day, I thought I would pay Howland Street a visit; and, if invited, eat my Christmas dinner with Clive.

I found my friend at home, and at work still, in spite of the day. He had promised a pair of pictures to a dealer for the morrow. "He pays me pretty well, and I want all the money he will give me, Pen," the painter said, rubbing on at his canvas. "I am pretty easy in my mind since I have become acquainted with a virtuous dealer. I sell myself to him, body and soul, for some half-dozen pounds a week. I know I can get my money, and he is regularly supplied with his pictures. But for Rosey's illness we might carry on well enough."

Rosey's illness? I was sorry to hear of that: and poor Clive, entering into particulars, told me how he had spent upon doctors rather more than a fourth of his year's earnings. "There is a solemn fellow, to whom the women have taken a fancy, who lives but a few doors off in Gower Street; and who, for his last sixteen visits, has taken sixteen pounds sixteen shillings out of my pocket, and as if guineas grew there, with the most admirable gravity. He talks the fashions to my mother-in-law. My poor wife hangs on every word he says. Look! There is his carriage coming up now! and there is his fee, confound him!" says Clive, casting a rueful look towards a little packet lying upon the mantelpiece, by the side of that skinned figure in plaster of Paris which we have seen in most studios.

I looked out of window and saw a certain Fashionable Doctor tripping out of his chariot; that Ladies' Delight, who has subsequently migrated from Bloomsbury to Belgravia; and who has his polite foot now in a thousand nurseries and boudoirs. What Confessors were in old times, Quackenboss and his like are in our Protestant country. What secrets they know! into what mystic chambers do they not enter! I suppose the Campaigner made a special toilette to receive her fashionable friend, for that lady attired in considerable splendour, and with the precious jewel on her head, which I remembered at Boulogne, came into the studio two minutes after the Doctor's visit was announced, and made him a low curtsey. I cannot describe the overpowering civilities of that woman.

Clive was very gracious and humble to her. He adopted a lively air in addressing her--"Must work, you know, Christmas Day and all--for the owner of the pictures will call for them in the morning. Bring me a good report about Rosey, Mrs. Mackenzie, please--and if you will have the kindness to look by the ecorche there, you will see that little packet which I have left for you." Mrs. Mack, advancing, took the money. "I thought that plaster of Paris figure was not the only ecorche in the room."

"I want you to stay to dinner. You must stay, Pen, please," cried Clive; "and be civil to her, will you? My dear old father is coming to dine here. They fancy that he has lodgings at the other end of the town, and that his brothers do something for him. Not a word about Grey Friars. It might agitate Rosa, you know. Ah! isn't he n.o.ble, the dear old boy! and isn't it fine to see him in that place?" Clive worked on as he talked, using up the last remnant of the light of Christmas Day, and was cleaning his palette and brushes, when Mrs. Mackenzie returned to us.

Darling Rosey was very delicate, but Doctor Quackenboss was going to give her the very same medicine which had done the charming young d.u.c.h.ess of Clackmannanshire so much good, and he was not in the least disquiet.