The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family Part 82

No further outbreak took place until the appearance of the second course, which consisted, as the ingenious reader may suppose, of the plum-pudding, now in a grilled state, and the remanent of mince-pies from yesterday's meal. Maria, I thought, looked particularly guilty as these delicacies were placed on the table: she set them down hastily, and was for operating an instant retreat.

But the Campaigner shrieked after her, "Who has eaten that pudding? I insist upon knowing who has eaten it. I saw it at two o'clock when I went down to the kitchen and fried a bit for my darling child, and there's pounds of it gone since then! There were five mince-pies! Mr.

Pendennis! you saw yourself there were five that went away from table yesterday--where's the other two Maria? You leave the house this night, you thieving, wicked wretch--and I'll thank you to come back to me afterwards for a character. Thirteen servants have we had in nine months, Mr. Pendennis, and this girl is the worst of them all, and the greatest liar and the greatest thief."

At this charge the outraged Maria stood up in arms, and as the phrase is, gave the Campaigner as good as she got. Go! wouldn't she go? Pay her her wages, and let her go out of that ell upon hearth, was Maria's prayer. "It isn't you, sir," she said, turning to Clive. "You are good enough, and works hard enough to git the guineas which you give out to pay that doctor; and she don't pay him--and I see five of them in her purse wrapped up in paper, myself I did, and she abuses you to him--and I heard her, and Jane Black, who was here before, told me she heard her.

Go! won't I just go, I dispises your puddens and pies!" and with a laugh of scorn this rude Maria snapped her black fingers in the immediate vicinity of the Campaigner's nose.

"I will pay her her wages, and she shall go this instant!" says Mrs.

Mackenzie, taking her purse out.

"Pay me with them suvverings that you have got in it, wrapped up in paper. See if she haven't, Mr. Newcome," the refractory waiting-woman cried out, and again she laughed a strident laugh.

Mrs. Mackenzie briskly shut her portemonnaie, and rose up from table, quivering with indignant virtue. "Go!" she exclaimed, "go and pack your trunks this instant! you quit the house this night, and a policeman shall see to your boxes before you leave it!"

Whilst uttering this sentence against the guilty Maria, the Campaigner had intended, no doubt, to replace her purse in her pocket,--a handsome filagree gimcrack of poor Ross's, one of the relics of former splendours,--but, agitated by Maria's insolence, the trembling hand missed the mark, and the purse fell to the ground.

Maria dashed at the purse in a moment, with a scream of laughter shook its contents upon the table, and sure enough, five little packets wrapped in paper rolled out upon the cloth, besides bank-notes and silver and golden coin. "I'm to go, am I? I'm a thief, am I?" screamed the girl, clapping her hands. "I sor 'em yesterday when I was a-lacing of her; and thought of that pore young man working night and day to get the money;--me a thief, indeed!--I despise you, and I give you warning."

"Do you wish to see me any longer insulted by this woman, Clive?

Mr. Pendennis, I am shocked that you should witness such horrible vulgarity," cries the Campaigner, turning to her guest. "Does the wretched creature suppose that I, I who have given thousands, I who have denied myself everything, I who have spent my all in support of this house; and Colonel Newcome knows whether I have given thousands or not, and who has spent them, and who has been robbed, I say, and----"

"Here! you! Maria! go about your business," shouted out Clive Newcome, starting up; "go and pack your trunks if you like, and pack this woman's trunks too. Mrs. Mackenzie, I can bear you no more; go in peace, and if you wish to see your daughter she shall come to you; but I will never, so help me G.o.d! sleep under the same roof with you; or break the same crust with you; or bear your infernal cruelty; or sit to hear my father insulted; or listen to your wicked pride and folly more. There has not been a day since you thrust your cursed foot into our wretched house, but you have tortured one and all of us. Look here, at the best gentleman, and the kindest heart in all the world, you fiend! and see to what a condition you have brought him! Dearest father! she is going, do you hear? She leaves us, and you will come back to me, won't you?

Great G.o.d, woman," he gasped out, "do you know what you have made me suffer--what you have done to this good man? Pardon, father, pardon!"--and he sank down by his father's side, sobbing with pa.s.sionate emotion. The old man even now did not seem to comprehend the scene. When he heard that woman's voice in anger, a sort of stupor came over him.

"I am a fiend, am I?" cries the lady. "You hear, Mr. Pendennis, this is the language to which I am accustomed; I am a widow, and I trusted my child and my all to that old man; he robbed me and my darling of almost every farthing we had; and what has been my return for such baseness?

I have lived in this house and toiled like a slave; I have acted as servant to my blessed child; night after night I have sat with her; and month after month, when her husband has been away, I have nursed that poor innocent; and the father having robbed me, the son turns me out of doors!"

A sad thing it was to witness, and a painful proof how frequent were these battles, that, as this one raged, the poor little boy sat almost careless, whilst his bewildered grandfather stroked his golden head. "It is quite clear to me, madam," I said, turning to Mrs. Mackenzie, "that you and your son-in-law are better apart; and I came to tell him to-day of a most fortunate legacy, which has been left to him, and which will enable him to pay you to-morrow morning every shilling, every shilling which he does NOT owe you?"

"I will not leave this house until I am paid every shilling of which I have been robbed," hissed out Mrs. Mackenzie; and she sat down, folding her arms across her chest.

"I am sorry," groaned out Clive, wiping the sweat off his brow, "I used a harsh word; I will never sleep under the same roof with you. To-morrow I will pay you what you claim; and the best chance I have of forgiving you the evil which you have done me, is that we never should meet again.

Will you give me a bed at your house, Arthur? Father, will you come out and walk? Good night, Mrs. Mackenzie; Pendennis will settle with you in the morning. You will not be here, if you please, when I return; and so G.o.d forgive you, and farewell."

Mrs. Mackenzie in a tragic manner dashed aside the hand which poor Clive held out to her, and disappeared from the scene of this dismal dinner.

Boy presently fell a-crying; in spite of all the battle and fury, there was sleep in his eyes.

"Maria is too busy, I suppose, to put him to bed," said Clive, with a sad smile; "shall we do it, father? Come, Tommy, my son!" and he folded his arms round the child, and walked with him to the upper regions.

The old man's eyes lighted up; his seared thoughts returned to him; he followed his two children up the stairs, and saw his grandson in his little bed; and, as we walked home with him, he told me how sweetly Boy said "Our Father," and prayed G.o.d bless all those who loved him, as they laid him to rest.

So these three generations had joined in that supplication: the strong man, humbled by trial and grief, whose loyal heart was yet full of love;--the child, of the sweet age of those little ones whom the Blessed Speaker of the prayer first bade to come unto Him;--and the old man, whose heart was well-nigh as tender and as innocent; and whose day was approaching, when he should be drawn to the bosom of the Eternal Pity.

CHAPTER Lx.x.x. In which the Colonel says "Adsum" when his Name is called

The vow which Clive had uttered, never to share bread with his mother-in-law, or sleep under the same roof with her, was broken on the very next day. A stronger will than the young man's intervened, and he had to confess the impotence of his wrath before that superior power.

In the forenoon of the day following that unlucky dinner, I went with my friend to the banking-house whither Mr. Luce's letter directed us, and carried away with me the princ.i.p.al sum, in which the Campaigner said Colonel Newcome was indebted to her, with the interest accurately computed and reimbursed. Clive went off with a pocketful of money to the dear old Poor Brother of Grey Friars; and he promised to return with his father, and dine with my wife in Queen Square. I had received a letter from Laura by the morning's post, announcing her return by the express train from Newcome, and desiring that a spare bedroom should be got ready for a friend who accompanied her.

On reaching Howland Street, Clive's door was opened, rather to my surprise, by the rebellious maid-servant who had received her dismissal on the previous night; and the doctor's carriage drove up as she was still speaking to me. The polite pract.i.tioner sped upstairs to Mrs.

Newcome's apartment. Mrs. Mackenzie, in a robe-de-chambre and cap very different from yesterday's, came out eagerly to meet the physician on the landing. Ere they had been a quarter of an hour together, arrived a cab, which discharged an elderly person with her bandbox and bundles; I had no difficulty in recognising a professional nurse in the new-comer.

She too disappeared into the sick-room, and left me sitting in the neighbouring chamber, the scene of the last night's quarrel.

Hither presently came to me Maria, the maid. She said she had not the heart to go away now she was wanted; that they had pa.s.sed a sad night, and that no one had been to bed. Master Tommy was below, and the landlady taking care of him: the landlord had gone out for the nurse.

Mrs. Clive had been taken bad after Mr. Clive went away the night before. Mrs. Mackenzie had gone to the poor young thing, and there she went on, crying, and screaming, and stamping, as she used to do in her tantrums, which was most cruel of her, and made Mrs. Clive so ill. And presently the young lady began: my informant told me. She came screaming into the sitting-room, her hair over her shoulders, calling out she was deserted, deserted, and would like to die. She was like a mad woman for some time. She had fit after fit of hysterics: and there was her mother, kneeling, and crying, and calling out to her darling child to calm herself;--which it was all her own doing, and she had much better have held her own tongue, remarked the resolute Maria. I understood only too well from the girl's account what had happened, and that Clive, if resolved to part with his mother-in-law, should not have left her, even for twelve hours, in possession of his house. The wretched woman, whose Self was always predominant, and who, though she loved her daughter after her own fashion, never forgot her own vanity or pa.s.sion, had improved the occasion of Clive's absence: worked upon her child's weakness, jealousy, ill-health, and driven her, no doubt, into the fever which yonder physician was called to quell.

The doctor presently enters to write a prescription, followed by Clive's mother-in-law, who had cast Rosa's fine Cashmere shawl over her shoulders, to hide her disarray. "You here still, Mr. Pendennis!" she exclaims. She knew I was there. Had not she changed her dress in order to receive me?

"I have to speak to you for two minutes on important business, and then I shall go," I replied gravely.

"Oh, sir! to what a scene you have come! To what a state has Clive's conduct last night driven my darling child!"

As the odious woman spoke so, the doctor's keen eyes, looking up from the prescription, caught mine. "I declare before Heaven, madam," I said hotly, "I believe you yourself are the cause of your daughter's present illness, as you have been of the misery of my friends."

"Is this, sir," she was breaking out, "is this language to be used to----?"

"Madam, will you be silent?" I said. "I am come to bid you farewell on the part of those whom your temper has driven into infernal torture. I am come to pay you every halfpenny of the sum which my friends do not owe you, but which they restore. Here is the account, and here is the money to settle it. And I take this gentleman to witness, to whom, no doubt, you have imparted what you call your wrongs" (the doctor smiled, and shrugged his shoulders) "that now you are paid."

"A widow--a poor, lonely, insulted widow!" cries the Campaigner, with trembling hands taking possession of the notes.

"And I wish to know," I continued, "when my friend's house will be free to him, and he can return in peace."

Here Rosa's voice was heard from the inner apartment, screaming, "Mamma, mamma!"

"I go to my child, sir," she said. "If Captain Mackenzie had been alive, you would not have dared to insult me so." And carrying off her money, she left us.

"Cannot she be got out of the house?" I said to the doctor. "My friend will never return until she leaves it. It is my belief she is the cause of her daughter's present illness."

"Not altogether, my dear sir. Mrs. Newcome was in a very, very delicate state of health. Her mother is a lady of impetuous temper, who expresses herself very strongly--too strongly, I own. In consequence of unpleasant family discussions, which no physician can prevent, Mrs. Newcome has been wrought up to a state of--of agitation. Her fever is, in fact, at present very high. You know her condition. I am apprehensive of ulterior consequences. I have recommended an excellent and experienced nurse to her. Mr. Smith, the medical man at the corner, is a most able pract.i.tioner. I shall myself call again in a few hours, and I trust that, after the event which I apprehend, everything will go well.

"Cannot Mrs. Mackenzie leave the house, sir?" I asked.

"Her daughter cries out for her at every moment. Mrs. Mackenzie is certainly not a judicious nurse, but in Mrs. Newcome's present state I cannot take upon myself to separate them. Mr. Newcome may return, and I do think and believe that his presence may tend to impose silence and restore tranquillity."

I had to go back to Clive with these gloomy tidings. The poor fellow must put up a bed in his studio, and there await the issue of his wife's illness. I saw Thomas Newcome could not sleep under his son's roof that night. That dear meeting, which both so desired, was delayed, who could say for how long?

"The Colonel may come to us," I thought; "our old house is big enough."

I guessed who was the friend coming in my wife's company; and pleased myself by thinking that two friends so dear should meet in our home.

Bent upon these plans, I repaired to Grey Friars, and to Thomas Newcome's chamber there.

Bayham opened the door when I knocked, and came towards me with a finger on his lip, and a sad, sad countenance. He closed the door gently behind him, and led me into the court. "Clive is with him, and Miss Newcome. He is very ill. He does not know them," said Bayham with a sob. "He calls out for both of them: they are sitting there and he does not know them."

In a brief narrative, broken by more honest tears, Fred Bayham, as we paced up and down the court, told me what had happened. The old man must have pa.s.sed a sleepless night, for on going to his chamber in the morning, his attendant found him dressed in his chair, and his bed undisturbed. He must have sat all through the bitter night without a fire: but his hands were burning hot, and he rambled in his talk. He spoke of some one coming to drink tea with him, pointed to the fire, and asked why it was not made; he would not go to bed, though the nurse pressed him. The bell began to ring for morning chapel; he got up and went towards his gown, groping towards it as though he could hardly see, and put it over his shoulders, and would go out, but he would have fallen in the court if the good nurse had not given him her arm; and the physician of the hospital, pa.s.sing fortunately at this moment, who had always been a great friend of Colonel Newcome's, insisted upon leading him back to his room again, and got him to bed. "When the bell stopped, he wanted to rise once more; he fancied he was a boy at school again,"

said the nurse, "and that he was going in to Dr. Raine, who was schoolmaster here ever so many years ago." So it was, that when happier days seemed to be dawning for the good man, that reprieve came too late.

Grief, and years, and humiliation, and care, and cruelty had been too strong for him, and Thomas Newcome was stricken down.