wife's mother, whom my imprudence had impoverished,--that here was an
honourable asylum which my friend could procure for me, and was not that
better than to drain his purse? She was very much moved, sir--she is a
very kind lady, though she passed for being very proud and haughty in
India--so wrongly are people judged. And Lord H. said, in his rough way,
'that, by Jove, if Tom Newcome took a thing into his obstinate old head
no one could drive it out.' And so," said the Colonel, with his sad
smile, "I had my own way. Lady H. was good enough to come and see me the
very next day--and do you know, Pen, she invited me to go and live with
them for the rest of my life--made me the most generous, the most
delicate offers. But I knew I was right, and held my own. I am too old to
work, Arthur: and better here whilst I am to stay, than elsewhere. Look!
all this furniture came from H. House--and that wardrobe is full of
linen, which she sent me. She has been twice to see me, and every officer
in this hospital is as courteous to me as if I had my fine house."
I thought of the psalm we had heard on the previous evening, and turned
to it in the opened Bible, and pointed to the verse, "Though he fall, he
shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him." Thomas
Newcome seeing my occupation, laid a kind, trembling hand on my shoulder;
and then, putting on his glasses, with a smile bent over the volume. And
who that saw him then, and knew him and loved him as I did--who would not
have humbled his own heart, and breathed his inward prayer, confessing
and adoring the Divine Will, which ordains these trials, these triumphs,
these humiliations, these blest griefs, this crowning Love?
I had the happiness of bringing Clive and his little boy to Thomas
Newcome that evening; and heard the child's cry of recognition and
surprise, and the old man calling the boy's name, as I closed the door
upon that meeting; and by the night's mail I went down to Newcome, to the
friends with whom my own family was already staying.
Of course, my conscience-keeper at Rosebury was anxious to know about the
school-dinner, and all the speeches made, and the guests assembled there;
but she soot ceased to inquire about these when I came to give her the
news of the discovery of our dear old friend in the habit of a Poor
Brother of Grey Friars. She was very glad to hear that Clive and his
little son had been reunited to the Colonel; and appeared to imagine at
first, that there was some wonderful merit upon my part in bringing the
three together.
"Well--no great merit, Pen, as you will put it," says the Confessor; "but
it was kindly thought, sir--and I like my husband when he is kind best;
and don't wonder at your having made a stupid speech at the dinner, as
you say you did, when you had this other subject to think of. That is a
beautiful psalm, Pen, and those verses which you were reading when you
saw him, especially beautiful."
"But in the presence of eighty old gentlemen, who have all come to decay,
and have all had to beg their bread in a manner, don't you think the
clergyman might choose some other psalm?" asks Mr. Pendennis.
"They were not forsaken utterly, Arthur," says Mrs. Laura, gravely: but
rather declines to argue the point raised by me; namely, that the
selection of that especial thirty-seventh psalm was not complimentary to
those decayed old gentlemen.
"All the psalms are good, sir," she says, "and this one, of course, is
included," and thus the discussion closed.
I then fell to a description of Howland Street, and poor Clive, whom I
had found there over his work. A dubious maid scanned my appearance
rather eagerly when I asked to see him. I found a picture-dealer
chaffering with him over a bundle of sketches, and his little boy,
already pencil in hand, lying in one corner of the room, the sun playing
about his yellow hair. The child looked languid and pale, the father worn
and ill. When the dealer at length took his bargains away, I gradually
broke my errand to Clive, and told him from whence I had just come.
He had thought his father in Scotland with Lord H.: and was immensely
moved with the news which I brought.
"I haven't written to him for a month. It's not pleasant the letters I
have to write, Pen, and I can't make them pleasant. Up, Tommykin, and put
on your cap." Tommykin jumps up. "Put on your cap, and tell them to take
off your pinafore, tell grandmamma----"
At that name Tommykin begins to cry.
"Look at that!" says Clive, commencing to speak in the French language,
which the child interrupts by calling out in that tongue. "I speak also
French, papa."
"Well, my child! You will like to come out with papa, and Betsy can dress
you." He flings off his own paint-stained shooting-jacket as he talks,
takes a frock-coat out of a carved wardrobe, and a hat from a helmet on
the shelf. He is no longer the handsome splendid boy of old times. Can
that be Clive, with that haggard face and slouched handkerchief? "I am
not the dandy I was, Pen," he says bitterly.
A little voice is heard crying overhead--and giving a kind of gasp the
wretched father stops in some indifferent speech he was trying to make.
"I can't help myself," he groans out; "my wife is so ill, she can't
attend to the child. Mrs. Mackenzie manages the house for me--and--here!
Tommy, Tommy! papa is coming!" Tommy has been crying again; and flinging
open the studio door, Clive calls out, and dashes upstairs.
I hear scuffling, stamping, loud voices, poor Tommy's scared little pipe
--Clive's fierce objurgations, and the Campaigner's voice barking out--
"Do, sir, do! with my child suffering in the next room. Behave like a
brute to me, do. He shall not go! He shall not have the hat"--"He shall"
--"Ah--ah!" A scream is heard. It is Clive tearing a child's hat out of
the Campaigner's hands, with which, and a flushed face, he presently
rushes downstairs, bearing little Tommy on his shoulder.
"You see what I am come to, Pen," he says with a heartbroken voice,
trying, with hands all of a tremble, to tie the hat on the boy's head. He
laughs bitterly at the ill success of his endeavours. "Oh, you silly
papa!" laughs Tommy, too.
The door is flung open, and the red-faced Campaigner appears. Her face is
mottled with wrath, her bandeaux of hair are disarranged upon her
forehead, the ornaments of her cap, cheap, and dirty, and numerous, only
give her a wilder appearance. She is in a large and dingy wrapper, very
different from the lady who had presented herself a few months back to my
wife--how different from the smiling Mrs. Mackenzie of old days!
"He shall not go out of a winter day, sir," she breaks out. "I have his
mother's orders, whom you are killing. Mr. Pendennis!" She starts,
perceiving me for the first time, and her breast heaves, and she prepares
for combat, and looks at me over her shoulder.
"You and his father are the best judges upon this point, ma'am," said Mr.
Pendennis, with a bow.
"The child is delicate, sir," cries Mrs. Mackenzie; "and this
winter----"
"Enough of this," says Clive with a stamp, and passes through her guard
with Tommy, and we descend the stairs, and at length are in the free
street. Was it not best not to describe at full length this portion of
poor Clive's history?
CHAPTER LXXVI
Christmas at Rosebury
We have known our friend Florac under two aristocratic names, and might
now salute him by a third, to which he was entitled, although neither he
nor his wife ever chose to assume it. His father was lately dead, and M.
Paul de Florac might sign himself Duc d'Ivry if he chose, but he was
indifferent as to the matter, and his wife's friends indignant at the
idea that their kinswoman, after having been a Princess, should descend
to the rank of a mere Duchess. So Prince and Princess these good folks
remained, being exceptions to that order, inasmuch as their friends could
certainly put their trust in them.
On his father's death Florac went to Paris, to settle the affairs of the
paternal succession; and, having been for some time absent in his native
country, returned to Rosebury for the winter, to resume that sport of
which he was a distinguished amateur. He hunted in black during the
ensuing season; and, indeed, henceforth laid aside his splendid attire
and his allurements as a young man. His waist expanded, or was no longer
confined by the cestus which had given it a shape. When he laid aside his
black, his whiskers, too, went into a sort of half-mourning, and appeared
in grey. "I make myself old, my friend," he said, pathetically; "I have
no more neither twenty years nor forty." He went to Rosebury Church no
more; but, with great order and sobriety, drove every Sunday to the
neighbouring Catholic chapel at C---- Castle. We had an ecclesiastic or
two to dine with us at Rosebury, one of whom I inclined to think was
Florac's director.
A reason, perhaps, for Paul's altered demeanour, was the presence of his
mother at Rosebury. No politeness or respect could be greater than Paul's
towards the Countess. Had she been a sovereign princess, Madame de Florac
could not have been treated with more profound courtesy than she now
received from her son. I think the humble-minded lady could have
dispensed with some of his attentions; but Paul was a personage who
demonstrated all his sentiments, and performed his various parts in life
with the greatest vigour. As a man of pleasure, for instance, what more
active roue than he? As a jeune homme, who could be younger, and for a
longer time? As a country gentleman, or an l'homme d'affaires, he
insisted upon dressing each character with the most rigid accuracy, and
an exactitude that reminded one somewhat of Bouffe, or Ferville, at the
play. I wonder whether, when is he quite old, he will think proper to
wear a pigtail, like his old father? At any rate, that was a good part
which the kind fellow was now acting, of reverence towards his widowed
mother, and affectionate respect for her declining days. He not only felt
these amiable sentiments, but he imparted them to his friends most
freely, as his wont was. He used to weep freely,--quite unrestrained by
the presence of the domestics, as English sentiment would be:--and when
Madame de Florac quitted the room after dinner, would squeeze my hand and
tell me with streaming eyes, that his mother was an angel. "Her life has
been but a long trial, my friend," he would say. "Shall not I, who have
caused her to shed so many tears, endeavour to dry some?" Of course the
friends who liked him best encouraged him in an intention so pious.
The reader has already been made acquainted with this lady by the letters
of hers, which came into my possession some time after the events which I
am at present narrating: my wife, through our kind friend, Colonel
Newcome, had also had the honour of an introduction to Madame de Florac
at Paris; and, on coming to Rosebury for the Christmas holidays, I found
Laura and the children greatly in favour with the good Countess. She
treated her son's wife with a perfect though distant courtesy. She was
thankful to Madame de Moncontour for the latter's great goodness to her
son. Familiar with but very few persons, she could scarcely be intimate
with her homely daughter-in-law. Madame de Moncontour stood in the
greatest awe of her; and, to do that good lady justice, admired and
reverenced Paul's mother with all her simple heart. In truth, I think
almost every one had a certain awe of Madame de Florac, except children,
who came to her trustingly, and, as it were, by instinct. The habitual
melancholy of her eyes vanished as they lighted upon young faces and
infantile smiles. A sweet love beamed out of her countenance: an angelic
smile shone over her face, as she bent towards them and caressed them.
Her demeanour then, nay, her looks and ways at other times;--a certain
gracious sadness, a sympathy with all grief, and pity for all pain; a
gentle heart, yearning towards all children; and, for her own especially,
feeling a love that was almost an anguish: in the affairs of the common
world only a dignified acquiescence, as if her place was not in it, and
her thoughts were in her Home elsewhere;--these qualities, which we had
seen exemplified in another life, Laura and her husband watched in Madame
de Florac, and we loved her because she was like our mother. I see in
such women, the good and pure, the patient and faithful, the tried and
meek, the followers of Him whose earthly life was divinely sad and
tender.
But, good as she was to us and to all, Ethel Newcome was the French
lady's greatest favourite. A bond of extreme tenderness and affection
united these two. The elder friend made constant visits to the younger at
Newcome; and when Miss Newcome, as she frequently did, came to Rosebury,
we used to see that they preferred to be alone; divining and respecting
the sympathy which brought those two faithful hearts together. I can
imagine now the two tall forms slowly pacing the garden walks, or
turning, as they lighted on the young ones in their play. What was their
talk! I never asked it. Perhaps Ethel never said what was in her heart,
though, be sure, the other knew it. Though the grief of those they love
is untold, women hear it; as they soothe it with unspoken consolations.
To see the elder lady embrace her friend as they parted was something
holy--a sort of saintlike salutation.
Consulting the person from whom I had no secrets, we had thought best at
first not to mention to our friends the place and position in which we
had found our dear Colonel; at least to wait for a fitting opportunity on
which we might break the news to those who held him in such affection. I
told how Clive was hard at work, and hoped the best for him. Good-natured
Madame de Moncontour was easily satisfied with my replies to her
questions concerning our friend. Ethel only asked if he and her uncle
were well, and once or twice made inquiries respecting Rosa and her
child. And now it was that my wife told me, what I need no longer keep
secret, of Ethel's extrem
e anxiety to serve her distressed relatives, and
how she, Laura, had already acted as Miss Newcome's almoner in furnishing
and hiring those apartments, which Ethel believed were occupied by Clive
and his father, and wife and child. And my wife further informed me with
what deep grief Ethel had heard of her uncle's misfortune, and how, but
that she feared to offend his pride, she longed to give him assistance.
She had even ventured to offer to send him pecuniary help; but the
Colonel (who never mentioned the circumstance to me any other of his
friends), in a kind but very cold letter, had declined to be beholden to
his niece for help.
So I may have remained some days at Rosebury, and the real position of
the two Newcomes was unknown to our friends there. Christmas Eve was
come, and, according to a long-standing promise, Ethel Newcome and her
two children had arrived from the Park, which dreary mansion, since his
double defeat, Sir Barnes scarcely ever visited. Christmas was come, and
Rosebury hall was decorated with holly. Florac did his best to welcome
his friends, and strove to make the meeting gay, though in truth it was
rather melancholy. The children, however, were happy: and they had
pleasure enough, in the school festival, in the distribution of cloaks
and blankets to the poor, and in Madame de Moncontour's gardens,
delightful and beautiful though the winter was there.
It was only a family meeting, Madame de Florac's widowhood not permitting
her presence in large companies. Paul sate at his table between his
mother and Mrs. Pendennis; Mr. Pendennis opposite to him, with Ethel and
Madame de Moncontour on each side. The four children were placed between
these personages, on whom Madame de Florac looked with her tender
glances, and to whose little wants the kindest of hosts ministered with
uncommon good-nature and affection. He was very soft-hearted about
children. "Pourquoi n'en avons-nous pas, Jeanne? He! quoi n'en avons-nous
pas?" he said, addressing his wife by her Christian name. The poor little
lady looked kindly at her husband, and then gave a sigh, and turned and
heaped cake upon the plate of the child next to her. No mamma or Aunt
Ethel could interpose. It was a very light wholesome cake. Brown made it
on purpose for the children, "the little darlings!" cries the Princess.
The children were very happy at being allowed to sit up so late to
dinner, at all the kindly amusements of the day, at the holly and
mistletoe clustering round the lamps--the mistletoe, under which the
gallant Florac, skilled in all British usages, vowed he would have his
privilege. But the mistletoe was clustered round the lamp, the lamp was
over the centre of the great round table--the innocent gratification
which he proposed to himself was denied to M. Paul.
In the greatest excitement and good-humour, our host at the dessert made
us des speech. He carried a toast to the charming Ethel, another to the
charming Mistriss Laura, another to his good fren', his brave frren', his
'appy fren', Pendennis--'appy as possessor of such a wife, 'appy as
writer of works destined to the immortality, etc. etc. The little
children round about clapped their happy little hands, and laughed and
crowed in chorus. And now the nursery and its guardians were about to
retreat, when Florac said he had yet a speech, yet a toast--and he bade
the butler pour wine into every one's glass--yet a toast--and he carried
it to the health of our dear friends, of Clive and his father,--the good,
the brave Colonel! "We who are happy," says he, "shall we not think of
those who are good? We who love each other, shall we not remember those
whom we all love?" He spoke with very great tenderness and feeling. "Ma
bonne mere, thou too shalt drink this toast!" he said, taking his
mother's hand, and kissing it. She returned his caress gently, and tasted