Thomas Newcome explained to his son the plan, which, to his mind, as he
came away from the City after the day's misfortunes, he thought it was
best to pursue. The women and the child were clearly best out of the way.
"And you too, my boy, must be on duty with them until I send for you,
which I will do if your presence can be of the least service to me, or is
called for by--by--our honour," said the old man with a drop in his
voice. "You must obey me in this, dear Clive, as you have done in
everything, and been a good and dear, and obedient son to me. God pardon
me for having trusted to my own simple old brains too much, and not to
you who know so much better. You will obey me this once more, my boy--you
will promise me this?" and the old man as he spoke took Clive's hand in
both his, and fondly caressed it.
Then with a shaking hand he took out of his pocket his old purse with the
steel rings, which he had worn for many and many a long year. Clive
remembered it, and his father's face how it would beam with delight, when
he used to take that very purse out in Clive's boyish days and tip him
just after he left school. "Here are some notes and some gold," he said.
"It is Rosey's, honestly, Clive dear, her half-year's dividend, for which
you will give an order, please, to Sherrick. He has been very kind and
good, Sherrick. All the servants were providentially paid last week--
there are only the outstanding week's bills out--we shall manage to meet
those, I dare say. And you will see that Rosey only takes away such
clothes for herself and her baby as are actually necessary, won't you,
dear? the plain things, you know--none of the fineries--they may be
packed in a petara or two, and you will take them with you--but the pomps
and vanities, you know, we will leave behind--the pearls and bracelets,
and the plate, and all that rubbish--and I will make an inventory of them
to-morrow when you are gone, and give them up, every rupee's worth, sir,
every anna, by Jove, to the creditors."
The darkness had fallen by this time, and the obsequious butler entered
to light the dining-room lamps. "You have been a very good and kind
servant to us, Martin," says the Colonel, making him a low bow. "I should
like to shake you by the hand. We must part company now, and I have no
doubt you and your fellow servants will find good places, all of you, as
you merit, Martin--as you merit. Great losses have fallen upon our
family--we are ruined, sir--we are ruined! The great Bundelcund Banking
Company has stopped payment in India, and our branch here must stop on
Monday. Thank my friends downstairs for their kindness to me and my
family." Martin bowed in silence with great respect. He and his comrades
in the servants'-hall had been expecting this catastrophe, quite as long
as the Colonel himself who thought he had kept his affairs so profoundly
secret.
Clive went up into his women's apartments, looking with but little
regret, I dare say, round those cheerless nuptial chambers with all their
gaudy fittings; the fine looking-glasses, in which poor Rosey's little
person had been reflected; the silken curtains under which he had lain by
the poor child's side, wakeful and lonely. Here he found his child's
nurse, and his wife, and wife's mother, busily engaged with a
multiplicity of boxes; with flounces, feathers, fal-lals, and finery,
which they were stowing away in this trunk and that; while the baby lay
on its little pink pillow breathing softly, a little pearly fist placed
close to its mouth. The aspect of the tawdry vanities scattered here and
there chafed and annoyed the young man. He kicked the robes over with his
foot. When Mrs. Mackenzie interposed with loud ejaculations, he sternly
bade her to be silent, and not wake the child. His words were not to be
questioned when he spoke in that manner. "You will take nothing with you,
Rosey, but what is strictly necessary--only two or three of your plainest
dresses, and what is required for the boy. What is in this trunk?" Mrs.
Mackenzie stepped forward and declared, and the nurse vowed upon her
honour, and the lady's-maid asserted really now upon honour too, that
there was nothing but what was most strictly necessary in that trunk, to
which affidavits, when Clive applied to his wife, she gave a rather timid
assent.
"Where are the keys of that trunk?" Upon Mrs. Mackenzie's exclamation of
"What nonsense!" Clive, putting his foot upon the flimsy oil-covered box,
vowed he would kick the lid off unless it was instantly opened. Obeying
this grim summons, the fluttering women produced the keys, and the black
box was opened before him.
The box was found to contain a number of objects which Clive pronounced
to be by no means necessary to his wife's and child's existence.
Trinket-boxes and favourite little gimcracks, chains, rings and pearl
necklaces, the tiara poor Rosey had worn at court--the feathers and the
gorgeous train which had decorated the little person--all these were
found packed away in this one receptacle; and in another box, I am sorry
to say, were the silver forks and spoons (the butler wisely judging that
the rich and splendid electrotype ware might as well be left behind)--all
the silver forks, spoons, and ladles, and our poor old friend the
cocoa-nut tree, which these female robbers would have carried out of
the premises.
Mr. Clive Newcome burst out into fierce laughter when he saw the
cocoa-nut tree; he laughed so loud that baby woke, and his mother-in-law
called him a brute, and the nurse ran to give its accustomed quietus to
the little screaming infant. Rosey's eyes poured forth a torrent of
little protests, and she would have cried yet more loudly than the other
baby, had not her husband, again fiercely checking her, sworn with a
dreadful oath, that unless she told him the whole truth, "By heavens she
should leave the house with nothing but what covered her." Even the
Campaigner could not make head against Clive's stern resolution; and the
incipient insurrection of the maids and the mistresses was quelled by his
spirit. The lady's-maid, a flighty creature, received her wages and took
her leave: but the nurse could not find it in her heart to quit her
little nursling so suddenly, and accompanied Clive's household in the
journey upon which those poor folks were bound. What stolen goods were
finally discovered when the family reached foreign parts were found in
Mrs. Mackenzie's trunks, not in her daughter's: a silver filigree basket,
a few teaspoons, baby's gold coral, and a costly crimson velvet-bound
copy of the Hon. Miss Grimstone's Church Service, to which articles,
having thus appropriated them, Mrs. Mackenzie henceforward laid claim as
her own.
So when the packing was done a cab was called to receive the modest
trunks of this fugitive family--the coachman was bidden to put his horses
to again, and for the last time poor Rosey Newcome sate in her own
carriage, to which the Colonel conducted her with his courtly old bow,
kissing the baby as it slept once more uncons
cious in its nurse's
embrace, and bestowing a very grave and polite parting salute upon the
Campaigner.
Then Clive and his father entered a cab on which the trunks were borne,
and they drove to the Tower Stairs, where the ship lay which was to
convey them out of England; and, during that journey, no doubt, they
talked over their altered prospects, and I am sure Clive's father blessed
his son fondly, and committed him and his family to a good God's gracious
keeping, and thought of him with sacred love when they had parted, and
Thomas Newcome had returned to his lonely house to watch and to think of
his ruined fortunes, and to pray that he might have courage under them;
that he might bear his own fate honourably; and that a gentle one might
be dealt to those beloved beings for whom his life had been sacrificed in
vain.
CHAPTER LXXII
Belisarius
When the sale of Colonel Newcome's effects took place, a friend of the
family bought in for a few shillings those two swords which had hung, as
we have said, in the good man's chamber, and for which no single broker
present had the heart to bid. The head of Clive's father, painted by
himself, which had always kept its place in the young man's studio,
together with a lot of his oil-sketchings, easels, and painting
apparatus, were purchased by the faithful J. J., who kept them until his
friend should return to London and reclaim them, and who showed the most
generous solicitude in Clive's behalf. J. J. was elected of the Royal
Academy this year, and Clive, it was evident, was working hard at the
profession which he had always loved; for he sent over three pictures to
the Academy, and I never knew man more mortified than the affectionate
J. J., when two of these unlucky pieces were rejected by the committee
for the year. One pretty little piece, called "The Stranded Boat," got a
fair place on the Exhibition walls, and, you may be sure, was loudly
praised by a certain critic in the Pall Mall Gazette. The picture was
sold on the first day of the exhibition at the price of twenty-five
pounds, which the artist demanded; and when the kind J. J. wrote to
inform his friend of this satisfactory circumstance, and to say that he
held the money at Clive's disposal, the latter replied with many
expressions of sincere gratitude, at the same time begging him directly
to forward the money, with our old friend Thomas Newcome's love, to Mrs.
Sarah Mason, at Newcome. But J. J. never informed his friend that he
himself was the purchaser of the picture; nor was Clive made acquainted
with the fact until some time afterwards, when he found it hanging in
Ridley's studio.
I have said that we none of us were aware at this time what was the real
state of Colonel Newcome's finances, and hoped that, after giving up
every shilling of his property which was confiscated to the creditors of
the Bank, he had still, from his retiring pension and military
allowances, at least enough reputably to maintain him. On one occasion,
having business in the City, I there met Mr. Sherrick. Affairs had been
going ill with that gentleman--he had been let in terribly, he informed
me, by Lord Levant's insolvency--having had large money transactions with
his lordship. "There's none of them so good as old Newcome," Mr. Sherrick
said with a sigh; "that was a good one--that was an honest man if ever I
saw one--with no more guile, and no more idea of business than a baby.
Why didn't he take my advice, poor old cove?--he might be comfortable
now. Why did he sell away that annuity, Pendennis? I got it done for him
when nobody else perhaps could have got it done for him--for the security
ain't worth twopence if Newcome wasn't an honest man;--but I know he is,
and would rather starve and eat the nails off his fingers than not keep
his word, the old trump. And when he came to me, a good two months before
the smash of the Bank, which I knew it, sir, and saw that it must come--
when he came and raised three thousand pounds to meet them d--d
electioneering bills, having to pay lawyers, commission, premium,
life-insurance--you know the whole game, Mr. P.--I as good as went down
on my knees to him--I did--at the North and South American Coffee-house,
where he was to meet the party about the money, and said, 'Colonel, don't
raise it--I tell you, let it stand over--let it go in along with the
bankruptcy that's a-coming,'--but he wouldn't--he went on like an old
Bengal tiger, roaring about his honour; he paid the bills every shilling
--infernal long bills they were, and it's my belief that, at this minute,
he ain't got fifty pounds a year of his own to spend. I would send him
back my commission--I would by Jove--only times is so bad, and that
rascal Levant let me in. It went to my heart to take the old cock's
money--but it's gone--that and ever so much more--and Lady Whittlesea's
Chapel too, Mr. P. Hang that young Levant."
Squeezing my hand after this speech, Sherrick ran across the street after
some other capitalist who was entering the Diddlesex Insurance Office,
and left me very much grieved and dismayed at finding that my worst fears
in regard to Thomas Newcome were confirmed. Should we confer with his
wealthy family respecting the Colonel's impoverished condition? Was his
brother Hobson Newcome aware of it? As for Sir Barnes, the quarrel
between him and his uncle had been too fierce to admit of hopes of relief
from that quarter. Barnes had been put to very heavy expenses in the
first contested election; had come forward again immediately on his
uncle's resignation, but again had been beaten by a more liberal
candidate, his quondam former friend, Mr. Higg--who formally declared
against Sir Barnes, and who drove him finally out of the representation
of Newcome. From this gentleman it was vain of course for Colonel
Newcome's friends to expect relief.
How to aid him? He was proud--past work--nearly seventy years old. "Oh,
why did those cruel Academicians refuse Clive's pictures?" cries Laura.
"I have no patience with them--had the pictures been exhibited I know who
might have bought them--but that is vain now. He would suspect at once,
and send her money away. Oh, Pen! why, why didn't he come when I wrote
that letter to Brussels?"
From persons so poorly endowed with money as ourselves, any help, but of
the merest temporary nature, was out of the question. We knew our friends
too well not to know that they would disdain to receive it. It was agreed
between me and Laura that at any rate I should go and see Clive. Our
friends indeed were at a very short distance from us, and, having exiled
themselves from England, could yet see its coasts from their windows upon
any clear day. Boulogne was their present abiding-place--refuge of how
many thousands of other unfortunate Britons--and to this friendly port
I betook myself speedily, having the address of Colonel Newcome. His
quarters were in a quiet grass-grown old street of the Old Town. None
of the family were at home when I called. There was indeed no servant to
&nb
sp; answer the bell, but the good-natured French domestic of a neighbouring
lodger told me that the young monsieur went out every day to make his
designs, and that I should probably find the elder gentleman upon the
rampart, where he was in the custom of going every day. I strolled along
by those pretty old walks and bastions, under the pleasant trees which
shadow them, and the grey old gabled houses from which you look down
upon the gay new city, and the busy port, and the piers stretching into
the shining sea, dotted with a hundred white sails or black smoking
steamers, and bounded by the friendly lines of the bright English shore.
There are few prospects more charming than the familiar view from those
old French walls--few places where young children may play, and
ruminating old age repose more pleasantly than on those peaceful
rampart gardens.
I found our dear old friend seated on one of the benches, a newspaper on
his knees, and by his side a red-cheeked little French lass, upon whose
lap Thomas Newcome the younger lay sleeping. The Colonel's face flushed
up when he saw me. As he advanced a step or two towards me I could see
that he trembled in his walk. His hair had grown almost quite white. He
looked now to be more than his age--he whose carriage last year had been
so erect, whose figure had been so straight and manly. I was very much
moved at meeting him, and at seeing the sad traces which pain and grief
had left in the countenance of the dear old man.
"So you are come to see me, my good young friend," cried the Colonel,
with a trembling voice. "It is very, very kind of you. Is not this a
pretty drawing-room to receive our friends in? We have not many of them
now; Boy and I come and sit here for hours every day. Hasn't he grown a
fine boy? He can say several words now, sir, and can walk surprisingly
well. Soon he will be able to walk with his grandfather, and then Marie
will not have the trouble to wait upon either of us." He repeated this
sentiment in his pretty old French, and turning with a bow to Marie. The
girl said monsieur knew very well that she did not desire better than to
come out with baby; that it was better than staying at home, pardieu;
and, the clock striking at this moment, she rose up with her child,
crying out that it was time to return or madame would scold.
"Mrs. Mackenzie has rather a short temper," the Colonel said with a
gentle smile. "Poor thing, she has had a great deal to bear in
consequence, Pen, of my imprudence. I am glad you never took shares in
our bank. I should not be so glad to see you as I am now, if I had
brought losses upon you as I have upon so many of my friends." I, for my
part, trembled to hear the good old man was under the domination of the
Campaigner.
"Bayham sends me the paper regularly; he is a very kind faithful
creature. How glad I am that he has got a snug berth in the City! His
company really prospers, I am happy to think, unlike some companies you
know of, Pen. I have read your two speeches, sir, and Clive and I liked
them very much. The poor boy works all day at his pictures. You know he
has sold one at the exhibition, which has given us a great deal of heart
--and he has completed two or three more--and I am sitting to him now
for--what do you think, sir? for Belisarius. Will you give Belisarius and
the Obolus kind word?"
"My dear, dear old friend," I said in great emotion, "if you will do me
the kindness to take my Obolus or to use my services in any way, you will
give me more pleasure than ever I had from your generous bounties in old
days. Look, sir, I wear the watch which you gave me when you went to
India. Did you not tell me then to look over Clive and serve him if I
could? Can't I serve him now?" and I went on further in this strain,
asseverating with great warmth and truth that my wife's affection and my
own were most sincere for both of them, and that our pride would be to be