mustachios present, those of Professor Schnurr, a very corpulent martyr,
just escaped from Spandau, and of Maximilien Tranchard, French exile and
apostle of liberty, were the only whiskers in the room capable of vying
in interest with Colonel Newcome's. Polish chieftains were at this time
so common in London, that nobody (except one noble Member for Marylebone,
once a year, the Lord Mayor) took any interest in them. The general
opinion was, that the stranger was the Wallachian Boyar, whose arrival at
Mivart's the Morning Post had just announced. Mrs. Miles, whose delicious
every other Wednesdays in Montague Square are supposed by some to be
rival entertainments to Mrs. Newcome's alternate Thursdays in Bryanstone
Square, pinched her daughter Mira, engaged in a polyglot conversation
with Herr Schnurr, nor Carabossi, the guitarist, and Monsieur Pivier, the
celebrated French chess-player, to point out the Boyar. Mira Miles wished
she knew a little Moldavian, not so much that she might speak it, but
that she might be heard to speak it. Mrs. Miles, who had not had the
educational advantages of her daughter, simpered up with "Madame Newcome
pas ici--votre excellence nouvellement arrive--avez-vous fait ung bong
voyage? Je recois chez moi Mercredi prochaing; lonnure de vous voir--
Madamasel Miles ma fille;" and, Mira, now reinforcing her mamma, poured
in a glib little oration in French, somewhat to the astonishment of the
Colonel, who began to think, however, that perhaps French was the
language of the polite world, into which he was now making his very first
entree.
Mrs. Newcome had left her place at the door of her drawing-room, to walk
through her rooms with Rummun Loll, the celebrated Indian merchant,
otherwise His Excellency Rummun Loll, otherwise his Highness Rummun Loll,
the chief proprietor of the diamond-mines in Golconda, with a claim of
three millions and a-half upon the East India Company--who smoked his
hookah after dinner when the ladies were gone, and in whose honour (for
his servants always brought a couple or more of hookahs with them) many
English gentlemen made themselves sick, while trying to emulate the same
practice. Mr. Newcome had been obliged to go to bed himself in
consequence of the uncontrollable nausea produced by the chillum; and
Doctor McGuffog, in hopes of converting His Highness, had puffed his till
he was as black in the face as the interesting Indian--and now, having
hung on his arm--always in the dirty gloves--flirting a fan whilst His
Excellency consumed betel out of a silver box; and having promenaded him
and his turban, and his shawls, and his kincab pelisse, and his lacquered
moustache, and keen brown face; and opal eyeballs, through her rooms, the
hostess came back to her station at the drawing-room door.
As soon as His Excellency saw the Colonel, whom he perfectly well knew,
His Highness's princely air was exchanged for one of the deepest
humility. He bowed his head and put his two hands before his eyes, and
came creeping towards him submissively, to the wonderment of Mrs. Miles;
who was yet more astonished when the Moldavian magnate exclaimed in
perfectly good English, "What, Rummun, you here?"
The Rummun, still bending and holding his hands before him, uttered a
number of rapid sentences in the Hindustani language, which Colonel
Newcome received twirling his mustachios with much hauteur. He turned on
his heel rather abruptly and began to speak to Mrs. Newcome, who smiled
and thanked him for coming on his first night after his return.
The Colonel said, "To whose house should he first come but to his
brother's?" How Mrs. Newcome wished she could have had room for him at
dinner! And there was room after all, for Mr. Shaloony was detained at
the House. The most interesting conversation. The Indian Prince was so
intelligent!
"The Indian what?" asks Colonel Newcome. The heathen gentleman had gone
off, and was seated by one of the handsomest young women in the room,
whose fair face was turned towards him, whose blond ringlets touched his
shoulder, and who was listening to him as eagerly as Desdemona listened
to Othello.
The Colonel's rage was excited as he saw the Indian's behaviour. He
curled his mustachios up to his eyes in his wrath. "You don't mean that
that man calls himself a Prince? That a fellow who wouldn't sit down in
an officer's presence is----"
"How do you do, Mr. Honeyman?--Eh, bong soir, Monsieur--You are very
late, Mr. Pressly.--What, Barnes! is it possible that you do me the
honour to come all the way from Mayfair to Marylebone? I thought you
young men of fashion never crossed Oxford Street. Colonel Newcome, this
is your nephew."
"How do you do, sir?" says Barnes, surveying the Colonel's costume with
inward wonder, but without the least outward manifestation of surprise.
"I suppose you dined here to meet the black Prince. I came to ask him and
my uncle to meet you at dinner on Wednesday. Where's my uncle, ma'am?"
"Your uncle is gone to bed ill. He smoked one of those hookahs which the
Prince brings, and it has made him very unwell indeed, Barnes. How is
Lady Anne? Is Lord Kew in London? Is your sister better for Brighton air?
I see your cousin is appointed Secretary of Legation. Have you good
accounts of your aunt Lady Fanny?"
"Lady Fanny is as well as can be expected, and the baby is going on
perfectly well, thank you," Barnes said drily; and his aunt, obstinately
gracious with him, turned away to some other new comet.
"It's interesting, isn't it, sir," says Barnes, turning to the Colonel,
"to see such union in families? Whenever I come here, my aunt trots out
all my relations; and I send a man round in the mornin to ask how they
all are. So Uncle Hobson is gone to bed sick with a hookah? I know there
was a deuce of a row made when I smoked at Marblehead. You are promised
to us for Wednesday, please. Is there anybody you would like to meet? Not
our friend the Rummun? How the girls crowd round him! By Gad, a fellow
who's rich in London may have the pick of any gal--not here--not in this
sort of thing; I mean in society, you know," says Barnes confidentially,
"I've seen the old dowagers crowdin round that fellow, and the girls
snugglin up to his india-rubber face. He's known to have two wives
already in India; but, by Gad, for a settlement, I believe some of 'em
here would marry--I mean of the girls in society."
"But isn't this society?" asked the Colonel.
"Oh, of course. It's very good society and that sort of thing--but it's
not, you know--you understand. I give you my honour there are not three
people in the room one meets anywhere, except the Rummun. What is he at
home, sir? I know he ain't a Prince, you know, any more than I am."
"I believe he is a rich man now," said the Colonel. "He began from very
low beginnings, and odd stories are told about the origin of his
fortune."
"That may be," says the young man; "of course, as businessmen, that's not
our affair. But has he got the fortune? He keeps a large account with us;
and,
I think, wants to have larger dealings with us still. As one of the
family we may ask you to stand by us, and tell us anything you know. My
father has asked him down to Newcome, and we've taken him up; wisely or
not I can't say. I think otherwise; but I'm quite young in the house, and
of course the elders have the chief superintendence." The young man of
business had dropped his drawl or his languor, and was speaking quite
unaffectedly; good-naturedly, and selfishly. Had you talked to him for a
week, you could not have made him understand the scorn and loathing with
which the Colonel regarded him. Here was a young fellow as keen as the
oldest curmudgeon; a lad with scarce a beard to his chin, that would
pursue his bond as rigidly as Shylock. "If he is like this at twenty,
what will he be at fifty?" groaned the Colonel. "I'd rather Clive were
dead than have him such a heartless woriding as this." And yet the young
man was not ungenerous, not untruth-telling, not unserviceable. He
thought his life was good enough. It was as good as that of other folks
he lived with. You don't suppose he had any misgivings, provided he was
in the City early enough in the morning; or slept badly, unless he
indulged too freely over-night; or twinges of conscience that his life
was misspent? He thought his life a most lucky and reputable one. He had
a share in a good business, and felt that he could increase it. Some day
he would marry a good match, with a good fortune; meanwhile he could take
his pleasure decorously, and sow his wild oats as some of the young
Londoners sow them, not broadcast after the fashion of careless
scatter-brained youth, but trimly and neatly, in quiet places, where the
crop can come up unobserved, and be taken in without bustle or scandal.
Barnes Newcome never missed going to church, or dressing for dinner. He
never kept a tradesman waiting for his money. He never drank too much,
except when other fellows did, and in good company. He never was late for
business, or huddled over his toilet, however brief had been his sleep,
or severe his headache. In a word, he was as scrupulously whited as any
sepulchre in the whole bills of mortality.
Whilst young Barnes and his uncle were thus holding parley, a slim
gentleman of bland aspect, with a roomy forehead, or what his female
admirers called "a noble brow," and a neat white neckcloth tied with
clerical skill, was surveying Colonel Newcome through his shining
spectacles, and waiting for an opportunity to address him. The Colonel
remarked the eagerness with which the gentleman in black regarded him,
and asked Mr. Barnes who was the padre? Mr. Barnes turned his eyeglass
towards the spectacles, and said "he didn't know any more than the dead;
he didn't know two people in the room." The spectacles nevertheless made
the eyeglass a bow, of which the latter took no sort of cognisance. The
spectacles advanced; Mr. Newcome fell back with a peevish exclamation of
"Confound the fellow, what is he coming to speak to me for?" He did not
choose to be addressed by all sorts of persons in all houses.
But he of the spectacles, with an expression of delight in his pale blue
eyes, and smiles dimpling his countenance, pressed onwards with
outstretched hands, and it was towards the Colonel he turned these smiles
and friendly salutations. "Did I hear aright, sir, from Mrs. Miles," he
said, "and have I the honour of speaking to Colonel Newcome?"
"The same, sir," says the Colonel; at which the other, tearing off a
glove of lavender-coloured kid, uttered the words, "Charles Honeyman,"
and seized the hand of his brother-in-law. "My poor sister's husband," he
continued; "my own benefactor; Clive's father. How strange are these
meetings in the mighty world! How I rejoice to see you, and know you!"
"You are Charles, are you?" cries the other. "I am very glad, indeed, to
shake you by the hand, Honeyman. Clive and I should have beat up your
quarters to-day, but we were busy until dinnertime. You put me in mind of
poor Emma, Charles," he added, sadly. Emma had not been a good wife to
him; a flighty silly little woman, who had caused him when alive many a
night of pain and day of anxiety.
"Poor, poor Emma!" exclaimed the ecclesiastic, casting his eyes towards
the chandelier, and passing a white cambric pocket-handkerchief
gracefully before them. No man in London understood the ring business or
the pocket-handkerchief business better, or smothered his emotion more
beautifully. "In the gayest moments, in the giddiest throng of fashion,
the thoughts of the past will rise; the departed will be among us still.
But this is not the strain wherewith to greet the friend newly arrived on
our shores. How it rejoices me to behold you in old England! How you must
have joyed to see Clive!"
"D--- the humbug," muttered Barnes, who knew him perfectly well. "The
fellow is always in the pulpit."
The incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's chapel smiled and bowed to him. "You
do not recognise me, sir; I have had the honour of seeing you in your
public capacity in the City, when I have called at the bank, the bearer
of my brother-in-law's generous----"
"Never mind that, Honeyman!" cried the Colonel.
"But I do mind, my dear Colonel," answers Mr. Honeyman. "I should be a
very bad man, and a very ungrateful brother, if I ever forgot your
kindness."
"For God's sake leave my kindness alone."
"He'll never leave it alone as long as he can use it," muttered Mr.
Barnes in his teeth; and turning to his uncle, "May I take you home, sir?
my cab is at the door, and I shall be glad to drive you." But the Colonel
said he must talk to his brother-in-law for a while, and Mr. Barnes,
bowing very respectfully to him, slipped under a dowager's arm in the
doorway, and retreated silently downstairs.
Newcome was now thrown entirely upon the clergyman, and the latter
described the personages present to the stranger, who was curious to know
how the party was composed. Mrs. Newcome herself would have been pleased
had she heard Honeyman's discourse regarding her guests and herself.
Charles Honeyman so spoke of most persons that you might fancy they were
listening over his shoulder. Such an assemblage of learning, genius, and
virtue, might well delight and astonish a stranger. "That lady in the red
turban, with the handsome daughters, is Lady Budge, wife of the eminent
judge of that name--everybody was astonished that he was not made Chief
Justice, and elevated to the Peerage--the only objection (as I have heard
confidentially) was on the part of a late sovereign, who said he never
could consent to have a peer of the name of Budge. Her ladyship was of
humble, I have heard even menial, station originally, but becomes her
present rank, dispenses the most elegant hospitality at her mansion in
Connaught Terrace, and is a pattern as a wife and a mother. The young man
talking to her daughter is a young barrister, already becoming celebrated
as a contributor to some of our principal reviews."
"Who is that cavalry officer in a white waistcoat talking to the Jew
with
the beard?" asks the Colonel.
"He, he! That cavalry officer is another literary man of celebrity, and
by profession an attorney. But he has quitted the law for the Muses, and
it would appear that the Nine are never wooed except by gentlemen with
mustachios."
"Never wrote a verse in my life," says the Colonel, laughing, and
stroking his own.
"For I remark so many literary gentlemen with that decoration. The Jew
with the beard, as you call him, is Herr von Lungen, the eminent
hautboy-player. The three next gentlemen are Mr. Smee, of the Royal
Academy (who is shaved as you perceive), and Mr. Moyes and Mr. Cropper,
who are both very hairy about the chin. At the piano, singing,
accompanied by Mademoiselle Lebrun, is Signor Mezzocaldo, the great
barytone from Rome. Professor Quartz and Baron Hammerstein, celebrated
geologists from Germany, are talking with their illustrious confrere, Sir
Robert Craxton, in the door. Do you see yonder that stout gentleman with
stuff on his shirt? the eloquent Dr. McGuffog, of Edinburgh, talking to
Dr. Ettore, who lately escaped from the Inquisition at Rome in the
disguise of a washerwoman, after undergoing the question several times,
the rack and the thumbscrew. They say that he was to have been burned in
the Grand Square the next morning; but between ourselves, my dear
Colonel, I mistrust these stories of converts and martyrs. Did you ever
see a more jolly-looking man than Professor Schnurr, who was locked up in
Spielberg, and got out up a chimney, and through a window? Had he waited
a few months there are very few windows he could have passed through.
That splendid man in the red fez is Kurbash Pasha--another renegade, I
deeply lament to say--a hairdresser from Marseilles, by name Monsieur
Ferehaud, who passed into Egypt, and laid aside the tongs for a turban.
He is talking with Mr. Palmer, one of our most delightful young poets,
and with Desmond O'Tara, son of the late revered Bishop of Ballinafad,
who has lately quitted ours for the errors of the Church of Rome. Let me
whisper to you that your kinswoman is rather a searcher after what we
call here notabilities. I heard talk of one I knew in better days--of one
who was the comrade of my youth, and the delight of Oxford--poor Pidge of
Brasenose, who got the Newdigate in my third year, and who, under his
present name of Father Bartolo, was to have been here in his capuchin
dress, with a beard and bare feet; but I presume he could not get
permission from his Superior. That is Mr. Huff, the political economist,
talking with Mr. Macduff, the Member for Glenlivat. That is the coroner
for Middlesex conversing with the great surgeon Sir Cutler Sharp, and
that pretty laughing girl talking with them is no other than the
celebrated Miss Pinnnifer, whose novel of Ralph the Resurrectionist
created such a sensation after it was abused in the Trimestrial Review.
It was a little bold certainly--I just looked at it at my club--after
hours devoted to parish duty a clergyman is sometimes allowed, you know,
desipere in loco--there are descriptions in it certainly startling--ideas
about marriage not exactly orthodox; but the poor child wrote the book
actually in the nursery, and all England was ringing with it before Dr.
Pinnifer, her father, knew who was the author. That is the Doctor asleep
in the corner by Miss Rudge, the American authoress, who I dare say is
explaining to him the difference between the two Governments. My dear
Mrs. Newcome, I am giving my brother-in-law a little sketch of some of
the celebrities who are crowding your salon to-night. What a delightful
evening you have given us!"
"I try to do my best, Colonel Newcome," said the lady of the house. "I
hope many a night we may see you here; and, as I said this morning,
Clive, when he is of an age to appreciate this kind of entertainment.